Historical Miniatures

“A very interesting book, as might be expected, for it is Strindberg’s. And I am bold enough to say a book which should and must be successful with the public. The writer is not...

He went forward, and suddenly saw a terrace upon which stood a sacrificial altar. From the terrace, a flight of stairs flanked with sphinxes descended to the river. Thence there...

“_You_ know nothing at all, and least of all what you talk about.” The company passed through the Sacred Street, and went together to the theatre of Dionysus, near which Alcibia...

“Socrates, my friend,” he began, “this is the farewell of a dying man. You were the wisest, but take it not ill if I say, ‘Be not too wise’; seek not the unattainable, and confu...

“Now life begins to smile on the hardly-tried exile. If you knew my childhood with its sorrows, my youth with its privations! The vine had not grown for me, woman had not been m...

A table was laid in a vine-arbour; flagons of old Massisian and Falernian lay already on ice, oysters and eels were there; a kid and some quails were roasting on the spit in the...

In the temple, which people called “the world turned upside down,” a man slunk along the walls in a state of panic, as though he were afraid to display his back. He had the face...

He found the new town to be a miniature of the Rome of the Caesars. It is true that huts with straw roofs formed the nucleus of it, but there were also several temples and chape...

Then Maximus mounted the pulpit, and, in a Neo-platonic discourse, expounded all religious images, symbols, and customs. He also showed that the heathen only worshipped one God,...

While the noise and excitement were at their height, the hall suddenly filled with smoke, and the building was in flames. All started up, shouted and sought to flee, but Attila’...

“There are some hundreds of thousands of us Hebrews here in Spain, for when the Emperor Hadrian had destroyed Jerusalem for the last time, he sent some fifty thousand Hebrews he...

It was the day before New Year’s Eve. Views were divided as to the nature of the coming catastrophe--whether it would come as a flood or as an earthquake. Most of the people rem...

“My history! I am from Amiens in France. I am now called Peter; was formerly a soldier, followed William the Conqueror to Hastings, and took part in the invasion of England. I r...

“Then you are wrong! But you must not speak so loud, you understand, for if you sin, you must go in your room, and hold your mouth! Practise obedience and silence, the first vir...

“Let us go for a little walk,” he said; “but I must first make a note of what you say, for, when I wish to remember something important, the devil makes confusion in my head. Th...

“And this is the way he composed his book against King Henry, the Defender of Our Faith: he collected his stable-companions, and commissioned them to collect all manner of abuse...

Königsmark went forward alone, and, hidden behind a young fir-tree, he beheld a spectacle.... He had seen such sights before, but not under such circumstances. In an iron scoop...

Three hours later, when the fleet and docks had been inspected, the Czar and Jaen Scheerborck sat in a seamen’s tavern. The cabriolet stood without, and was “anchored” to a that...

The man handed the document to Voltaire, and retired. When the old man had opened and read it, he fell on his knees before the King and exclaimed, “Save me, sire!”

“The ultimate causes,” continued the old man, “may be sought in heaven, but we have here only to do with secondary causes, and those we know. The Revolution was a Last Judgment...