VILLAHORRENDA! FIVE MINUTES! When the down train No. 65—of what line it is unnecessary to say—stopped at the little station between kilometres 171 and 172, almost all the second-and third-class passengers remained in the cars, yawning or asleep, for the penetrating cold of the early morning did not invite to a walk on the unsheltered platform. The only first-class passenger on the train alighted... more...

THE BEE-MAN OF ORN. In the ancient country of Orn, there lived an old man who was called the Bee-man, because his whole time was spent in the company of bees. He lived in a small hut, which was nothing more than an immense bee-hive, for these little creatures had built their honeycombs in every corner of the one room it contained, on the shelves, under the little table, all about the rough bench on... more...

CHAPTER I THE CALL OF THE HEATHER I am beginning to-day a new volume in the book of my life. I wrote the Prologue to it yesterday when I chanced upon this hamlet, and my Inner Self peremptorily bade me take up my abode here. My Inner Self often insists upon a course which has neither rhyme nor reason to recommend it, but as I am a woman I can plead instinct as the explanation—or shall I say the... more...

INTRODUCTION. THE GREEK AND ARABIC IDEAS OF THE WORLD, AS THE CHIEF INHERITANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN MIDDLE AGES IN GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE. rabic science constitutes one of the main links between the older learned world of the Greeks and Latins and the Europe of Henry the Navigator and of the Renaissance. In geography it adopted in the main the results of Ptolemy and Strabo; and many of the Moslem... more...

MY BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.—THE TREATMENT OF SLAVES GENERALLY IN MARYLAND. I was born in the state of Maryland, which is one of the smallest and most northern of the slave-holding states; the products of this state are wheat, rye, Indian corn, tobacco, with some hemp, flax, &c. By looking at the map, it will be seen that Maryland, like Virginia her neighbour, is divided by the Chesapeake Bay into... more...

INTRODUCTION TO THEFIRST EDITION The favourable reception given to my volume of Russian Fairy Tales has encouraged me to follow it up with a sister volume of stories selected from another Slavonic dialect extraordinarily rich in folk-tales––I mean Ruthenian, the language of the Cossacks. Ruthenian is a language intermediate between Russian and Polish, but quite independent of both. Its territory... more...

In June, 1864, a visit I had promised to pay one of the friends of my youth led me into the heart of the province of Brandenburg. I could travel by the railway as far as the little city of St. ----, but from this place was compelled to hire a carriage for two or three miles, as the estate, which my friend had owned several years, did not even possess the advantage of a daily stage. So, on reaching St.... more...

WHEN IT BEGAN Before the war I was living in London, with chambers at Lincoln's Inn. I was not surprised when the trouble started. Ever since 1904 it was reasonably clear to me that our country would have to fight the Germans or go under. The days before we declared war on Germany were spent in London. During the last few of them it was as though a terrible thunderstorm was hanging overhead, ready... more...

Dr. Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare is one of the most famous critical essays of the eighteenth century, and yet too many students have forgotten that it is, precisely, a preface to the plays of Shakespeare, edited by Dr. Johnson himself. That is to say, the edition itself has been obscured or overshadowed by its preface, and the sustained effort of that essay has virtually monopolized scholarly... more...

I THE MARRYING OF SUSAN CLEGG Susan Clegg and Mrs. Lathrop were next-door neighbors and bosom friends. Their personalities were extremely congenial, and the theoretical relation which the younger woman bore to the elder was a further bond between them. Owing to the death of her mother some twenty years before, Susan had fallen into the position of a helpless and timid young girl whose only key to the... more...