Category: Historical Novels
The realities of the world are few and small; the illusions many and vast. Not a sense that we possess, and hardly a faculty of the mind, but serves to deceive us; wholly in some cases, and partially in all. Yet, strip nature and life of these deceits, and what would earth bec...
The sun set; the beams of the departed orb spread up from behind the mountains of the Haardt over the whole wide expanse of the cloudless heaven; and, from the golden verge of t...
39. CHAPTER XIV.It was in the early grey of the morning: all was silent and solemn; the beleaguered city lay in its brief repose; the cannon on the hills and at the gates were still: the camp o...
3. CHAPTER III.The fate that hangs over the death-doomed race of man appalls us not. We wander where generations have grown up and bloomed, borne fruit, and passed away, without a homily in ou...
27. CHAPTER II.Before daybreak, Algernon Grey was up and dressed; but, to say truth, it was no pain to him to rise, for he had not closed an eye all night, and was more weary of tossing to and...
1. CHAPTER I.The realities of the world are few and small; the illusions many and vast. Not a sense that we possess, and hardly a faculty of the mind, but serves to deceive us; wholly in som...
10. CHAPTER X.Agnes Herbert left her hand in that of her deliverer. For more than a minute she made no reply; she asked no question. The voice was enough; she knew who it was that had saved h...
22. CHAPTER X.The morning was fair, but sultry; the pace at which the cavalcade proceeded was, for several miles, very quick; and the exhilarating effect of rapid motion would probably again...
6. CHAPTER VI."Tony," cried the page, standing in the gateway of the Golden Stag, and turning half-round towards a sort of covered half-enclosed shed or booth in the court yard, where the Eng...
17. CHAPTER V.Another night passed of agitating thought, with but little sleep and many troublous dreams; and for more than one long hour Algernon Grey remained in deep and intense thought, p...
21. CHAPTER IX.The next ten days in the world's history are like those minutes of the night, where the hour strikes just as the eyes are closed to sleep, and a period passes by unnoted, except...
31. CHAPTER VI."Evil news, Oberntraut, evil news!" cried Colonel Herbert, as he sat in his tower at Heidelberg, with an open letter in his hand. "Anhalt has been defeated under the walls of Pr...
26. CHAPTER I.There were a few murmured words at the door of that large room where Algernon Grey had waited to know the pleasure of the Queen of Bohemia; there was a soft pressure of the hand...
2. CHAPTER II."Who is that, who is that?" cried the small shrill voice of a little deformed boy, who stood as near to the gate of the castle as the soldiers would let him--and, to say the tru...
7. CHAPTER VII.In a large circular room, with a massive column in the midst, from which sprang the groins of the numerous arches which formed the vault, sat the stout soldier Herbert, with his...
5. CHAPTER V.Preceded by a Knecht, as he was called, of the inn, in a close-fitting jacket, wide brown breeches, and blue stockings, Algernon Grey walked through the narrow and tortuous stre...
37. CHAPTER XII.The cannon thundered from the Geisberg; and thick and fast the cannon-balls fell into the town and castle; but the distance was great, the science of projectiles little known; a...
14. CHAPTER II.In the custody of the Grand Marshall, Algernon Grey was removed from the presence of the Elector, and passing across the hall where he had seen Agnes waiting, he was led into on...
36. CHAPTER XI.The wind was from the west, the grey morning dawning calm, and somewhat hazy. Few eyes were open in the castle of Heidelberg, except those of the sentinels on the walls; and amo...
33. CHAPTER VIII.The sun had set; the young moon had risen; and the sky of the early spring-time was full of stars. A great deal of bustle had been observed in the castle, though it was now no l...
11. CHAPTER XI.One of the first cares of Algernon Grey, when Agnes had left him for the night, was to send off a messenger to the castle of Heidelberg, to announce, even at that late hour, tha...
16. CHAPTER IV.There was a lamp lighted in the chamber to which Algernon Grey returned. He found the room neatly ordered, as if care and attention had been bestowed upon it; and, in a few minu...
32. CHAPTER VII.The long and weary hours of sickness fell heavy upon Algernon Grey. Never for a day during the course of life had he known the weight of illness before, at least within his own...
23. CHAPTER XI.I must now, for one brief chapter, quit the course of narrative I have been hitherto pursuing, and, instead of detailing, day by day, the actions and feelings of the personages...
8. CHAPTER VIII.It was a night of storms and tempests. As is not unusual in hilly districts, thunder, as well as rain, was brought up by the gusty wind. The house, though in the midst of the to...
29. CHAPTER IV.All was confusion and disorder in the streets of Kleinseite (or smaller side) of the city of Prague, as old Christian of Anhalt returned from the gates. The lower classes of cit...
24. CHAPTER XII.It was a dark and stormy night, that of the 19th of November, 1620, the eve of the twenty-third Sunday after Trinity; and clouds were rolling heavily over the sky, carried on by...
19. CHAPTER VII.About an hour after his liberation, Algernon Grey sat alone in his chamber at the Golden Stag, absorbed in deep meditation. The servants came and went, bringing down from the ca...
34. CHAPTER IX.In all ages of which we have record, England has been unlike any other country in the world; nor has it been alone in the character of the people, their political institutions,...
30. CHAPTER V."I fear there are storms in the sky, dear Agnes," said Algernon Grey, as the stars disappeared, and the heavy clouds rolled broad over the heavens. "How cold the night wind blow...
35. CHAPTER X."Yes, sir, yes," said the King of England lolling upon his left leg, and sticking out his right hip, as if he had dislocated the joint, at the same time thrusting one hand into...
25. CHAPTER XIII.The colour varied in the fair girl's cheek, spreading wide and fading away again, like the light of a summer sunset; but, without reserve or coldness, she came forward towards h...
9. CHAPTER IX.The court of the Elector, Frederic the Fifth, was, as I have in some degree shown, one of the gayest as well as one of the most splendid in Europe. Nay, the merriment and revelr...
20. CHAPTER VIII.Once more the courts of the castle of Heidelberg were crowded with horses and servants; once more guest after guest was arriving, not now for the purposes of revelry and mirth,...
13. CHAPTER I.In a large and stately chamber of one of the older parts of the castle at Heidelberg sat a lady of the middle age, about half an hour after Algernon Grey had been removed from t...
28. CHAPTER III.In the fine old Dom church of Prague, sat Frederic, king of Bohemia, and many of the principal personages of his court. The faint sunshine of a cold November day shone through t...
18. CHAPTER VI.The fair Princess of England, now in the pride of youth and beauty, in the full sunshine of prosperity and power, with one of the fairest portions of the earth for her dominions...
4. CHAPTER IV.How often an aching head or an aching heart is the follower of a gay night like that of the nineteenth of August, those who have much mingled with, or much watched, the world we...
38. CHAPTER XIII.On an evening at the end of summer, while leaves were yet green and skies yet fall of sunshine, though the long daylight of the year's prime had diminished somewhat more than an...
12. CHAPTER XII.In the large round room I have described in a former chapter, with its column in the midst, decked out with arms and banners, just as it had appeared when Algernon Grey first sa...