INTRODUCTION In offering this collection of translations from early Irish poetry to a wider public I feel that I am expected to give a brief account of the literature from which they are taken—a literature so little known that its very existence has been doubted or denied by some, while others, who had the misfortune to make its acquaintance in ill-chosen or inadequate renderings, have refused to... more...

HOW THE CHILD DEVELOPSCondition at Birth Let us see, then, exactly what his condition is. In the first place, he is, as Virchow, an authority on physiological subjects declares, merely a spinal animal. Some of the higher brain centers do not yet exist at all, while others are in too incomplete a state for service. The various sensations which the baby experiences—heat, light, contact, motion,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BOY IN BLUE. When expulsion from college, in his junior years, was visited upon Jack Sprague, he straightway became the hero of Acredale. And, though the grave faculty had felt constrained to vindicate college authority, it was well known that they sympathized with the infraction of decorum that obliged them to put this mark of disgrace upon one of the most promising of their students.... more...

PREFACE. The high estimation in which I have ever held the works of Rembrandt has been greatly increased by my going through this examination of his various excellencies, and such will ever be the case when the emanations of genius are investigated; like the lustre of precious stones, their luminous colour shines from the centre, not from the surface. With such a mine of rich ore as the works of... more...

PREFACE. This volume contains a large selection from Paul Gerhardt's “Spiritual Songs.” Every piece included is given in full, and is rendered into the metre of the original. A few of the following translations have appeared at various times during the last three years in different periodicals. They have been revised for this volume. Several of the hymns have been beautifully translated by... more...

INTRODUCTION Though Southern rural life has necessarily changed since the Civil War, I doubt that there is in the entire South a place where it has changed less than on the Burge Plantation, near Covington, Georgia. And I do not know in the whole country a place that I should rather see again in springtime—the Georgia springtime, when the air is like a tonic vapor distilled from the earth, from pine... more...

DEDICATION Bob Southey! You're a poet, poet laureate,And representative of all the race.Although 'tis true that you turned out a Tory atLast, yours has lately been a common case.And now my epic renegade, what are ye atWith all the lakers, in and out of place?A nest of tuneful persons, to my eyeLike four and twenty blackbirds in a pye, Which pye being opened they began to sing'(This old... more...

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF BIRMINGHAM. It is a fine autumnal morning in the year 1837. I am sitting on the box seat of a stage coach, in the yard of the Bull-and-Mouth, St. Martin's-le-Grand, in the City of London. The splendid gray horses seem anxious to be off, but their heads are held by careful grooms. The metal fittings of the harness glitter in the early sunlight. Jew pedlar-boys offer me razors... more...

INTRODUCTION. ir Thomas More, who at that time was but Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was made Lord Chancellor in the room of Cardinal Wolsey on Sunday, the 24th of October 1529. The following undated work—the second of his controversial ones—was therefore written, printed and published prior to that day, and while as yet he held the lower dignity of the ducal Chancellorship.   The... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE BURNING BREAKER "Fire! Fire in the breaker! Oh, the boys! the poor boys!" These cries, and many like them—wild, heartrending, and full of fear—were heard on all sides. They served to empty the houses, and the one street of the little mining village of Raven Brook was quickly filled with excited people. It was late in the afternoon of a hot summer's day, and the... more...