I.  PICTURES, SKETCHES AND DRAWINGSBY OR RELATING TO SAMUEL BUTLER By his will Butler bequeathed his pictures, sketches, and studies to his executors to be destroyed or otherwise disposed of as they might think best, the proceeds (if any) to fall into residue.  They were not sold: some were given to Shrewsbury School; some to the British Museum; one, an unfinished sketch of the back of the house in... more...

Three years have passed since Hubbard and I began that fateful journey into Labrador of which this volume is a record. A little more than a year has elapsed since the first edition of our record made its appearance from the press. Meanwhile I have looked behind the ranges. Grand Lake has again borne me upon the bosom of her broad, deep waters into the great lonely wilderness that lured Hubbard to his... more...

I. APOLOGY FOR "YET ANOTHER BOOK" ON THE SOUTH AFRICAN QUESTION. FUTURE PEACE MUST BE BASED ON JUSTICE,—TO COLOURED AS WELL AS WHITE MEN. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEGALIZED SLAVERY AND THE SUBJECTION OF NATIVES BY INDIVIDUALS. THE TRANSVAAL IN 1877: ITS BANKRUPTCY: ITS ANNEXATION BY GREAT BRITAIN: ITS LIBERATION FROM GREAT BRITAIN IN 1881. CONVENTION OF 1881 SIGNED AT PRETORIA. BRITISH... more...

CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND EDUCATION—CAMBRIDGE. I cannot, perhaps, more fitly begin this short biography than with some words in which its subject has expressed his own feelings as to the spirit in which such a task should be approached. "Silence," says Wordsworth, "is a privilege of the grave, a right of the departed: let him, therefore, who infringes that right by speaking publicly of, for,... more...

CHAPTER I One of the advantages of being an unrequired person of twenty-six, with an income sufficient for necessities, is the right of choice as to a home locality. I am that sort of person, and, having exercised said right, I am now living in Scarborough Square. To my friends and relatives it is amazing, inexplicable, and beyond understanding that I should wish to live here. I do not try to make them... more...

Returning from Sydney at the end of October 1890, Stevenson and his wife at once took up their abode in the wooden four-roomed cottage, or “rough barrack,” as he calls it, which had been built for them in the clearing at Vailima during the months of their absence at Sydney and on their cruise in the Equator. Mr. Lloyd Osbourne in the meantime had started for England to wind up the family affairs at... more...

IN the last Lecture I endeavoured to prove to you that, while, as a general rule, organic beings tend to reproduce their kind, there is in them, also, a constantly recurring tendency to vary—to vary to a greater or to a less extent. Such a variety, I pointed out to you, might arise from causes which we do not understand; we therefore called it spontaneous; and it might come into existence as a... more...

CHAPTER I ON THE HOUSEBOAT "Say, Tom, what's that big thing coming down the river?" "I'm sure I don't know, Sam. It's big enough to be a house." repliedTom Rover. "Maybe it is a house," came from Dick Rover, who was standing beside his brothers on the rear deck of the houseboat which was taking them down the Mississippi River. "A house?" broke in a... more...

CHAPTER I. "Any news to-night?" asked Admiral Buzza, leading a trump. "Hush, my love," interposed his wife timidly, with a glance at the Vicar. She liked to sit at her husband's left, and laid her small cards before him as so many tributes to his greatness. "I will not hush, Emily. I repeat, is there any news to-night?" Miss Limpenny, his hostess and vis-a-vis, finding the... more...

'IN THE NAME OF THE BODLEIAN'   With what feelings, I wonder, ought one to approach in a famous University an already venerable foundation, devoted by the last will and indented deed of a pious benefactor to the collection and housing of books and the promotion of learning? The Bodleian at this moment harbours within its walls well-nigh half a million of printed volumes, some scores of... more...