CHAPTER I. DEMONOLOGY—THE DEVIL, A MOST UNACCOUNTABLE PERSONAGE—WHO IS HE?—HISPREDILECTION FOR OLD WOMEN—TRADITIONS CONCERNING EVIL SPIRITS, &C. Children and old women have been accustomed to hear so many frightful things of the cloven-footed potentate, and have formed such diabolical ideas of his satanic majesty, exhibiting him in so many... more...

The Star Lord waited, poised for her maiden voyage. The gigantic silvery spindle, still cradled in its scaffoldings, towered upwards against the artificial sky of Satellite Y. The passengers were beginning to come on board before Captain Josiah Evans had finished checking the reports of his responsible officers. The ship was ready for space, now, and there was nothing more he could do until takeoff.... more...

The lot of the foreigner in Buenos Ayres during the rainy season is not an enviable one. The Englishman who finds himself in that city when the rain falls for weeks at a time becomes a victim to the spleen, the American to "the blues," the Frenchman to ennui. The houses, built with a view mainly to protection against the torrid heats of summer, are not adapted to shelter their inmates from the... more...

INTRODUCTION. I sincerely rejoice that Dr. Lightfoot has recovered from his recent illness. Of this restoration the vigorous energy of his preface to his republication of the Essays on Supernatural Religion affords decided evidence, and I hope that no refutation of this inference at least may be possible, however little we may agree on other points. It was natural that Dr. Lightfoot should not be... more...

Preface. I can now, in my mind’s eye, see Chickka, the washerman, as if I had met him yesterday; and I can see the mud houses of Singonahully, the mud wall of the village, and the temple of Runga, as if they were all before me. Yet five and thirty years are passed and gone since the afternoon when, in quest of medical aid, I rode past the village, hoping yet to see it the abode of many follower’s... more...

What the feast of the Passover was to the children of Israel, that the days between the nineteenth of December and the fourth of January—the Yuletide—are and will remain to the people of New England. The Passover began "in the first month on the fourteenth day of the month at even," and it lasted one week, "until the one and twentieth day of the month at even." It was the period of... more...

THEODOR BILLROTH, PROFESSOR OF SURGERY AT VIENNA. The well known surgeon, Theodor Billroth, was born on the island of Rügen in 1829. He showed great talent and liking for music, and it was the wish of his father, who was a minister, that he should cultivate this taste and become an artist; but the great masters of medicine, Johannes Mueller, Meckel v. Hemsbach, R. Wagner, Traube, and Schönlein, who... more...

THE CHIEF ENGINEER It was a dark night in July — very dark. There was no moon and clouds hid the stars. We were sitting by the camp fire. Bige had just kicked the burning logs together so that a shower of sparks shot straight up toward the tree-tops, indicating that there was no wind, when he said, "If you want to make that picture of deer this is just the kind of a night to go for it. You... more...

CHAPTER I. The sun sometimes shone brightly upon the little round panes of the ancient building, the Golden Cross, on the northern side of the square, which the people of Ratisbon call "on the moor"; sometimes it was veiled by gray clouds. A party of nobles, ecclesiastics, and knights belonging to the Emperor's train were just coming out. The spring breeze banged behind them the door of... more...

I. LOOKING INWARD. It is my habit to give an account to myself of the characters I meet with: can I give any true account of my own? I am a bachelor, without domestic distractions of any sort, and have all my life been an attentive companion to myself, flattering my nature agreeably on plausible occasions, reviling it rather bitterly when it mortified me, and in general remembering its doings and... more...