Murad the Unlucky, and Other Tales

It is well known that the grand seignior amuses himself by going at night, in disguise, through streets of Constantinople; as the caliph Haroun Alraschid used formerly to do in...

"The merchant, who was become my master, treated me with great kindness; but on hearing me relate the whole series of my unfortunate adventures, he exacted a promise from me tha...

The lamentations of Murad were interrupted by the entrance of Saladin. Having waited in vain for some hours, he now came to see if any disaster had happened to his brother Murad...

"Mrs. Hill! Mrs. Hill!--Phœbe! Phœbe! There's the cathedral bell, I say, and neither of you ready for church, and I a verger," cried Mr. Hill, the tanner, as he stood at the bot...

On Thursday morning our verger rose in unusually good spirits, congratulating himself upon the eminent service he had done to the city of Hereford by his sagacity in discovering...

"D'abord, madame, c'est impossible!--Madame ne descendra pas ici?" said Francois, the footman of Madame de Fleury, with a half expostulatory, half indignant look, as he let down...

It is not so easy to do good as those who have never attempted it may imagine; and they who without consideration follow the mere instinct of pity, often by their imprudent gene...

"Ah me! how much I fear lest pride it be; But if that pride it be which thus inspires, Beware, ye dames! with nice discernment see Ye quench not too the sparks of nobler fires."

At the end of the time prescribed, the judges, including Victoire herself, who was the most severe of them all, agreed she had justly deserved her reward. Maurice obtained his w...

Victoire, who gave constant exercise to the benevolent feelings of the amiable nun, became every day more dear to her. Far from having the selfishness of a favourite, Victoire l...

A few days after Madame de Fleury had told Victoire the fable of the lion and the mouse, she was informed by Sister Frances that Victoire had put the fable into verse. It was wo...

Good legislators always attend to the habits, and what is called the genius, of the people they have to govern. From youth to age, the taste for whatever is called _une fete_ pe...

Madame de Fleury was not disappointed in her pupils. When the public disturbances began, these children were shocked by the horrible actions they saw. Instead of being seduced b...

At the very moment when this order was going to be put in execution, Madame de Fleury was sitting in the midst of the children, listening to Babet, who was reading AEsop's fable...

"Alas! full oft on Guilt's victorious car The spoils of Virtue are in triumph borne, While the fair captive, marked with many a scar, In lone obscurity, oppressed, forlorn, Resi...

Madame de Fleury joined her husband, who was in London, and they both lived in the most retired and frugal manner. They had too much of the pride of independence to become burth...

The health of the good Sister Frances, which had suffered much from the shock her mind received at the commencement of the revolution, declined so rapidly in the course of the t...

"When thy last breath, ere Nature sank to rest Thy meek submission to thy God expressed; When thy last look, ere thought and feeling fled, A mingled gleam of hope and triumph sh...

"The character is lost! Her head adorned with lappets, pinned aloft, And ribands streaming gay, superbly raised, Indebted to some smart wig-weaver's hand For more than half the...

"But beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree, Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard Of dragon watch with unenchanted eye To save her blossoms, or defend her fruit."--MILTON.

Basile had not seen without emotion the various instances of goodness which Victoire showed during the illness of Sister Frances. Her conduct towards M. Tracassier increased his...