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When she sat down to dinner, before the round table covered with a table-cloth three days old, opposite her husband, who uncovered the soup tureen and declared with an enchanted air, “Ah, the good...

Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)De Maupassant was born at the Chateau de Miromesnil in 1850. Distinguished though he is as a master of the novel form, and in spite of the fact that his half-dozen...

While this was proceeding, my sainted master was on his knees in the pulpit, his hands and eyes turned towards heaven, apparently filled with the divine essence, and utterly unconscious of the noises and...

Many respectable people, to prevent the scandal of the thing pro-ceeding further, wished to turn the Alguazil out of the church, but the reverend preacher would by no means permit such violence; and thus...

He had preached two or three days, at a place near Toledo, and had not neglected his usual offerings; but he found his indulgences go off but slowly, with very little appearance of improvement,...

Diego Hurtado De Mendoza (1503-1574)Born of a noble family at Granada, Mendoza was primarily a man of action. We are told that he joined the army of Charles V in Italy where, “like Scipio,...

Well, when he thought that side was done he turns it agin, and lo and behold you, the divil a taste more done that side was nor the other. “Bad luck to me,” says...

Samuel Lover (1797?—1868)Samuel Lover was born in Dublin of an English Protestant family. He studied painting at an early age, and though he continued to practise that art, he soon discovered his talent for...

One of the marginal notes ascribed to William Dunlop applies to the above lines. “She had betrothed herself to Lord Rutherford under horrid imprecations, and afterwards married Baldoon, his nevoy, and her mother was...

Various reports went abroad on this mysterious affair, many of them very inaccurate, though they could hardly be said to be exaggerated. It was difficult at that time to become acquainted with the history...