CHAPTER I We are not aware that the infancy of Vivian Grey was distinguished by any extraordinary incident. The solicitude of the most affectionate of mothers, and the care of the most attentive of nurses, did their best to injure an excellent constitution. But Vivian was an only child, and these exertions were therefore excusable. For the first five years of his life, with his curly locks and his... more...

CHAPTER I.—The Old House YOU may still see the old Scotch house where Randal was born, so long ago. Nobody lives there now. Most of the roof has fallen in, there is no glass in the windows, and all the doors are open. They were open in the days of Randal's father—nearly four hundred years have passed since then—and everyone who came was welcome to his share of beef and broth and ale. But now... more...

THE DOME He wakened from a charming dream, in which the hat had played a conspicuous part. 'I shouldn't mind having that hat,' he murmured. A darkness which no eye could penetrate surrounded him as he lay in bed. Absolute obscurity was essential to the repose of that singular brain, and he had perfected arrangements for supplying the deficiencies of Nature's night. He touched a... more...

I Liverpool does not remind him of this so much as the good and true Baedeker professes, in the dockside run on the overhead railway (as the place unambitiously calls its elevated road); but then, as I noted in my account of Southampton, docks have a fancy of taking themselves in, and eluding the tourist eye, and even when they "flank the Mersey for a distance of 6-7 M." they do not respond to... more...

FIFTY YEARS & OTHER POEMS FIFTY YEARSO brothers mine, to-day we standWhere half a century sweeps our ken,Since God, through Lincoln's ready hand,Struck off our bonds and made us men.Just fifty years—a winter's day—As runs the history of a race;Yet, as we look back o'er the way,How distant seems our starting place!Look farther back! Three centuries!To where a naked, shivering... more...

Of the Rolling Stone Once upon a time in a small village in Bruce County, Province of Ontario, Dominion of Canada, there lived a man who was destined to establish a precedent. He was to prove to the world that a rolling stone is capable at times of gathering as much moss as a stationary one, and how it is possible for the rock with St. Vitus dance to become more coated than the one that is confined to... more...

JOHN AMEND-ALL On a certain afternoon, in the late springtime, the bell upon Tunstall Moat House was heard ringing at an unaccustomed hour. Far and near, in the forest and in the fields along the river, people began to desert their labours and hurry towards the sound; and in Tunstall hamlet a group of poor countryfolk stood wondering at the summons. Tunstall hamlet at that period, in the reign of old... more...

INTRODUCTION. I am—I will not say how old, but well past middle age. This much I feel compelled to mention, because it has long been my opinion that no man should attempt a history of himself until he has set foot upon the border land where the past and the future begin to blend in a consciousness somewhat independent of both, and hence interpreting both. Looking westward, from this vantage-ground,... more...

CHAPTER I Vacation Plans "Now, fellows, what are we goin' to do this vacation?" demanded Cub Perry as he leaned back in his upholstered reed rocker and hoisted his size 8 shoes onto the foot of his bedstead. "School's all over, we've all passed our exams, and now we've got a long vacation before us with nothing to do. It's up to yo-uns to map out a program."... more...

PREFACE The writer of this book was a volunteer officer in the Union army throughout the war of the Great Rebellion, and his service was in the field. The book, having been written while the author was engaged in a somewhat active professional life, lacks that literary finish which results from much pruning and painstaking. He, however, offers no excuse for writing it, nor for its completion; he has... more...