CHAPTER I. THE CROWLEY FAMILY. Let me introduce the reader to the Crowley family, and when you have become acquainted with them bear well in mind that in this broad land of ours there are thousands upon thousands of families in a condition as deplorable, and some whose mercury line of debauchery has dropped to a point of miserable existence as yet unsounded by this family. The Crowleys are all in... more...

CHAPTER I TELLING HOW, UNDER STRESS OF CIRCUMSTANCE, A HUMANIST TURNED HERMIT A peculiar magic resides in running water, as every student of earth-lore knows. There is high magic, too, in the marriage of rivers, so that the spot where two mingle their streams is sacred, endowed with strange properties of evocation and of purification. Such spots go to the making of history and ruling of individual... more...

FLORE (1643) It was about a month after my marriage—and third clerk to the most noble the Bishop of Beauvais, and even admitted on occasions to write in his presence and prepare his minutes, who should marry if I might not?—it was about a month after my marriage, I say, that the thunderbolt, to which I have referred, fell and shattered my fortunes. I rose one morning—they were firing guns for the... more...

CHAPTER I A MIDNIGHT SUMMONS W hen did you last hear from Nayland Smith?" asked my visitor. I paused, my hand on the siphon, reflecting for a moment. "Two months ago," I said: "he's a poor correspondent and rather soured, I fancy." "What—a woman or something?" "Some affair of that sort. He's such a reticent beggar, I really know very little about it." I... more...

President of the Florida State Live Stock Association, Member of the Florida State Live Stock Sanitary Board. Requests for authentic information as to the advantages and possibilities of Florida for the growing of live stock, and in particular of beef cattle, have been coming of late, and in constantly increasing numbers, from all parts of the country. This booklet has been compiled for the purpose of... more...

NOTE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. The author of “Rab and his Friends” scarcely needs an introduction to American readers. By this time many have learned to agree with a writer in the “North British Review” that “Rab” is, all things considered, the most perfect prose narrative since Lamb’s “Rosamond Gray.” A new world of doctors, clergymen, shepherds, and carriers is revealed in the... more...

THE LEGEND OF THE "WHITE GIFTS" As Told by Phebe A. Curtiss A great many years ago in a land far away from us there was a certain king who was dearly beloved by all of his people. Men admired him because he was strong and just. In all of his dealings they knew they could depend upon him. Every matter that came to his consideration was carefully weighed in his mind and his decisions were always... more...

A High Family. “Con-found those organs!” said the Earl of Barmouth. “And frustrate their grinders,” cried Viscount Diphoos. “They are such a nuisance, my boy.” “True, oh sire,” replied the viscount, who had the heels of his patent leather shoes on the library chimney-piece of the town mansion in Portland Place. He had reached that spot with difficulty, and was smoking a cigar, to calm... more...

CHAPTER I The Settlers, and Whence They Came. There were five of them, all told; three boys and two men. I have mentioned the boys first because there were more of them, and we shall hear most from them before we have got through with this truthful tale. They lived in the town of Dixon, on the Rock River, in Lee County, Illinois. Look on the map, and you will find this place at a point where the... more...

INTRODUCTION. Lewis Holberg, the author of the Narrative of Niels Klim, was the most eminent writer among the Danes in the eighteenth century. His works show a surprising versatility of genius, comprising Histories and Treatises on Jurisprudence, together with Satires and Comedies. He was by birth a Norwegian, but was educated at the University at Copenhagen in Denmark. Soon after receiving a... more...