INTRODUCTION Of the great incidents of History, none has attracted more attention or proved more difficult of interpretation than the French Revolution. The ultimate significance of other striking events and their place in the development of mankind can be readily estimated. It is clear enough that the barbarian invasions marked the death of the classical world, already mortally wounded by the rise of... more...

THE DIARY OF A MAN OF FIFTYby Henry James Florence, April 5th, 1874.—They told me I should find Italy greatly changed; and in seven-and-twenty years there is room for changes.  But to me everything is so perfectly the same that I seem to be living my youth over again; all the forgotten impressions of that enchanting time come back to me.  At the moment they were powerful enough; but they afterwards... more...

CHAPTER I—LIFE AND DEATH OF MRS. WEIR The Lord Justice-Clerk was a stranger in that part of the country; but his lady wife was known there from a child, as her race had been before her.  The old “riding Rutherfords of Hermiston,” of whom she was the last descendant, had been famous men of yore, ill neighbours, ill subjects, and ill husbands to their wives though not their properties.  Tales of... more...

CHAPTER I 'Tak your hat, Louie! Yo're allus leavin summat behind yer.' 'David, yo go for 't,' said the child addressed to a boy by her side, nodding her head insolently towards the speaker, a tall and bony woman, who stood on the steps the children had just descended, holding out a battered hat. 'Yo're a careless thing, Louie,' said the boy, but he went back... more...

SINQUEFIELD. In the quiet days of peace and security in which we live it is difficult to imagine such a time of excitement as that at which our story opens, in the summer of 1813. From the beginning of that year, the Creek Indians in Alabama and Mississippi had shown a decided disposition to become hostile. In addition to the usual incentives to war which always exist where the white settlements border... more...

This comedy excites that sensation, which is the best security for the success of a drama—curiosity. After the two first acts are over, and pleasantly over, with the excellent drawn characters of Ashfield and his wife, and the very just satire which arises from Sir Abel's propensity to modern improvements—the acts that follow excite deep interest and ardent expectation; both of which are so... more...

THE sun withdrew his last pale ray,And clos’d the short and chearless day;Loud blew the wind, and rain and sleetAgainst the cottage casement beat.The busy housewife trimm’d her fire,And drew the oaken settle nigher,[p6]And welcom’d home her own good manTo his clean hearth, his pipe, and can;For Homespun and his bustling wifeWere honest folks in humble life,Who liv’d contented with their lot,And... more...

PREFACE The following Receipts and Directions are not collected from books, nor interspersed with old women's nostrums; but they are, in very truth, the result of my own LONG EXPERIENCE in trade, founded on chemical principles, which are principles of never-erring nature. Perhaps I had never thought of this Method of communicating my little knowledge, had it not been for many gentlemen in the... more...

INTRODUCTION Life was formerly regarded as a phenomenon entirely separated from the other phenomena of Nature, and even up to the present time Science has proved wholly unable to give a definition of Life; evolution, nutrition, sensibility, growth, organization, none of these, not even the faculty of reproduction, is the exclusive appanage of life. Living things are made of the same chemical elements... more...

Mr. Pettijohn, now ninety-five years old, clear in memory, patriarchial in looks, says: I came to what is now Minnesota, but was then a part of Wisconsin Territory April sixteenth, 1841. I was on my way to work for the Williamsons, missionaries, at Lac qui Parle. I landed from the large steamer, the Alhambra, at the Fort Snelling landing. I climbed the steep path that led up to the fort, circled the... more...