CHAPTER I. THE MOVING FINGER. "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,Moves on: nor all thy piety nor witShall lure it back to cancel half a line,Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it." The afternoon sun was lowering towards a heavy bank of clouds hanging still and sullen over the Mediterranean. A mistral was blowing. The last yellow rays shone fiercely upon the towering coast of Corsica,... more...

THE ISLE OF PINES The scene opens in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the year 1668, where in one of the college buildings a contest between two rival printers had been waged for some years. Marmaduke Johnson, a trained and experienced printer, to whose ability the Indian Bible is largely due, had ceased to be the printer of the corporation, or Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, but... more...

Off the Tuskar Light. “All hands take in sail!” “Stand by y’r tops’l halliards!” “Let go!” Sharply shouted out in quick succession came these orders from Captain Snaggs, the hoarse words of command ringing through the ship fore and aft, and making even the ringbolts in the deck jingle—albeit they were uttered in a sort of drawling voice, that had a strong nasal twang, as if the... more...

Dethroned by Fire and Water—A Tale of the Southern Hemisphere. The Open Boat. Early one morning, in the year 18 hundred and something, the great Southern Ocean was in one of its calmest moods, insomuch that the cloudlets in the blue vault above were reflected with almost perfect fidelity in the blue hemisphere below, and it was barely possible to discern the dividing-line between water and sky. The... more...

PREFACE Each man born into the world is born like Shelton in this book—to go a journey, and for the most part he is born on the high road. At first he sits there in the dust, with his little chubby hands reaching at nothing, and his little solemn eyes staring into space. As soon as he can toddle, he moves, by the queer instinct we call the love of life, straight along this road, looking neither to... more...

I INTRODUCING—THE SETTLEMENT HOUSE There is a certain section of New York that is bounded upon the north by Fourteenth Street, upon the south by Delancy. Folk who dwell in it seldom stray farther west than the Bowery, rarely cross the river that flows sluggishly on its eastern border. They live their lives out, with something that might be termed a feverish stolidity, in the dim crowded flats, and... more...

INTRODUCTION. ON February the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision with a derelict when about the latitude 1° S. and longitude 107° W. On January the Fifth, 1888—that is eleven months and four days after—my uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman, who certainly went aboard the Lady Vain at Callao, and who had been considered drowned, was picked up in latitude 5° 3′ S. and... more...

In 1914 there were not twenty men in England who had ever heard of the island of Salissa. Even now—I am writing in the spring of 1917—the public is very badly informed about the events which gave the island a certain importance in the history of the war. A couple of months ago I asked a well-known press-cutting agency to supply me with a complete collection of all references to Salissa which had... more...

CHAPTER I.   think I'll get out here, young man." "All right, missus." The old carrier stopped his jolting cart—an easy thing to do, for the wearied horse was glad of the chance of halting—and the passenger leisurely descended. With her descended also a bulging umbrella and numerous packages. "Good night, young man!" she exclaimed. She thought this a very polite way of... more...

Introduction. “A wet sheet and a flowing sea,    A breeze that follows fast,That fills the white and rustling sail,    And bends the gallant mast.And bends the gallant mast, my boys,    Our good ship sound and free,The hollow oak our palace is,    Our heritage the sea.” It is now some twenty years ago, that the goodly ship Washington, commanded by Mr Erskine, left the port of New... more...