Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 15

The King of England, when he was past the river, he thanked God, and so rode forth in like manner as he did before. Then he called Gobin Agace and did quit him his ransom and al...

"Ah!" he continued, "I know and judge myself. No one could reproach my own infamous conduct so cruelly as my own conscience. I was not born wicked, but I am a miserable fool. I...

Froissart's merit, then, is not that he is a great political historian, nor even a great historian of the culture of his time. He did not see accurately enough to be the first,...

After being deprived of his government position upon the publication of 'Mannfolk,' Arne Garborg retired with his wife and child into the solitude of the mountains, where for tw...

In this room our antique and Spartan Jane was made to feel the need of yet stronger props to hold her up against the overbearing weight of latter-day magnificence. She found her...

The romantic school had many false and erratic tendencies, but it produced some of the most fanciful and poetic creations of literature. Fouque was called the Don Quixote of the...

There were one or two consequences arising from this general but unacknowledged poverty and this very much acknowledged gentility, which were not amiss, and which might be intro...

"Drop that," said Morty, "or by God! kinsman of mine though you be, I will drive a bullet through the brain of you. Enough of this, sir," he said, turning to Goring. "Time passe...

Franklin was not a member of the visible Church, nor did he ever become the adherent of any sect. He was three years younger than Jonathan Edwards, and in his youth heard his sh...

I was asked whether I wished to see any persons in particular; to which I replied that I wished to see the philosophers.--"There are two who live here at hand in this garden; th...

Let us here sketch out a comparison between the history and institutions of England and those of France and Germany. As we before said, our modern Parliament is traced up in an...

Every Saturday we were taken to confession. If any one will tell me why, he will greatly oblige me. The practice inspired me with both respect and weariness. I hardly think it p...

But at the moment the bell rang again, and my own name was called. There was no occasion to ask who I was. In every instance the identity of the person, his history, small or la...

Evening had scarcely arrived when the company returned to their homes; not dismissed by the impatience of the bridegroom, as wedding parties are sometimes broken up, but constra...

He next entered upon an extensive enterprise which soon began to give him both reputation and profit. This was the writing of a score of historical romances, after the model of...

It had other moods, this mighty spread of water. It could be angry, dangerous. Sometimes it rolled sullenly, and convoluted in oily surges beneath its coverlid of snow, like a b...

"I take my natural position always: and the more I see, the more I feel that it is regal. Without throne, sceptre, or guards, still a queen....In near eight years' experience I...

This is not the place to debate the question of Froude's historical accuracy, further than to remark that he was an industrious reader of historical documents, and by nature a s...

The reader will easily note the struggle between our poet's conventional and quite literary despair and the fresh communal tone in such passages as we have ventured, despite Lei...

'Debit and Credit' is a novel of the century, and it takes up the great problem of the century, the position of modern industrialism in the social life of the day. Its principal...

It was Froebel who said, "The clearer the thread that runs through our lives backward to our childhood, the clearer will be our onward glance to the goal;" and in the fragment o...

Carlyle indeed is arrogant and overbearing; but in his arrogance there is no littleness, no self-love. It is the heroic arrogance of some old Scandinavian conqueror; it is his n...

The archbishop had told the knights that they would find him where they left him. He did not choose to show fear; or he was afraid, as some thought, of losing his martyrdom. He...

It was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs. Forrester's deafness and Mrs. Jamieson's sleepiness. But Miss Barker managed her arduous task well. She repeated the whisper to...

Fourthly, the number among the negroes of those whom we should call half-witted men is very large. Every book alluding to negro servants in America is full of instances. I was m...

In this piece it was my design to explain and enforce this doctrine: that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the...

"Is my husband--I will be his wife, protected by the law. You are not a woman! Why do you look at me in that way? You make me tremble. Mother, mother, do not condemn me!"

_Jack_--First of April, anno seventeen hundred and blank, John a-Nokes was indicted by blank, before blank, in the county of blank, for stealing a cow, _contra pacem_, etc., and...

Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till near the market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and inquiring where he got it, I went immediately...

We each looked to see that our particular belongings were safe, but we were surprised to find that we could recognize none of them. Packages there were in plenty, alleged to be...

He proclaimed in a loud voice, resounding as a brass trumpet, the victories of the Pharaoh; he recounted the results of the different battles, the number of captives and war cha...

Gracious Love, to me incline, Make for me a garland fine,-- Garland for the man to wear Who can please a maiden fair. I say to thee, I say to thee, Playmate mine, O come with me...

The two great phenomena, then, of the general appearance of Rome, are the utter abandonment of so large a part of the ancient city and the general lack of buildings of the Middl...

I am firmly convinced that all the phenomena of the child-world, those which delight us as well as those which grieve us, depend upon fixed laws as definite as those of the cosm...

The question of taxing the Penn proprietary estates in Pennsylvania, for the defense of the province from the French and Indians, had assumed such an acute stage in 1757 that th...

"How you always interrupt me," said M. Lecoq, in his most imperative tones. "Do only what I tell you, and let everything else alone. M. Clameran is not a friend to Prosper. I kn...

The barons now felt themselves taken in a snare. They were in nearly the same case as the king against whom they were called on to march. They had indeed promised; they had comm...

After this the hospitable Queensberrys seem to have adopted him. He produced a musical drama, 'Acis and Galatea,' written long before and set to Handel's music; a few more 'Fabl...

Theron, somewhat wonderingly, found himself a minute later inside a dark and ill-smelling room, the air of which was humid with the steam from a boiler of clothes on the stove,...

SAMUEL FOOTE 1720-1777 5878 How to be a Lawyer ('The Lame Lover') A Misfortune in Orthography (same) From the 'Memoirs': A Cure for Bad Poetry; The Retort Courteous; On Garrick'...