ON CHRISTIANITY, AS AN ORGAN OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. [1846.] FORCES, which are illimitable in their compass of effect, are often, for the same reason, obscure and untraceable in the steps of their movement. Growth, for instance, animal or vegetable, what eye can arrest its eternal increments? The hour-hand of a watch, who can detect the separate fluxions of its advance? Judging by the past, and the... more...

THE QUEEN OF LANTERN LAND Once upon a time the youngest son of a king became filled with the desire to go abroad and see the world. He got his father's permission to depart, kissed his parents good-bye, mounted his black horse, and galloped away down the high road. Soon the gray towers of the old castle in which he was born hid themselves behind him. The Prince journeyed on, spending the days in... more...

I. THE THRESHOLD GRACE The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth and for evermore. Ps. cxxi, 8. Going out and coming in. That is a picture of life. Beneath this old Hebrew phrase there lurks a symbolism that covers our whole experience. But let us just now look at the most literal, and by no means the least true, interpretation of these words. One of the great... more...

CHAPTER I THE towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They were neither citadels nor churches, but frankly and beautifully office-buildings. The mist took pity on the fretted structures of earlier generations: the Post Office with its shingle-tortured mansard, the red brick minarets of hulking old... more...

I am well aware that to try to write Mr. Gladstone's life at all—the life of a man who held an imposing place in many high national transactions, whose character and career may be regarded in such various lights, whose interests were so manifold, and whose years bridged so long a span of time—is a stroke of temerity. To try to write his life to-day, is to push temerity still further. The ashes... more...

OUTWARD BOUND. ARNY O'REIRDON was a fisherman of Kinsale, and a heartier fellow never hauled a net nor cast a line into deep water: indeed Barny, independently of being a merry boy among his companions, a lover of good fun and good whiskey, was looked up to, rather, by his brother fishermen, as an intelligent fellow, and few boats brought more fish to market than Barny O'Reirdon's; his... more...

PROLOGUE. We live in an age of universal inquiry, ergo of universal scepticism. The prophecies of the poet, the dreams of the philosopher and scientist, are being daily realized—things formerly considered mere fairy-tales have become facts—yet, in spite of the marvels of learning and science that are hourly accomplished among us, the attitude of mankind is one of disbelief. "There is no... more...

CHAPTER I. A COACHING ADVENTURE. Had any of the boys in the lower forms of Eton in the year 1808, been asked who were the most popular boys of their own age, they would have been almost sure to have answered, without the slightest hesitation, Tom and Peter Scudamore, and yet it is probable that no two boys were more often in disgrace. It was not that they were idle, upon the contrary, both were fairly... more...

A SELECTION FROM THE LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE. VOLUME II. MADAME DE BOUFFLERS AT STRAWBERRY—THE FRENCH OPINION OF THE ENGLISH CHARACTER—RICHARDSON'S NOVELS—MADAME DE BEAUMONT. TO SIR HORACE MANN. ARLINGTON STREET, Dec. 20, 1764. … My journey to Paris is fixed for some time in February, where I hear I may expect to find Madame de Boufflers, Princess of Conti. Her husband is just dead; and... more...

THE LIFE OF GEORGE ELIOT. The illustrious woman who is the subject of these volumes makes a remark to her publisher which is at least as relevant now as it was then. Can nothing be done, she asks, by dispassionate criticism towards the reform of our national habits in the matter of literary biography? 'Is it anything short of odious that as soon as a man is dead his desk should be raked, and every... more...