INTRODUCTION The Transvaal War—like a gigantic picture—cannot be considered at close quarters. To fully appreciate the situation, and all that it embraces, the critic must stand at a suitable distance. He must gaze not merely with the eye of to-day, or even of the whole nineteenth century, but with his mind educated to the strange conditions of earlier civilisation. For in these conditions will be... more...

ARGUMENT Hrothgar, king of the Danes, lives happily and peacefully, and bethinks him to build a glorious hall called Hart. But a little after, one Grendel, of the kindred of the evil wights that are come of Cain, hears the merry noise of Hart and cannot abide it; so he enters thereinto by night, and slays and carries off and devours thirty of Hrothgar's thanes. Thereby he makes Hart waste for... more...

In taking up the thread of Captain George A. Thayer's admirable chapter upon the Chancellorsville campaign, we find the regiment baling out their old log pens, on a dark night, in the rain. They had stripped the canvas roofs before starting for Chancellorsville. The return to a deserted camp, even in fine weather, flushed with victory, is not agreeable. The failure of Chancellorsville made the... more...

CHAPTER I ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS Columella, the much traveled Spanish-Roman writer of the first century A. D., said that for successful farming three things are essential: knowledge, capital and love for the calling. This statement is just as true today as it was when written 1900 years ago by this early writer on European agriculture. Every man who loves the calling and has an ambition to become a... more...

I There were eight of us in the room, and we were discussing contemporary matters and persons, "I do not understand these gentlemen!" remarked A.—"They are fellows of a reckless sort…. Really, desperate…. There has never been anything of the kind before." "Yes, there has," put in P., a grey-haired old man, who had been born about the twenties of the present... more...

TROLLHÄTTA Who did we meet at Trollhätta? It is a strange story, and we will relate it. We landed at the first sluice, and stood as it were in a garden laid out in the English style. The broad walks are covered with gravel, and rise in short terraces between the sunlit greensward: it is charming, delightful here, but by no means imposing. If one desires to be excited in this manner, one must go a... more...

CHAPTER I.   DISCONTENTED RECRUITS. "Captain, this thing must be stopped. I say it must be stopped, even if we have to resort to summary measures. We must find out who the ringleaders are, and make an example of them." The speaker was Colonel Brown, the commanding officer of Fort Lamoine. As he uttered these emphatic words he slammed a paper-weight down upon a pile of reports which the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BLUE WALL I was born under the Blue Ridge, and under that side which is blue in the evening light, in a wild land of game and forest and rushing waters. There, on the borders of a creek that runs into the Yadkin River, in a cabin that was chinked with red mud, I came into the world a subject of King George the Third, in that part of his realm known as the province of North Carolina. The... more...

CHAPTER I. A HALF STORY. When La Motte Cadillac first sailed up the Strait of Detroit he kept his impressions for after travelers and historians, by transcribing them in his journal. It was not only the romantic side, but the usefulness of the position that appealed to him, commanding the trade from Canada to the Lakes, "and a door by which we can go in and out to trade with all our allies."... more...

CHAPTER I. THE FESTIVAL. The sufferings of the long war still continued; still stood Frederick the Great with his army in the field; the tremendous struggle between Prussia and Austria was yet undecided, and Silesia was still the apple of discord for which Maria Theresa and Frederick II. had been striving for years, and for which, in so many battles, the blood of German brothers had been spilt.... more...