CHAPTER I. Subiaco lies beyond Tivoli, southeast from Rome, at the upper end of a wild gorge in the Samnite mountains. It is an archbishopric, and gives a title to a cardinal, which alone would make it a town of importance. It shares with Monte Cassino the honour of having been chosen by Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, his sister, as the site of a monastery and a convent; and in a cell in the... more...

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF BIRMINGHAM. It is a fine autumnal morning in the year 1837. I am sitting on the box seat of a stage coach, in the yard of the Bull-and-Mouth, St. Martin's-le-Grand, in the City of London. The splendid gray horses seem anxious to be off, but their heads are held by careful grooms. The metal fittings of the harness glitter in the early sunlight. Jew pedlar-boys offer me razors... more...

TIME AND THE GODS Once when the gods were young and only Their swarthy servant Time was without age, the gods lay sleeping by a broad river upon earth. There in a valley that from all the earth the gods had set apart for Their repose the gods dreamed marble dreams. And with domes and pinnacles the dreams arose and stood up proudly between the river and the sky, all shimmering white to the morning. In... more...

CHAPTER I. HEALTHFUL HOUSE. The carte de visite received that day, June 15, 189—, by the director of the establishment of Healthful House was a very neat one, and simply bore, without escutcheon or coronet, the name: COUNT D’ARTIGAS. Below this name, in a corner of the card, the following address was written in lead pencil: “On board the schooner Ebba, anchored off New-Berne, Pamlico Sound.”... more...

Tufts College is situated on the most beautiful and commanding eminence in the southeasterly part of Middlesex county, within the town of Medford and on the borders of Somerville. This eminence was formerly called Walnut Hill, on account, it is said, of the heavy growth of hickory timber with which it was covered at the time of the settlement of the colony, but is now called College Hill, on account of... more...

CHAPTER I. LONDON TO PARIS. Few people now-a-days go direct to Paris from America. They land in Liverpool, get at least a birds-eye view of the country parts of England, stay in London a week or two, or longer, and then cross the channel for Paris. The traveler who intends to wander over the continent, here takes his initiatory lesson in the system of passports. I first called upon the American... more...

Mozart and His Constance Nearly eight years after Mozart's death his widow, in response to a request from a famous publishing house for relics of the composer, sent, among other Mozartiana, a packet of letters written to her by her husband. In transmitting these she wrote: "Especially characteristic is his great love for me, which breathes through all the letters. Is it not true—those from... more...

CHAPTER I The Challenge of the Mound It was a curious, somehow weird-looking thing, that mound. About a yard in height and three and a half in diameter, it squatted in the grassy grove next the clump of trees like an enormous, inverted soup plate. Here and there tufts of grass waved on it, of a richer, deeper color, testifying to the unwholesome fertility of the crumbling outer stuff that had flaked... more...

Development of Astronomical Clocks The history of the great theoretical and mechanical achievement which the Borghesi clock represents has been most adequately covered elsewhere. Consideration of the development of equation and astronomical clocks is required here only for the purpose of relating the Borghesi timepiece with the other significant developments in this branch of horology. The invention of... more...

INTRODUCTION. In the Meno, Anytus had parted from Socrates with the significant words: 'That in any city, and particularly in the city of Athens, it is easier to do men harm than to do them good;' and Socrates was anticipating another opportunity of talking with him. In the Euthyphro, Socrates is awaiting his trial for impiety. But before the trial begins, Plato would like to put the world on... more...