Out of the Ashes Old Troy reaped rue in the womb of yearsFor stolen Helen's sake;Till tenfold retribution rearsIts wreck on embers slaked with tearsThat mended no heart-ache.The wail of the women sold as slavesLest Troy breed sons againDreed o'er a desert of nameless graves,The heaps and the hills that are Trojan gravesDeep-runneled by the rain. But Troy lives on. Though Helen's rapeAnd... more...

CHAPTER I OUR NATIONAL MILITARY HERO Since the end of the civil war in the United States, whoever has occasion to name the three most distinguished representatives of our national greatness is apt to name Washington, Lincoln, and Grant. General Grant is now our national military hero. Of Washington it has often been said that he was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his... more...

KENNINGTON COMMON. Before all traces be lost of Kennington Common, so soon to be distinguished by the euphonious epithet of Park, let me put a Query to some of your antiquarian readers in relation thereunto; and suffer me to make the Query a peg, whereon to hang sundry and divers little notes. And pray let no one ridicule the idea that Kennington has its antiquities; albeit that wherever you look, new... more...

STEPHEN ARCHER Stephen Archer was a stationer, bookseller, and newsmonger in one of the suburbs of London. The newspapers hung in a sort of rack at his door, as if for the convenience of the public to help themselves in passing. On his counter lay penny weeklies and books coming out in parts, amongst which the Family Herald was in force, and the London Journal not to be found. I had occasion once to... more...

CHAPTER I. I FIND LIFE. Those soft pink circles which fell upon my face and hands, caught in my hair, danced around my feet, and frolicked over the billowy waves of bright, green grass—did I know they were apple blossoms? Did I know it was an apple tree through which I looked up to the blue sky, over which white clouds scudded away toward the great hills? Had I slept and been awakened by the wind to... more...

THE LOST PASSENGER Charley Norton was bored and unhappy. He stood at the starboard rail of the mail boat gazing out at the cold, bleak rocks of the Labrador coast, dimly visible through fitful gusts of driving snow. Charley Norton and his father's secretary, Hugh Wise, had boarded the ship at St. John's ten days before for the round trip voyage to Hopedale, and during the voyage there had not... more...

BAR BARRED! SCENE—A Parliamentary Committee Room. Committee sitting at horse-shoe table. Bar crowded at table covered with plans, custards, buns, agreements, and ginger-beer. Huge plans hanging to walls. View in distance of St. Thomas's Hospital. East-West Diddlesex Railway Extension Bill under consideration. Expert Witness standing at reading-desk under examination. Junior Counsel (for... more...

CHAPTER I JEFFERSON DAVIS ON REBELLION Sumner to Howard, May 16, 1856. Ibid., p. 37. Shannon to Sumner, May 21, 1856. Senate Ex. Doc., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 38. 1856. Shannon to Sumner, June 4, 1856. Senate Ex. Doc., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., p. 45. While the town of Lawrence was undergoing burning and pillage, Governor Shannon wrote to Colonel Sumner to say that as the marshal and... more...

In the mean time the sea-bathing went resolutely on with all its forms. Every morning the bathing machines were drawn down to the beach from the esplanade, where they were secured against the gale every night; and every day a half-dozen hardy invalids braved the rigors of wind and wave. At the discreet distance which one ought always to keep one could not always be sure whether these bold bathers were... more...

THEday before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 722. Broad snow-meadows glistening white along the banks of the river Moselle; pallid hill-sides blooming with mystic roses where the glow of the setting sun still lingered upon them; an arch of clearest, faintest azure bending overhead; in the center of the aerial landscape of the massive walls of the cloister of Pfalzel, gray to the east, purple to the... more...