CHAPTER I. The landscape has high, bold mountains, above which are just passing the remnants of a storm. The valley is narrow and continually winding. Coursing through it is a turbulent stream, on one side of which there is a road. At some distance up the slopes farms are spread; the buildings are mostly low and unpainted, yet numerous; heaps of mown hay and fields of half ripe grain are dotted about.... more...

The scene of the Epic is the ancient kingdom of the Kurus which flourished along the upper course of the Ganges; and the historical fact on which the Epic is based is a great war which took place between the Kurus and a neighbouring tribe, the Panchalas, in the thirteenth or fourteenth century before Christ. According to the Epic, Pandu and Dhrita-rashtra, who was born blind, were brothers. Pandu died... more...

CHAPTER I Now come ye for peace here, or come ye for war?—SCOTT. "The abbot, in his alb arrayed," stood at the altar in the abbey-chapel of Rubygill, with all his plump, sleek, rosy friars, in goodly lines disposed, to solemnise the nuptials of the beautiful Matilda Fitzwater, daughter of the Baron of Arlingford, with the noble Robert Fitz-Ooth, Earl of Locksley and Huntingdon. The abbey of... more...

SCENE I. THIBAUT D'ARC. His Three Daughters. Three young Shepherds,their Suitors. THIBAUT.Ay, my good neighbors! we at least to-dayAre Frenchmen still, free citizens and lordsOf the old soil which our forefathers tilled.Who knows whom we to-morrow must obey?For England her triumphal banner wavesFrom every wall: the blooming fields of FranceAre trampled down beneath her chargers' hoofs;Paris... more...

CHAPTER I. "And the Fairy sang to the poor child, and stroked its tangled hair, and smoothed its puckered cheeks. "And it sang and sang until the little face that had been full of trouble grew bright with the cheer of heartsease. "And still the Fairy sang and sang until, from very peacefulness, the child's eyes began to droop and softly close, just as the flowers droop and hang their... more...

CHAPTER I THE RIDE   Four people sat in the big, shining automobile. Three of them were men. The fourth was a little girl. The little girl’s name was Maida Westabrook. The three men were “Buffalo” Westabrook, her father, Dr. Pierce, her physician, and Billy Potter, her friend. They were coming from Marblehead to Boston. Maida sat in one corner of the back seat gazing dreamily out at the whirling... more...

Maids and Bachelors Women who have devoted themselves for religious purposes to celibacy have in all ages and countries of the world received honor, but those upon whom celibacy has been forced, either through the influence of untoward circumstances, or as a consequence of some want or folly in themselves, have been objects of most unmerited contempt and dislike. Unmerited, because it may be broadly... more...

Respectable-looking individual makes his bow and addresses the public. In my daily walks along the principal street of my native town, it has often occurred to me, that, if its growth from infancy upward, and the vicissitude of characteristic scenes that have passed along this thoroughfare during the more than two centuries of its existence, could be presented to the eye in a shifting panorama, it... more...

CHAPTER I I ON a hill by the Mississippi where Chippewas camped two generations ago, a girl stood in relief against the cornflower blue of Northern sky. She saw no Indians now; she saw flour-mills and the blinking windows of skyscrapers in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Nor was she thinking of squaws and portages, and the Yankee fur-traders whose shadows were all about her. She was meditating upon walnut... more...

Main Street (For S. M. L.) I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea,But it isn't half so fine a sight as Main Street used to beWhen it all was covered over with a couple of feet of snow,And over the crisp and radiant road the ringing sleighs would go. Now, Main Street bordered with autumn leaves, it was a pleasant thing,And its gutters were gay with dandelions early in the... more...