"Pardon! Madame does not know that this is a smoking-carriage?" "But yes. Monsieur is very good. It is that my husband would smoke. He is an old soldier. He smokes all the time. Ciel! They are like chimneys, these old soldiers. This man of mine regrets that he cannot smoke when he is asleep!" While Madame delivered this address she continued also to mount the steps, and as she finished... more...

CHAPTER I In the year 1850 or thereabouts religious and charitable society in England was seized with a desire to convert Irish Roman Catholics to the Protestant faith. It is clear to everyone with any experience of missionary societies that, the more remote the field of actual work, the easier it is to keep alive the interest of subscribers. The mission to Roman Catholics, therefore, commenced in that... more...

CHAPTER I THE GALLOWSMITH THIS man that I have it in mind to write about was, at the time of which I write, an elderly man, getting well along toward sixty-five. He was tall and slightly stooped, with long arms, and big, gnarled, competent-looking hands, which smelled of yellow laundry soap, and had huge, tarnished nails on the fingers. He had mild, pale eyes, a light blue as to colour, with heavy sacs... more...

Slight Misfortunes Compel Me to Leave Venice—My Adventures in Milan andMantua On Low Sunday Charles paid us a visit with his lovely wife, who seemed totally indifferent to what Christine used to be. Her hair dressed with powder did not please me as well as the raven black of her beautiful locks, and her fashionable town attire did not, in my eyes, suit her as well as her rich country dress. But the... more...

THE BOYHOOD AND PARENTS OF ULYSSES Long ago, in a little island called Ithaca, on the west coast of Greece, there lived a king named Laertes. His kingdom was small and mountainous. People used to say that Ithaca 'lay like a shield upon the sea,' which sounds as if it were a flat country. But in those times shields were very large, and rose at the middle into two peaks with a hollow between... more...

In preparing this work for publication it seems proper to offer some observations explanatory of its design. The classical reader will perceive the obstacles which necessarily presented themselves in reconciling the nature of the subject with such a manner of treating it as should appear the most poetical, and at the same time the most likely to arrive at that degree of dignity and usefulness to which... more...

I In trying to recall my impressions during my short war duty as an officer in the Austrian Army, I find that my recollections of this period are very uneven and confused. Some of the experiences stand out with absolute clearness; others, however, are blurred. Two or three events which took place in different localities seem merged into one, while in other instances recollection of the chronological... more...

Micah 1:1 The word of Yahweh that came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.1:2Hear, you peoples, all of you.Listen, O earth, and all that is therein:and let the Lord Yahweh be witness against you,the Lord from his holy temple.1:3For, behold, Yahweh comes forth out of his place,and will come down and tread on... more...

TRAMPING ON LIFE Now I am writing these things just as I was told them by my grandmother. For I have utterly no remembrance of my mother. Consumption ran in her family. And bearing and giving birth to me woke the inherited weakness in her. She was not even strong enough to suckle me. I was born in the early eighties, in Mornington, Ohio, in a section of that great, steel-manufacturing city which was... more...

The Sword Singing— The voice of the Sword from the heart of the Sword Clanging imperious Forth from Time’s battlements His ancient and triumphing Song. In the beginning,Ere God inspired HimselfInto the clay thingThumbed to His image,The vacant, the naked shellSoon to be Man:Thoughtful He pondered it,Prone there and impotent,Fragile, invitingAttack and discomfiture:Then, with a smile—As He heard... more...