CHAPTER I. GENERAL REMARKS My dear children—When I was a little boy, my dear mother taught me, with the exception of the last line, the following prayer:"Now I lay me down to sleep,I pray the Lord my soul to keep;If I should die before I wake,I pray the Lord my soul to take;And this I ask for Jesus' sake." Though I am now more than fifty years old, I often like to say this prayer before... more...

I When Germany threw down her challenge to Russia and France, and England knew that her Imperial power would be one of the prizes of German victory (the common people did not think this, at first, but saw only the outrage to Belgium, a brutal attack on civilization, and a glorious adventure), some newspaper correspondents were sent out from London to report the proceedings, and I was one of them. We... more...

The Keepsake. Edited by F.M. Reynolds, Esq. This is a magnificent affair, and is one of the proud triumphs of the union of Painting, Engraving, and Literature—to which we took occasion to allude in a recent number of THE MIRROR. Each department is unique, and the lists are like the Morning Post account of a drawing room, or Almack's—the princes of the arts, and the peers of the pen.... more...

I. THE SIGN OF THE SUNSET "BUT the man's almost dead." The words stung John Hare's fainting spirit into life. He opened his eyes. The desert still stretched before him, the appalling thing that had overpowered him with its deceiving purple distance. Near by stood a sombre group of men. "Leave him here," said one, addressing a gray-bearded giant. "He's the fellow sent... more...

“Good-Bye!” “Time is getting on, little mother, and we’ll soon have to say farewell!” “Aye, my child. The parting is a sad one to me; but I hope and trust the good God will hold you in His safe keeping, and guide your footsteps back home to me again!” “Never you fear, little mother. He will do that, and in a year’s time we shall all meet again under the old roof-tree, I’m certain.... more...

CHAPTER I. SIR PETER CHILLINGLY, of Exmundham, Baronet, F.R.S. and F.A.S., was the representative of an ancient family, and a landed proprietor of some importance. He had married young; not from any ardent inclination for the connubial state, but in compliance with the request of his parents. They took the pains to select his bride; and if they might have chosen better, they might have chosen worse,... more...

ELIA (From the 1st Edition, 1823) THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE Reader, in thy passage from the Bank—where thou hast been receiving thy half-yearly dividends (supposing thou art a lean annuitant like myself)—to the Flower Pot, to secure a place for Dalston, or Shacklewell, or some other thy suburban retreat northerly,—didst thou never observe a melancholy looking, handsome,... more...

May 10, 1792. I am every day more confirmed in the opinion I communicated to you on my arrival, that the first ardour of the revolution is abated.—The bridal days are indeed past, and I think I perceive something like indifference approaching. Perhaps the French themselves are not sensible of this change; but I who have been absent two years, and have made as it were a sudden transition from... more...

HE histories of the mechanical clock and the magnetic compass must be accounted amongst the most tortured of all our efforts to understand the origins of man's important inventions. Ignorance has too often been replaced by conjecture, and conjecture by misquotation and the false authority of "common knowledge" engendered by the repetition of legendary histories from one generation of... more...

NONCOMBATANTS About five o’clock that evening a Rhode Island battery clanked through the village and parked six dusty guns in a pasture occupied by some astonished cows. A little later the cavalry arrived, riding slowly up the tree-shaded street, escorted by every darky and every dog in the country-side. The clothing of this regiment was a little out of the ordinary. Instead of the usual campaign... more...