Winter and SummerIn Winter when the air is chill,And winds are blowing loud and shrill,All snug and warm I sit and purr,Wrapped in my overcoat of fur.In Summer quite the other way,I find it very hot all day,But Human People do not care,For they have nice thin clothes to wear.And does it not seem hard to you,When all the world is like a stew,And I am much too warm to purr,I have to wear my Winter Fur?... more...

CHAPTER I - SHIPWRECK. Once only, in the occasional travelling of thirty years, did I lose any important article of luggage; and that loss occurred, not under the haphazard, devil-take-the-hindmost confusion of English, or the elaborate misrule of Continental journeys, but through the absolute perfection and democratic despotism of the American system. I had to give up a visit to the scenery of... more...

CHAPTER I.off for greenock. The late—I had almost written the last—Imperial ruler of France was wont to say—indeed, it was his favourite maxim—“Everything comes to him who waits.”  It was not exactly true in his case.  Just as he was to have placed himself at the head of his followers, and make his reappearance in France, and to have effaced the recollections of Sedan, Death, who waits... more...

CHAPTER I. THE FLYING SQUIRREL—ITS FOOD—STORY OF A WOLF—INDIAN VILLAGE—WILD RICE. "Nurse, what is the name of that pretty creature you have in your hand? What bright eyes it has! What a soft tail, just like a grey feather! Is it a little beaver?" asked the Governor's [Footnote: Lady Mary's father was Governor of Canada.] little daughter, as her nurse came into the room where... more...

ON LEAVING N—ST—D. Through the cracks in these battlements loud the winds whistle, For the hall of my fathers is gone to decay; And in yon once gay garden the hemlock and thistle Have choak'd up the rose, which late bloom'd in the way. Of the barons of old, who once proudly to battle Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain; The escutcheon and shield, which with ev'ry... more...

AUGUST On the 30th of July, 1914, motoring north from Poitiers, we had lunched somewhere by the roadside under apple-trees on the edge of a field. Other fields stretched away on our right and left to a border of woodland and a village steeple. All around was noonday quiet, and the sober disciplined landscape which the traveller's memory is apt to evoke as distinctively French. Sometimes, even to... more...

CHAPTER I “I say, Art, let’s take a run down to the train. There will be sure to be some of the old fellows on it and perhaps some new ones.” “Yes, for I heard the doctor tell Buck to have the coach and horses ready, as he expected several of the young gentlemen to come on the afternoon train. Why can’t we go down with Buck instead of going alone?” “Because Mr. Bucephalus, called Buck for... more...

ANGEL AGNES. May God protect you, reader of this book, from all manner of sickness; but above all, from that thrice dreaded pestilence, yellow fever. Of all the scourge ever sent upon poor sinful man, none equals in horror and loathsomeness yellow fever. Strong fathers and husbands, sons and brothers, who would face the grape-shot battery in battle, have fled dismayed from the approach of yellow fever.... more...

CHAPTER I.—IN THE ATTIC. I live in an attic. I am in the immediate neighbourhood of a great tavern and a famous place of amusement. The thoroughfare on which I can look whilst I sit at my window is noisy with perpetual traffic. In the midst of London I am more of a hermit than is that pretentious humbug who waves his flag at passing steamers from his rock in the Ægean. I am not a hermit from any... more...

Frau Feldner, Valerie's old lady's-maid, told Elsa that her lady was in a sound sleep, as was always the case with her after a violent attack of headache, and out of which she would hardly awake before evening. Elsa, who had herself suffered from the extraordinary sultriness of the day, and from the uncomfortable conversation at dinner, and was also put out and agitated by the scene with the... more...