THE SERPENT KNIGHT Signelil sits in her bower alone,Of her golden harp she waked the tone. Beneath her mantle her harp she played,Then in came striding the worm so laid. “Proud Signelil, if thou me wilt wed,I’ll give thee store of gold so red.” “Forbid the heavenly God so greatThat I should become the Lindworm’s mate.” “Since thee I may not for a wife acquire,Kiss me only and I’ll... more...

THE NEW HYPERION. FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. THE FLOWERS OF WAR."Thou art no less a man because thou wearest no hauberk nor mail sark, and goest not on horseback after foolish adventures." So I said, reassuring myself, thirty years ago, when, as Paul Flemming the Blond, I was meditating the courageous change of cutting off my soap-locks, burning my edition of Bulwer and giving my... more...

Nothing in the progress of human knowledge is more remarkable than the recent discoveries in American archæology, whether we regard them as monuments of art or as contributions to science. The names of Stephens and Norman will ever stand preëminent for their extraordinary revelations in Mexico and Yucatan; which, added to those previously made by Del Rio, Humboldt, Waldeck and D’Orbigny in these... more...

CHAPTER I.THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK This book is written for the purpose of giving our clients some ideas of the fundamental principles that guide us when we select stocks for them to buy, but these principles are valuable to every person who trades in listed stocks or in any other kind of speculative stocks. First of all, we want you to get a clear conception of the meaning of the word speculation,... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION Many persons having suggested that it would greatly subserve the Anti-slavery Cause in this country, to present to the public a concise narrative of my recent narrow escape from death, at the hands of an armed mob in America, a mob armed with tar, feathers, poles, and an empty barrel spiked with shingle nails, together with the reasons which induced that mob, I propose to give... more...

Paris smiled, for an hour or two, in the year 1801, when, amidst Napoleon's mighty projects for remodelling the religion and government of his empire, the ironical satirist, Sylvain Maréchal, thrust in his "Plan for a Law prohibiting the Alphabet to Women."[1] Daring, keen, sarcastic, learned, the little tract retains to-day so much of its pungency, that we can hardly wonder at the honest... more...

Introductory Remarks. Rome was not built in a day, nor has the glorious British Navy attained its present condition except by slow degrees, by numerous trials and experiments, by improvements gradually and cautiously introduced, and by the employment of a vast amount of thought, energy, and toil. We are apt to forget when we see an elaborate machine, the immense quantity of mental and physical exertion... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCING TOM, THE BOOTBLACK. "How do you feel this morning, Jacob?" asked a boy of fifteen, bending over an old man crouched in the corner of an upper room, in a poor tenement-house, distant less than a quarter of a mile from the New York City Hall. "Weak, Tom," whined the old man, in reply. "I—I ain't got much strength." "Would you like some... more...

CHAPTER I The public may possibly wonder why it is that they have never heard in the papers of the fate of the passengers of the __Korosko__. In these days of universal press agencies, responsive to the slightest stimulus, it may well seem incredible that an international incident of such importance should remain so long unchronicled. Suffice it that there were very valid reasons, both of a personal... more...

THE FARM ON THE PENNESSEEWASSEE Away down East in the Pine Tree State, there is a lake dearer to my heart than all the other waters of this fair earth, for its shores were the scenes of my boyhood, when Life was young and the world a romance still unread. Dearer to the heart;—for then glowed that roseate young joy and faith in life and its grand possibilities; that hope and confidence that great... more...