That night her son was the first star. She stood motionless in the garden, one hand pressed against her heart, watching him rise above the fields where he had played as a boy, where he had worked as a young man; and she wondered whether he was thinking of those fields now, whether he was thinking of her standing alone in the April night with her memories; whether he was thinking of the verandahed house... more...

FOREWORD The following pages form an abridged translation of a book published in 1916 by Freiherrn von Forstner, commander of the first German U-boat. It was written with the somewhat careless haste of a man who took advantage of disconnected moments of leisure, and these moments were evidently subject to abrupt and prolonged interruptions. Many repetitions and trivial incidents have been omitted in... more...

OUR DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. Not of those affairs which are domestic in a broad, national sense; not of any of our home institutions, 'peculiar' or otherwise; not of politics in any shape, nor of railroads and canals, nor of interstate relations, reconstructions, amnesty; not even of the omnivorous question, The War, do I propose to treat under the head of 'Our Domestic Affairs;' but of a... more...

CHAPTER I"THE BAND" AND THE CAVE BLACKINTON'S barn is exactly at the foot of Bob's Hill. Phillips's is, too, and so is our garden; but I am not telling about those now. Beyond the barns are apple orchards, reaching halfway up the hill, as you know, if you have read about the doings of the Band.When they built Blackinton's barn they cut into the hill, so that the roof of the... more...

No golden eagle, warm from the stamping press of the mint, is more sharply impressed with its image and superscription than was the formative period of our government by the genius and personality of Thomas Jefferson. Standing on the threshold of the nineteenth century, no one who attempted to peer down the shadowy vista, saw more clearly than he the possibilities, the perils, the pitfalls and the... more...

There is a deathless charm, despite the efforts of modern novelists and playwrights to render it stale and hackneyed, attaching to the middle of the seventeenth century—that period of upheaval and turmoil which saw a stately debonnaire Court swept away by the flames of Civil War, and the reign of an usurper succeeded by the Restoration of a discredited and fallen dynasty. So long as the world lasts,... more...

THE OSIERFIELDThey herded not with soulless swine,Nor let strange snares their path environ:Their only pitfall was a mine—Their pigs were made of iron. In the middle of Sedgehill, which is in the middle of Mershire, which is in the middle of England, there lies a narrow ridge of high table-land, dividing, as by a straight line, the collieries and ironworks of the great coal district from the green... more...

NOVEL I. — Cimon, by loving, waxes wise, wins his wife Iphigenia by capture on the high seas, and is imprisoned at Rhodes. He is delivered by Lysimachus; and the twain capture Cassandra and recapture Iphigenia in the hour of their marriage. They flee with their ladies to Crete, and having there married them, are brought back to their homes. — Many stories, sweet my ladies, occur to me as meet for... more...

LONG AGO AT BRAYCOMBE. The Story of the White-Rock Cove—"to be written down all from the very beginning"—is urgently required by certain youthful petitioners, whose importunity is hard to resist; and the request is sealed by a rosy pair of lips from the little face nestling at my side, in a manner that admits of no denial. "From the beginning;"—that very beginning carries me back... more...

HOPE AND FEARBeneath the shadow of dawn's aerial cope,With eyes enkindled as the sun's own sphere,Hope from the front of youth in godlike cheerLooks Godward, past the shades where blind men gropeRound the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope,And makes for joy the very darkness dearThat gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that fearAt noon may rise and pierce the heart of hope.Then, when... more...