INTRODUCTORY. I was staying with a party of friends in a country house during my visit to England in 1884. On Sunday evening as we sat around the fire, they asked me to read and expound some portion of Scripture. Being tired after the services of the day, I told them to ask Henry Drummond, who was one of the party. After some urging he drew a small Testament from his hip pocket, opened it at the 13th... more...

ENCOUNTER Soames Forsyte emerged from the Knightsbridge Hotel, where he was staying, in the afternoon of the 12th of May, 1920, with the intention of visiting a collection of pictures in a Gallery off Cork Street, and looking into the Future. He walked. Since the War he never took a cab if he could help it. Their drivers were, in his view, an uncivil lot, though, now that the War was over and supply... more...

I.—THE ORDEAL BY WATER "We will now bathe," said a voice at the back of my neck. I gave a grunt and went on with my dream. It was a jolly dream, and nobody got up early in it. "We will now bathe," repeated Archie. "Go away," I said distinctly. Archie sat down on my knees and put his damp towel on my face. "When my wife and I took this commodious residence for six... more...

THE ARGUMENT. The Introduction, I.-IV. The character of Catiline, V. Virtues of the ancient Romans, VI.-IX. Degeneracy of their posterity, X.-XIII. Catiline's associates and supporters, and the arts by which he collected them, XIV. His crimes and wretchedness, XV. His tuition of his accomplices, and resolution to subvert the government, XVI. His convocation of the conspirators, and their names,... more...

"Their ends as various as the roads they takeIn journeying through life." There is no class of men to whom the memory turns with more complacency, or more frequently, than to those who "taught the young idea how to shoot." There may be a few tyrants of the birch, who never inspired a feeling save fear or hatred; yet their number is but few, and I would say that the schoolmaster is abroad... more...

CHAPTER I Gipsy ArrivesOnedank, wet, clammy afternoon at the beginning of October half a dozen of the boarders at Briarcroft Hall stood at the Juniors' sitting-room window, watching the umbrellas of the day girls disappear through the side gate. It had been drizzling since dinner-time, and the prospect outside was not a remarkably exhilarating one. The yellow leaves of the oak tree dripped slow... more...

As we go to press there is an uncertain feeling resulting from the departure of our cruiser for Cuban waters. It may provoke a crisis, or it may lead to a better knowledge of the true attitude of the administration toward Spain. Cuba continues to furnish us with its share of current history; the news is no more encouraging than that of previous weeks, however. In the East the situation has not... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                                 MARCH                               1663-1664 March 1st. Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and at noon to the 'Change, and after much business and meeting my uncle Wight, who told me how Mr. Maes had like to... more...

~I~ He painted trees as by some special divining instinct of their essential qualities. He understood them. He knew why in an oak forest, for instance, each individual was utterly distinct from its fellows, and why no two beeches in the whole world were alike. People asked him down to paint a favorite lime or silver birch, for he caught the individuality of a tree as some catch the individuality of a... more...

CHAPTER I. The huge London church was crowded in every part, and men had been standing in the aisles from the first moment that the service began. The preacher who had attracted so huge a crowd at two-thirty on a weekday afternoon, was one of the very youngest of the "coming men" of the English church. Tall, thin, with a magnificent head crowned by a mane of hair that was fast becoming... more...