INTRODUCTION. Throughout this book, and the next, you will find passages taken from the writings of the best English authors. But the passages are not all equal, nor are they all such as we would call "the best," and the more you read and are able to judge them for yourselves, the better you will be able to see what is the difference between the best and those that are not so good. By the best... more...

AN OLD HOUSE. A few steps from the St. Charles Hotel, in New Orleans, brings you to and across Canal street, the central avenue of the city, and to that corner where the flower-women sit at the inner and outer edges of the arcaded sidewalk, and make the air sweet with their fragrant merchandise. The crowd—and if it is near the time of the carnival it will be great—will follow Canal street. But you... more...

A wild bleak-looking coast, with huge water-worn promontories jutting out into the sea, daring the tempestuous fury of the waves, which dashed furiously in sheets of seething foam against the iron rocks. Two of these headlands ran out for a considerable distance, and at the base of each, ragged cruel-looking rocks stretched still further out into the ocean until they entirely disappeared beneath the... more...

SECTION I - HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, and TRAVELS Baker (Sir Samuel W.). THE NILE TRIBUTARIES OF ABYSSINIA, and the Sword-Hunters of the Hamran Arabs. By Sir Samuel W. Baker, M.A., F.R.C.S. With Portraits, Maps, and Illustrations. Third Edition, 8vo. 21s. Sir Samuel Baker here describes twelve months' exploration, during which he examined the rivers that are tributary to the Nile from Abyssinia,... more...

Among the four hundred human beings who peopled our parish there were two notable men and one highly gifted woman. All three are dead, and lie buried in the churchyard of the village where they lived. Their graves form a group—unsung by any poet, but worthy to be counted among the resting-places of the mighty. The woman was Mrs. Abel, the Rector's wife. None of us knew her origin—I doubt if... more...

"Yes! I'm not mistaken at all! It's the same woman!" whispered the tall, good-looking young Englishman in a well-cut navy suit as he stood with his friend, a man some ten years older than himself, at one of the roulette tables at Monte Carlo, the first on the right on entering the room—that one known to habitual gamblers as "The Suicide's Table." "Are you quite... more...

Chapter I There was a new snow over the village. Indeed, it had ceased to fall only at sunset, and it was now eight o'clock. It was heaped apparently with the lightness of foam on the windward sides of the roads, over the fences and the stone walls, and on the village roofs. Its weight was evident only on the branches of the evergreen-trees, which were bent low in their white shagginess, and lost... more...

CHAPTER I HERMIA Titine glanced at the parted curtains and empty bed, then at the clock, and yawned. It was not yet eight o'clock. From the look of things, she was sure that Miss Challoner had arisen and departed for a morning ride before the breaking of the dawn. She peered out of the window and contracted her shoulders expressively. To ride in the cold morning air upon a violent horse when she... more...

Guy de Maupassant Guy de Maupassant was born at the Chateau de Miromesnil, near Dieppe, on August 5th, 1850. The Maupassants were an old Lorraine family who had settled in Normandy in the middle of the Eighteenth Century. His father had married in 1846 a young lady of the rich bourgeoisie, Laure Le Poittevin. With her brother Alfred, she had been the playmate of Gustave Flaubert, the son of a Rouen... more...

A DISCONTENTED BEAUTY. "Leone," cried a loud voice, "where are you? Here, there, everywhere, except just in the place where you should be." The speaker was a tall, stout, good-tempered looking man. Farmer Noel people called him all over the country-side. He stood in the farmyard, looking all the warmer this warm day for his exertions in finding his niece. "Leone," he cried again... more...