Friedrich von Rittenheim The incongruity of his manner of life was patent to all who saw. The mountaineers around him recognized it, but they attributed it to the fact of his being a foreigner. The more cultivated folk realized that a man of the world who bore every mark of good birth and breeding was indeed out of place in the gray jeans of the North Carolina farmer, guiding the plough with his own... more...

CHAPTER I The elm-tree avenue was all overgrown, the great gate was never unlocked, and the old house had been shut up for several years. Yet voices were heard about the place, the lilacs nodded over the high wall as if they said, "We could tell fine secrets if we chose," and the mullein outside the gate made haste to reach the keyhole, that it might peep in and see what was going on. If it had... more...

Borrow had at last found work that was thoroughly congenial to him. It was not in his nature to exist outside his occupations, and his whole personality became bound up in the mission upon which he was engaged. Not content with preparing the way for printing the New Testament in Manchu, he set himself the problem of how it was to be distributed when printed. He foresaw serious obstacles to its... more...

KOREA'S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM "Mr. F.A. McKenzie has been abused in the columns of the Japanese press_ with a violence which, in the absence of any reasoned controversy, indicated a last resource. In answer to his specific charges, only one word has been uttered—'lies!' "Yet these charges embrace crimes of the first magnitude—murder, plunder, outrage, incendiarism, and in short... more...

I. A MASTER OF MEN Engine Number 206, narrow gauge, was pushing, or rather failing to push, the old-fashioned box-plow through the crusted drifts on the uptilted shoulder of Plug Mountain, at altitude ten thousand feet, with the mercury at twelve below zero. There was a wind—the winter day above timber-line without its wind is as rare as a thawing Christmas—and it cut like knives through any... more...

CHAPTER 1. BRAMBLE-DWELLERS. The peasant, as he trims his hedge, whose riotous tangle threatens to encroach upon the road, cuts the trailing stems of the bramble a foot or two from the ground and leaves the root-stock, which soon dries up. These bramble-stumps, sheltered and protected by the thorny brushwood, are in great demand among a host of Hymenoptera who have families to settle. The stump, when... more...

CHAPTER I. WARNED IN A DREAM. Seven-and-twenty years ago, and a bleak evening in March. There are gas-lamps flaring down in Ratcliff Highway, and the sound of squeaking fiddles and trampling feet in many public-houses tell of festivity provided for Jack-along-shore. The emporiums of slop-sellers are illuminated for the better display of tarpaulin coats and hats, so stiff of build that they look like so... more...

The man whose story is here to be told was the wealthiest and most influential person in his parish; his name was Thord Overaas. He appeared in the priest's study one day, tall and earnest. "I have gotten a son," said he, "and I wish to present him for baptism." "What shall his name be?" "Finn,—after my father." "And the sponsors?" They were mentioned, and... more...

ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN, or THE MAIDEN OF THE MIST A NOVEL. BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. The author of this delightful novel, by the fertility of his genius, has almost exhausted the rhetoric of admiration, and even the vocabulary of criticism. But we still hail his appearance with heartfelt interest, if not with the enthusiasm and rapture with which we were wont to speak of his earlier productions. The... more...

A VISIT, &c. I embarked at Portsmouth, on board the British Queen steam packet, commanded by Captain Franklin, on the 10th of the 3d Month, (March,) 1841. During the first two or three days, the weather was unusually fine for the season of the year, and gave us the prospect of a quick and prosperous voyage. The passengers, about seventy in number, were of various nations, including English, French,... more...