DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                                 OCTOBER                                  1666 October 1st, 1666. Up, and all the morning at the office, getting the list of all the ships and vessels employed since the war, for the Committee of Parliament. At noon with it to Sir... more...

PREFACE. The interesting events narrated in this book which occurred at Hydesville, in the house of the Fox Family, are those by which Modern Spiritualism made its advent into this world as a new revelation in spiritual matters. History is not without its reliable records of similar phenomena, but, just as many scientific men have experimented and stopped short of the gateway of the actual discovery of... more...

This little opera, composed by Weber in his early youth and first represented at Dresden under the composer's own direction, for a time fell into utter oblivion, but has lately been reproduced. Though short and unpretending it really deserves to be heard, the music is so full of sweetness, so fresh and pretty. The text is taken from a tale of the Arabian Thousand and One Nights, and though full of... more...

Brave and True, by E Dawson. “But I say, Martin, tell us about it! My pater wrote to me that you’d done no end of heroic things, and saved Bullace senior from being killed. His pater told him, so I know it’s all right. But wasn’t it a joke you two should be on the same ship?” Martin looked up at his old schoolfellow. He had suddenly become a person of importance in the well-known old haunts... more...

There are whispering galleries, where, if the ear is placed in a certain position, it takes in the sound of the lowest whisper from the opposite side of the room. But, to produce this effect, the architecture of the apartment must be of a peculiar nature, and, especially, the rules and laws of sound must be observed. I have often thought that, were one wise enough, there might be found, in every room,... more...

COUSIN BETTY One day, about the middle of July 1838, one of the carriages, then lately introduced to Paris cabstands, and known as Milords, was driving down the Rue de l'Universite, conveying a stout man of middle height in the uniform of a captain of the National Guard. Among the Paris crowd, who are supposed to be so clever, there are some men who fancy themselves infinitely more attractive in... more...

CHAPTER I. Amongst the crowd of people who were waiting in the Out-Patients' Department of the London Hospital on a certain foggy day toward the latter end of November might have been seen an old cherry-cheeked woman. She had bright blue eyes and firm, kindly lips. She was a little woman, slightly made, and her whole dress and appearance were somewhat old-fashioned. In the first place, she was... more...

I. A cabin. A cabin in the woods. In the cabin a great fireplace piled high with logs, fiercely ablaze. On either side of the broad hearthstone a hound sat on his haunches, looking gravely, as only a hound in a meditative mood can, into the glowing fire. In the center of the cabin, whose every nook and corner was bright with the ruddy firelight, stood a wooden table, strongly built and solid. At the... more...

PREFACE The author would scarcely have penned this little specimen of what Scott called “antiquarian old womanries,” but for the interest which he takes in the universally diffused archaic patterns on rocks and stones, which offer a singular proof of the identity of the working of the human mind.  Anthropology and folklore are the natural companions and aids of prehistoric and proto-historic... more...

BACK FROM TOWN Old friends allus is the best,Halest-like and heartiest:Knowed us first, and don't allowWe're so blame much better now!They was standin' at the barsWhen we grabbed "the kivvered kyars"And lit out fer town, to makeMoney—and that old mistake! We thought then the world we wentInto beat "The Settlement,"And the friends 'at we'd make thereWould beat... more...