ARMS AND THE MAID Through the gateway flanked by tall recruiting posters came rather hurriedly a youth of no great stature, but of sturdy build and comely enough countenance, including bright brown eyes and fresh complexion. Though the dull morning was coldish, perspiration might have been detected on his forehead. Crossing the street, without glance to right or left, he increased his pace; also, he... more...

THE GUESTS OF HERCULES Long shadows of late afternoon lay straight and thin across the garden path; shadows of beech trees that ranged themselves in an undeviating line, like an inner wall within the convent wall of brick; and the soaring trees were very old, as old perhaps as the convent itself, whose stone had the same soft tints of faded red and brown as the autumn leaves which sparsely jewelled the... more...

INTRODUCTION. I. The last century was yet in its infancy when the author of The Romany Rye first saw the light in the sleepy little East Anglian township of East Dereham, in the county distinguished by Borrow as the one in which the people eat the best dumplings in the world and speak the purest English.  “Pretty quiet D[ereham]” was the retreat in those days of a Lady Bountiful in the person of... more...

LITTLE BO-PEEP  Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,    And can't tell where to find them;  Leave them alone, and they'll come home,    And bring their tails behind them.   Little Bo-Peep fell fast asleep,    And dreamt she heard them bleating;  But when she awoke, she found it a joke,    For still they all were fleeting.   Then up she took her little... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BRIDE'S MISTAKE. "FOR after this manner in the old time the holy women also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands; even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters ye are as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement." Concluding the Marriage Service of the Church of England in those well-known words,... more...

A BALLADE OF ART COLLECTORS Oh Lord! We are the covetous.  Our neighbours' goods afflict us sore.From Frisco to the Bosphorus  All sightly stuff, the less the more,We want it in our hoard and store.  Nor sacrilege doth us appal—Egyptian vault—fane at Cawnpore—  Collector folk are sinners all. Our envoys plot in partibus.  They've small regard for chancel door,Or Buddhist bolts... more...

CHAP. I. Contains the manner in which a gentleman found children: his benevolence towards them, and what kind of affection he bore to them as they grew up. With the departure of one of them to the army. It was in the ever memorable year 1688, that a gentleman, whose real name we think proper to conceal under that of Dorilaus, returned from visiting most of the polite courts of Europe, in which he had... more...

No. IV.—THE WILD DUCK. ACT I. At WERLE's house. In front a richly-upholstered study. (R.) a green-baize door leading to WERLE's office. At back, open folding doors, revealing an elegant dining-room, in which a brilliant Norwegian dinner-party is going on. Hired Waiters in profusion. A glass is tapped with a knife. Shouts of "Bravo!" Old Mr. WERLE is heard making a long speech,... more...

Peter In any group of men I have ever known, speaking from the point of view of character and not that of physical appearance, Peter would stand out as deliciously and irrefutably different. In the great waste of American intellectual dreariness he was an oasis, a veritable spring in the desert. He understood life. He knew men. He was free—spiritually, morally, in a thousand ways, it seemed to me. As... more...

To the sacred memory of the pioneers of the great Restoration Movement of the nineteenth century, who forsook the religious associations of a lifetime and cheerfully endured poverty, persecution and every hardship in their endeavor to restore Christian union on the primitive gospel, and who held forth a beacon-light that helped me to find the truth in its simplicity as it is in Christ Jesus. My Soul... more...