Chapter One. “How many more days, Jan, will it be before we get across this abominable desert?” I asked of our black guide, as we trudged along, he leading our sole remaining ox, while my uncle, Mr Roger Farley, and I led our two horses laden with the remnants of our property. “May be ten days, may be two ten,” answered Jan Jigger, whose knowledge of numerals was somewhat limited. I gave a... more...

By their fruits ye shall know them. Last Sunday I said something of the moral condition of Boston; to-day I ask your attention to a Sermon of the Spiritual Condition of Boston. I use the word spiritual in its narrower sense, and speak of the condition of this town in respect to piety. A little while since, in a sermon of piety, I tried to show that love of God lay at the foundation of all manly... more...

CHAPTER I. FAIR ACRES. It was a fair morning of early summer, when the low beams of the eastern sun, threw flickering shadows across the lawn, which lay before Fair Acres Manor, nestling under the shelter of the Mendip Hills, somewhere between Wells and Cheddar. Truth compels me to say, that the lawn was covered with daisies, and that their bright eyes looked fearlessly up into the blue sky; for mowing... more...

VIGI Wisest of dogs was Vigi, a tawny-coated hound That King Olaf, warring over green hills of Ireland, found; His merry Norse were driving away a mighty herd For feasts upon the dragonships, when an isleman dared a word: "From all those stolen hundreds, well might ye spare my score." "Ay, take them," quoth the gamesome king, "but not a heifer more. Choose out thine own, nor hinder... more...

CHAPTER I.on heresy and orthodoxy. The original meaning of the word heresy is choice.  “It was long used,” writes Dr. Waddington, “by the philosophers to designate the preference and selection of some speculative opinion, and in process of time was applied without any sense of reproach to every sect.”  The most fruitful source of speculative opinion is, and has ever been, religion; from the... more...

I MR. BEETLE MAN The man sat in a niche of the mountain, busily hating the Caribbean Sea. It was quite a contract that he had undertaken, for there was a large expanse of Caribbean Sea in sight to hate; very blue, and still, and indifferent to human emotions. However, the young man was a good steadfast hater, and he came there every day to sit in the shade of the overhanging boulder, where there was a... more...

CHAPTER I: A STROKE OF GOOD FORTUNE A mounted officer, followed by two orderlies, was proceeding at a brisk trot from Paris to St. Denis, in October, 1639, when he came upon a large party of boys, who, armed with sticks, were advancing in something like military order against a wall on the top of a low hill. "What are you doing?" he asked the lad who appeared to be the leader. "We are... more...

TO REGULATE THE ISSUING OF PATENTS. Be it Enacted by the King and the Legislative Assembly of the Hawaiian Islands, in the Legislature of the Kingdom Assembled: Section 1. All patents shall be issued in the name of His Majesty the King, under the Seal of the Interior Department, and shall be signed by the Minister of Interior and countersigned by the Commissioner of Patents, and they shall be recorded... more...

We have walked much this awake and have stopped now for sleep. Last City is far behind us. Except for the two lamps we keep lighted to frighten away the Groles, there is nothing but blackness in the passage. The others are sleeping, and close beside me, Nina sleeps also. The sound of her breathing is all I have in the darkness. Thoughts are not clear when the body is so tired, and the things that have... more...

VENICE.   At six, on a bright morning, the 1st of September 1851, we left the quay of Trieste in the steamer for Venice. We were in no particular mood upon the subject. If anything, we rather feared that the famous City of the Sea might turn out to have been overpraised. However, we resolved to be candid. The morning passed pleasantly enough. We admired the snowy tops of the Styrian Alps on the right,... more...