A DAY AT THE BEACH. HERE are few of the little readers of "The Nursery" who could not tell of pleasant days spent among green fields and woods, or on the seashore. But in almost every large city, there are many children who have never been out of sight of brick walls.Their homes are in close rooms in narrow streets, and there they live from one year's end to the other. In winter they are... more...

DEFENCE OF SENECA AND PLUTARCH The familiarity I have with these two authors, and the assistance they have lent to my age and to my book, wholly compiled of what I have borrowed from them, oblige me to stand up for their honour. As to Seneca, amongst a million of little pamphlets that those of the so-called reformed religion disperse abroad for the defence of their cause (and which sometimes proceed... more...

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER     The light of this world fell on James Fenimore Cooper September 15, 1789. The founder of American romance was born in a quaint, two-storied house of stuccoed brick which now numbers 457 Main St., Burlington, New Jersey. It was then "the last house but one as you go into the country" and among the best of the town. In a like house next door lived the father of the... more...

Introduction When the first number of the Tatler appeared in 1709, Steele and Addison were about thirty-seven years of age, while Swift, then still counted among the Whigs, was more than four years their senior. Addison and Steele had been friends at the Charterhouse School and at Oxford, and though they had during the following years had varying experiences, their friendship had in no way lessened.... more...

FOREWORD When considering the manuscript of "The Blue Envelope" my publisherswrote me asking that I offer some sort of proof that the experiences ofMarian and Lucile might really have happened to two girls so situated.My answer ran somewhat as follows: Alaska, at least the northern part of it, is so far removed from the rest of this old earth that it is almost as distinct from it as is the... more...

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA I I confess that with all my curiosity to meet an Altrurian, I was in no hospitable mood toward the traveler when he finally presented himself, pursuant to the letter of advice sent me by the friend who introduced him. It would be easy enough to take care of him in the hotel; I had merely to engage a room for him, and have the clerk tell him his money was not good if he tried... more...

VOCES POPULI. BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW. SCENE—A Village School-room. A Juvenile Treat is in progress, and a Magic Lantern, hired for the occasion, "with set of slides complete—to last one hour" is about to be exhibited. The Vicar's Daughter (suddenly recognising the New Curate, who is blinking unsuspectingly in the lantern rays). Oh, Mr. TOOTLER, you've just come in time to help us!... more...

CHAPTER I. THE DETECTIVE AND THE BANKER—A REMARKABLE NARRATIVE—A PECULIAR TRAIL—MILLIONS WITH NO OWNER—A GREAT TASK LOOMING UP FOR JACK—A MOMENT OF EXPECTANCY. "Your name is John Alvarez?" "That is my name, sir." An elderly man was seated at a table and a young man stood opposite to him. The elderly person was a well-known banker who had retired from business, and he had sent... more...

CHAPTER I. In Which We Begin Not to Understand It is not without a certain emotion that I begin to recount here the extraordinary adventures of Joseph Rouletabille. Down to the present time he had so firmly opposed my doing it that I had come to despair of ever publishing the most curious of police stories of the past fifteen years. I had even imagined that the public would never know the whole truth... more...

I. A PRINCE OF COURT PAINTERS EXTRACTS FROM AN OLD FRENCH JOURNAL Valenciennes, September 1701. [5] They have been renovating my father's large workroom. That delightful, tumble-down old place has lost its moss-grown tiles and the green weather-stains we have known all our lives on the high whitewashed wall, opposite which we sit, in the little sculptor's yard, for the coolness, in... more...