CHAPTER I. AN UNEXPECTED GUEST. The September sun was glinting cheerfully into a pretty bedroom furnished with blue. It danced on the glossy hair and bright eyes of two girls, who sat together hemming ruffles for a white muslin dress. The half-finished skirt of the dress lay on the bed; and as each crisp ruffle was completed, the girls added it to the snowy heap, which looked like a drift of... more...

INTRODUCTION There is nothing in artistic poetry quite akin to “Aucassin and Nicolete.” By a rare piece of good fortune the one manuscript of the Song-Story has escaped those waves of time, which have wrecked the bark of Menander, and left of Sappho but a few floating fragments.  The very form of the tale is peculiar; we have nothing else from the twelfth or thirteenth century in the alternate... more...

PREFACE. The events recounted in this book group themselves in the main about a single figure, that of Count Frontenac, the most remarkable man who ever represented the crown of France in the New World. From strangely unpromising beginnings, he grew with every emergency, and rose equal to every crisis. His whole career was one of conflict, sometimes petty and personal, sometimes of momentous... more...

BOSTON, May 8, 1678. I remember I did promise my kind Cousin Oliver (whom I pray God to have always in his keeping), when I parted with him nigh unto three months ago, at mine Uncle Grindall's, that, on coming to this new country, I would, for his sake and perusal, keep a little journal of whatsoever did happen both unto myself and unto those with whom I might sojourn; as also, some account of the... more...

PARIS TRANSLATION, First published in this Country by Dixon and Sickels.INVOCATION.Hail, solitary ruins! holy sepulchres, and silent walls! you I invoke; to you I address my prayer. While your aspect averts, with secret terror, the vulgar regard, it excites in my heart the charm of delicious sentiments—sublime contemplations. What useful lessons! what affecting and profound reflections you suggest to... more...

VOL. 37. No. 17. WEEKLY.DAVID C. COOK PUBLISHING CO., ELGIN, ILLINOIS.GEORGE E. COOK, EDITOR.APRIL 26, 1914. The tide was low, and a dark line of rocks showed up clearly in the still water. "I wonder what those rocks are really like," said Toby rising slowly from his seat. "It looks almost as if we could paddle out to them," said his twin sister Nancy, as she pushed her red curls under... more...

INTRODUCTION. There were two cousins Von der Trenck, who were barons descended from an ancient house in East Prussia, and were adventurous soldiers, to whom, as to the adventurous, there were adventures that lost nothing in the telling, for they were told by the authors’ most admiring friends—themselves.  Franz, the elder, was born in 1711, the son of an Austrian general; and Frederick, whose... more...

I. Hatty Lee had been on a visit to her grandmother, and now she was coming home. Mrs. Lee had hard work that morning to keep her young people in order, for Hatty was a favorite with her brothers and sister, and they were wild with delight at the idea of seeing her again. Hatty was only ten years of age, and Marcus, her brother, thought because he was two years older he was almost a man, and quite able... more...

When I was honoured by the invitation to deliver this course of lectures, I did not accept without some hesitation. I am not qualified to speak with authority upon such subjects as have been treated by my predecessors—the course of political events or the growth of legal institutions. My attention has been chiefly paid to the history of literature, and it might be doubtful whether that study is... more...

Who shot the Dog? A shot! a yell! silence! Such, as soon as I could collect myself sufficiently to form an idea at all, were my midnight sensations as I sat up in my bed, with my chin on my knees, my hair on end, my body bedewed with cold perspiration, and my limbs trembling from the tips of my fingers to the points of my toes. I had been peacefully dreaming—something about an automatic machine into... more...