JOSEPH THE DREAMER. Two boys, Joseph and Benjamin, sons of a rich Eastern shepherd, lived in their father's wide tent in the great valley of Hebron. Joseph was about seventeen years of age, and tall and strong, so that he could drive sheep, herd cattle, and work in the harvest field. Benjamin was a little red-cheeked boy of five, with merry brown eyes, and his brother Joseph loved him very dearly,... more...

"Help came but slowly" to the reformer. With a single instrument he had stirred the nation, as no other man had done, on the slavery question. He had thrown the South into widespread excitement, and thawed the apathy of the North into widespread attention. He had won an almost instant hearing for his cause. But he knew that this was not enough. Effective as he had shown the weapon of the press... more...

THE FROST SPIRIT He comes,—he comes,—the Frost Spirit comesYou may trace his footsteps nowOn the naked woods and the blasted fields and thebrown hill's withered brow.He has smitten the leaves of the gray old treeswhere their pleasant green came forth,And the winds, which follow wherever he goes,have shaken them down to earth. He comes,—he comes,—the Frost Spirit comes!from the frozen... more...

EVACUATION OF RICHMOND, 1865. On Saturday, the 1st day of April, 1865, orders reached us at camp headquarters of the Seventh South Carolina Cavalry, Gary's Brigade, to send forward all the dismounted men of the regiment to report to Lt. Col. Barham, Twenty-fourth Regiment Virginia Cavalry, in command of dismounted men of the brigade, for duty on the lines. Began to think that a move was intended... more...

FOREWORD These stories are founded on memories of my childhood on the farm. They first took definite form in response to the requests of my own little boys: "Tell me about when you were little, Mama." Some of them were demanded over and over again; but it remained for Bobby, the youngest, to insist that they be "put into a book." Many a time, after listening to one of them, he would... more...

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF GREAT EVENTS (FROM BARBAROSSA TO DANTE) CHARLES F. HORNE It was during the period of about one hundred fifty years, extending from the middle of the twelfth to the close of the thirteenth century, that the features of our modern civilization began to assume a recognizable form. The age was characterized by the decline of feudalism, and by the... more...

A WALK ROUND MELBOURNE. Although most educated people know that Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide are populous towns, I should doubt whether one Englishman, who has not been to Australia, out of a hundred realizes that fact. I well remember that, although I had taken some trouble to read up information about Melbourne, I was never more thoroughly surprised than during the first few hours after my arrival... more...

CHAPTER I I The long street rising and falling and rising again until its farthest crest high in the east seemed to brush the fading stars, was deserted even by the private watchmen that guarded the homes of the apprehensive in the Western Addition. Alexina darted across and into the shadows of the avenue that led up to her old-fashioned home, a relic of San Francisco's "early days,"... more...

CHAPTER I. The Activities of Nuremberg.—The Dürer Family.—Early Years of Albert.—His Studies with Wohlgemuth.—The Wander-Jahre. The free imperial city of Nuremberg, in the heart of Franconia, was one of the chief centres of the active life of the Middle Ages, and shared with Augsburg the great trans-continental traffic between Venice and the Levant and Northern Europe. Its municipal liberties... more...

ESTHER HAPPY; OR, HOW A COURTESAN CAN LOVE In 1824, at the last opera ball of the season, several masks were struck by the beauty of a youth who was wandering about the passages and greenroom with the air of a man in search of a woman kept at home by unexpected circumstances. The secret of this behavior, now dilatory and again hurried, is known only to old women and to certain experienced loungers. In... more...