The Life of Thomas Telford by Smilesby Samuel Smiles"Let us travel, and wherever we find no facility fortravelling from a city to a town, from a village to ahamlet, we may pronounce the people to be barbarous"Abbe Raynal"The opening up of the internal communications of acountry is undoubtedly the first and most importantelement of its growth in commerce and civilization"Richard CobdenCONTENTSPrefaceEARLY ROADS AND MODES OF TRAVELLINGCHAPTER I. Old RoadsRoads as agents of civilization...
The Little Lame Princeby Miss Mulock [Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik]CONTENTSTHE LITTLE LAME PRINCE THE INVISIBLE PRINCE PRINCE CHERRY THE PRINCE WITH THE NOSE THE FROG-PRINCE CLEVER ALICETHE LITTLE LAME PRINCECHAPTER IYes, he was the most beautiful Prince that ever was born.Of course, being a prince, people said this; but it was true besides. When he looked at the candle, his eyes had an expression of earnest inquiry quite startling in a new born baby. His nosethere was not much of it certainly, but what there was seemed an aquiline shape; his complexion was a charming, healthy purple; he wa
Mark Twain, A Biography, 1907-1910By Albert Bigelow PaineVOLUME III, Part 2: 1907-1910CCLVIHONORS FROM OXFORDClemens made a brief trip to Bermuda during the winter, taking Twichellalong; their first return to the island since the trip when they hadpromised to come back so soon-nearly thirty years before. They had beencomparatively young men then. They were old now, but they found thegreen island as fresh and full of bloom as ever. They did not find theirold landlady; they could not even remember her name at first, and thenTwichell recalled that it was the same as an author of certain...
Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speechesby Edmund BurkeContentsIntroductionThoughts on the Present DiscontentsSpeech on the Middlesex Election.Speech on the Powers of Juries in Prosecutions for Libels.Speech on a Bill for Shortening the Duration of ParliamentsSpeech on Reform of Representation in the House of CommonsINTRODUCTIONEdmund Burke was born at Dublin on the first of January, 1730. Hisfather was an attorney, who had fifteen children, of whom all butfour died in their youth. Edmund, the second son, being of delicatehealth in his childhood, was taught at home and at his grand
The Story of an African Farmby Olive Schreiner (Ralph Iron)Preface.I have to thank cordially the public and my critics for the reception theyhave given this little book.Dealing with a subject that is far removed from the round of English dailylife, it of necessity lacks the charm that hangs about the idealrepresentation of familiar things, and its reception has therefore been themore kindly.A word of explanation is necessary. Two strangers appear on the scene, andsome have fancied that in the second they have again the first, who returns...
The Stolen White Elephantby Mark Twain[Left out of A Tramp Abroad, because it was feared that some of theparticulars had been exaggerated, and that others were not true. Beforethese suspicions had been proven groundless, the book had gone to press.M.T.]The following curious history was related to me by a chance railwayacquaintance. He was a gentleman more than seventy years of age, and histhoroughly good and gentle face and earnest and sincere manner imprintedthe unmistakable stamp of truth upon every statement which fell from hislips. He said:...
THE HISTORY OF DWARF LONG NOSEIt is a great mistake to think that fairies, witches, magicians,and such people lived only in Eastern countries and in such timesas those of the Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid. Fairies and theirlike belong to every country and every age, and no doubt weshould see plenty of them nowif we only knew how.In a large town in Germany there lived, some couple of hundredyears ago, a cobbler and his wife. They were poor andhard-working. The man sat all day in a little stall at thestreet corner and mended any shoes that were brought him. Hiswife sold the fruit and vegetables
The Ballad of the White Horseby G.K. ChestertonDEDICATIONOf great limbs gone to chaos,A great face turned to nightWhy bend above a shapeless shroudSeeking in such archaic cloudSight of strong lords and light?Where seven sunken EnglandsLie buried one by one,Why should one idle spade, I wonder,Shake up the dust of thanes like thunderTo smoke and choke the sun?In cloud of clay so cast to heavenWhat shape shall man discern?These lords may light the mysteryOf mastery or victory,And these ride high in history,But these shall not return....
1872FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTHE THORNY ROAD OF HONORby Hans Christian AndersenAN old story yet lives of the "Thorny Road of Honor," of amarksman, who indeed attained to rank and office, but only after alifelong and weary strife against difficulties. Who has not, inreading this story, thought of his own strife, and of his own numerous"difficulties?" The story is very closely akin to reality; but stillit has its harmonious explanation here on earth, while reality oftenpoints beyond the confines of life to the regions of eternity. Thehistory of the world is like a magic lantern tha
The Village Rectorby Honore de BalzacKatharine Prescott WormeleyDEDICATIONTo Helene.The tiniest boat is not launched upon the sea without theprotection of some living emblem or revered name, placed upon itby the mariners. In accordance with this time-honored custom,Madame, I pray you to be the protectress of this book now launchedupon our literary ocean; and may the Imperial name which theChurch has canonized and your devotion has doubly sanctified forme guard it from perils.De Balzac.THE VILLAGE RECTORITHE SAUVIATS...
Grass of Parnassusby Andrew LangContents:Grass of ParnassusDeeds of men:Seekers for a cityThe white pachaMidnight, January 25, 1886Advance, AustraliaColonel BurnabyMelville and CoghillRhodocleia:To rhodocleia - on her melancholy singingAve:Clevedon churchTwilight on Tweed *Metempsychosis *Lost in Hades *A star in the night *A sunset on yarrow *Another wayHesperothen:The seekers for PhaeaciaA song of PhaeaciaThe departure from Phaeacia...
400 BCOF THE EPIDEMICSby Hippocratestranslated by Francis AdamsOF THE EPIDEMICSBOOK I. Sect. I. First Constitution1. IN THASUS, about the autumn equinox, and under the Pleiades,the rains were abundant, constant, and soft, with southerly winds; thewinter southerly, the northerly winds faint, droughts; on the whole,the winter having the character of spring. The spring was southerly,...
SECOND EPILOGUECHAPTER IHistory is the life of nations and of humanity. To seize and putinto words, to describe directly the life of humanity or even of asingle nation, appears impossible.The ancient historians all employed one and the same method todescribe and seize the apparently elusive- the life of a people.They described the activity of individuals who ruled the people, andregarded the activity of those men as representing the activity of thewhole nation.The question: how did individuals make nations act as they wished...
Villainage in Englandby Paul VinogradoffSecond Essay: The Manor and the Village CommunityChapter 1The Open Field System and the HoldingsMy first essay has been devoted to the peasantry of feudal England in its social character. We have had to examine its classes or divisions in their relation to freedom, personal slavery, and praedial serfage. The land system was touched upon only so far as it influenced such classification, or was influenced by it. But no correct estimate of the social standing of the peasantry can stop here, or content itself with legal or administrative definitions. In
470 BCTHE PERSIANSby Aeschylustranslated by Robert PotterCHARACTERS IN THE PLAYATOSSA, widow of Darius and mother of XERXESMESSENGERGHOST OF DARIUSXERXESCHORUS OF PERSIAN ELDERS, who compose the Persian Council of State(SCENE:-Before the Council-Hall of the Persian Kings at Susa. Thetomb of Darius the Great is visible. The time is 480 B.C., shortlyafter the battle of Salamis. The play opens with the CHORUS OF...
HIS DOGHIS DOGBy ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE 19221- Page 2-HIS DOGCHAPTER I. The DerelictLink Ferris was a fighter. Not by nature, nor by choice, but to keepalive.His battleground covered an area of forty acresbroken, scrubby,uncertain side-hill acres, at that. In brief, a worked-out farm among the...