THE REBELS FORMALLY PROPOSE TO US TO DESERT TO THEM—CONTUMELIOUS TREATMENT OF THE PROPOSITION—THEIR RAGE—AN EXCITING TIME—AN OUTBREAK THREATENED—DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING DESERTION TO THE REBELS. One day in November, some little time after the occurrences narrated in the last chapter, orders came in to make out rolls of all those who were born outside of the United States, and whose terms of... more...

GENIUS. When Paul Morphy plays seven games of chess at once and blindfold, when young Colburn gives impromptu solution to a mathematical problem involving fifty-six figures, we are struck with hopeless wonder: such power is separated by the very extent of it from our mental operations. But when we further observe that these feats are attended by little or no fatigue,—that this is the play, not the... more...

WASHING DAY TEMPERS. Down at the Henders' cottage all was misery and discomfort; the house was full of bad temper, steam, and the smell of soap-suds. It was washing-day, and the children hated washing-day. For one thing, Aunt Emma was always very cross, and for another, they never knew what to do with themselves. They were not allowed indoors, for they "choked up the place," she said,... more...

CHAPTER I A Last Bathe The warm, mellow September sunshine was streaming over the irregular roofs and twisted chimneys of the little town of Chagmouth, and was glinting on the water in the harbour, and sending gleaming, straggling, silver lines over the deep reflections of the shipping moored by the side of the jetty. The rising tide, lapping slowly and gently in from the ocean, was floating the boats... more...

The reign of Philip the Second has occupied the pen of the historian more frequently—if we except that of Charles the Fifth—than any other portion of the Spanish annals. It has become familiar to the English reader through the pages of Watson, who has deservedly found favor with the public for the perspicuity of his style,—a virtue, however, not uncommon in his day,—for the sobriety of his... more...

CHAPTER I. NEEDLE-WORK, at best, yields but a small return. Yet how many thousands have no other resource in life, no other barrier thrown up between them and starvation! The manly stay upon which a woman has leaned suddenly fails, and she finds self-support an imperative necessity; yet she has no skill, no strength, no developed resources. In all probability she is a mother. In this case she must not... more...

CHAPTER I. THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS Scarcely more than half a century has passed since the Dominion of Canada, in its present form, came into existence. But thrice that period has elapsed since the fateful day when Montcalm and Wolfe laid down their lives in battle on the Plains of Abraham, and the lands which now comprise the Dominion finally passed from French hands and came under British rule. The... more...

The North American Indians, the earliest inhabitants of this country of whom we know anything definite, were great story-tellers; and their histories consist entirely of stories handed down from parents to children, or, more likely, from grandparents to grandchildren, for grandfathers and grandmothers are generally more willing to tell stories than fathers or mothers. And so these traditions, probably... more...

Act I The scene is laid in the living-room of the small home of the Quixanos in the Richmond or non-Jewish borough of New York, about five o'clock of a February afternoon. At centre back is a double street-door giving on a columned veranda in the Colonial style. Nailed on the right-hand door-post gleams a Mezuzah, a tiny metal case, containing a Biblical passage. On the right of the door is a... more...

UNITARIANISM. THROUGH the lack of having made themselves familiar with the matter, there is a common and, I think, a widespread impression among people generally that Unitarianism is a new-fangled notion, a modern fad, a belief held only by a few, who are one side of the main currents of religious life and advance. Even if it were new, even if it were confined to the modern world, this would not... more...