street

But before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky.  It was doubtless caused by one of those meteors, which the night-watcher may so often observe burning out to waste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere.  So powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. The great vault brightened, like the dome of an immense lamp.  It showed the familiar scene of the street with the distinctness of mid-day, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light.  The wooden houses, with their jutting storeys and quaint gable-peaks; the doorsteps and thresholds with the early grass springing up about them; the garden-plots, black with freshly-turned earth; the wheel-track, little worn, and even in the market-place margined with green on either side--all were visible, but with a singularity of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of this world than they had ever borne before.  And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two.  They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendour, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another.

Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Scarlet Letter

Twilight in the Park, indeed, converts more than one building into a thing of beauty, and the Plaza into a thing of beauty from more than one view. For instance, as you pass into the Park, seeking the spot we have described, turn back before you have advanced far, and see the great cliff wall going up beyond the slender tracery of young trees, with the street lights, just turned on, making a level strip of golden shimmer at its base, curiously suggestive of crowds and gaiety. There is at all hours a certain charm to be found in the long line of high hotels and apartment houses which line the Park to the west, when you view them over treetops, rock ledges, and running brooks, or over white fields of snow. It is as if the city had crested in a great wave along the green shore of the country, ready to curl and fall and dash onward, but had been suddenly arrested by some more potent King Canute. Loveliness, however, is hardly a word you would apply till twilight steals across the scene. Down side streets into the west the golden sunset glows for a time, and the shadows on the snow are amethyst. Then the glow fades. The arc lamps come on with a splutter, and they, too, at first are amethyst. But in the gathering dark they change to blue. The sky changes to the deep blue of approaching night. The dim bulks of the buildings change to blue. The shadows about you are but a deeper blue. Even the snow at your feet is blue. In the great apartments and hotels the golden window squares appear, and the

Walter Prichard Eaton
Penguin Persons & Peppermints

The streets were empty enough on Sunday night, and if the Sabbath, and the domestic amusements proper to the Sabbath, had not kept people indoors, a high strong wind might very probably have done so. Ralph Denham was aware of a tumult in the street much in accordance with his own sensations. The gusts, sweeping along the Strand, seemed at the same time to blow a clear space across the sky in which stars appeared, and for a short time the quicks-peeding silver moon riding through clouds, as if they were waves of water surging round her and over her. They swamped her, but she emerged; they broke over her and covered her again; she issued forth indomitable. In the country fields all the wreckage of winter was being dispersed; the dead leaves, the withered bracken, the dry and discolored grass, but no bud would be broken, nor would the new stalks that showed above the earth take any harm, and perhaps to-morrow a line of blue or yellow would show through a slit in their green. But the whirl of the atmosphere alone was in Denham's mood, and what of star or blossom appeared was only as a light gleaming for a second upon heaped waves fast following each other. He had not been able to speak to Mary, though for a moment he had come near enough to be tantalized by a wonderful possibility of understanding. But the desire to communicate something of the very greatest importance possessed him completely; he still wished to bestow this gift upon some other human being; he sought their company. More by instinct than by conscious choice, he took the

Virginia Woolf
Night and Day

Never before or since have I seen such perfect dressing and such active old age in combination. "Mademoiselle" was short and thin; her face was perfectly white all over, the skin being puckered up in an infinite variety of the smallest possible wrinkles. Her bright black eyes were perfect marvels of youthfulness and vivacity. They sparkled, and beamed, and ogled, and moved about over everybody and everything at such a rate, that the plain gray hair above them looked unnaturally venerable, and the wrinkles below an artful piece of masquerade to represent old age. As for her dress, I remember few harder pieces of work than the painting of it. She wore a silver-gray silk gown that seemed always flashing out into some new light whenever she moved. It was as stiff as a board, and rustled like the wind. Her head, neck, and bosom were enveloped in clouds of the airiest-looking lace I ever saw, disposed about each part of her with the most exquisite grace and propriety, and glistening at all sorts of unexpected places with little fairy-like toys in gold and precious stones. On her right wrist she wore three small bracelets, with the hair of her three pupils worked into them; and on her left, one large bracelet with a miniature let in over the clasp. She had a dark crimson and gold scarf thrown coquettishly over her shoulders, and held a lovely little feather-fan in her hand. When she first presented herself before me in this costume, with a brisk courtesy and a bright smile, filling the room with perfume, and gracefully flirting the

Wilkie Collins
After Dark

Flash-lights have come into their own in this war.  One would as soon think of living without a flash-light as he would think of travelling without clothes in Greenland.  It simply cannot be done.  In any city, from Paris to the smallest towns on the front, one must have his flash-light.  The streets of the cities and towns of France are a hundred times more crooked than those of Boston.  If Boston's streets followed the cow-paths, the streets of the cities of France followed cows with the St. Vitus dance.  Around these streets one had to find his way by night with a flash-light, especially during an air-raid. One must have a flash, too, for the houses and hotels when an air-raid is on, and one must have it when one is driving a big truck or an automobile down along the front lines, for no lights are permitted on any machines, official or otherwise, after a certain point is reached. One of the favorite outdoor sports of this preacher for a month was to lie on his stomach on the front mud-guard of a big Pierce-Arrow through the war-zone roads, bumping over shell-holes, with a little pocket flash-light playing on the ground, searching out the shell-holes, and trying to help the driver keep in the road.  It is a delightful occupation about two o'clock in the morning, with a blizzard blowing, and knowing that the big truck is rumbling along within sight and sound of the German big guns.  Trucks make more noise on such occasions than a Twentieth Century Limited.  "No lights beyond divisional

William L. Stidger
Soldier Silhouettes on our Front

During the evening of May 29, 1431, the rumor spreads through Rouen that the relapsed sinner is to be burned to death on the following day. That same night carpenters raise the necessary scaffoldings while others build the pyre and plant the stake. Early the next morning companies of English archers form a cordon around the market-place, where Joan Darc is to be executed, and a double file extends into one of the streets that runs into the place. The two files of soldiers leave a wide space between them, connecting the street with the vacant area left around the scaffoldings. These are three in number, the highest of the three being at a little distance from the other two. On one of these, the one to the right, which is covered with purple cloth, rises a daised seat of crimson, ornamented with tufts of white feathers and fringed with gold. A row of seats equally decked extends on both sides of the central and daised throne, which is reached by several steps covered with rich tapestry. The scaffold to the left is of the same dimensions as the first, but it, as well as the benches thereon, is draped in black. The last of the three scaffolds consists of solid masonry about ten feet high, broad at the bottom, and ending in a narrow platform in the middle of which stands a stake furnished with iron chains and clamps. The platform is reached by a narrow set of stairs that is lost to sight in the midst of an enormous pile of fagots mixed with straw and saturated with bitumen and sulphur. The executioners have just heaped up

Eugne Sue
The Executioner's Knife

The day has changed its ravishing blue gaiety for a pensive cloudy gloom, and the guests at the villa are walking about without any sunshades. They are numerous, though few indeed in comparison of the Banksia roses on the laden wall, over which, too, a great wistaria--put in, as the host with a just pride relates, only last year--is hanging and flinging its lilac abundance. And seen above its clusters, and above the wall, what a view from this raised terrace! Jim is really in a hurry to find Amelia, and yet he cannot choose but stop to look at it--from Galileo's tower on the right, to where, far down the plain of the Arno, Carrara loses itself in mist. It is all dark at first, sullen, purple-gray, without variation or stir--city, Duomo, Arno, Fiesole, and all her chain of sister-hills--one universal frown over every slope and jag, over street and spire, over Campanile with its marbles, and Santa Croce with its dead. But now, as it draws on towards sun-setting, in the western sky there comes a beginning of light, a faint pale tint at first, but quickly broadening across the firmament, while the whole huge cloud canopy is drawn aside like a curtain, and, as a great bright eye from under bent brows, the lowering sun sends arrows of radiance over plain, and river, and city. All of a sudden there is a vertical rain of dazzling white rays on the plain, and the olive shadows, merged all the afternoon in the universal gray, fall long and soft upon the blinding green of the young corn. He has forgotten Amelia. Oh, that that other,

Rhoda Broughton
Alas!

This Mr Peevie was, in his person, a stumpy man, well advanced in years. He had been, in his origin, a bonnet-maker; but falling heir to a friend that left him a property, he retired from business about the fiftieth year of his age, doing nothing but walking about with an ivory-headed staff, in a suit of dark bluecloth with yellow buttons, wearing a large cocked hat, and a white three-tiered wig, which was well powdered every morning by Duncan Curl, the barber.  The method of his discourse and conversation was very precise, and his words were all set forth in a style of consequence, that took with many for a season as the pith and marrow of solidity and sense.  The body, however, was but a pompous trifle, and I had for many a day held his observes and admonishments in no very reverential estimation.  So that, when I heard him address me in such a memorializing manner, I was inclined and tempted to set him off with a flea in his lug.  However, I was enabled to bridle and rein in this prejudicial humour, and answer him in his own way.

John Galt
The Provost

BRANDENBURG, a town of Germany, capital of the district and province of same name, on the river Havel, 36 m. S.W. from Berlin, on the main line to Magdeburg and the west. Pop. (1905) 51,251, including 3643 military. The town is enclosed by walls, and is divided into three parts by the river--the old town on the right and the new town on the left bank, while on an island between them is the "cathedral town,"--and is also called, from its position, "Venice." Many of the houses are built on piles in the river. There are five old churches (Protestant), all more or less noteworthy. These are the Katharinenkirche (nave 1381-1401, choir c. 1410, western tower 1583-1585), a Gothic brick church with a fine carved wooden altar and several interesting medieval tombs; the Petrikirche (14th century Gothic); the cathedral (Domkirche), originally a Romanesque basilica (1170), but rebuilt in the Gothic style in the 14th century, with a good altar-piece (1465), &c., and noted for its remarkable collection of medieval vestments; the Gothardskirche, partly Romanesque (1160), partly Gothic (1348); the Nikolaikirche (12th and 13th centuries), now no longer used. There is also a Roman Catholic church. Of other buildings may be mentioned the former town hall of the "old town" (Altstadt Rathaus), built in the 13th and 14th centuries, now used as government offices; the new Real-gymnasium; and the town hall in the Neustadt, before which, in the market-place, stands a Rolandssaule, a colossal figure 18 ft. in height, hewn out of a single block of stone.

Various
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Slice 4

The road to the station and the village lay through the glen, not by the ruins; but though the sunshine and the fresh air, and the beauty of the trees, and the sound of the water were all very soothing to the spirits, my mind was so full of my own subject that I could not refrain from turning to the right hand as I got to the top of the glen, and going straight to the place which I may call the scene of all my thoughts. It was lying full in the sunshine, like all the rest of the world. The ruined gable looked due east, and in the present aspect of the sun the light streamed down through the door-way as our lantern had done, throwing a flood of light upon the damp grass beyond. There was a strange suggestion in the open door,--so futile, a kind of emblem of vanity: all free around, so that you could go where you pleased, and yet that semblance of an enclosure,--that way of entrance, unnecessary, leading to nothing. And why any creature should pray and weep to get in--to nothing, or be kept out--by nothing, you could not dwell upon it, or it made your brain go round. I remembered, however, what Simson said about the juniper, with a little smile on my own mind as to the inaccuracy of recollection which even a scientific man will be guilty of. I could see now the light of my lantern gleaming upon the wet glistening surface of the spiky leaves at the right hand,--and he ready to go to the stake for it that it was the left! I went round to make sure. And then I saw what he had said. Right or left there was no juniper at all! I was confounded

Well, this morning at Glencarn we had a scene; and, as an easy, good-tempered old man, I hate scenes, and keep away from them. The morning was sullenly wet,--not in fierce, autumnal gusts, but there was a steady persistent downpour of soft, sweet rain, that bathed your face like a sponge, and trickled under your coat collar, and soaked your frieze and waterproof, and made you feel flabby and warm and uncomfortable. We did not see the cabin until we were quite close to it; and when we entered, the first person we saw, kneeling on the mud floor, but the kindness of the people had placed a bag under her knees, was Bittra Campion. She was wrapped round about with a waterproof cloak, the hood of which, lined with blue, covered her head, and only left her face visible. There she knelt among the simple people; and if the saint of the day appeared in bodily form, I am not sure that he would have received more reverence than was poured around that gentle figure from the full hearts that beat silently near her. I was not much surprised, for I had seen Miss Campion at stations before; but Father Letheby started back in astonishment, and looked inquiringly at me. I took no notice, but passed into the little bedroom, and commenced hearing confessions.

P.A. Sheehan
My New Curate

No escape was possible for poor little Martin so long as it was dark, and there he had to stay all night, but morning brought him comfort; for now he could see the reed-stems that hemmed him in all round, and by using his hands to bend them from him on either side he could push through them. By-and-by the sunlight touched the tops of the tall plants, and working his way towards the side from which the light came he soon made his escape from that prison, and came into a place where he could walk without trouble, and could see the earth and sky again. Further on, in a grassy part of the valley, he found some sweet roots wrhich greatly refreshed him, and at last, leaving the valley, he came out on a high grassy plain, and saw the hills before him looking very much nearer than he had ever seen them look before. Up till now they had appeared like masses of dark blue banked up cloud resting on the earth, now he could see that they were indeed stone--blue stone piled up in huge cliffs and crags high above the green world; he could see the roughness of the heaped up rocks, the fissures and crevices in the sides of the hills, and here and there the patches of green colour where trees and bushes had taken root. How wonderful it seemed to Martin that evening standing there in the wide green plain, the level sun at his back shining on his naked body, making him look like a statue of a small boy carved in whitest marble or alabaster. Then, to make the sight he gazed on still more enchanting, just as the sun went down the colour of the

and to its mind's eye they were there. It looked at a shabby old balcony, but as it listened it saw the swallows flitting round the sun-lit battlements of Macbeth's castle, and our pitiful sense of grotesque incongruity never troubled it.[24] The simplest convention sufficed to set its imagination at work. If Prospero entered wearing a particular robe, it knew that no one on the stage could see his solid shape;[25] and if Banquo, rising through the trap-door, had his bloody face dusted over with meal, it recognised him for a ghost and thrilled with horror; and we, Heaven help us, should laugh. Though the stage stood in broad daylight, again, Banquo, for it, was being murdered on a dark wet night, for he carried a torch and spoke of rain; and the chaste stars were shining for it outside Desdemona's chamber as the awful figure entered and extinguished the lamp. Consider how extraordinary is the fact I am about to mention, and what a testimony it bears to the imagination of the audience. In _Hamlet_, _Othello_, and _Macbeth_, not one scene here and there but actually the majority of the most impressive scenes take place at night, and, to a reader, depend not a little on the darkness for their effect. Yet the Ghost-scenes, the play-scene, the sparing of the king at prayer, that conversation of Hamlet with his mother which is opened by the killing of Polonius and interrupted by the appearance of the Ghost; the murder of Duncan, the murder of Banquo, the Banquet-scene, the Sleep-walking scene; the whole

Andrew Cecil Bradley
Oxford Lectures on Poetry

"On one of those sultry nights Virginia, restless and unhappy, arose, then went again to rest, but could find in no attitude either slumber or repose. At length she bent her way, by the light of the moon, towards her fountain, and gazed at its spring, which, notwithstanding the drought, still flowed like silver threads down the brown sides of the rock. She flung herself into the basin; its coolness reanimated her spirits, and a thousand soothing remembrances presented themselves to her mind. She recollected that in her infancy her mother and Margaret amused themselves by bathing her with Paul in this very spot; that Paul afterwards, reserving this bath for her use only, had dug its bed, covered the bottom with sand, and sown aromatic herbs around the borders. She saw, reflected through the water upon her naked arms and bosom, the two cocoa trees which were planted at her birth and that of her brother, and which interwove about her head their green branches and young fruit. She thought of Paul's friendship, sweeter than the odours, purer than the waters of the fountains, stronger than the intertwining palm trees, and she sighed. Reflecting upon the hour of the night, and the profound solitude, her imagination again grew disordered. Suddenly she flew affrighted from those dangerous shades, and those waters which she fancied hotter than the torrid sunbeam, and ran to her mother, in order to find a refuge from herself. Often, wishing to unfold her sufferings, she pressed her mother's hand within her own; often she was

It was gradually borne in upon Katherine, as she floundered on through the puddles, that she was not retracing her steps toward the carline, but was proceeding in a new and entirely unknown direction. The store fronts which loomed indistinctly through the darkness were not the same ones she had passed before; surely those others had not been so shabby and disreputable looking. But so intense was the blackness of the night that she could not be sure about anything; she might be on the right track after all. Undoubtedly the next turn would bring her back to the lighted drug store, and from that point she could easily locate herself. No green and blue lights appeared when she turned the next corner, however; as far as she could see, there was only gloom in the distance. Katherine tried street after street with no better success; they all led endlessly on into darkness. She met no one from whom she dared ask the way; for there was only an occasional passer-by, and he usually looked tipsy. It was evidently a factory district Katherine had wandered into, for all around her were great dark buildings with high chimneys, long, dim warehouses, box cars standing on sidings, silent, gloomy freight sheds; there seemed to be no end of them anywhere; in all directions they stretched out, like Banquo's descendents, apparently to the crack of doom. The nightmare of the "Fata Morgana" had come true, and she was lost in the wilderness of a strange city.

Hildegard G. Frey
The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery

Exactly; and that is why I enjoy the country so much. Learn to love Nature in her every mood and to study her every feature, and you will never know the feeling of loneliness if you keep outside the walls of a jail. But we are at the outer gate, and our journey is nearly over. At the end of a long enclosed road, shaded by trees--which, however, do not form an avenue, such as you may see near the coast, where the live-oaks flourish more vigorously--stands the spacious mansion, with its white walls, green Venetian shutters and red tin roof. There is no enclosure about it save that which is formed by the rail fences of the distant fields. The "yard" contains about forty acres of grassy lawn shaded by spreading forest trees--white-oaks, water-oaks and hickories--from which hang the graceful folds of the Spanish moss. The out-buildings are scattered about without the slightest reference to distance, except in the case of the kitchen, which is at the back and some twenty yards from the dwelling. The stable and carriage-house stand on either side, _in front_, but at a distance sufficient to prevent unsightliness or discomfort. In the background are the large "cotton-houses," with their bleaching-platforms, the "gin-house," the corn-house, the fodder-house and the poultry-house, which is nearly as large as any of them; while nearer the mansion are grouped the "loom-house," the dairy and the oven-shed, under which is built the huge brick oven capable of baking to a sugary confection several

TREPLIEFF. I have talked a great deal about new forms of art, but I feel myself gradually slipping into the beaten track. [He reads] "The placard cried it from the wall--a pale face in a frame of dusky hair"--cried--frame--that is stupid. [He scratches out what he has written] I shall begin again from the place where my hero is wakened by the noise of the rain, but what follows must go. This description of a moonlight night is long and stilted. Trigorin has worked out a process of his own, and descriptions are easy for him. He writes that the neck of a broken bottle lying on the bank glittered in the moonlight, and that the shadows lay black under the mill-wheel. There you have a moonlight night before your eyes, but I speak of the shimmering light, the twinkling stars, the distant sounds of a piano melting into the still and scented air, and the result is abominable. [A pause] The conviction is gradually forcing itself upon me that good literature is not a question of forms new or old, but of ideas that must pour freely from the author's heart, without his bothering his head about any forms whatsoever. [A knock is heard at the window nearest the table] What was that? [He looks out of the window] I can't see anything. [He opens the glass door and looks out into the garden] I heard some one run down the steps. [He calls] Who is there? [He goes out, and is heard walking quickly along the terrace. In a few minutes he comes back with NINA ZARIETCHNAYA] Oh, Nina, Nina!

Anton Checkov
The Sea-Gull

She looked downward and outward upon one of those New York side streets that is precisely like forty other New York side streets: two unbroken lines of high-shouldered, narrow-chested brick-and-stone houses, rising in abrupt, straight cliffs; at the bottom of the canyon a narrow river of roadway with manholes and conduit covers dotting its channel intermittently like scattered stepping stones; and on either side wide, flat pavements, as though the stream had fallen to low-water mark and left bare its shallow banks. Daylight would have shown most of the houses boarded up, with diamond-shaped vents, like leering eyes, cut in the painted planking of the windows and doors; but now it was night time--eleven o'clock of a wet, hot, humid night of the late summer--and the street was buttoned down its length in the double-breasted fashion of a bandmaster's coat with twin rows of gas lamps evenly spaced. Under each small circle of lighted space the dripping, black asphalt had a slimy, slick look like the sides of a newly caught catfish. Elsewhere the whole vista lay all in close shadow, black as a cave mouth under every stoop front and blacker still in the hooded basement areas. Only, half a mile to the eastward a dim, distant flicker showed where Broadway ran, a broad, yellow streak down the spine of the city, and high above the broken skyline of eaves and cornices there rolled in cloudy waves the sullen red radiance, born of a million electrics and the flares from gas tanks and chimneys, which is only to be seen on such nights as this,

Irvin S. Cobb
The Escape of Mr. Trimm

We glided slowly past the mole, and dropped anchor a few yards from the shore. There was a sort of open promenade planted with trees, in front of us, surrounded with high white houses, above which rose the dome of the Cathedral and the spires of other churches. The magnificent palace of Prince Biscari was on our right, and at its foot the Customs and Revenue offices. Every roof, portico, and window was lined with lamps, a triumphal arch spanned the street before the palace, and the landing-place at the offices was festooned with crimson and white drapery, spangled with gold. While we were waiting permission to land, a scene presented itself which recalled the pagan days of Sicily to my mind. A procession came in sight from under the trees, and passed along the shore. In the centre was borne a stately shrine, hung with garlands, and containing an image of St. Agatha. The sound of flutes and cymbals accompanied it, and a band of children, bearing orange and palm branches, danced riotously before. Had the image been Pan instead of St. Agatha, the ceremonies would have been quite as appropriate.

There were many carriages drawn up within the quadrangle of which the Foreign Office forms a part, but the carriage which was to take the bride and the bridegroom away was allowed a door to itself,--at any rate till such time as they should have been taken away. An effort had been made to keep the public out of the quadrangle; but as the duties of the four Secretaries of State could not be suspended, and as the great gates are supposed to make a public thoroughfare, this could only be done to a certain extent. The crowd, no doubt, was thicker out in Downing Street, but there were very many standing within the square. Among these there was one, beautifully arrayed in frock coat and yellow gloves, almost as though he himself was prepared for his own wedding. When Lord Llwddythlw brought Lady Amaldina out from the building and handed her into the carriage, and when the husband and wife had seated themselves, the well-dressed individual raised his hat from his head, and greeted them. "Long life and happiness to the bride of Castle Hautboy!" said he at the top of his voice. Lady Amaldina could not but see the man, and, recognizing him, she bowed.

The next morning we breakfasted early, and then left the inn. In going through the town Mrs. Sharpley went into a shop, where she bought me a very pretty straw hat trimmed with blue ribbons. My dress was now completely different to what it had been the day before, I now having a new hat, new dress, and a pretty silk handkerchief pinned over my shoulders. The purchase being made, my old bonnet was thrown down in the street, for the benefit of whoever chose to pick it up. We then proceeded on our way, and soon left the town. This day was passed nearly as the former one had been, some people buying, and others not even looking at the goods. In the evening when we arrived at our inn, Mr. Sharpley went out while the tea was being prepared, and returned in little more than half an hour. We then had tea, after which he went out again. Mrs. Sharpley then employed herself in making caps and frills to sell, and I passed the evening in putting the trimming on to my dress. I now began to feel more reconciled to my new mode of life. Mr. and Mrs. Sharpley were good-natured, and certainly treated me with kindness, and I thought, if they did not want me to steal, I might be very comfortable with them. The week passed away. Saturday night came, and they gave me sixpence, telling me they should give me as much every week, so long as I continued to behave well. Weeks thus passed on. Our days were employed in walking from place to place, endeavouring to sell the goods, and our evenings in making up caps, frills, etc., for sale, and I soon became so

E. V. Lucas
Forgotten Tales of Long Ago

As is shown also by the illustrations, the women dance. They throw their blankets about them and extend their arms, usually clutching tobacco leaves in either hand -- which are offerings to the old men and which some old man frequently passes among them and collects -- and they dance with less movement of the feet than do the men. Generally the toes scarcely leave the earth, though a few of the older women invariably dance with a high movement and backward pawing of one foot which throws the dust and gravel over all behind them. I have more than once seen the dance circle a cloud of dust raised by one pawing woman, and the people at the margin of the circle dodging the gravel thrown back, yet they only laughed and left the woman to pursue her peculiar and discomforting "step." The dancing women are generally immediately outside the circle, and from them the rhythm spreads to the spectators until a score of women are dancing on their toes where they stand among the onlookers, and little girls everywhere are imitating their mothers. The rhythmic music is fascinating, and one always feels out of place standing stiff legged in heavy, hobnailed shoes among the pulsating, rhythmic crowd. Now and again a woman dances between two men of the line, forcing her way to the center of the circle. She is usually more spectacular than those about the margin, and frequently holds in her hand her camote stick or a ball of bark-fiber thread which she has spun for making skirts. I once saw such a dancer carry

Albert Ernest Jenks
The Bontoc Igorot

How beautiful is night in Venice! Then music and the moon reign supreme; the glittering sky reflected in the waters, and every gondola gliding with sweet sounds! Around on every side are palaces and temples, rising from the waves which they shadow with their solemn forms, their costly fronts rich with the spoils of kingdoms, and softened with the magic of the midnight beam. The whole city too is poured forth for festival. The people lounge on the quays and cluster on the bridges; the light barks skim along in crowds, just touching the surface of the water, while their bright prows of polished iron gleam in the moonshine, and glitter in the rippling wave. Not a sound that is not graceful: the tinkle of guitars, the sighs of serenaders, and the responsive chorus of gondoliers. Now and then a laugh, light, joyous, and yet musical, bursts forth from some illuminated coffee-house, before which a buffo disports, a tumbler stands on his head, or a juggler mystifies; and all for a sequin!

The appearance of the travelling party was romantic in the extreme, as they winded down the paths of the glen; with their grotesque clothing and arms, bundles, and fierce black countenances, they might have been mistaken for a strange band of ruffians of the most fearful character. Besides their own immediate party, they had hired twenty men of Adooley, to carry the luggage, as there are not any beasts of burthen in the country, the natives carrying all their burthens upon their heads, and some of them of greater weight than are seen carried by the Irishwomen from the London markets. Being all assembled at the bottom of the glen, they found that a long and dangerous bog or swamp filled with putrid water, and the decayed remains of vegetable substances intersected their path, and must necessarily be crossed. Boughs of trees had been thrown into the swamp by some good-natured people to assist travellers in the attempt, so that their men, furnishing themselves with long poles which they used as walking sticks, with much difficulty and exertion, succeeded in getting over, and fewer accidents occurred to them, than could have been supposed possible, from the nature of the swamp. John  Lander was taken on the back of a large and powerful man of amazing strength. His brawny shoulders supported him, without any apparent fatigue on his part, and he carried him through bog and water, and even branches of tress, no bigger than a man's leg, rendered slippery with mud, in safety to the opposite side. Although he walked as fast and with as much ease

Difficulties hemming them in on every hand, with rigorous winter approaching, the majority removed to Truro, and places adjacent, to obtain by their labor food for their families. A few settled at Londonderry, some went to Halifax, and still others to Windsor and Cornwallis. In, these settlements, the fathers, mothers, and even the children were forced to bind themselves, virtually as slaves, that they might have subsistence. Those who remained,--seventy in number--lived in small huts, covered over only with the bark and branches of trees to shelter them from the bitter cold of winter, enduring incredible hardships. To procure food for their families, they must trudge eighty miles to Truro, through cold and snow and a trackless forest, and there obtaining a bushel or two of potatoes, and a little flour, in exchange for their labor, they had to return, carrying the supply either on their backs, or else dragging it behind them on handsleds. The way was beset with dangers such as the climbing of steep hills, the descending of high banks, crossing of brooks on the trunk of a single tree, the sinking in wet or boggy ground, and the camping out at night without shelter. Even the potatoes with which they were supplied were of an inferior grade, being soft, and such as is usually fed to cattle. Sometimes the cold was so piercing that the potatoes froze to their backs.

J. P. MacLean
An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America

This ornate capital on the plains, hemmed in by fortress-crowned hills, is a veritable stronghold of feudal barons and armed retainers, of hermits and monasteries, and is dotted with palaces and public buildings pertaining to the Maharajah's rule. Many of the structures are new enough to suggest what Americans love to call "modern conveniences." The principal streets are broader than Broadway, as well paved, and illuminated by gas systematically enough installed to indicate the presence behind the scenes of European engineers. Strange to say, Jeypore is an Indian city wherein the lordly Briton in khaki is never seen: if the English functionary be here, his master is none other than the Maharajah. Through its streets surge a people almost childish in their happiness, some in ekkas drawn by matched pairs of bullocks, others mounted high on the backs of trotting camels, while bands of chattering Rajputs on foot are omnipresent--every grouping reminds of something witnessed on the stage, and the _tout ensemble_ might be the great scene of a realistic opera intended to glorify the people and the institutions of India.

Frederic Courtland Penfield
East of Suez

meditate upon his peculiar position. What happened after that he could not remember. He must have fallen into a deep sleep, and so failed to hear the call of the search parties. When he awoke, the moon was high in the heavens. He did not know what time it was; but he supposed it must be late at night, for he was chilled to the marrow, and dew lay upon the field from which he emerged. Then he wended his way homeward, through the meadows wrapt in solitude and nocturnal quiet. With beating heart he slipped past the houses along the deserted streets. It was like a city of the dead. He thought it must be long past midnight, that everybody was buried in sleep. It could not occur to him that the people, because of his disappearance, had congregated at the Ring. Emboldened by the quiet, he stepped along at a livelier pace, and even calculated that by crossing the Ring and going down Rybniker Street he could reach his home sooner. He was not in the least afraid of meeting anyone at that time except the nightwatch, to whom he could easily explain his plight. So he came through a narrow side street, which ran from the Flour Market and opened right on the Ring and landed--where his appearance was welcomed as a ghost by the excited crowd. And now he was standing before the gentlemen, and he could not have done otherwise, so help him God--Amen!

Ulrich Frank
Simon Eichelkatz; The Patriarch

On both sides and all about the iron beasts were lying, lurking immovable, their merciless limbs lazily stretched. In their beautiful brutal bodies a sustained glow seemed to flicker. As at all times the vicious graceful forms lay there and shone with a lustful light. But no living brain conceived a creative thought, no eye was animated by a soul. Cold, heartless, brainless beasts filled the halls where they reigned. The little long-necked man with the bushy head and the yellow wheelman's sandals brought to contrast with them much solid worth, and surpassed them in real beauty. For those sovereigns could all be hacked to pieces, and nothing was lost; they could be replaced. But if Victor Pratteler by some sad accident lost his life, the world would have been poorer in just so much love, good will, sincere remorse, faith, humility and honesty. Before he left the hall, he threw another glance at the idol, and wondered at himself. For the idol was no longer a symbol to him; he could contemplate it quietly and objectively. A feeling of shyness came over him at the memory of the last half hour; but the distress which he had experienced was so great and his deliverance so simple and comprehensible to his soul, that the power of the idol had melted before it. The siren continued to howl. The strikers had fastened the valve with a rope, locked the furnace room and thrown the keys in through the window, so they could not be reproached with having them. After an hour the fire department silenced

Various
The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Emerson, a porter, was conducting Miss Wise, from the 'Magna Charter,' over a plank, when the plank slipped, and both were precipitated into the water. The wind was blowing very strong, and the river was extremely rough at the time. I had just gone into the cabin to change my clothes, when, hearing such a screaming as I had never before heard, I sprang upon the paddle-box, and saw Emerson, but knew nothing of the woman who had also fallen into the water, and whose mother was uttering the most heart-rending shrieks. I leaped from the paddle-box to save the man, when, to my surprise, I found I had thrown my legs right _across the woman's shoulders_! Of course my _first object_ now, was to save _her_. I hastily dragged her to the side of the packet, and having put her hand round a piece of iron, I said to her, 'Now hold fast there, for you are safe.' I then went to a distance in search of Emerson, and having made a rope fast round him, I was able to hold him up with ease. But the shouting was as great as ever, and I thought,--surely there is some one else overboard! The fact was, the people could not see the woman holding by the iron, and in my efforts to save the man, they thought I had forgotten her; hence their wild shouts. The engineer came to the vessel's side and shouted, 'There is the woman yet,' when I replied, 'She's all right, come down to the paddle and take hold of her.' He came and took her out, when she had a basket on her arm and a pair of pattens in her hand, just as when she dropped into the water. She suddenly

Henry Woodcock
The Hero of the Humber

He heard voices outside, a fusillade of shots, the tinkle of breaking glass; against the pine boards at his side came the wicked thud of bullets, the splintering of wood as they tore through the partition and embedded themselves in the outside wall. He ducked low and ran to the rear door, swinging it open. Braman's body bothered him; he could not leave it there, knowing the building would soon be in flames. He dragged the body outside, to a point several feet distant from the building, dropping it at last and standing erect for the first time to fill his lungs and look about him. Looking back as he ran down the tracks toward the shed where he had left Nigger, he saw shadowy forms of men running around the courthouse, which was now dully illuminated, the light from within dancing fitfully through the window shades. Flaming streaks rent the night from various points--thinking him still in the building the deputies were shooting through the windows. Manti, rudely awakened, was pouring its population through its doors in streams. Shouts, hoarse, inquisitive, drifted to Trevison's ears. Lights blazed up, flickering from windows like giant fireflies. Doors slammed, dogs were barking, men were running. Trevison laughed vibrantly as he ran. But his lips closed tightly when he saw two or three shadowy figures darting toward him, coming from various directions--one from across the street; another coming straight down the railroad track, still another advancing from his right. He bowed his head

Charles Alden Seltzer
'Firebrand' Trevison

Now that Prescott Gate, by which so many thousands of Americans have entered Quebec since Arnold's excursionists failed to do so, is demolished, there is nothing left so picturesque and characteristic as Hope Gate, and I doubt if anywhere in Europe there is a more medival-looking bit of military architecture. The heavy stone gateway is black with age, and the gate, which has probably never been closed in our century, is of massive frame set thick with mighty bolts and spikes. The wall here sweeps along the brow of the crag on which the city is built, and a steep street drops down, by stone-parapeted curves and angles, from the Upper to the Lower Town, where, in 1775, nothing but a narrow lane bordered the St. Lawrence. A considerable breadth of land has since been won from the river, and several streets and many piers now stretch between this alley and the water; but the old Sault au Matelot still crouches and creeps along under the shelter of the city wall and the overhanging rock, which is thickly bearded with weeds and grass, and trickles with abundant moisture. It must be an ice-pit in winter, and I should think it the last spot on the continent for the summer to find; but when the summer has at last found it, the old Sault au Matelot puts on a vagabond air of Southern leisure and abandon, not to be matched anywhere out of Italy. Looking from that jutting rock near Hope Gate, behind which the defeated Americans took refuge from the fire of their enemies, the vista is almost unique for a certain scenic

W. D. Howells
A Chance Acquaintance

Also with the people of Kyrene Amasis made an agreement for friendship and alliance; and he resolved too to marry a wife from thence, whether because he desired to have a wife of Hellenic race, or, apart from that, on account of friendship for the people of Kyrene: however that may be, he married, some say the daughter of Battos, others of Arkesilaos, and others of Critobulos, a man of repute among the citizens; and her name was Ladike. Now whenever Amasis lay with her he found himself unable to have intercourse, but with his other wives he associated as he was wont; and as this happened repeatedly, Amasis said to his wife, whose name was Ladike: "Woman, thou hast given me drugs, and thou shall surely perish more miserably than any other." Then Ladike, when by her denials Amasis was not at all appeased in his anger against her, made a vow in her soul to Aphrodite, that if Amasis on that night had intercourse with her (seeing that this was the remedy for her danger), she would send an image to be dedicated to her at Kyrene; and after the vow immediately Amasis had intercourse, and from thenceforth whenever Amasis came in to her he had intercourse with her; and after this he became very greatly attached to her. And Ladike paid the vow that she had made to the goddess; for she had an image made and sent it to Kyrene, and it is still preserved even to my own time, standing with its face turned away from the city of the Kyrenians. This Ladike Cambyses, having conquered Egypt and heard from her who she was, sent back unharmed to Kyrene.

Herodotus
An Account of Egypt

The moonlight shone brightly down the narrow street they were then walking through, which, but for this, the occasional dim light of an oil-lamp hung in front of a shrine, the light from a wine or grocery shop, and the ruddy blaze of a charcoal-fire, where chestnuts were roasting for sale, would have been dark indeed. The ground-floor of very few Roman houses is ever occupied as a dwelling-place; it is given up to shops, stables, etc., the families residing, according to their wealth, on the lowest up to the highest stories; the light purses going up and the heavy ones sinking. They had walked nearly to the end of this street, when, happening to look up at the fourth story of a house, he saw something white being reversed in the moonlight, and the next instant a long stream of water, reminding him of the horse-tail fall in Switzerland, came splashing down where a sidewalk should have been.

Various
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862

Fanny turned abruptly from the window as the door of the bronze and mirrored lift opened for her. She walked over to Fifth avenue again and up to Forty-fifth street. Then she scrambled up the spiral stairs of a Washington Square 'bus. The air was crisp, clear, intoxicating. To her Chicago eyes the buildings, the streets, the very sky looked startlingly fresh and new-washed. As the 'bus lurched down Fifth avenue she leaned over the railing to stare, fascinated, at the colorful, shifting, brilliant panorama of the most amazing street in the world. Block after block, as far as the eye could see, the gorgeous procession moved up, moved down, and the great, gleaming motor cars crept, and crawled, and writhed in and out, like nothing so much as swollen angle worms in a fishing can, Fanny thought. Her eye was caught by one limousine that stood out, even in that crush of magnificence. It was all black, as though scorning to attract the eye with vulgar color, and it was lined with white. Fanny thought it looked very much like Siegel & Cowan's hearse, back in Winnebago. In it sat a woman, all furs, and orchids, and complexion. She was holding up to the window a little dog with a wrinkled and weary face, like that of an old, old man. He was sticking his little evil, eager red tongue out at the world. And he wore a very smart and woolly white sweater, of the imported kind--with a monogram done in black.

Edna Ferber
Fanny Herself

An elegant temple it was, this modern one of which I write--modern in all its appointments. Carpets, cushions, gas fixtures, organ, pulpit furnishings, everything everywhere betokened the presence of wealth and taste. Even the vases that adorned the marble-topped flower-stands on either side of the pulpit wore a foreign air, and in design and workmanship were unique. The subdued light that stole softly in through the stained-glass windows produced the requisite number of tints and shades on the hair and whiskers and noses of the worshippers. The choir was perched high above common humanity, and praised God for the congregation in wonderful voices, four in number, the soprano of which cost more than a preacher's salary, and soared half an octave higher than any other voice in the city. To be sure she was often fatigued, for she frequently danced late of a Saturday night. And occasionally the grand tenor was disabled from appearing at all for morning service by reason of the remarkably late hour and unusual dissipation of the night before. But then he was all right by evening, and, while these little episodes were unfortunate, they had to be borne with meekness and patience; for was he not the envy of three rival churches, any one of which would have increased his salary if they could have gotten him?

Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
Divers Women

One day a soldier, walking in the church at the very height of summer, felt inclined to sleep, and, looking at this dark, cool chapel, resolved to go and guard the tomb in sleep like the rest; (2) and accordingly he lay down beside them. Now it chanced that a very pious old woman came in while his sleep was the soundest, and having performed her devotions, holding a lighted taper in her hand, she sought to fix this taper to the tomb. Finding that the sleeping man was nearest to her, she tried to set it upon his forehead, thinking that it was of stone; but the wax would not stick to such stone as this, whereupon the worthy dame, believing that the reason of it was the coldness of the statue, applied the flame to the sleepers forehead, that she might the better fix the taper on it. At this, however, the statue, which was not without feeling, began to cry out.

Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.)

It was only when they emerged from under the shelter of the vessel that they felt the full power of the sea.  If it had appeared stupendous when they trod the deck of the barque, how much more so now, when, by leaning the arm over the side, they could touch the surface.  The great glassy green billows hurled them up and down, and tossed them and buffeted them as though the two boats were their playthings, and they were trying what antics they could perform with them without destroying them. Girdlestone sat very grim and pale, with Ezra at his side.  The young fellow's expression was that of a daring man who realizes his danger, but is determined to throw no chance of safety away.  His mouth was set firm and hard, and his dark eyebrows were drawn down over his keen eyes, which glanced swiftly to right and left, like a rat in a trap. Miggs held the tiller, and laughed from time to time in a drunken fashion, while the four seamen, quiet and subdued, steadied the boat as long as they could with their oars, and looked occasionally over their shoulders at the breakers behind them.  The sun was shining on the rugged precipices, showing out the green turf upon their summit and a little dark group of peasants, who were watching the scene from above, but making no effort to assist the castaways.  There was no alternative but to row straight in for the nearest point of land, for the boats were filling, and might go down at any moment.

That night they camped comfortably upon the shore of the lake, with their blankets spread beneath a light fly. They slept late and it was long after sunrise the following morning when they started out with their traps. Fox tracks were numerous along the shore, some of them leading back onto the ridge, and others heading across the lake in the direction of the open tundra. Connie was beginning to wonder why 'Merican Joe did not set his traps, when the Indian paused and carefully scrutinized a long narrow point that jutted out into the lake. The irregularity of the surface of the snow showed that the point was rocky, and here and there along its edge a small clump of stunted willows rattled their dry branches in the breeze. The Indian seemed satisfied and, walking to the ridge, cut a stick some five or six feet long which he slipped through the ring of a trap, securing the ring to the middle of the stick. A few feet beyond one of the willow clumps, nearly at the end of the point, the Indian stooped, and with his ax cut a trench in the snow the length of the stick, and about eight or ten inches in depth. In this trench he placed the stick, and packed the snow over it. He now made a smaller trench the length of the trap chain, at the end of which he pressed the snow down with the back of his mitten until he had made a depression into which he could place the trap with its jaws set flat, so that the pan would lie some two inches below the level of the snow. From his bag he drew some needles which he carefully arranged so

James B. Hendryx
Connie Morgan in the Fur Country

A little before seven the door was opened slowly. She expected to see her son; but it was Josephine who came. Her large face under the disordered hair, and her wild eyes looked worse than ever in the dim light, she alarmed the old woman, who for long had been afraid for her mind. But Josephine stood still by the door, she heard Sissel's steady breathing but not the boy's; she dared not go further in. The old grandmother saw this and nodded encouragingly. A few steps forward and the mother saw her boy--fearfully pale and without a sign of life. But grandmother nodded again, so she ventured further forward. The curtains were still drawn, so she did not see well; but then she thought he breathed. She knelt down ... was he breathing easier, or ...? She was so sure in her belief that he was doomed to death, that she could not hear what she really did hear. She listened in the greatest anxiety, wondering, considering, holding her own breath the while, and only when she was quite sure that his breathing was easier, did she herself unconsciously breathe strongly and rapidly full in the boy's face. The warm whiff awoke him, he opened his eyes and looked at his mother, trying to collect his thoughts. Yes, it was mother who had come back again. His eyes grew more lively, and brighter than she had seen them for weeks past, they gazed at her until her own filled with tears. Not a word did he say, nor moved a limb from fear of the old pain; and to her it seemed as though his spirit would fly away if he moved or if she

When she came out with her bag of goods she faced a gigantic television screen of video animated advertisements on the wall of a building across the street that flashed 'You prick,' 'Murdering philanderer,' 'You son of a bitch,' and 'Porn, your brothers are watching your ass' at the bottom of the screen. Nawin's life--his myriad faces of lost forlornness, the hes of many ages--was the background to advertisements about soap, beer, condoms, and cars. Repulsed by the foul language, she was transfixed by it nonetheless, until feeling the acidic rain that fell through polluted skies and the putrid city fall onto her skin. Opening an umbrella against the rain, she noticed that there really was a faint translucent man watching her. She grimaced at what she interpreted as a glowering figure and quickened her pace to escape him. Passing California Fitness, 7 Eleven, Robinson Department store, and a Haagen-Dazs ice cream parlor, she paused briefly at the Temple of the Descending Sun (Wat Kham) to pull up the umbrella that was briefly turned inside-out from a strong gust. Then she continued to quickly walk away. He stood there watching the shrinking form. "Grandmother," he thought, "Where are you going?" He tried to get the words out but all was mute including himself. He felt a sense of consternation to see her fleeing from him. He thought, "Why on Earth are you running from me now--why are you not making it up to me now;" but he had not brought her into existence and thus she was not his to possess. Whatever brought

Steven Sills
An Apostate: Nawin of Thais

The night of March 2 Custer camped at Brookfield, Devin remaining at Waynesboro'.  The former started for Charlottesville the next morning early, followed by Devin with but two brigades, Gibbs having been left behind to blow up the iron railroad bridge across South River. Because of the incessant rains and spring thaws the roads were very soft, and the columns cut them up terribly, the mud being thrown by the sets of fours across the road in ridges as much as two feet high, making it most difficult to get our wagons along, and distressingly wearing on the animals toward the middle and rear of the columns. Consequently I concluded to rest at Charlottesville for a couple of days and recuperate a little, intending at the same time to destroy, with small parties, the railroad from that point toward Lynchburg. Custer reached Charlottesville the 3d, in the afternoon, and was met at the outskirts by a deputation of its citizens, headed by the mayor, who surrendered the town with medieval ceremony, formally handing over the keys of the public buildings and of the University of Virginia.  But this little scene did not delay Custer long enough to prevent his capturing, just beyond the village, a small body of cavalry and three pieces of artillery.  Gibbs's brigade, which was bringing up my mud-impeded train, did not arrive until the 5th of March.  In the mean time Young's scouts had brought word that the garrison of Lynchburg was being increased and the fortifications strengthened, so that its capture would be improbable.  I decided,

Philip Henry Sheridan
Personal Memoirs of P.H.Sheridan V2 of 2

"At the risk of making you angry I will go on, Lily. Of course when you tell me that you will have nothing to say to me, I try to amuse myself"--"Yes; by writing love-letters to M. D.," said Lily to herself.--"What is a poor fellow to do? I tell you fairly that when I leave you I swear to myself that I will make love to the first girl I can see who will listen to me--to twenty, if twenty will let me. I feel I have failed, and it is so I punish myself for my failure." There was something in this which softened her brow, though she did not intend that it should be so; and she turned away again, that he might not see that her brow was softened. "But, Lily, the hope ever comes back again, and then neither the one nor the twenty are of avail,--even to punish me. When I look forward and see what it might be if you were with me, how green it all looks and how lovely, in spite of all the vows I have made, I cannot help coming back again." She was now again near the window, and he had not followed her. As she neither turned towards him nor answered him, he moved from the table near which he was standing on to the rug before the fire, and leaned with both his elbows on the mantelpiece. He could still watch her in the mirror over the fireplace, and could see that she was still seeming to gaze out upon the street. And had he not moved her? I think he had so far moved her now, that she had ceased to think of the woman who had written to her,--that she had ceased to reject him in her heart on the score of such levities as that! If there were M.

The administrative offices of a giant mill such as the Chippering in Hampton are labyrinthine. Janet did not enter by the great gates her father kept, but walked through an open courtyard into a vestibule where, day and night, a watchman stood; she climbed iron-shod stairs, passed the doorway leading to the paymaster's suite, to catch a glimpse, behind the grill, of numerous young men settling down at those mysterious and complicated machines that kept so unerring a record, in dollars and cents, of the human labour of the operatives. There were other suites for the superintendents, for the purchasing agent; and at the end of the corridor, on the south side of the mill, she entered the outer of the two rooms reserved for Mr. Claude Ditmar, the Agent and general-in-chief himself of this vast establishment. In this outer office, behind the rail that ran the length of it, Janet worked; from the window where her typewriter stood was a sheer drop of eighty feet or so to the river, which ran here swiftly through a wide canon whose sides were formed by miles and miles of mills, built on buttressed stone walls to retain the banks. The prison-like buildings on the farther shore were also of colossal size, casting their shadows far out into the waters; while in the distance, up and down the stream, could be seen the delicate web of the Stanley and Warren Street bridges, with trolley cars like toys gliding over them, with insect pedestrians creeping along the footpaths.

Winston Churchill
The Dwelling Place of Light, Volume 1

HEIDELBERG, a town of Germany, on the south bank of the Neckar, 12 m. above its confluence with the Rhine, 13 m. S.E. from Mannheim and 54 m. from Frankfort-on-Main by rail. The situation of the town, lying between lofty hills covered with vineyards and forests, at the spot where the rapid Neckar leaves the gorge and enters the plain of the Rhine, is one of great natural beauty. The town itself consists practically of one long, narrow street--the Hauptstrasse--running parallel to the river, from the railway station on the west to the Karlstor on the east (where there is also a local station) for a distance of 2 m. To the south of this is the Anlage, a pleasant promenade flanked by handsome villas and gardens, leading directly to the centre of the place. A number of smaller streets intersect the Hauptstrasse at right angles and run down to the river, which is crossed by two fine bridges. Of these, the old bridge on the east, built in 1788, has a fine gateway and is adorned with statues of Minerva and the elector Charles Theodore of the Palatinate; the other, the lower bridge, on the west, built in 1877, connects Heidelberg with the important suburbs of Neuenheim and Handschuchsheim. Of recent years the town has grown largely towards the west on both sides of the river; but the additions have been almost entirely of the better class of residences. Heidelberg is an important railway centre, and is connected by trunk lines with Frankfort, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Spires and Wrzburg. Electric trams provide for

Various
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 2

The neighbourhood of Gebel Silsilis, or the Mountain of the Chain, is very interesting in many respects. After flowing for some distance through the usual strip of alluvial plain, bordered by not very lofty undulating ground, the Nile suddenly sweeps into a gap between two imposing masses of rock that overhang the stream for above a mile on either hand. The appearance of the precipices thus hemming in and narrowing so puissant a volume of water, covered with eddies and whirlpools, would be picturesque enough in itself; but we have here, in addition, an immense number of caves, grottos, quarries, and rock-temples, dotting the surface of the rock, and suggesting at first sight the idea of a city just half ground down and solidified into a mountain. On the western bank, numerous handsome facades and porticos have indeed been hewn out; and mightily interesting they were to wander through, with their elaborate tablets and cursory inscriptions, their hieroglyphical scrolls, their sculptured gods and symbols, and all the luxury of their architectural ornaments. But the grandest impressions are to be sought for on the other side, whence the materials of whole capital cities must have been removed. There is, in fact, a wilderness of quarries there, approached by deep perpendicular cuts, like streets leading from the river's bank, which must have furnished a wonderful amount of sandstone to those strange old architects who, whilst they sometimes chose to convert a mountain into a temple, generally preferred to build up a temple into a mountain. It

Various
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462

It is exceedingly dangerous, when approaching a river, to march in advance of a party without first sending forward a few natives to examine the route in front. The pits are usually about 12 or 14 feet in depth. These are covered over with light wood, and crossed with slight branches or reeds, upon which is laid some long dry grass; this is covered lightly with soil, upon which some elephant's dung is scattered, as though the animal had dropped it during the action of walking. A little broken grass is carelessly distributed upon the surface, and the illusion is complete. The night arrives, and the unsuspecting elephants, having travelled many miles of thirsty wilderness, hurry down the incline towards the welcome river. Crash goes a leading elephant into a well-concealed pitfall! To the right and left the frightened members of the herd rush at the unlooked-for accident, but there are many other pitfalls cunningly arranged to meet this sudden panic, and several more casualties may arise, which add to the captures on the following morning, when the trappers arrive to examine the position of their pits. The elephants are then attacked with spears while in their helpless position, until they at length succumb through loss of blood.

Sir Samuel W. Baker
Wild Beasts and their Ways

The dance hall revel at the Elysian Fields was in full swing.  The garish brilliancy of the scene was in fierce contrast with the night which strove to hide the meanness prevailing beyond Pap Shaunbaum's painted portals.  The filthy street, the depth of slush, melting under a driving rain, which was at times a partial sleet.  The bleak, biting wind, and the heavy pall of racing clouds.  Then the huddled figures moving to and fro.  Nor were they by any means all seeking the pleasures their money could buy.  The "down-and-outs" shuffled through the uncharitable city day and night, in rain, or sunshine, or snow. But at night they resembled nothing so much as the hungry coyotes of the open, seeking for that wherewith to fill their empty bellies.  The knowledge of these things only made the scenes of wanton luxury and vice under the glare of light the more offensive.

Ridgwell Cullum
The Triumph of John Kars

Before the newspapers or the public could suitably protest, crowds of men were at work day and night in the business heart of the city, their flaring torches and resounding hammers making a fitful bedlamic world of that region; they were laying the first great cable loop and repairing the La Salle Street tunnel. It was the same on the North and West Sides, where concrete conduits were being laid, new grip and trailer cars built, new car-barns erected, and large, shining power-houses put up. The city, so long used to the old bridge delays, the straw-strewn, stoveless horse-cars on their jumping rails, was agog to see how fine this new service would be. The La Salle Street tunnel was soon aglow with white plaster and electric lights. The long streets and avenues of the North Side were threaded with concrete-lined conduits and heavy street-rails. The powerhouses were completed and the system was started, even while the contracts for the changes on the West Side were being let.

Theodore Dreiser
The Titan