INCH KEITH I had desired to visit the Hebrides, or Western Islands of Scotland, so long, that I scarcely remember how the wish was originally excited; and was in the Autumn of the year 1773 induced to undertake the journey, by finding in Mr. Boswell a companion, whose acuteness would help my inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation and civility of manners are sufficient to counteract the... more...

PREFACE. The following essay was written several years ago; but I have hitherto refrained from publishing it, lest, after having done so, I should find that more mature thought had modified the conclusions which the essay sets forth. Judging, however, that it is now more than ever improbable that I shall myself be able to detect any errors in my reasoning, I feel that it is time to present the latter... more...

EASTWARD HO! Our Battalion of the Manchesters was typical of the old Territorial Force, whose memory has already faded in the glory of the greater Army created during the War, but whose services in the period between the retreat from Mons and the coming into action of "Kitchener's Men" claim national gratitude. Their earlier history hardly emerges from parochialism. Founded in 1859 and... more...

ACT I. Scene: Within the tent of Menones, on the plain before Nineveh. Left, centre, entrance to tent from the plain. Curtains rear, forming partition with exits right and left of centre. The same at right, with one exit, centre. Couch rear, between exits. From a tent-pole near exit, right centre, hang helmet and a suit of chain armor. Sola parts curtains rear, left, and looks out, showing effort to... more...

CHAPTER I RECORDS AND EVENTS Edward MacDowell, the first Celtic voice that has spoken commandingly out of musical art, achieved that priority through natural if not inevitable processes. Both his grandfather and grandmother on his father's side were born in Ireland, of Irish-Scotch parents. To his paternal great-grandfather, Alexander MacDowell, the composer traced the Scottish element in his... more...

INTRODUCTION I. Situation, Extent and Boundaries Hertfordshire, or Herts, is a county in the S.E. of England. On the S. it is bounded by Middlesex; on the S.W. by Buckinghamshire; on the N.W. by Bedfordshire; on the N. by Cambridgeshire; on the E. by Essex. Its extreme measurement from due E. to W., say from Little Hyde Hall to Puttenham, is about 38 miles; from N. to S., from Mobb’s Hole at the top... more...

CHAPTER I There was unwonted bustle in the usually sleepy and dignified New York offices of the Southern and Transcontinental Railroad Company in lower Broadway. The supercilious, well-groomed clerks who, on ordinary days, are far too preoccupied with their own personal affairs to betray the slightest interest in anything not immediately concerning them, now condescended to bestir themselves and,... more...

Unnamed world, 2559 CE Joste was waiting in front of his desk when two guards brought the just-captured human into his office. He found it hard to look at the man without becoming physically ill, and wondered briefly how the guards could tolerate touching him. Well, that was their job; his was to question the man, and he found himself hoping the foul thing would resist, give him an excuse to use force.... more...

My father’s land—Born at sea—My school life—Aunt Bretta—Spoilt by over-indulgence—Enticed to sea—The Kite schooner—Contrast of a vessel in port with a vessel at sea—My shipmates—My name fixed in more ways than one—A gale—Repentance comes too late—Suspicious customers—A narrow escape—Naples and its Bay. My father, Eric Wetherholm, was a Shetlander. He was born in the Isle... more...

INTRODUCTION Are you a confirmed Balzacian?—to employ a former expression of Gautier in Jeune France on the morrow following the appearance of that mystic Rabelaisian epic, The Magic Skin. Have you experienced, while reading at school or clandestinely some stray volume of the Comedie Humaine, a sort of exaltation such as no other book had aroused hitherto, and few have caused since? Have you dreamed... more...