INTRODUCTION There is a sacred privacy in the life of a blind person. It is led apart from much of the ordinary work of the world, and is unaffected by many external incidents which help to make up the important events of other lives. It is passed in the shade and not in the open sunlight of eager activity. At first we should be disposed to say that such a life, with its inevitable restrictions and... more...

CHAPTER I THE OLD SEA-DOG AT THE “ADMIRAL BENBOW” Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen, having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17—, and go back to the... more...

PREFACE TO THE TENTH EDITION. THIS work has passed through nine editions, and has been out of print now for nearly a year. During the twenty years which have elapsed since it was written, the question of immortality, the faith and opinions of men and the drift of criticism and doubt concerning it, have been a subject of dominant interest to me, and have occupied a large space in my reading and... more...

CHAPTER IBERGERONNETTE For me the strange story dates back to that autumn day when my uncle Dorgeroux appeared, staggering and unhinged, in the doorway of the room which I occupied in his house, Haut-Meudon Lodge. None of us had set eyes on him for a week. A prey to that nervous exasperation into which the final test of any of his inventions invariably threw him, he was living among his furnaces and... more...

In preparing a list of kinds of mammals of which specimens have been saved from the Méxican state of Michoacán, two heretofore unrecognized subspecies of the Méxican meadow mouse, Microtus mexicanus, have been found. Names for these and descriptions are given below. Microtus mexicanus fundatus new subspecies Type.—Male, adult, skin and skull; No. 100637, Univ. California Mus. Vert. Zool.; 3½ mi.... more...

THE THREE KINGS OF COLOGNE. A CHRISTMAS TALE FROM AN OLD ENGLISH CHRONICLE. (Written by John of Hildesheim in the Fourteenth Century.) Here followeth the manner and form of seeking and offering; and also of the burying and translations of the three Holy and Worshipful Kings of Cologne: Jaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. Now when the Children of Israel were gone out of Egypt and had won and made subject... more...

Bimala's Story I MOTHER, today there comes back to mind the vermilion mark [1] at the parting of your hair, the __sari__ [2] which you used to wear, with its wide red border, and those wonderful eyes of yours, full of depth and peace. They came at the start of my life's journey, like the first streak of dawn, giving me golden provision to carry me on my way. The sky which gives light is blue,... more...

PREFACE On April 22nd, 1915, the writer, in company with Major Rankin, saw the Germans launch their first gas attack near St. Julien upon the section of the line held by the French colonial troops and the first Canadian division. This book was written primarily for the purpose of recording this as well as some of the other experiences of the first Canadian division as seen from the unusual angle of a... more...

A popular and fairly orthodox opinion concerning book-collectors is that their vices are many, their virtues of a negative sort, and their ways altogether past finding out. Yet the most hostile critic is bound to admit that the fraternity of bibliophiles is eminently picturesque. If their doings are inscrutable, they are also romantic; if their vices are numerous, the heinousness of those vices is... more...

1861-1862. And now that, in these notes, I have fairly reached the period of the civil war, which ravaged our country from 1861 to 1865—an event involving a conflict of passion, of prejudice, and of arms, that has developed results which, for better or worse, have left their mark on the world's history—I feel that I tread on delicate ground. I have again and again been invited to write a... more...