Puck's Song See you the dimpled track that runs,All hollow through the wheat?O that was where they hauled the gunsThat smote King Philip's fleet! See you our little mill that clacks,So busy by the brook?She has ground her corn and paid her taxEver since Domesday Book. See you our stilly woods of oak,And the dread ditch beside?O that was where the Saxons broke,On the day that Harold died! See... more...

MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. "In the day of adversity consider." It is the day of adversity. A great grief throws its shadow over heart and hearth and home. There is such a sorrow as this land never knew before; agony such as never until now wrung the heart of the nation. In mansion and cottage, alike, do the people bow themselves. We have been through the Red Sea of war, and across the weary, desert... more...

THE VALUE OF GREECE TO THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD If the value of man’s life on earth is to be measured in dollars and miles and horse-power, ancient Greece must count as a poverty-stricken and a minute territory; its engines and implements were nearer to the spear and bow of the savage than to our own telegraph and aeroplane. Even if we neglect merely material things and take as our standard the actual... more...

THE DIGGING-MEN STORY Once upon a time there was a little boy who was almost five years old. And his mother used to let him wander about the garden and in the road near the house, for there weren't many horses going by, and the men who drove the horses that did go by knew the little boy and they were careful. So this boy wandered about and played happily by himself. He had his cat and his cart and... more...

PROLOGUE: THE OLYMPIANSLOOKING back to those days of old, ere the gate shut to behind me, I can see now that to children with a proper equipment of parents these things would have worn a different aspect. But to those whose nearest were aunts and uncles, a special attitude of mind may be allowed. They treated us, indeed, with kindness enough as to the needs of the flesh, but after that with... more...

CHAPTER I.More or less introductory—Americans and Yankees not synonymous—Want of courtesy in the States—The Press—Voyage out—New York climate.part from the object with which most authors write, viz. to make money, I purpose this little book to serve three objects. Firstly, to make the United States of America, and the Americans, better known than they are at present to the mass of the English... more...

THE EXODUS In the Calle Las Gabias—one of those by-streets of Lisbon below St.Catherine—there occurred one New Year a little event in theSynagogue there worth a mention in this history of Richard, Lord ofthe Sea. It was Kol Nidrè, eve of the Day of Atonement, and the little Beth- El, sweltering in a dingy air, was transacting the long-drawn liturgy, when, behind the curtain where the women sat, an... more...

THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN RAILWAYS. The condition of our railways, and their financial prospects, should interest all of us. It has become a common remark, that railways have benefited everybody but their projectors. There is a strong doubt in the minds of many intelligent persons, whether any railways have actually paid a return on the capital invested in them. It is believed that one of two results... more...

This preface, though placed at the beginning, as a preface must be, should be read at the end of the book. I have received a large amount of correspondence concerning this small work, and many reviews of it—some of them nearly as long as the book itself—have been printed. But scarcely any of the comment has been adverse. Some people have objected to a frivolity of tone; but as the tone is not, in... more...

AT CHATTANOOGA—THE ENEMY FORTIFIES LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND MISSIONARY RIDGE—REORGANIZING THE ARMY—REMOVAL OF GENERAL ROSECRANS—PUNISHMENT OF DESERTERS—GRANT AT CHATTANOOGA—THE FIGHT ON LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN—A BRAVE COLOR-BEARER—BATTLE OF MISSIONARY RIDGE. By 9 o'clock on the morning of September 22 my command took up a position within the heavy line of intrenchments at Chattanooga, the... more...