CHAPTER I. THE VILLAGE.—ITS INHABITANTS.—AN OLD MANORHOUSE: AND AN ENGLISHFAMILY; THEIR HISTORY, INVOLVING A MYSTERIOUS EVENT. "Protected by the divinity they adored, supported by the earth which they cultivated, and at peace with themselves, they enjoyed the sweets of life, without dreading or desiring dissolution." Numa Pompilius. In the country of—there is a sequestered hamlet, which I... more...

FOREWORD. The following lectures were written primarily to be delivered at the summer sessions of the University of California, at Berkeley and at Los Angeles, in the summer of 1918. We are printing them, however, so that the information in them can be more widely distributed, since they are the outgrowth of almost a quarter of a century spent in work for the blind, and were written from the standpoint... more...

CHAPTER I. SAM'S NEW CLOTHES. "If I'm goin' into a office I'll have to buy some new clo'es," thoughtSam Barker. He was a boy of fifteen, who, for three years, had been drifting about the streets of New York, getting his living as he could; now blacking boots, now selling papers, now carrying bundles—"everything by turns, and nothing long." He was not a model... more...

CHAPTER I. HOW IT CAME ABOUT THAT I WENT TO CANADA. All things are wonderfully ordered for us by God. Such has been my experience for a long time past. If only we will wait and watch, the way will open for us. Where shall I begin with my history as a Missionary? When I was a child, it was my mother's hope and wish that I should bear the glad tidings of the Gospel to distant lands. She was a... more...

THE CONSULATE (1799-1804). For more than ten years, amid unheard of shocks and sufferings, France had been seeking for a free and regular government, that might assure to her the new rights which had only been gained through tribulation. She had overthrown the Monarchy and attempted a Republic; she had accepted and rejected three constitutions, all the while struggling single-handed with Europe,... more...

INTRODUCTION. Early in the present century John Harris—one of the successors to the business of "Honest John Newbery," now carried on by Messrs Griffith & Farran at the old corner of St. Paul's Churchyard—began the publication of a series of little books, which for many years were probably among the most famous of the productions of the House. Now, however, according to the fate... more...

CHAPTER I THE SUBJECT AND THE POINT OF VIEW I submit in the following pages a proposition and a proposal—a distinction which an old-country writer of English may, perhaps, be permitted to preserve. The proposition is that, in the United States, as in other English-speaking communities, the city has been developed to the neglect of the country. I shall not have to labour the argument, as nobody... more...

THE NEW VESSEL OF WITHROW’S It was only a few days before this that the new vessel of Mr. Withrow’s, built by him, as everybody supposed, for Maurice Blake, had been towed around from Essex, and I remember how Maurice stood on the dock that afternoon and looked her over. There was not a bolt or a plank or a seam in her whole hull, not a square inch inside or out, that he had not been over half a... more...

PRUDY'S PATCHWORK I am going to tell you something about a little girl who was always saying and doing funny things, and very often getting into trouble. Her name was Prudy Parlin, and she and her sister Susy, three years older, lived in Portland, in the State of Maine, though every summer they went to Willowbrook, to visit their grandmother. At the very first of our story, Susy was more than six... more...

PREFACE. As so many books of a more or less biographical nature have been written about General Charles Gordon, it is both appropriate and natural that I should preface the following pages with a statement of a personal character as to how and why I have written another. In the year 1881 I told General Gordon that I contemplated describing his career as soon as I had finished writing my "History of... more...