THE MUSICAL SEASON.   'The English are not a musical people.' The dictum long stood unquestioned, and, in general estimation, unquestionable. All the world had agreed upon it. There could be no two opinions: we had no national airs; no national taste; no national appreciation of sweet sounds; musically, we were blocks! At length, however, the creed began to be called in question—were we so... more...

They had seen the fog rolling down the coast shortly after the Maggie had rounded Pilar Point at sunset and headed north. Captain Scraggs has been steamboating too many unprofitable years on San Francisco Bay, the Suisun and San Pablo sloughs and dogholes and the Sacramento River to be deceived as to the character of that fog, and he remarked as much to Mr. Gibney. "We'd better turn back to... more...

Prudence urges me here to forestall detection, by conceding that this brief play has no pretension to "literary" quality. It is a piece in its inception designed for, and in its making swayed by, the requirements of the little theatre stage. The one virtue which anybody anywhere could claim for The Jewel Merchants is the fact that it "acts" easily and rather effectively. And candor... more...

CHAPTER I.A GIRL WITH A CHARACTER.It was a strange place for an intelligence office, yet Madame Selini evidently knew what she was doing when she established her office in an aristocratic neighborhood, and actually next door to the family mansion of the Countess Dowager of Barewood. The worthy countess was shocked, and, taking counsel of her hopes, predicted that Madame Selini's institution would... more...

FOREWORD The special interest of this volume of Russian Folk Tales is that it is a translation from a collection of peasant Chap-books of all sorts made in Moscow about 1830, long before the Censorship had in great measure stopped the growth of popular literature. It is not necessary to dilate upon the peculiarities of Chap-books and their methods: in the conditions of their existence many of the... more...

CHAPTER I. Mr. Leigh was in a very depressed and anxious mood. His late conversations with Mrs. Costello had disturbed him and broken up the current of his thoughts, and even to some extent of his usual occupations, without producing any result beneficial to either of them. She had told him a strange and almost incredible story of her life; and then, just when he was full of sympathy and eagerness to... more...

Because it was his fourteenth birthday they had allowed him a day off from school, his mother doubtfully, his uncles Alan and Robin with their understanding grin. And because there was none else for him to play with at hurling or foot-ball, the other children now droning in class over Cæsar's Gallic War, he had gone up the big glen. It was a very adventurous thing to go up the glen while other... more...

I Distant a few miles from the southern extremity of Lago Maggiore, the castle-crowned heights of Anghera and Arona face one another from opposite sides of the lake, separated by a narrow stretch of blue water. Though bearing the name of the former burgh, it was in Arona[1], where his family also possessed a property, that Pietro Martire d'Anghera first saw the light, in the year 1457[2]. He was... more...

INTRODUCTION. The death of John Dryden, on the first of May, 1700, closed a period of no small significance in the history of English literature. His faults were many, both as a man and as a poet, but he belongs to the race of the giants, and the impress of greatness is stamped upon his works. No student of Dryden can fail to mark the force and sweep of an intellect impatient of restraint. His... more...

RICHARD AND HIS BROTHER.Richard, come and play with me,Underneath the willow tree;Sitting in its peaceful shade,We'll sing the song papa has made,Whilst its drooping branches spread,Stretching far above our head,Sweetly tempering the blazeOf the sun's meridian rays.There the rose and violet blow,The lily with her bell of snow,And the richly scented woodbine,Round about its trunk doth... more...