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...

INTRODUCTION. [Illustration] Thackeray In His Study At Onslow Square. From a painting by E. M. Ward We know exceedingly little of the genesis and progress of Esmond. “It did not seem to be a part of our lives as Pendennis was,” says Lady Ritchie, though she wrote part of it to dictation. She “only heard Esmond spoken of very rarely”. Perhaps its state was not the less gracious. The Milton girls... more...

Changes at Spindrift The sounds of hammer and saw had disturbed Spindrift Island for several days, and Rick Brant was having a hard time getting used to it. The noise didn't bother him. It was the idea behind the noise—the idea that the close fellowship of the famous island was about to be intruded upon by strangers. He sat in a comfortable chair on the front porch of the big Brant house and... more...

CHAPTER V Mr. Chalk's expedition to the Southern Seas became a standing joke with the captain, and he waylaid him on several occasions to inquire into the progress he was making, and to give him advice suitable for all known emergencies at sea, together with a few that are unknown. Even Mr. Chalk began to tire of his pleasantries, and, after listening to a surprising account of a Scotch vessel... more...

Among the records of the English state trials are to be found many strange stories, which would, as the phrase is, make the fortune of a modern novelist. But there are also numerous cases, not less stimulating to imagination and curiosity, which never attained more than local notoriety, of which the law was able to take but comparatively small cognizance, although they became subjects of much... more...