PREFACE. In one of those bright racy essays at which modern dulness delights to sneer, Hazlitt discussed the question whether the desire of posthumous fame is a legitimate aspiration; and the conclusion at which he arrived was that there is "something of egotism and even of pedantry in this sentiment." It is a true saying in literature as in morality that "he that seeketh his life shall... more...

LETTER 378. J.D. HOOKER TO CHARLES DARWIN. Kew, January 20th, 1867. Prof. Miquel, of Utrecht, begs me to ask you for your carte, and offers his in return. I grieve to bother you on such a subject. I am sick and tired of this carte correspondence. I cannot conceive what Humboldt's Pyrenean violet is: no such is mentioned in Webb, and no alpine one at all. I am sorry I forgot to mention the stronger... more...

The publishers take pleasure in offering to the public, in their Home-Reading Series, some books relating to the farm and other aspects of country life as the center of interest, written by Colonel Francis W. Parker, the President of the famous Cook County Normal School, in Chicago. For many years the teachers of the common schools of the country have been benefited by the inventions of Colonel Parker... more...

CHAPTER I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME “This is no my ain house;I ken by the biggin’ o’t.” Two recent books one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking on the divisions of races and nations.  Such thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from so many... more...

TO GENERAL SCHOFIELD. Private and confidential EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, October 28, 1863.GENERAL JOHN M. SCHOFIELD:There have recently reached the War Department, and thence been laid before me, from Missouri, three communications, all similar in import and identical in object. One of them, addressed to nobody, and without place or date, but having the signature of (apparently) the writer, is a... more...

August 9th, 1825. Oh, thou surpassing beauty! that dost liveShrined in yon silent stream of glorious light!Spirit of harmony! that through the vastAnd cloud-embroidered canopy art spreadingThy wings, that o’er our shadowy earth hang brooding,Like a pale silver haze, betwixt the moonAnd the world’s darker orb: beautiful, hail!Hail to thee! from her midnight throne of ether,Night looks upon the... more...

In which the Reader is introduced to a Mad Hero, a Reckless Lover, and a Runaway Husband—Backwoods Juvenile Training described—The Principles of Fighting fully discussed, and some valuable Hints thrown out. March Marston was mad! The exact state of madness to which March had attained at the age when we take up his personal history—namely, sixteen—is uncertain, for the people of the backwoods... more...

Canto I. Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summits,Unto the sun and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth,Come, let us go,—to a land wherein gods of the old time wandered,Where every breath even now changes to ether divine.Come, let us go; though withal a voice whisper, 'The world that we live in,Whithersoever we turn, still is the same narrow crib;'Tis but to prove... more...

Shakespeare's England and London Shakespeare lived in a period of change. In religion, politics, literature, and commerce, in the habits of daily living, in the world of ideas, his lifetime witnessed continual change and movement. When Elizabeth came to the throne, six years before he was born, England was still largely Catholic, as it had been for nine centuries; when she died England was... more...

THE TALLYHO "I never saw a gold mine in my life; and now I'm going to see one," cried Lucy, skipping along in advance of the others. It was quite a large party; the whole Dunlee family, with the two Sanfords,—Uncle James and Aunt Vi,—making ten in all, counting Maggie, the maid. They had alighted from the cars at a way-station, and were walking along the platform toward the tallyho... more...