TRENT'S TRUST I Randolph Trent stepped from the Stockton boat on the San Francisco wharf, penniless, friendless, and unknown. Hunger might have been added to his trials, for, having paid his last coin in passage money, he had been a day and a half without food. Yet he knew it only by an occasional lapse into weakness as much mental as physical. Nevertheless, he was first on the gangplank to land,... more...

CHAPTER I."What, am I poor of late?'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,Must fall out with men too. What the declined is,He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;And not a man, for being simply man,Hath any honour; but honour for those honoursThat are without him, as place,... more...

Chapter I "Oh, that child! She is the very torment of my life. I have been the mother of six children, and all of them put together, never gave me as much trouble as that girl. I don't know what will ever become of her." "What is the matter now, Aunt Susan? What has Annette been doing?" "Doing! She is always doing something; everlastingly getting herself into trouble with some... more...

INTRODUCTION. Although the giving information concerning the unfair manner in which they were dismissed from life, is popularly alleged to have been a frequent reason why departed spirits revisit the nether world, it is yet only in a play of the witty comedian, Foote, that the reader will find their appearance become the subject of formal and very ingenious pleadings. In his farce called the Orators,... more...

PREFACE In undertaking to prepare an account of this celebrated trial, the Editor at the outset fondly trusted that the conviction of "the unfortunate Miss Blandy" might, upon due inquiry, be found to have been, as the phrase is, a miscarriage of justice. To the entertainment of this chivalrous if unlively hope he was moved as well by the youth, the sex, and the traditional charms of that lady,... more...

THET R I A LOF THEWITNESSESOF THEResurrection of Jesus We were, not long since, some Gentlemen of the inns of court together, each to other so well known, that no man's presence was a confinement to any other, from speaking his mind on any subject that happened to arise in conversation. The meeting was without design, and the discourse, as in like cases, various. Among other things we fell upon... more...

CHAPTER I. THIS happened a very few years after, my marriage, and is one of those feeling incidents in life that we never forget. My husband's income was moderate, and we found it necessary to deny ourselves many little articles of ornament and luxury, to the end that there might be no serious abatement in the comforts of life. In furnishing our house, we had been obliged to content ourselves... more...

PREFACE The history of the world consists mainly of the stories of the lives of certain men and women whose deeds have been of sufficient importance to make them worth relating. The lives of some persons have been worth narrating because of their abounding in deeds of great merit, such as the lives of Washington, Gladstone, Frances E. Willard, and Joan of Arc. The lives of others have been thought... more...

THE GOOD MAN Among the warmest friends of the Young Men's Christian Union was one, whose departure from among us this community has recently been called to mourn,—one who was beloved by all who knew him; whose wide, expansive benevolence and Christian charity won the admiration of those of every name and sect; who so truly loved the Saviour, and was so truly baptized into his spirit, the spirit... more...

CHAPTER I. SYBIL'S SUBTERRANEAN ADVENTURES.Dark den is this,Witch-haunted, devil-built, and filledWith horrid shapes, but not of men or beasts,Or aught with which the affrighted senseHath ever made acquaintance. When Sybil recovered from her death-like swoon, she felt herself being borne slowly on through what seemed a narrow, tortuous underground passage; but the utter darkness, relieved only by... more...