Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: It is to me a source of unaffected satisfaction to meet the representatives of the States and the people in Congress assembled, as it will be to receive the aid of their combined wisdom in the administration of public affairs. In performing for the first time the duty imposed on me by the Constitution of giving to you information of the... more...

CANTO I IN the midway of this our mortal life,I found me in a gloomy wood, astrayGone from the path direct: and e'en to tellIt were no easy task, how savage wildThat forest, how robust and rough its growth,Which to remember only, my dismayRenews, in bitterness not far from death.Yet to discourse of what there good befell,All else will I relate discover'd there.How first I enter'd it I... more...

No. X.—THE BEHRING-SEA ARBITRATION. (Scene and Persons as usual. The Conversation has already begun.) First Well-informed Man (concluding a tirade). —— so what I want to know is this: are we or are we not to submit to the Yankees? It's all very well talking about Chicago Exhibitions and all that, but if they're going to capture our ships and prevent us killing seals, why, the sooner we... more...

From the small size of this volume, one would hardly realize, perhaps, what an immense amount of labor and patient research its writing must necessarily represent. The author, who was first sent to northwestern Alaska in the summer of 1890, and who, by the bye, has, with the exception of two vacations of a year each, been constantly at his post in that bleak country ever since, found himself one day... more...

OVER THE SIDE Of all classes of men, those who follow the sea are probably the most prone to superstition. Afloat upon the black waste of waters, at the mercy of wind and sea, with vast depths and strange creatures below them, a belief in the supernatural is easier than ashore, under the cheerful gas-lamps. Strange stories of the sea are plentiful, and an incident which happened within my own... more...

Dick. Dick was a Californian. We made his acquaintance in Sonora about a month before Christmas, Anno Domini 1855. This is the way it happened: At the request of a number of families, the lady who presided in the curious little parsonage near the church on the hill-side had started a school for little girls. The public schools might do for the boys, but were too mixed for their sisters—so they... more...

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES I POLITICAL SPEECHES & DEBATES of LINCOLN WITH DOUGLAS In the Senatorial Campaign of 1858 in Illinois SPEECH AT SPRINGFIELD, JUNE 17, 1858 [The following speech was delivered at Springfield, Ill., at the close of the Republican State Convention held at that time and place, and by which Convention Mr. LINCOLN had been named as their candidate for United States Senator.... more...

EPILEPSY, HYSTERIA, AND NEURASTHENIA CHAPTER I MAJOR AND MINOR EPILEPSY (Grand and Petit Mal) "My son is sore vexed, for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and ofttimes into the water."—Matthew xvii, 15. "Oft, too, some wretch before our startled sight, Struck as with lightning with some keen disease, Drops sudden: By the dread attack o'erpowered He foams, he groans, he trembles, and... more...

His Majesty's Government having, towards the close of the year 1823, determined upon another attempt to effect a northern passage by sea between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and Captain Parry, the highly distinguished Commander of the two preceding Expeditions, having been again entrusted with its execution, success, as far as ability, enterprise, and experience could ensure it, appeared... more...

CHAPTER I Room service at the Ajax is of a quality befitting the newest, the largest, and the most expensive hotel in Dallas. While the standard of excellence is uniformly high, nevertheless some extra care usually attaches to a breakfast ordered from the Governor's suite—most elegant and most expensive of all the suites—hence the waiter checked over his card and made a final, fluttering... more...