INTRODUCTION. This collection of epitaphs was started in a very modest fashion about thirty-five years ago, when the compiler found great pleasure in searching all the graveyards near her Vermont home for quaint inscriptions upon old tombstones. It was neither a morbid curiosity nor a spirit of melancholy that attracted her to the weather-beaten slabs of marble and slate, but rather a fondness for... more...

PREFACE From the edge of the Darkening Land, where stand the mountains which encircle the earth-plain, eastward toward the Sunland, lie the great plains of America. Smooth and flat and green they stretch away, hundreds of miles, rising from a dead level into a soft rolling of the land, then into the long green waves of the prairies where rivers flow, where the water ripples as it flows, and trees shade... more...

CHAPTER I Whoever sets himself to base his political thinking on a re-examination of the working of human nature, must begin by trying to overcome his own tendency to exaggerate the intellectuality of mankind. We are apt to assume that every human action is the result of an intellectual process, by which a man first thinks of some end which he desires, and then calculates the means by which that end... more...

THE MIRACULOUS REVENGE I arrived in Dublin on the evening of the fifth of August, and drove to the residence of my uncle, the Cardinal Archbishop. He is like most of my family, deficient in feeling, and consequently averse to me personally. He lives in a dingy house, with a side-long view of the portico of his cathedral from the front windows, and of a monster national school from the back. My uncle... more...

Kitty was a pretty little girl, with gray, laughing eyes, and a dimple in each cheek; but from the time when she first commenced to toddle alone she began to be dangerously fond of running away from home. Let a door be ajar ever so little and out pattered the tiny feet into the streets of the crowded city and all sorts of dangers. Papa and mamma had long consultations of what should be done to correct... more...

CHAPTER I. Chopin—Style and Improvements—The Adagio of the Second Concerto—Funeral March—Psychological Character of the Compositions of Chopin, &c., &c. Deeply regretted as he may be by the whole body of artists, lamented by all who have ever known him, we must still be permitted to doubt if the time has even yet arrived in which he, whose loss is so peculiarly deplored by ourselves,... more...

Page 3 RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY. I. CREATIVE PROCESSES. During all the ages there has been one bright and glittering page of loftiest wisdom unrolled before the eye of man. That this page may be read in every part, man's whole world turns him before it. This motion apparently changes the eternally stable stars into a moving panorama, but it is only so in appearance. The sky is a vast, immovable... more...

BRAMBLETYE HOUSE. On the borders of Ashdown Forest, in the county of Sussex, stands the above picturesque ruin of Brambletye House, whose lettered fame may be dated from the publication of Mr. Smith's novel of that name, in January, 1826. The ruin has since attracted scores of tourists, as we were, on our recent visit, informed by the occupier of the adjoining farm-house; which circumstance... more...

CHAPTER I This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous. For twenty years I had been perfectly comfortable; for twenty years I had had the window-boxes filled in the... more...

THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. (By the Observer’s own Correspondent.) It will be seen that we were not premature in announcing the probability of the birth of a Prince of Wales; and though it was impossible that any one should be able to speak with certainty, our positive tone upon the occasion serves to show the exclusive nature of all our intelligence. We are enabled now to state that the Prince... more...