I go to sea in rather unromantic surroundings. Have any of you made a passage on board a steamer between London and Leith? If you have, you will have seen no small number of brigs and brigantines, with sails of all tints, from doubtful white to decided black—some deeply-laden, making their way to the southward, others with their sides high out of the water, heeling over to the slightest breeze,... more...

Possession     Scene.—The Everlasting Habitations It is evening (or so it seems), and to the comfortably furnished Victorian drawing-room a middle-aged maid-servant in cap and apron brings a lamp, and proceeds to draw blinds and close curtains. To do this she passes the fire-place, where before a pleasantly bright hearth sits, comfortably sedate, an elderly lady whose countenance and attitude... more...

I A WORLD AT THE CROSSROADS For two thousand years Christianity has been an operative force in the world; for more than a century democracy has been the controlling influence in the public affairs of Europe and the Americas; for two generations education, free, general and comprehensive, has been the rule in the West. Wealth incomparable, scientific achievements unexampled in their number and... more...

The wide publicity which the press in different sections of the country has given to my offer to show workingpeople earning a dollar and a half, or less, per day, how to get a good dinner for fifteen cents, has brought me a great many letters from those who earn more, and can consequently afford a more extended diet. In response to their requirements I have written this book, which I hope will be found... more...

CHAPTER I It was late summer-time, and the perfume of flowers stole into the darkened room through the half-opened window. The sunlight forced its way through a chink in the blind, and stretched across the floor in strange zigzag fashion. From without came the pleasant murmur of bees and many lazier insects floating over the gorgeous flower beds, resting for a while on the clematis which had made the... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                                 AUGUST                                  1665 August 1st. Slept, and lay long; then up and my Lord [Crew] and Sir G. Carteret being gone abroad, I first to see the bridegroom and bride, and found them both up, and he gone to dress... more...

King’s-Hintock Court (said the narrator, turning over his memoranda for reference)—King’s-Hintock Court is, as we know, one of the most imposing of the mansions that overlook our beautiful Blackmoor or Blakemore Vale.  On the particular occasion of which I have to speak this building stood, as it had often stood before, in the perfect silence of a calm clear night, lighted only by the cold shine... more...

THE WONDERS OF WORDS. Every nation has its legend of a 'golden age'—when all was young and fresh and fair—'comme les couleurs primitives de la nature'—even before the existence of this gaunt shadow of Sorrow—the shadow of ourselves—that ever stalks in company with us;—an epoch of Saturnian rule, when gods held sweet converse with men, and man primeval bounded with all... more...

"Now that corpse," said the undertaker, patting the folded hands of deceased approvingly, was a brick-every way you took him he was a brick. He was so real accommodating, and so modest-like and simple in his last moments. Friends wanted metallic burial-case—nothing else would do. I couldn't get it. There warn't going to be time—anybody could see that. "Corpse said never mind,... more...

ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH WORDS DERIVED FROM LATIN [This paper may perhaps need a few words of introduction concerning the history of the pronunciation of Latin in England. The Latin taught by Pope Gregory's missionaries to their English converts at the beginning of the seventh century was a living language. Its pronunciation, in the mouths of educated people when they spoke carefully, was... more...