The Half-Brothersby Elizabeth GaskellMy mother was twice married. She never spoke of her first husband,and it is only from other people that I have learnt what little Iknow about him. I believe she was scarcely seventeen when she wasmarried to him: and he was barely one-and-twenty. He rented a smallfarm up in Cumberland, somewhere towards the sea-coast; but he wasperhaps too young and inexperienced to have the charge of land andcattle: anyhow, his affairs did not prosper, and he fell into illhealth, and died of consumption before they had been three years man...
The Price She Paidby David Graham PhillipsIHENRY GOWER was dead at sixty-onethe end of a lifelong fraud which never had been suspected, and never would be. With the world, with his acquaintances and neighbors, with his wife and son and daughter, he passed as a generous, warm-hearted, good-natured man, ready at all times to do anything to help anybody, incapable of envy or hatred or meanness. In fact, not once in all his days had he ever thought or done a single thing except for his own comfort. Like all intensely selfish people who are wise, he was cheerful and amiable, because that was th
The Book of Teaby Kakuzo OkakuraI. The Cup of HumanityTea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the eighth century, it entered the realm of poetry as one of the polite amusements. The fifteenth century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticismTeaism. Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possib
The Large Catechismby Dr. Martin LutherTranslated by F. Bente and W. H. T. DauPrefaceA Christian, Profitable, and Necessary Preface and Faithful, EarnestExhortation of Dr. Martin Luther to All Christians, but Especially toAll Pastors and Preachers, that They Should Daily Exercise Themselvesin the Catechism, which is a Short Summary and Epitome of the EntireHoly Scriptures, and that they May Always Teach the Same.We have no slight reasons for treating the Catechism so constantly [inSermons] and for both desiring and beseeching others to teach it, since...
Children of the Whirlwindby Leroy ScottCHAPTER IIt was an uninspiring bit of street: narrow, paved with cobble; hot and noisy in summer, reeking with unwholesome mud during the drizzling and snow-slimed months of winter. It looked anything this May after noon except a starting-place for drama. But, then, the great dramas of life often avoid the splendid estates and trappings with which conventional romance would equip them, and have their beginnings in unlikeliest environment; and thence sweep on to a noble, consuming tragedy, or to a glorious unfolding of souls. Life is a composite of contra
The Light Princessby George MacDonald1. What! No Children?Once upon a time, so long ago that I have quite forgotten the date,there lived a king and queen who had no children.And the king said to himself, "All the queens of my acquaintancehave children, some three, some seven, and some as many as twelve;and my queen has not one. I feel ill-used." So he made up his mindto be cross with his wife about it. But she bore it all like a goodpatient queen as she was. Then the king grew very cross indeed. Butthe queen pretended to take it all as a joke, and a very good one...
The Mansionby Henry van DykeThere was an air of calm and reserved opulence aboutthe Weightman mansion that spoke not of money squandered,but of wealth prudently applied. Standing on a corner ofthe Avenue no longer fashionable for residence, it looked uponthe swelling tide of business with an expression of complacencyand half-disdain.The house was not beautiful. There was nothing in its straightfront ofchocolate-colored stone, its heavy cornices, its broad, staringwindows ofplate glass, its carved and bronze-bedecked mahogany doors at the...
INDIAN HEROES AND GREAT CHIEFTAINSINDIAN HEROES ANDGREAT CHIEFTAINSBYCHARLES A. EASTMAN (OHIYESA)1- Page 2-INDIAN HEROES AND GREAT CHIEFTAINSRED CLOUDEVERY age, every race, has its leaders and heroes. There were oversixty distinct tribes of Indians on this continent, each of which boasted itsnotable men. The names and deeds of some of these men will live in...
Cliges: A Romanceby Chretien de TroyesTRANSLATED BY L. J. GARDINER, M.A.FROM THE OLD FRENCH OF CHRETIEN DE TROYESINTRODUCTIONIT is six hundred and fifty years since Chretien de Troyes wrotehis Cliges. And yet he is wonderfully near us, whereas he isseparated by a great gulf from the rude trouveres of the Chansonsde Gestes and from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was stilldragging out its weary length in his early days. Chretien is asrefined, as civilised, as composite as we are ourselves; hisladies are as full of whims, impulses, sudden reserves,...
ON SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESSby Aristotletranslated by J. I. Beare1WITH regard to sleep and waking, we must consider what they are:whether they are peculiar to soul or to body, or common to both; andif common, to what part of soul or body they appertain: further,from what cause it arises that they are attributes of animals, andwhether all animals share in them both, or some partake of the one...
Herodiasby Gustave FlaubertCHAPTER IIn the eastern side of the Dead Sea rose the citadel of Machaerus. Itwas built upon a conical peak of basalt, and was surrounded by fourdeep valleys, one on each side, another in front, and the fourth inthe rear. At the base of the citadel, crowding against one another, agroup of houses stood within the circle of a wall, whose outlinesundulated with the unevenness of the soil. A zigzag road, cuttingthrough the rocks, joined the city to the fortress, the walls of whichwere about one hundred and twenty cubits high, having numerous angles...
The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, V2by Duc de Saint-SimonMEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV AND HIS COURT AND OF THE REGENCYBY THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMONVOLUME 2.CHAPTER IXDeath of Archbishop Harlay.Scene at Conflans."The Good Langres."A Scene at Marly.Princesses Smoke Pipes!Fortunes of Cavoye.Mademoiselle de Coetlogon.Madame de Guise.Madame de Miramion.Madamede Sevigne.Father Seraphin.An Angry Bishop.Death of La Bruyere.Burglary by a Duke.Proposed Marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne.The...
SOPHOCLESOEDIPUS THE KINGTranslation by F. Storr, BAFormerly Scholar of Trinity College, CambridgeFrom the Loeb Library EditionOriginally published byHarvard University Press, Cambridge, MAandWilliam Heinemann Ltd, LondonFirst published in 1912ARGUMENTTo Laius, King of Thebes, an oracle foretold that the child born...
The Life of Stephen A. Douglasby William GardnerPreface.De mortuis nil nisi bonum, (of the dead speak nothing but good), is the rule which governed the friends of Stephen A. Douglas after his death. "Of political foes speak nothing but ill," is the rule which has guided much of our discussion of him for forty years. The time has now arrived when we can study him dispassionately and judge him justly, when we can take his measure, if not with scientific accuracy, at least with fairness and honesty.Where party spirit is as despotic as it is among us, it is difficult for any man who spends his l
EAST OF THE SUN AND WEST OF THE MOONOnce upon a time there was a poor husbandman whohad many children and little to give them in the wayeither of food or clothing. They were all pretty, but theprettiest of all was the youngest daughter, who was sobeautiful that there were no bounds to her beauty.So onceit was late on a Thursday evening in autumn,and wild weather outside, terribly dark, and raining soheavily and blowing so hard that the walls of the cottageshook againthey were all sitting together by the fireside,each of them busy with something or other, when...
THE SEVEN FOALSTHERE was once upon a time a couple of poor folks who lived ina wretched hut, far away from everyone else, in a wood. Theyonly just managed to live from hand to mouth, and had great difficultyin doing even so much as that, but they had three sons, andthe youngest of them was called Cinderlad, for he did nothing elsebut lie and poke about among the ashes.One day the eldest lad said that he would go out to earn his living;he soon got leave to do that, and set out on his way into the world.He walked on and on for the whole day, and when night was beginning...