THE BATTLE OF CHATEAUGUAY.   The War of 1812 has been called by an able historian "the afterclap of the Revolution." The Revolution was, indeed, true thunder—a courageous and, in the main, high-principled struggle. Its afterclap of 1812 displayed little but empty bombast and greed. In the one, brave leaders risked their lives in that defence of rights which has made their enterprise an epoch... more...

A LETTER, &c. Micmaki-Country, March 27, 1755. SIR, I should long before now have satisfied you in those points of curiosity you expressed, concerning the savages amongst whom I have so long resided, if I could have found leisure for it. Literally true it is, that I have no spare time here, unless just in the evening, and that not always. This was my case too in Louisbourg; and I do not doubt but... more...

"ALL ABOARD!" CHAPTER I. DEBBY HAS A CALLER. "And they're twins, you say?" "Yes'm, two of 'em, and as putty as twin blooms on a stalk, 'm." The second speaker was a large, corpulent woman, with a voluminous white apron tied about her voluminous waist. She stood deferentially before the prospective roomer who had asked the question, to whom she was showing the... more...

CHAPTER I.             His teeth he still did grind,  And grimly gnash, threatening revenge in vain.—SPENSER. IT is now time to return to Lord Vargrave. His most sanguine hopes were realized; all things seemed to prosper. The hand of Evelyn Cameron was pledged to him, the wedding-day was fixed. In less than a week she was to confer upon the ruined peer a splendid dowry, that would... more...

With the trueStory of Evangeline It seems but yesterday, and yet sixty years have passed away since my boyhood. How fleeting is time, how swiftly does old age creep upon us with its infirmities. The curling smoke, dispelled by the passing wind, the water that glides with a babbling murmur in the gentle stream, leave as deep a mark of their passage as do the fleeting days of man. I was twelve years old,... more...

CHAPTER I.   QUALIS ubi in lucem coluber  . . . Mala gramina pastus.*—VIRGIL. Pars minima est ipsa puella sui.**—OVID. * "As when a snake glides into light, having fed on pernicious pastures." ** "The girl is the least part of himself." IT would be superfluous, and, perhaps, a sickening task, to detail at length the mode and manner in which Vargrave coiled his snares round the... more...

PRELUDE. WHY, dreams from dreams in dreams remembered! naught Save this, alas! that once it seemed I thought I wandered dim with someone, but I knew Not who; most beautiful and good and true, Yet sad through suffering; with curl-crowned brow, Soft eyes and voice; so white she haunts me now:— And when, and where?—At night in dreamland. She Led me athwart a flower-showered lea Where trammeled... more...

CHAPTER I AN UNEXPECTED GUEST When I look back on the beginning of my adventures, I can set the very day and hour when the tranquil course of my early life came to an end, when the comfortable commonplaces of my previous existence altered, when the placid current of my former life broke suddenly and without warning into the tumultuous rapids which hurried me from surprise to surprise and from peril to... more...

CHAPTER I.   THE privilege that statesmen ever claim,  Who private interest never yet pursued,  But still pretended 'twas for others' good.  . . . . . .  From hence on every humorous wind that veered  With shifted sails a several course you steered.                 Absalom and Achitophel, Part ii. LORD VARGRAVE had for more than a fortnight remained at the inn at... more...

INTRODUCTION. After many unsuccessful experiments, made some years ago, to retrieve a declining fortune, I was lucky enough at last to marry the mistress of a boarding-school: her circumstances were not, indeed, at the time of our marriage, very considerable. But as I was neither unacquainted with the world, nor the more useful sciences, by a peculiar attention to the tempers of the boys, and the... more...