The palace of the Élysée-Bourbon,—the old hôtel of the Marquise de Pompadour,—situated in the middle of the Faubourg St. Honoré, was, previous to the last revolution, furnished, as every one knows, for the occupancy of foreign royal highnesses,—Roman Catholic, Protestant, or Mussulman, from the princes of the German confederation to Ibrahim Pacha. About the end... Read More

George Alfred Henty has been called "The Prince of Story-Tellers." To call him "The Boy's Own Historian" would perhaps be a more appropriate title, for time has proved that he is more than a story-teller; he is a preserver and propagator of history amongst boys. How Mr. Henty has risen to be worthy of these... Read More

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide. The sea-reach of the... Read More

"Then came Peter to Him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?"—Matthew, c. xviii.; v. 21. "Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but until seventy times seven."—Idem, v. 22. "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in... Read More

"In Vain," the first literary work of Sienkiewicz, was written before he had passed the eighteenth year of his life and while he was studying at Warsaw. Though not included in his collected works by the author, this book will be received with much favor; of this I feel certain. The first book of the... Read More

They first met in Boston, but the match was made in Europe, where they afterwards saw each other; whither, indeed, he followed her; and there the match was also broken off. Why it was broken off, and why it was renewed after a lapse of years, is part of quite a long love-story, which I... Read More

TO JOSEPH CONRAD WHOSE ART IN ESSENCE OFTEN RECALLS THE ART AND ESSENCE OF TURGENEV The six tales now translated for the English reader were written by Turgenev at various dates between 1847 and 1881. Their chronological order is:— Pyetushkov, 1847 The Brigadier, 1867 A Strange Story, 1869 Punin and Baburin, 1874 Old Portraits, 1881... Read More

The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came near... Read More

"Here, you Jed!" Jed paused in his work with his axe suspended above him, for he was splitting wood. He turned his face toward the side door at which stood a woman, thin and sharp-visaged, and asked: "Well, what's wanted?" "None of your impudence, you young rascal! Come here, I say!" Jed laid down the... Read More

"Rupert, the superintendent wishes to see you." Rupert Rollins, a tall boy of sixteen, was engaged in folding some pieces of cloth which had been shown during the day to customers. It was the principal salesroom of Tenney & Rhodes, who conducted a large wholesale dry goods house in the lower part of New York... Read More

The north-eastern quarter of the continent of Africa is drained and watered by the Nile. Among and about the headstreams and tributaries of this mighty river lie the wide and fertile provinces of the Egyptian Soudan. Situated in the very centre of the land, these remote regions are on every side divided from the seas... Read More

On a certain afternoon in May, about four or five of the clock, I was standing at the open window of my room in that Palace to which Fortune leads her choicest favourites—the College, or Prison, as some call it, of the King's Bench. I was at the time a prisoner for debt, with very... Read More

IN the year 1828 any tourist who was on his way from Blois to the little town of Pont Brillant to visit—as travellers seldom fail to do—the famous castle of that name, the magnificent feudal abode of the Marquises Pont Brillant, would have been obliged to pass a farmhouse standing near the edge of the... Read More

My sons and daughters have tried to persuade me to remodel these memoirs of my grandfather into a latter-day romance. But I have thought it wiser to leave them as he wrote them. Albeit they contain some details not of interest to the general public, to my notion it is such imperfections as these which... Read More

During the year preceding the outbreak of the Spanish War I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. While my party was in opposition, I had preached, with all the fervor and zeal I possessed, our duty to intervene in Cuba, and to take this opportunity of driving the Spaniard from the Western World. Now that... Read More

As many boys into whose hands the present volume may fall will not have read my last year's book, With Moore in Corunna, of which this is a continuation, it is necessary that a few words should be said, to enable them to take up the thread of the story. It was impossible, in the... Read More

ALEXANDER SEREBRAKOFF, a retired professor HELENA, his wife, twenty-seven years old SONIA, his daughter by a former marriage MME. VOITSKAYA, widow of a privy councilor, and mother of Serebrakoff's first wife IVAN (VANYA) VOITSKI, her son MICHAEL ASTROFF, a doctor ILIA (WAFFLES) TELEGIN, an impoverished landowner MARINA, an old nurse A WORKMAN The scene is... Read More

I remember the very evening he came to Merivale. “Nubby” Tomkins had a cold on his chest, so Mathers and I stopped in from the half-hour “kick-about” in the playground before tea, being chums of Nubby’s. Whenever he gets a cold on the chest he thinks he is going to die, and this evening, sitting... Read More

From the termination of the campaigns of Marlborough--at which time the British army won for itself a reputation rivalled by that of no other in Europe--to the year when the despatch of a small army under Sir Arthur Wellesley marked the beginning of another series of British victories as brilliant and as unbroken as those... Read More

TO GEORGE AND GILBERT JONES Of New York WITHOUT WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT THIS YARN WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN FINISHED Roldan Castanada walked excitedly up and down the verandah of his father's house, his thumbs thrust into the red silk sash that was knotted about his waist, his cambric shirt open at the throat as if pulled... Read More

It had occurred to her early that in her position—that of a young person spending, in framed and wired confinement, the life of a guinea-pig or a magpie—she should know a great many persons without their recognising the acquaintance. That made it an emotion the more lively—though singularly rare and always, even then, with opportunity... Read More

Little Jim was, for the time, engine Number 36, and he was making the run between Syracuse and Rochester. He was fourteen minutes behind time, and the throttle was wide open. In consequence, when he swung around the curve at the flower-bed, a wheel of his cart destroyed a peony. Number 36 slowed down at... Read More

Of the five stories in this volume, “The Lagoon,” the last in order, is the earliest in date. It is the first short story I ever wrote and marks, in a manner of speaking, the end of my first phase, the Malayan phase with its special subject and its verbal suggestions. Conceived in the same... Read More

I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I shall have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I had left New York for the West. In the old days,... Read More

The young actor who thought he saw his part in Maxwell's play had so far made his way upward on the Pacific Coast that he felt justified in taking the road with a combination of his own. He met the author at a dinner of the Papyrus Club in Boston, where they were introduced with... Read More