CHAPTER I. — EARLY LIFE OF COLUMBUS. HIS BIRTH AND BIRTH-PLACE—HIS EARLY EDUCATION—HIS EXPERIENCE AT SEA—HIS MARRIAGE AND RESIDENCE IN LISBON—HIS PLANS FOR THE DISCOVERY OF A WESTWARD PASSAGE TO THE INDIES. Christopher Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa. The honor of his birth-place has been claimed by many villages in that Republic, and the house in which he was born cannot be now... more...

THE MYSTERIOUS WANDERER. CHAPTER I. "Of all the passions inherent in man, I think pride the most despicable, and for which he has the least excuse! If he have sense and abilities, they ought rather to guard his bosom from so contemptible an inmate, than implant it there. It is a passion insulting to reason, beneath the generosity of human nature, and in the highest degree degrading to the character... more...

I That old bell, presage of a train, had just sounded through Oxford station; and the undergraduates who were waiting there, gay figures in tweed or flannel, moved to the margin of the platform and gazed idly up the line. Young and careless, in the glow of the afternoon sunshine, they struck a sharp note of incongruity with the worn boards they stood on, with the fading signals and grey eternal walls... more...

I. Mrs. Dewsbury's lawn was held by those who knew it the loveliest in Surrey. The smooth and springy sward that stretched in front of the house was all composed of a tiny yellow clover. It gave beneath the foot like the pile on velvet. One's gaze looked forth from it upon the endless middle distances of the oak-clad Weald, with the uncertain blue line of the South Downs in the background.... more...

CHAPTER I During the spring and summer of 1861 the people of the North presented the appearance of a great political unit. All alleged emphatically that the question was simply of the Union, and upon this issue no Northerner could safely differ from his neighbors. Only a few of the more cross-grained ones among the Abolitionists were contemptuously allowed to publish the selfishness of their morality,... more...

PREFACE In undertaking to prepare an account of this celebrated trial, the Editor at the outset fondly trusted that the conviction of "the unfortunate Miss Blandy" might, upon due inquiry, be found to have been, as the phrase is, a miscarriage of justice. To the entertainment of this chivalrous if unlively hope he was moved as well by the youth, the sex, and the traditional charms of that lady,... more...

MY LORD, The completion of this Work affords me the opportunity I have long desired of thanking your Lordship thus publicly, for the kindness with which you acceded to my request to be permitted to dedicate it to you. The encouragement your Lordship was pleased to give me has served to stimulate me in the prosecution of a task, which would, I fear, have been too great for me to have accomplished in my... more...

LITTLE ENGEL. It was the little Engel, he   So handsome was and gay;To Upland rode he on a tide   And bore a maid away. In ill hour he to Upland rode   And made a maid his prize;The first night they together lay   Was down by Vesteryse. It was the little Engel he   Awoke at black midnight,And straight begins his dream to state   In terror and affright. “Methought the wolf-whelp and his... more...

CHAPTER I ETHELYN There was a sweet odor of clover blossoms in the early morning air, and the dew stood in great drops upon the summer flowers, and dropped from the foliage of the elm trees which skirted the village common. There was a cloud of mist upon the meadows, and the windings of the river could be distinctly traced by the white fog which curled above it. But the fog and the mists were rolling... more...

June 9, 1920. Owing to heavy storms the other day one thousand London telephones were thrown out of order. Very few subscribers noticed the difference. A camera capable of photographing the most rapid moving objects in the world is the latest invention of an American. There is some talk of his trying to photograph a bricklayer whizzing along at his work. "Perjury is now rampant in all our Courts... more...