Kial was disgusted with the slow, cumbersome train. He disliked using this uncomfortable means of travel, but since he wanted to learn more about these strange creatures who were his ancestors, he had decided to try to become used to their ways. He was lonely in this strange, backward age and when he unexpectedly saw another being like himself in the same coach, he hastened to make his presence known.... more...

ON COLOURING. How early, and to what extent, colouring may have attained the rank of science among the ancients, are questions not easily set at rest; but that some progress had been made, even at a very remote period, is proved by the magnificent tombs of the Egyptian kings at Thebes, where the walls of the royal mausoleum are described as being covered with paintings so fresh and perfect, as to... more...

EARLY YEARS—FIRST PLAYS. Like his contemporary Smollett, Henry Fielding came of an ancient family, and might, in his Horatian moods, have traced his origin to Inachus. The lineage of the house of Denbigh, as given in Burke, fully justifies the splendid but sufficiently quoted eulogy of Gibbon. From that first Jeffrey of Hapsburgh, who came to England, temp. Henry III., and assumed the name of... more...

ACT I.SCENE I.A Saloon in FIESCO'S House. The distant sound of dancing andmusic is heard. LEONORA, masked, and attended by ROSA and ARABELLA, enters hastily. LEONORA (tears off her mask). No more! Not another word! 'Tis as clear as day! (Throwing herself in a chair.) This quite overcomes me—— ARABELLA. My lady! LEONORA (rising.) What, before my eyes! with a notorious coquette! In presence... more...

BEGINNINGSOne look back—as we hurry o'er the plain,Man's years speeding us along—One look back! From the hollow past again,Youth, come flooding into song!Tell how once, in the breath of summer air,Winds blew fresher than they blow;Times long hid, with their triumph and their care,Yesterday—many years ago!E. E. Bowen.The wayfarer who crosses Lincoln's Inn Fields perceives in the... more...

INTRODUCTION The most powerful and the most perfect expression of thought and feeling through the medium of oral language must be traced to the mastery of words. Nothing is better suited to lead speakers and readers of English into an easy control of this language than the command of the phrase that perfectly expresses the thought. Every speaker's aim is to be heard and understood. A clear, crisp... more...

CHAPTER I. Early shadows--An unmerciful enemy--The miseries of the curse--Sorrow and gloom--What alcohol robs man of--What it does--What it does not do-- Surrounding evils--Blighted homes--A Titan devil--The utterness of the destroyer--A truthful narrative--"It stingeth like an adder." Truth, said Lord Byron, is stranger than fiction. He was right, for so it is. Another has declared that if any... more...

PREFACE. A missionary, upon returning from his field of labor in India, was making an effort to stir up the sympathies of the people in behalf of the heathen. By telling his countrymen of the influence of the gospel upon the Indians and of the hundreds, even thousands, of them who had become Christians, he succeeded in creating an interest among many of his friends. He told many stirring experiences of... more...

INTRODUCTION In the world of politics and statecraft a nation which has once begun to decline seldom, perhaps never, recovers itself. There are too many other dogs about for the bone which has once been relinquished to be resumed later on. It is luck, indeed, if there are any decent scraps to be found on the platter when it is revisited. In the world of literature and thought the dogs are better bred,... more...

CHAPTER I The Shadow of the Knickerbockers Boughton, had you bid me chantHymns to Peter Stuyvesant.Had you bid me sing of Wouter.(He! the Onion-head! the Doubter!)But to rhyme of this one-mocker,Who shall rhyme to Knickerbocker?—Austin Dobson. Before the writer, as he begins the pleasant task, is an old half-illegible map, or rather, fragment of a map. Near-by are three or four dull prints. They are... more...