CHAPTER I. THE UNSUSPECTING TRAVELER. The steamship Baltic was on the point of sailing from America to Europe. The usual scenes were visible on the wharf–the rushing on board of belated freight and baggage–the crush of passengers and their friends on deck, or down in the cabins, where partings were being drunk in wine; the crowd of steerage passengers forward, trying to keep out of the way of the... more...

PREFACE. This volume contains a large selection from Paul Gerhardt's “Spiritual Songs.” Every piece included is given in full, and is rendered into the metre of the original. A few of the following translations have appeared at various times during the last three years in different periodicals. They have been revised for this volume. Several of the hymns have been beautifully translated by... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TRIAL Some years ago there was a trial in Dublin, which, partly because the parties in the cause were in a well-to-do condition of life, and partly because the case in some measure involved the interests of the two conflicting Churches, excited considerable sensation and much comment. The contention was the right to the guardianship of a boy whose father and mother had ceased to live... more...

PREFACE. A little more than a year ago I put forth a collection of articles under the title of Flowers of Freethought. The little volume met with a favorable reception, and I now issue a Second Series. By a "favorable reception" I only mean that the volume found purchasers, and, it is to be presumed, readers; which is, after all, the one thing a writer needs to regard as of any real importance.... more...

CHAPTER I. WHY ROBERT WYNN EMIGRATED.night train drew up slowly alongside the platform at the Euston Square terminus. Immediately the long inanimate line of rail-carriages burst into busy life: a few minutes of apparently frantic confusion, and the individual items of the human freight were speeding towards all parts of the compass, to be absorbed in the leviathan metropolis, as drops of a shower in a... more...

Introduction It is many years now since the American Girl began to engage the consciousness of the American novelist. Before the expansive period following the Civil War, in the later eighteen-sixties and the earlier eighteen-seventies, she had of course been his heroine, unless he went abroad for one in court circles, or back for one in the feudal ages. Until the time noted, she had been a heroine and... more...

SÉANCE AT SUNRISEPlace the new handsIn the old handsOf the old generation,And let us tilt tablesIn the high roomOf our imagination.Let the thick veil glow thin,At sunrise—at sunrise—Let the strange eyes peer in,The red, the black, and the white facesOf the still living deadOf the three races.Let a quaint voice begin: Voice of an Indian "Gone from the land,We leave the music of our names,As... more...

LECTURE I. Gentlemen:—1. When I thoughtfully consider the subject on which I am to address you in this course of lectures, i.e., Medical Jurisprudence, I am deeply impressed with the dignity and the importance of the matter. The study of medicine is one of the noblest pursuits to which human talent can be devoted. It is as far superior to geology, botany, entomology, zoölogy, and a score of kindred... more...

AT THE SIGN OF THE LYRE. "At the Sign of the Lyre," Good Folk, we present you With the pick of our quire, And we hope to content you! Here be Ballad and Song, The fruits of our leisure, Some short and some long— May they all give you pleasure! But if, when you read, They should fail to restore you, Farewell, and God-speed— The world is before you! THE LADIES OF ST. JAMES'S. A PROPER... more...

CHAPTER I. Don Orsino Saracinesca is of the younger age and lives in the younger Rome, with his father and mother, under the roof of the vast old palace which has sheltered so many hundreds of Saracinesca in peace and war, but which has rarely in the course of the centuries been the home of three generations at once during one and twenty years. The lover of romance may lie in the sun, caring not for... more...