A book of dear dead women

Never did spring come so early. In April, when the country is as white as the coverlet on my bed, fields were dotted with black rings at the base of trees which glistened with m...

Nothing can make me believe that personal motives enter into his ambition. He is the most disinterested of men. All this time that he has been Minister of Foreign Affairs for Ru...

I said to the Emperor in one last attempt: “There is Russia, Sire. Do you remember how it looks upon the map? A wilderness bounded by a river of blood and by blue and frozen sea...

“In ancient days my ancestors,” he began, “were Roman Governors in Spain. At the court of one of them, Vitellius Ponteleone, lived a famous Jewish physician (in old Spanish days...

Was it the creation of my bow? Now for the first time was the demon-compelling power of Paganini mine? Through contemplation of that crystal surface had I purged my soul of impe...

It was in the winter of 1906 that the following remarkable incidents were communicated to me, and truly in a most remarkable manner. But who may say what shall be the intermedia...

Overjoyed at her safe delivery, chastened in mind by the favors of Heaven, the Countess decided that the child should take the veil in a convent of the Silent Sisters. Then she...

On the way across the lake, the sparkles of light upon the water were not more numerous than the words of love which he lavished upon Elsbeth. They erased from her mind the disa...

“Even then, before a word had been exchanged between us, I felt that her life and her ideal of life were altogether dissimilar to my own, that mentally we were the opposite each...

“No sooner had we crossed the dividing line than, with a crash, a great rock suspended above the entrance like a door fell and shut us off from sight of the island and the glitt...

Cavaliers, with heads flung back and hands to sword hilt, like true old French gallants, danced haughtily out to meet gay Watteau ladies. Then what smiles, what courtly bows, wh...

A sad childhood was hers. The playtimes with little neighbors were embittered by scornful treatment and the nicknames “Gentile” and “Christian dog.” They had been told that she...

When Gaon’s good humor returned sufficiently to send Rahel out of the Ghetto again, Passion-week had come and its tragic gloom hung over the German city. As she walked along slo...