CHAPTER I. A VOICE OUT OF THE DEEP. Once upon a time there was a schooner belonging to Boston which was registered under the somewhat singular name of the "Rev. Amos Adams." This was her formal title, used on state occasions, and was, no doubt, quite as appropriate as the more pretentious one of the "Duke of Marlborough," or the "Lord Warden." As a general thing, however, people... more...

DANTE.[1] On the banks of a little river so shrunken by the suns of summer that it seems fast passing into a tradition, but swollen by the autumnal rains with an Italian suddenness of passion till the massy bridge shudders under the impatient heap of waters behind it, stands a city which, in its period of bloom not so large as Boston, may well rank next to Athens in the history which teaches come... more...

THE STORY OF THE SPARROWS. E are little English sparrows. We have been two years in America. We were brought over by Mr. Wakefield's gardener. He let us loose in the grove; and there we have been ever since.Mr. Wakefield has built little houses for us, and put them on the boughs of the trees. We go into these houses when it rains hard or blows. Once the doors of our houses were all blocked up with... more...

CHAPTER I Foot In Stirrup We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound. Out spreads the canvas—alow, aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with many a stun' sail; till like a hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow the sea with our sails, and... more...

I I am asked to jot down a few autobiographic odds and ends from such data of record and memory as I may retain. I have been something of a student of life; an observer of men and women and affairs; an appraiser of their character, their conduct, and, on occasion, of their motives. Thus, a kind of instinct, which bred a tendency and grew to a habit, has led me into many and diverse companies, the... more...

Unhallowed Ground The Witching Hill Estate Office was as new as the Queen Anne houses it had to let, and about as worthy of its name. It was just a wooden box with a veneer of rough-cast and a corrugated iron lid. Inside there was a vast of varnish on three of the walls; but the one opposite my counter consisted of plate-glass worth the rest of the structure put together. It afforded a fine prospect of... more...

I.—WACE In the long line of Arthurian chroniclers Geoffrey of Monmouth deservedly occupies the first place. The most gifted and the most original of their number, by his skilful treatment of the Arthurian story in his Historia Regum Britanniae, he succeeded in uniting scattered legends attached to Arthur's name, and in definitely establishing their place in chronicle history in a form... more...

Fall of the Staubbath. In the poet and the philosopher, the lover of the sublime, and the student of the beautiful in art—the contemplation of such a scene as this must awaken ecstatic feelings of admiration and awe. Its effect upon the mere man of the world, whose mind is clogged up with common-places of life, must be overwhelming as the torrent itself; perchance he soon recovers from the... more...

INTRODUCTIONThe small yellow tree frogs, Hyla microcephala and its relatives, are among the most frequently heard and commonly collected frogs in the lowlands of southern Mexico and Central America. The similarities in size, proportions, and coloration of the different species have resulted not so much in a multiplicity of specific names, but in differences of opinion on the application of existing... more...

MR. PUNCH'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASES.Journalistic."The Prisoner, who was fashionably attired, and of genteel appearance;" i.e., An ill-got-up swell-mobsman. "A powerful-looking fellow;" i.e., An awful ruffian. "A rumour has reached us"—(in the well-nigh impenetrable recesses wherein, as journalists, we habitually conceal ourselves). "Nothing fresh has transpired;"... more...