Library Of Alexandria imprint: 887 books

The professor crossed one long, lean leg over the other, and punched down the ashes in his pipe-bowl with the square tip of his middle finger. The thermometer on the shady veranda marked eighty-seven degrees of heat, and nature wooed the soul to languor and revery; but nothing could abate the energy...

Among the records of the English state trials are to be found many strange stories, which would, as the phrase is, make the fortune of a modern novelist. But there are also numerous cases, not less stimulating to imagination and curiosity, which never attained more than local notoriety, of which the...

Folk-lore, though a term that will not be found in our standard dictionaries, from Johnson down to Webster, is nevertheless simply a modern combination of two genuine old English words—Folc, the folk, the people, "the common people;" and Lár, Laer, Lora, learning, doctrine, precept, law. In the earlier...

When Charles Lever died (in 1872), his daughters were anxious that his biography should be written by Major Frank Dwyer, but Dwyer was unwilling to undertake the task, and Dr W. J. Fitzpatrick volunteered his services. In 1896 I asked Mrs Nevill, the novelist's eldest daughter, if she would be willing...

To ROBERT CARTER, Esq. Not the intrinsic merits of this story embolden me to inscribe it to you, my dear friend, but the fact that you, more than any other man, are responsible for its writing. Your advice and encouragement first led me to book-making; so it is only fair that you should partake of whatever...

Maggie looked in at the window as she passed it on her way, to get a last sight of her father. The sun was shining into the little bare room, and her shadow fell upon him as she passed him; but his form lingered clear in the close chamber of her mind after she had left him far. And it was not her shadow...

TO THE READER After the issue to the public of the curious chronicle of "Rasputin the Rascal Monk," based upon official documents, and its translation into a number of languages, I received from the same sources in Russia a bulky manuscript upon very thin paper which contained certain confessions, revelations,...

Since the first dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, three thrones, of mark beyond all others, have been set upon its sands: the thrones of Tyre, Venice, and England. Of the First of these great powers only the memory remains; of the Second, the ruin; the Third, which inherits their greatness,...

THE PHILOSOPHICAL RENAISSANCE For a thousand years after the schools of Athens were closed by Justinian philosophy made no real advance; no essentially new ideas about the constitution of nature, the workings of mind, or the ends of life were put forward. It would be false to say that during this period...

THE INVADERS It was on a boat which was laden with bananas and running from Colon, on the Isthmus of Panama, to New York. The steward called me at dawn. He thought I was mad because I stood in pyjamas without apparent heed of the mirky drizzle. Beyond the sad waters there was little to see but a low-lying...

Politicians at Washington very generally failed to realize that the advent of President Hayes marked the dismissal of the issues of war and reconstruction. They regarded as an episode what turned out to be the close of an era. They saw, indeed, that public interest in the old issues had waned, but they...

The Reign Of Terror. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln burst upon the City of Washington like a black thunder-bolt out of a cloudless sky. On Monday, the 3d of April, 1865, Richmond was taken. On the succeeding Sunday (the ninth), General Lee with the main Army of the South surrendered. The rebellion...

BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON If it be true that the most important ingredient in the composition of the self-biographer is a spirit of childlike vanity, with a blend of unconscious egoism, few men have ever been better equipped than Haydon for the production of a successful autobiography. In naïve simplicity...

EDUCATION—SALISBURY PLAIN—EDINBURGH A worthy tradesman, who had accumulated a large fortune, married a lady of gentle birth and manners. In later years one of his daughters said to a friend of the family, "I dare say you notice a great difference between papa's behaviour and mamma's. It is easily...