Louis XVI. possessed an immense crowd of confidants, advisers, and guides; he selected them even from among the factions which attacked him. Never, perhaps, did he make a full disclosure to any one of them, and certainly he spoke with sincerity, to but very few. He invariably kept the reins of all secret intrigues in his own hand; and thence, doubtless, arose the want of cooperation and the weakness... more...

e was a rat, and she was a rat,And down in one hole they did dwell,And both were as black as a witch’s cat,And they loved one another well.He had a tail, and she had a tail,Both long and curling and fine,And each said “Yours is the finest tailIn the world,—excepting mine!” e smelt the cheese, and she smelt the cheese,And they both pronounced it good,And both remarked it would greatly addTo the... more...

INTRODUCTORY NOTE JEAN BAPTISTE RACINE, the younger contemporary of Corneille, and his rival for supremacy in French classical tragedy, was born at Ferte-Milon, December 21, 1639. He was educated at the College of Beauvais, at the great Jansenist school at Port Royal, and at the College d'Harcourt. He attracted notice by an ode written for the marriage of Louis XIV in 1660, and made his first... more...

CHAPTER I LOVE IS ENOUGH nna's purty, an' she's good as well as purty, but th' beauty an' goodness that's hers is short lived, I'm thinkin'," said old Bridget McGrady to her neighbor Mrs. Tierney, as Mrs. Gilmore passed the door, leading her five-year-old girl, Anna, by the hand. The old women were sitting on the doorstep as the worshipers came down the lane... more...

'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembersAll the achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's souls;"When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the Rebel story,To you the words are ashes, but to me they're burning coals. I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April running battle;Lord Percy's hunted soldiers, I can see their red coats... more...

CHAPTER 1 At eight o'clock on Sunday morning, Arthur Peachey unlocked his front door, and quietly went forth. He had not ventured to ask that early breakfast should be prepared for him. Enough that he was leaving home for a summer holiday—the first he had allowed himself since his marriage three years ago. It was a house in De Crespigny Park; unattached, double-fronted, with half-sunk basement,... more...

You once asked me why I did not write a Don Juan play. The levity with which you assumed this frightful responsibility has probably by this time enabled you to forget it; but the day of reckoning has arrived: here is your play! I say your play, because qui facit per alium facit per se. Its profits, like its labor, belong to me: its morals, its manners, its philosophy, its influence on the young, are... more...

CHAPTER I."A heap of dust alone remains of thee:'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!"—Pope. In an upper chamber, through the closed blinds of which the sun is vainly striving to enter, Reginald Branscombe, fifth Earl of Sartoris, lies dead. The sheet is reverently drawn across the motionless limbs; the once restless, now quiet, face is hidden; all around is wrapt in solemn... more...

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"If an American dramatist or novelist had taken for the ground work of a play or work of fiction the story of the Bidwell family to-day related on another page of the Herald, all European critics would have told him that the story was too 'American,' too vast in its outlines, too high in its colors, too merely 'big' in fact. "The story has its lesson. The play is not a mere... more...