CHAPTER I. ACROSS LONDON BRIDGE A gentleman, noteworthy for a lively countenance and a waistcoat to match it, crossing London Bridge at noon on a gusty April day, was almost magically detached from his conflict with the gale by some sly strip of slipperiness, abounding in that conduit of the markets, which had more or less adroitly performed the trick upon preceding passengers, and now laid this one... more...

CHAPTER I OFF TO THE FRONT I had been to France before—in 1916, during the Battle of the Somme—but not as an officer; in 1916 I was a private in the Royal Fusiliers, and I had received orders to return to "Blighty" in order to proceed to an officer cadet battalion at Gailes, in Ayrshire, before I had been able to see what a front-line trench was like. So this, then, was my first experience... more...

FURTHER NOTES ON THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. The following remarks are supplementary to a note on the hippopotamus in Vol. ii, p. 35. In that note the exhibition of the hippopotamus at the Roman games is not traced lower than the time of the Emperor Commodus. Helagabalus, however, 218-22 A.D., had hippopotami among the various rare animals which he displayed in public as a part of his state. (Lamprid. c. 28) A... more...

CHAPTER I. GENEALOGY OF THE WASHINGTON FAMILY. The Washington family is of an ancient English stock, the genealogy of which has been traced up to the century immediately succeeding the Conquest. At that time it was in possession of landed estates and manorial privileges in the county of Durham, such as were enjoyed only by those, or their descendants, who had come over from Normandy with the Conqueror,... more...

Long before I began the papers which make up this volume, I had meant to write of literary history in New England as I had known it in the lives of its great exemplars during the twenty-five years I lived near them. In fact, I had meant to do this from the time I came among them; but I let the days in which I almost constantly saw them go by without record save such as I carried in a memory retentive,... more...

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. Time and the Woman. By Richard Pryce. Not by any means a pearl of Pryce, and certainly not likely to make so great noise in the novel-reading world as did The Quiet Mrs. Fleming, by the same author. Methuen & Co. publish it. The Baron heartily recommends Frank Barrett's novel, in three vols., entitled, Kitty's Father. A thoroughly absorbing plot, well worked out, and... more...

THE DRURY FAMILY. It was a sweet spring day, soft and balmy as summer, and any one looking across the green meadows and smiling uplands of Hayslope, now so full of the promise of early fruitfulness, would have wondered what could make the farm-labourers appear so gloomy, and the women-folk sigh instead of singing at their work, if he knew nothing of what was going on a few miles away. It was the year... more...

CHAPTER I. Let me tell you a story of To-Day,—very homely and narrow in its scope and aim. Not of the To-Day whose significance in the history of humanity only those shall read who will live when you and I are dead. We can bear the pain in silence, if our hearts are strong enough, while the nations of the earth stand afar off. I have no word of this To-Day to speak. I write from the border of the... more...

PART I Four years ago—in 1874—two young Englishmen had occasion to go to the United States. They crossed the ocean at midsummer, and, arriving in New York on the first day of August, were much struck with the fervid temperature of that city. Disembarking upon the wharf, they climbed into one of those huge high-hung coaches which convey passengers to the hotels, and with a great deal of bouncing and... more...

A DAY OF SPLEEN. Five o'clock in the afternoon. Rain ever since the morning, a gray sky, so low that one can touch it with one's umbrella, dirty weather, puddles, mud, nothing but mud, in thick pools, in gleaming streaks along the edge of the sidewalks, driven back in vain by automatic sweepers, sweepers with handkerchiefs tied over their heads, and carted away on enormous tumbrils which... more...