I A Maker of SongsSunsetThe pines, darkly purple, towered against the sunset. Behind the hills, the splendid tapestry glowed and flamed, sending far messages of light to the grey East, where lay the sea, crooning itself to sleep. Bare boughs dripped rain upon the sodden earth, where the dead leaves had so long been hidden by the snow. The thousand sounds and scents of Spring at last had waked the... more...

Author's Preface. "Biographers should not busy themselves so much with deeds, as their moving causes; with what motives, by what means, for what ends and under what circumstances they were performed. If we limit ourselves to a simple detail of facts, our judgment is determined by success; and upright men are condemned as evil or imprudent, because of the unfavorable issue of their endeavors.... more...

PREFACE The first edition of this book appeared in 1905. That edition is exhausted,—an evidence of the great present-day interest in the woman’s rights movement. This new edition takes into account the developments since 1905, contains the recent statistical data, and gives an account of the woman’s suffrage movement which has been especially characteristic of these later years. Wherever the... more...

I his is the story of Odysseus, the most renowned of all the heroes the Greek poets have told us of—of Odysseus, his wars and his wanderings. And this story of Odysseus begins with his son, the youth who was called Telemachus. It was when Telemachus was a child of a month old that a messenger came from Agamemnon, the Great King, bidding Odysseus betake himself to the war against Troy that the Kings... more...

The explosion brought Jim Peters upright in bed. He sat there, leaning back on the heels of his hands, blinking stupidly at the wall. His vision cleared and he looked down at Myra, just stirring beside him. Myra opened her eyes. Jim said, "Did you feel that?" Myra yawned. "I thought I was dreaming. It was an explosion or something, wasn't it?" Jim's lips set grimly. After ten... more...

Chapter 1: Fresh from Ireland. A number of officers of O'Brien's regiment of foot, forming a part of the Irish Brigade in the service of France, were gathered in a handsome apartment in the Rue des Fosses, on the 20th of June, 1701, when the door opened, and their colonel entered with a young officer in the uniform of the regiment. "I have asked you here, gentlemen all," he said,... more...

ACCLIMATION. This is the art of successfully changing fruits or plants from one climate to another. Removal to a colder climate should be effected in the spring, and to a warmer one in the fall. This may be done by scions or seeds. By seeds is better, in all cases in which they will produce the same varieties. Very few imported apple or pear trees are valuable in this country; while our finest... more...

Guy de Maupassant Guy de Maupassant was born at the Chateau de Miromesnil, near Dieppe, on August 5th, 1850. The Maupassants were an old Lorraine family who had settled in Normandy in the middle of the Eighteenth Century. His father had married in 1846 a young lady of the rich bourgeoisie, Laure Le Poittevin. With her brother Alfred, she had been the playmate of Gustave Flaubert, the son of a Rouen... more...

CHAPTER 1 The description of the family of Wakefield; in which a kindred likeness prevails as well of minds as of persons I was ever of opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population. From this motive, I had scarce taken orders a year before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my wife as... more...

I. To one who found us on a starless night,All helpless, groping in a dangerous way,Where countless treacherous hidden pitfalls lay,And, seeing all our peril, flashed a lightTo show to our bewildered, blinded sight,By one swift, clear, and piercing ray,The safe, sure path,--what words could reach the heightOf our great thankfulness? And yet, at most,The most he saved was this poor, paltry lifeOf flesh,... more...