SECTION XXXV.—VICTOR AMADEUS, KING OF SICILY. It is said that the King of Sicily is always in ill humour, and that he is always quarrelling with his mistresses. He and Madame de Verrue have quarrelled, they say, for whole days together. I wonder how the good Queen can love him with such constancy; but she is a most virtuous person and patience itself. Since the King had no mistresses he lives upon... more...

From Munich, on June 29, 1890, Ibsen wrote to the Swedish poet, Count Carl Soilsky: "Our intention has all along been to spend the summer in the Tyrol again. But circumstances are against our doing so. I am at present engaged upon a new dramatic work, which for several reasons has made very slow progress, and I do not leave Munich until I can take with me the completed first draft. There is little... more...

A FUGUE OF HELL. I.I dreamed a mighty dream. It seemed mine eyesSealed for the moment were to things terrene,And then there came a strange, great wind that blewFrom undiscovered lands, and took my soulAnd set it on an uttermost peak of HellAmid the gloom and fearful silences.Slowly the darkness paled, and a weird dawnBroke on my wondering vision, and there grewUncanny phosphorescence in the airWhich... more...

May 13, 1914. Some idea of the amount of distress there is among Stock Exchange men, owing to the continued depression, may be gathered from the fact that a number of members, anxious to get to Brighton on their recent holiday on the 1st inst., walked all the way. While there would seem to be no "Picture of the Year," the canvas which appears to attract anyhow most feminine attention is the... more...

INTRODUCTION One of the most remarkable facts about Ibsen is the orderly development of his genius. He himself repeatedly maintained that his dramas were not mere isolated accidents. In the foreword to the readers in the popular edition of 1898 he urges the public to read his dramas in the same order in which he had written them, deplores the fact that his earlier works are less known and less... more...

MARRIAGE CONTRACT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND THE EARL OF BOTHWELL. [Among the curious documents which have been produced from time to time before the House of Lords in support of peerage claims, there have been few of greater historical interest than the one which we now reprint from the Fourth Part of the Evidence taken before the Committee of Privileges on the Claim of W. Constable Maxwell, Esquire,... more...

Preface When I first saw Mr. Osgood's beautiful illustrated edition of The Lady of the Lake, I asked him to let me use some of the cuts in a cheaper annotated edition for school and household use; and the present volume is the result. The text of the poem has given me unexpected trouble. When I edited some of Gray's poems several years ago, I found that they had not been correctly printed for... more...

Jean Valjean The hero is not a luxury, but a necessity. We can no more do without him than we can do without the sky. Every best man and woman is at heart a hero-worshiper. Emerson acutely remarks that all men admire Napoleon because he was themselves in possibility. They were in miniature what he was developed. For a like though nobler reason, all men love heroes. They are ourselves grown tall,... more...

INTRODUCTION. My publisher must take at least some of the responsibility for reviving these essays. All bear the marks of the period at which they were written; and some of them deal with the beginnings of movements which have since grown to much greater strength, and in growing have developed new characteristics at the expense of what was originally more prominent. Other pages, again, take no account... more...

“I believe I have the pleasure of seeing Mr ——,” said a voice in English, as I paused for a moment, my breakfast concluded, before the door of a Palais Royal coffee-house, planning the disposal of my day. I looked at the person who thus addressed me; and, although I pique myself on rarely forgetting the face of an acquaintance, in this instance my memory was completely at fault. But for his... more...