Excerpt: My Dear Charles, It is the fate of sequels to disappoint those who have waited for them; and my David, having been left to kick his heels for more than a lustre in the British Linen Company?s office, must expect his late re-appearance to be greeted with hoots, if not with missiles. Yet, when I remember the days of our explorations, I am not without hope. There should be left in our native city some seed of the elect; some long legged, hot-headed youth must repeat to-day our dreams and wanderings of so many years ago; he will relish the pleasure, which should have been ours, to follow among named streets and numbered houses the country walks of David Balfour, to identify Dean, and Silvermills, and Broughton, and Hope Park, and Pilrig, and poor old Lochend -- if it still be standing, and the Figgate Whins -- if there be any of them left; or to push (on a long holiday) so far afield as Gillane or the Bass. So, perhaps, his eye shall be opened to behold the series of the generations, and he shall weigh with surprise his momentous and nugatory gift of life....

Preface: A Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a company of some hundred and fifty men and women not laboring under any suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought the judge?s eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate. There had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of progress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the ?parsimony of the public,? which guilty public, it appeared, had been until lately bent in the most determined manner on by no means enlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed--I believe by Richard the Second, but any other king will do as well....

Excerpt: At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on at every ball and rout. First, an official party, composed of the persons invited, a fashionable and much-bored circle. Each one grimaces for his neighbor?s eye; most of the younger women are there for one person only; when each woman has assured herself that for that one she is the handsomest woman in the room, and that the opinion is perhaps shared by a few others, a few insignificant phrases are exchanged, as: ?Do you think of going away soon to La Crampade?? ?How well Madame de Portenduere sang!? ?Who is that little woman with such a load of diamonds?? Or, after firing off some smart epigrams, which give transient pleasure, and leave wounds that rankle long, the groups thin out, the mere lookers on go away, and the waxlights burn down to the sconces....

Excerpt: Chapter 1. I was returning home by the fields. It was midsummer, the hay harvest was over and they were just beginning to reap the rye. At that season of the year there is a delightful variety of flowers --red, white, and pink scented tufty clover; milk-white ox-eye daisies with their bright yellow centers and pleasant spicy smell;...

Excerpt: For a long time after the course of the steamer Sofala had been altered for the land, the low swampy coast had retained its appearance of a mere smudge of darkness beyond a belt of glitter. The sunrays seemed to fall violently upon the calm sea--seemed to shatter themselves upon an adamantine surface into sparkling dust, into a dazzling vapor of light that blinded the eye and wearied the brain with its unsteady brightness....

Excerpt: An ancient English cathedral tower? How can the ancient English Cathedral tower be here! The well-known massive gray square tower of its old Cathedral? How can that be here! There is no spike of rusty iron in the air, between the eye and it, from any point of the real prospect. What is the spike that intervenes, and who has set it up? Maybe it is set up by the Sultan?s orders for the impaling of a horde of Turkish robbers, one by one....

Excerpt: The waies, through which my weary steps I guyde, In this delightfull land of Faery, Are so exceeding spacious and wyde, And sprinckled with such sweet variety, Of all that pleasant is to eare or eye, That I nigh rauisht with rare thoughts delight, My tedious trauell doe forget thereby; And when I gin to feele decay of might, It strength to me supplies, & chears my dulled spright....

Preface: What is exaggeration to one class of minds and perceptions, is plain truth to another. That which is commonly called a long-sight, perceives in a prospect innumerable features and bearings non-existent to a short-sighted person. I sometimes ask myself whether there may occasionally be a difference of this kind between some writers and some readers; whether it is always the writer who colors highly, or whether it is now and then the reader whose eye for color is a little dull?...

Preface: A Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under any suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought the judge?s eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate....

Excerpt: To equip so small a book with a preface is, I am half afraid, to sin against proportion. But a preface is more than an author can resist, for it is the reward of his labours. When the foundation stone is laid, the architect appears with his plans, and struts for an hour before the public eye. So with the writer in hisPreface: he may have never a word to say, but he must show himself for a moment in the portico, hat in hand, and with an urbane demeanour....

Contents PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION................................................................................................. 4 ANTWERP TO BOOM ....................................................................................................................... 5 ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL...................................................................................................... 9 THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE................................................................................................... 13 AT MAUBEUGE ............................................................................................................................... 17 ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED .................................................................................................... 20 PONT-SUR-SAMBRE (We Are Pedlars) .......................................................................................... 25 PONT-SUR-SAMBRE (The Travelling Merchant) ........................................................................... 29 SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL ..................................................................................

Excerpt: The pages which follow have been extracted from a pile of manuscript which was apparently meant for the eye of one woman only. She seems to have been the writer?s childhood?s friend. They had parted as children, or very little more than children. Years passed. Then something recalled to the woman the companion of her young days and she wrote to him: ?I have been hearing of you lately. I know where life has brought you. You certainly selected your own road. But to us, left behind, it always looked as if you had struck out into a pathless desert....

Excerpt: Landfall and departure mark the rhythmical swing of a seaman?s life and of a ship?s career. From land to land is the most concise definition of a ship?s earthly fate. A ?Departure? is not what a vain people of landsmen may think. The term ?Landfall? is more easily understood; you fall in with the land, and it is a matter of a quick eye and of a clear atmosphere....

Contents: I. Landfalls and Departures IV. Emblems of Hope VII. The Fine Art X. Cobwebs and Gossamer XIII. The Weight of the Burden XVI. Overdue and Missing XX. The Grip of the Land XXII. The Character of the Foe XXV. Rules of East and West...

Excerpt: If you look at a map of the World, you will see, in the left-hand upper corner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands lying in the sea. They are England and Scotland, and Ireland. England and Scotland form the greater part of these Islands. Ireland is the next in size. The little neighboring islands, which are so small upon the Map as to be mere dots, are chiefly little bits of Scotland, -- broken off, I dare say, in the course of a great length of time, by the power of the restless water....

Contents CHAPTER I ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS......................................................... 7 CHAPTER II ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS .................................. 18 CHAPTER III ENGLAND UNDER THE GOOD SAXON, ALFRED...................................... 24 CHAPTER IV ENGLAND UNDER ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS .................. 31 CHAPTER V ENGLAND UNDER CANUTE THE DANE........................................................ 44 CHAPTER VI ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD THE CONFESSOR ....................................................................................................... 46 CHAPTER VII ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD THE SECOND, AND CONQUERED BY THE NORMANS ........................................................................................................................ 55 CHAPTER VIII ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE FIRST, THE NORMAN CONQUEROR..................................................................................................................... ............... 59 CHAPTER IX ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE SECOND, CALLED RUFUS.............. 68 CHAPTER X ENGLAND UNDE...

Excerpt: I come no more to make you laugh: things now, That bear a weighty and a serious brow, Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe, Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, We now present. Those that can pity, here May, if they think it well, let fall a tear; The subject will deserve it. Such as give Their money out of hope they may believe, May here find truth too. Those that come to see Only a show or two, and so agree The play may pass, if they be still and willing, I?ll undertake may see away their shilling Richly in two short hours. Only they That come to hear a merry bawdy play, A noise of targets, or to see a fellow In a long motley coat guarded with yellow, Will be deceived; for, gentle hearers, know, To rank our chosen truth with such a show As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring, To make that only true we now intend, Will leave us never an understanding friend....

Excerpt: Dedication. Bob Southey! You?re a poet -- Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race, Although ?t is true that you turn?d out a Tory at Last,-- yours has lately been a common case; And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? With all the Lakers, in and out of place? A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like ?four and twenty Blackbirds in a pyre....

Excerpt: Story of the Door. Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theater, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. ?I incline to Cain?s heresy,? he used to say quaintly: ?I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.? In this character, it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of d...

Preface: In making this abridgement of Boswell?s Life of Johnson I have omitted most of Boswell?s criticisms, comments, and notes, all of Johnson?s opinions in legal cases, most of the letters, and parts of the conversation dealing with matters which were of greater importance in Boswell?s day than now. I have kept in mind an old habit, common enough, I dare say, among its devotees, of opening the book of random, and reading wherever the eye falls upon a passage of especial interest. All such passages, I hope, have been retained, and enough of the whole book to illustrate all the phases of Johnson?s mind and of his time which Boswell observed....

Excerpt: Young Folks? History of England by Charlotte M. Yonge.

Contents Young Folks? History of England ..................................... 6 CHAPTER I JULIUS CAESAR. B.C. 55 ........................................................................................ 6 CHAPTER II THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN. A.D. 41?418.......................................................... 8 CHAPTER III THE ANGLE CHILDREN A.D. 597.................................................................... 10 CHAPTER IV THE NORTHMEN. A.D. 858?958...................................................................... 12 CHAPTER V THE DANISH CONQUEST. A.D. 958?1035 ...................................................... 15 CHAPTER VI THE NORMAN CONQUEST. A.D. 1035?1066 ................................................ 17 CHAPTER VII WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. A.D. 1066?1087 ......................................... 19 CHAPTER VIII WILLIAM II., RUFUS. A.D. 1087-1100 ........................................................... 22 CHAPTER IX HENRY I., BEAU-CLERC. A.D. 1100?1135 ..................................................... 24 CHAPTER X STEPHEN. A.D. 1135?1154 .........................................................................

Excerpt: A chapter of which the last page only is of any importance comedy is a game played to throw reflections upon social life, and it deals with human nature in the drawing-room of civilized men and women, where we have no dust of the struggling outer world, no mire, no violent crashes, to make the correctness of the representation convincing. Credulity is not wooed through the impressionable senses; nor have we recourse to the small circular glow of the watchmaker?s eye to raise in bright relief minutest grains of evidence for the routing of incredulity....

Excerpt: This treatise, which is grown up under your lordship?s eye, and has ventured into the world by your order, does now, by a natural kind of right, come to your lordship for that protection which you several years since promised it. It is not that I think any name, how great soever, set at the beginning of a book, will be able to cover the faults that are to be found in it. Things in print must stand and fall by their own worth, or the reader?s fancy....

Contents AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING (1690) ......................................................................... 6 EPISTLE TO THE READER .......................................................................................................................................... 9 INTRODUCTION:....................................................................................................................................................... 22 BOOK I Neither Principles nor Ideas Are Innate ..................................................................................................... 27 Chapter I No Innate Speculative Principles ...................................................................................................................... 27 Chapter II No Innate Practical Principles ......................................................................................................................... 46 Chapter III Other considerations concerning Innate Principles, both Speculative and Practical .......................................... 67 BOOK II Of Ideas .................................................

Excerpt: ACT I. On the heights overlooking the harbor of Mogador, a seaport on the west coast of Morocco, the missionary, in the coolness of the late afternoon, is following the precept of Voltaire by cultivating his garden. He is an elderly Scotchman, spiritually a little weather beaten, as having to navigate his creed in strange waters crowded with other craft but still a convinced son of the Free Church and the North African Mission, with a faithful brown eye, and a peaceful soul. Physically a wiry small-knit man, well tanned, clean shaven, with delicate resolute features and a twinkle of mild humor. He wears the sun helmet and pagri, the neutral-tinted spectacles, and the white canvas Spanish sand shoes of the modern Scotch missionary: but instead of a cheap tourist?s suit from Glasgow, a grey flannel shirt with white collar, a green sailor knot tie with a cheap pin in it, he wears a suit of clean white linen, acceptable in color, if not in cut, to the Moorish mind....

Excerpt: From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty?s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed?st thy light?s flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. Thou that art now the world?s fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world?s due, by the grave and thee....

Contents 1 From fairest creatures we desire increase, ..................7 2 When forty winters shall beseige thy brow, ................8 3 Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest ........8 4 Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend ..................9 5 Those hours, that with gentle work did frame ............9 6 Then let not winter?s ragged hand deface .................10 7 Lo! in the orient when the gracious light ..................10 8 Music to hear, why hear?st thou music sadly? ..........11 9 Is it for fear to wet a widow?s eye .............................11 10 For shame! deny that thou bear?st love to any, ........12 11 As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest .....12 12 When I do count the clock that tells the time, .........13 13 O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are ..........13 14 Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck; ...........14 15 When I consider every thing that grows ..................14 16 But wherefore do not you a mightier way ...............15 17 Who will believe my verse in time to come, ...........15 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer?s day? ................16...

Excerpt: Preface By Way Of Criticism. These studies are collected from the monthly press. One appeared in the New Quarterly, one in MacMillan?s, and the rest in the Cornhill Magazine. To the Cornhill I owe a double debt of thanks; first, that I was received there in the very best society, and under the eye of the very best of editors; and second, that the proprietors have allowed me to republish so considerable an amount of copy....

Contents PREFACE BY WAY OF CRITICISM. ........................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER I ? VICTOR HUGO?S ROMANCES ........................................................................ 15 CHAPTER II ? SOME ASPECTS OF ROBERT BURNS.......................................................... 34 CHAPTER III ? WALT WHITMAN............................................................................................. 63 CHAPTER IV ? HENRY DAVID THOREAU: HIS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS........... 84 CHAPTER V ? YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO..................................................................................... 107 CHAPTER VI ? FRANCOIS VILLON, STUDENT, POET, AND HOUSEBREAKER.........117 CHAPTER VII ? CHARLES OF ORLEANS ............................................................................ 141 CHAPTER VIII ? SAMUEL PEPYS .......................................................................................... 170 CHAPTER IX ? JOHN KNOX AND HIS RELATIONS TO WOMEN .................................. 190...