INTRODUCTION Punctuation is a device by which we aid words to tell their story. Words have done this at times without such aid, and may now do so, but at constant risk of serious misunderstanding. This can be easily seen by reading the following lines printed as they would have been written in an ancient manuscript.... more...

THE DEAD ROBIN.All through the win-ter, long and cold,  Dear Minnie ev-ery morn-ing fedThe little spar-rows, pert and bold,  And ro-bins, with their breasts so red. She lov-ed to see the lit-tle birds  Come flut-ter-ing to the win-dow pane,In answer to the gen-tle words  With which she scat-ter-ed crumbs and grain. One ro-bin, bol-der than the rest,  Would perch up-on her fin-ger fair,And... more...

MEMOIR, &C. In the following Narrative of "Old Elizabeth," which was taken mainly from her own lips in her 97th year, her simple language has been adhered to as strictly as was consistent with perspicuity and propriety. I was born in Maryland in the year 1766. My parents were slaves. Both my father and mother were religious people, and belonged to the Methodist Society. It was my... more...

PREFACE The people of the United States are engaged in the solution of the railroad problem. The main question to be determined is: Shall the railroads be owned and operated as public or as private property? Shall these great arteries of commerce be owned and controlled by a few persons for their own private use and gain, or shall they be made highways to be kept under strict government control and to... more...

INTRODUCTION No introduction to Mrs. Langloh Parker's book can be more than that superfluous 'bush' which, according to the proverb, good wine does not need. Our knowledge of the life, manners, and customary laws of many Australian tribes has, in recent years, been vastly increased by the admirable works of Mr. Howitt, and of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. But Mrs. Parker treats of a tribe... more...

PREFACE. The changing of the old order in country manors and mansions may be slow or sudden, may have many issues romantic or otherwise, its romantic issues being not necessarily restricted to a change back to the original order; though this admissible instance appears to have been the only romance formerly recognized by novelists as possible in the case. Whether the following production be a picture... more...

CHAPTER I WE START FOR THE WAR I, James Frisby of Fairlee, in the county of Kent, on the eastern shore of what was known in my youth as the fair Province of Maryland, but now the proud State of that name, growing old in years, but hearty and hale withal, though the blood courses not through my veins as in the days of my youth, sit on the great porch of Fairlee watching the sails on the distant bay,... more...

Much has been written by critics, especially by those in Germany (the native land of criticism), upon the important question, whether to please or to instruct should be the end of Fiction—whether a moral purpose is or is not in harmony with the undidactic spirit perceptible in the higher works of the imagination. And the general result of the discussion has been in favour of those who have contended... more...

"SHAKSPEARE'S RIME WHICH HE MADE AT THE MYTRE." In the third volume of Mr. Collier's valuable History of Dramatic Poetry (p. 275.) is the following passage, which forms part of a note: "Mr. Thorpe, the enterprising bookseller of Bedford Street, is in possession of a MS. full of songs and poems, in the handwriting of a person of the name of Richard Jackson, all copied prior to the... more...

PREFACE A little book on a great subject, especially when that book is one of a "series," is notoriously an object of literary distrust. For the limitations thus imposed upon the writer are such as few men can satisfactorily cope with, and he must needs ask the indulgence of his readers for his painfully-felt shortcomings in dealing with the mass of material which he has to manipulate. And more... more...