SAVING THE BIRDS One day in spring four men were riding on horseback along a country road. These men were lawyers, and they were going to the next town to attend court. There had been a rain, and the ground was very soft. Water was dripping from the trees, and the grass was wet. The four lawyers rode along, one behind another; for the pathway was narrow, and the mud on each side of it was deep. They... more...

ESSAY ON TOBACCO. In the great kingdom of living nature, man is the only animal that seeks to poison or destroy his own instincts, to turn topsy-turvy the laws of his being, and to make himself as unlike, as possible, that which he was obviously designed to be. No satisfactory solution of this extraordinary propensity has been given, short of a reference to that— "first disobedience and the fruit... more...

The reign of Louis XIV. was approaching its conclusion, so that there is now nothing more to relate but what passed during the last month of his life, and scarcely so much. These events, indeed, so curious and so important, are so mixed up with those that immediately followed the King's death, that they cannot be separated from them. It will be interesting and is necessary to describe the... more...

THE KING'S RECOLLECTIONS. "Well," said the king, "whenever I look back into the past, every thing seems to me covered with a gray mist, through which only two stars and two lights are twinkling. The stars are your eyes, and the lights are the two days I alluded to before—the day on which I saw you for the first time, and the day on which you arrived in Berlin. Oh, Louisa, never shall... more...

The 25th of May, 1866, was no doubt to many a quite indifferent date, but to two persons it was the saddest day of their lives. Charles Randall that day left Bonn, Germany, to catch the steamer home to America, and Ida Werner was left with a mountain of grief on her gentle bosom, which must be melted away drop by drop, in tears, before she could breathe freely again. A year before, Randall, hunting for... more...

CHAPTER I POLLY RETURNS TO AMERICA Five girls were promenading the deck of one of our great Atlantic liners, on the last day of the trip. The report had gone out that they might expect to reach quarantine before five o’clock, but it would be too late to dock that night, therefore the captain had planned an evening’s entertainment for all on board. “Miss Brewster! Miss Polly Brewster! Polly... more...

ACT I. SCENE I. [1st Cut.] [2nd Grooves.] A Lane near a Village. Afternoon. Enter ARTHUR WALTON and WILLIAM, R.S.E. Arthur. Give me your arm, my feet tread heavily;The sameness of this scene doth pierce my heartWith thronging recollections of the past.There is nought chang'd—and what a world of care,Of sorrow, passion, pleasure have I known,Since but a natural part of this was I,Whose voice is... more...

CHAPTER I. I LEAVE HOME I was born at Oulton, in Suffolk, in the year 1672. I know not the day of my birth, but it was in March, a day or two after the Dutch war began. I know this, because my father, who was the clergyman at Oulton, once told me that in the night of my birth a horseman called upon him, at the rectory, to ask the way to Lowestoft. He was riding from London with letters for the Admiral,... more...

I CHILDREN i Anne Severn had come again to the Fieldings. This time it was because her mother was dead. She hadn't been in the house five minutes before she asked "Where'sJerrold?" "Fancy," they said, "her remembering." And Jerrold had put his head in at the door and gone out again when he saw her there in her black frock; and somehow she had known he was afraid to... more...

I. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDAEVAL THOUGHT IN the earliest days of his upward evolution man was satisfied with a very crude explanation of natural phenomena—that to which the name "animism" has been given. In this stage of mental development all the various forces of Nature are personified: the rushing torrent, the devastating fire, the wind rustling the forest leaves—in the mind of the... more...