A FIRST WORD FOR MYSELF. BEFORE the doctor left me one evening, I asked him how much longer I was likely to live. He answered: “It’s not easy to say; you may die before I can get back to you in the morning, or you may live to the end of the month.” I was […]

Part I. TWO REMONSTRATIONS. I. ONE afternoon old Miss Dulane entered her drawing-room; ready to receive visitors, dressed in splendor, and exhibiting every outward appearance of a defiant frame of mind. Just as a saucy bronze nymph on the mantelpiece struck the quarter to three on an elegant clock under her arm, a visitor was […]

[PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS OF WITNESSES FOR THE DEFENSE, COLLECTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR.] No. 1.–Miss Bertha Laroche, of Nettlegrove Hall, testifies and says:– I. TOWARD the middle of June, in the year 1817, I went to take the waters at Maplesworth, in Derbyshire, accompanied by my nearest relative–my aunt. I am an only child; […]

PART 1.–THE PREDICTION. CHAPTER I. THE QUACK. THE disasters that follow the hateful offense against Christianity, which men call war, were severely felt in England during the peace that ensued on the overthrow of Napoleon at Waterloo. With rare exceptions, distress prevailed among all classes of the community. The starving nation was ripe and ready […]

I. September 13th.–Winter seems to be upon us, on the Highland Border, already. I looked out of window, as the evening closed in, before I barred the shutters and drew the curtains for the night. The clouds hid the hilltops on either side of our valley. Fantastic mists parted and met again on the lower […]

I. “THE Captain is still in the prime of life,” the widow remarked. “He has given up his ship; he possesses a sufficient income, and he has nobody to live with him. I should like to know why he doesn’t marry.” “The Captain was excessively rude to Me,” the widow’s younger sister added, on her […]

FIRST EPOCH. THE Italians are born actors. At this conclusion I arrived, sitting in a Roman theater–now many years since. My friend and traveling companion, Rothsay, cordially agreed with me. Experience had given us some claim to form an opinion. We had visited, at that time, nearly every city in Italy. Where-ever a theater was […]

I. I HEAR that the “shocking story of my conduct” was widely circulated at the ball, and that public opinion (among the ladies), in every part of the room, declared I had disgraced myself. But there was one dissentient voice in this chorus of general condemnation. You spoke, Madam, with all the authority of your […]

I. MY brother, the clergyman, looked over my shoulder before I was aware of him, and discovered that the volume which completely absorbed my attention was a collection of famous Trials, published in a new edition and in a popular form. He laid his finger on the Trial which I happened to be reading at […]

I. THE day before I left London, to occupy the post of second secretary of legation at a small German Court, I took leave of my excellent French singing-master, Monsieur Bonnefoy, and of his young and pretty daughter named Jeanne. Our farewell interview was saddened by Monsieur Bonnefoy’s family anxieties. His elder brother, known in […]

I. THE guests would have enjoyed their visit to Sir Peter’s country house–but for Mr. Cosway. And to make matters worse, it was not Mr. Cosway but the guests who were to blame. They repeated the old story of Adam and Eve, on a larger scale. The women were the first sinners; and the men […]

I. WHEN I first saw him, he was lost in one of the Dead Cities of England–situated on the South Coast, and called Sandwich. Shall I describe Sandwich? I think not. Let us own the truth; descriptions of places, however nicely they may be written, are always more or less dull. Being a woman, I […]

I. THE course of this narrative describes the return of a disembodied spirit to earth, and leads the reader on new and strange ground. Not in the obscurity of midnight, but in the searching light of day, did the supernatural influence assert itself. Neither revealed by a vision, nor announced by a voice, it reached […]

CHAPTER I. THE SICK MAN. “HEART all right,” said the doctor. “Lungs all right. No organic disease that I can discover. Philip Lefrank, don’t alarm yourself. You are not going to die yet. The disease you are suffering from is–overwork. The remedy in your case is–rest.” So the doctor spoke, in my chambers in the […]

Charles Pineau Duclos was a French writer of biographies and novels, who lived and worked during the first half of the eighteenth century. He prospered sufficiently well, as a literary man, to be made secretary to the French Academy, and to be allowed to succeed Voltaire in the office of historiographer of France. He has […]

Late in the autumn, not many years since, a public meeting was held at the Mansion House, London, under the direction of the Lord Mayor. The list of gentlemen invited to address the audience had been chosen with two objects in view. Speakers of celebrity, who would rouse public enthusiasm, were supported by speakers connected […]

Shortly after my education at college was finished, I happened to be staying at Paris with an English friend. We were both young men then, and lived, I am afraid, rather a wild life, in the delightful city of our sojourn. One night we were idling about the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal, doubtful to […]