I am reprinting here, in response to requests, certain recent experiences in Great Britain and France. These were selected in the hope of conveying to American readers some idea of the atmosphere, of “what it is like” in these countries under the immediate shadow of the battle clouds. It was what I myself most wished... Read More

In this modern industrial civilization of which we are sometimes wont to boast, a certain glacier-like process may be observed. The bewildered, the helpless—and there are many—are torn from the parent rock, crushed, rolled smooth, and left stranded in strange places. Thus was Edward Bumpus severed and rolled from the ancestral ledge, from the firm... Read More

My name is Hugh Paret. I was a corporation lawyer, but by no means a typical one, the choice of my profession being merely incidental, and due, as will be seen, to the accident of environment. The book I am about to write might aptly be called The Autobiography of a Romanticist. In that sense,... Read More

With few exceptions, the incidents recorded in these pages take place in one of the largest cities of the United States of America, and of that portion called the Middle West,—a city once conservative and provincial, and rather proud of these qualities; but now outgrown them, and linked by lightning limited trains to other teeming... Read More

Honora Leffingwell is the original name of our heroine. She was born in the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, at Nice, in France, and she spent the early years of her life in St. Louis, a somewhat conservative old city on the banks of the Mississippi River. Her father was Randolph Leffingwell, and he... Read More

These are the principal speeches I have made within the last four years. They have been chosen and collected with the idea of presenting a consistent and simultaneous view of the general field of British politics in an hour of fateful decision. I have exercised full freedom in compression and in verbal correction necessary to... Read More

I may as well begin this story with Mr. Hilary Vane, more frequently addressed as the Honourable Hilary Vane, although it was the gentleman’s proud boast that he had never held an office in his life. He belonged to the Vanes of Camden Street,—a beautiful village in the hills near Ripton,—and was, in common with... Read More

In so far as the collection of information is concerned, the advantages of travel may often be over-stated. So much has been written, so many facts are upon record about every country, even the most remote, that a judicious and persevering study of existing materials would no doubt enable a reader to fill himself with... Read More

—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. First I am to write a love-story of long ago, of a time some little while after General Jackson had got into the White House and had shown the world what a real democracy was. The Era of the first six Presidents had closed, and a new Era had begun. I am... Read More

I was born under the Blue Ridge, and under that side which is blue in the evening light, in a wild land of game and forest and rushing waters. There, on the borders of a creek that runs into the Yadkin River, in a cabin that was chinked with red mud, I came into the... Read More

Faithfully to relate how Eliphalet Hopper came try St. Louis is to betray no secret. Mr. Hopper is wont to tell the story now, when his daughter-in-law is not by; and sometimes he tells it in her presence, for he is a shameless and determined old party who denies the divine right of Boston, and... Read More

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED TO THE OFFICERS OF THE IVTH (QUEEN'S OWN) HUSSARS IN WHOSE COMPANY THE AUTHOR LIVED FOR FOUR HAPPY YEARS This story was written in 1897, and has already appeared in serial form in Macmillan's Magazine. Since its first reception was not unfriendly, I resolved to publish it as a book, and... Read More

THIS COLLECTION OF LETTERS IS INSCRIBED TO THE STAFF OF THE NATAL GOVERNMENT RAILWAY WHOSE CAREFUL AND COURAGEOUS DISCHARGE OF THEIR EVERY-DAY DUTIES AMID THE PERILS OF WAR HAS MADE THEM HONOURABLY CONSPICUOUS EVEN AMONG THEIR FELLOW COLONISTS This small book is mainly a personal record of my adventures and impressions during the first five... 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

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

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

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED TO MAJOR-GENERAL SIR BINDON BLOOD, K.C.B. UNDER WHOSE COMMAND THE OPERATIONS THEREIN RECORDED WERE CARRIED OUT; BY WHOSE GENERALSHIP THEY WERE BROUGHT TO A SUCCESSFUL CONCLUSION; AND TO WHOSE KINDNESS THE AUTHOR IS INDEBTED FOR THE MOST VALUABLE AND FASCINATING EXPERIENCE OF HIS LIFE. On general grounds I deprecate prefaces. I... Read More