BACH hristoph, I wish you would let me have that book of manuscript music which you have in your cupboard—the one which contains pieces by Pachelbel, and Frohberger, and Buxtehude, and ever so many others—you know which I mean. I will take such care of it if you will only lend it to me for a little while.' Christoph was about to leave the room, but he turned sharply to his little brother as... more...

CHAPTER I.INTRODUCING MR. HOPKINS TOPPLETON.Mr. Hopkins Toppleton, Barrister of London and New York, was considered by his intimates a most fortunate young man. He was accounted the happy possessor of an income of something over fifty thousand dollars a year, derived from investments which time had shown to be as far removed from instability, and as little influenced by the fluctuations of the stock... more...

YOUNG GRANDOLPH'S BARTY. (Afrikander Version of the great Breitmann Ballad, penned, "more in sorrow than in anger," by a "Deutscher" resident in the distant regions where the Correspondent of the "Daily Graphic" is, like der Herr Breitmann himself, "drafellin' apout like eferydings.") Young GRANDOLPH hat a Barty— Vhere is dat Barty now? He fell'd in luf... more...

To lend, or not to lend—is that the question? "Those who go a-borrowing, go a-sorrowing," saith the old adage; and a wiser saw never came out of the mouth of experience. I have tested the truth of this proverb since my settlement in Canada, many, many times, to my cost; and what emigrant has not? So averse have I ever been to this practice, that I would at all times rather quietly submit to a... more...

England has played a part in modern history altogether out of proportion to its size. The whole of Great Britain, including Ireland, has only eleven thousand more square miles than Italy; and England and Wales alone are not half so large as Italy. England alone is about the size of North Carolina. It is, as Franklin, in 1763, wrote to Mary Stevenson in London, "that petty island which, compared to... more...

ADVERTISEMENT. WHEN I left America, I had no intention of giving Mr. Everett's book a formal answer: but having learned since my arrival in the Old World, that: the controversy in which I had engaged myself had attracted some attention, and had been reviewed by a distinguished member of a German university, my hopes of being serviceable to the cause of truth and philanthrophy are revived, and I... more...

Although Eloisa, which for a long time had been in the press, did not yet, at the end of the year, 1760, appear, the work already began to make a great noise. Madam de Luxembourg had spoken of it at court, and Madam de Houdetot at Paris. The latter had obtained from me permission for Saint Lambert to read the manuscript to the King of Poland, who had been delighted with it. Duclos, to whom I had also... more...

PART I f you don't like Christmas stories, don't read this one! And if you don't like dogs I don't know just what to advise you to do! For I warn you perfectly frankly that I am distinctly pro-dog and distinctly pro-Christmas, and would like to bring to this little story whatever whiff of fir-balsam I can cajole from the make-believe forest in my typewriter, and every glitter of... more...

PREFACE In presenting to the public my third volume of Detective Stories, I desire to again call attention to the fact that the stories herein contained, as in the case of their predecessors in the series, are literally true. The incidents in these cases have all actually occurred as related, and there are now living many witnesses to corroborate my statements. Maroney, the expressman, is living in... more...

PREFACE I republish in this little volume a few of my numerous articles that have appeared in the Secularist, the Liberal, the National Reformer, and the Freethinker, during the last five or six years. I have included nothing (I hope) of merely ephemeral interest. Every article in this collection was at least written carefully, and with an eye to more than the exigencies of the moment. In disentombing... more...