The former dwelling-places of the Aborigines of the United States are nowhere more plainly indicated than along the seaboard. The clam, the quahog, the scallop, and the oyster, entered largely into their food, and the castaway shells of these, piled up during many years, have not only become monuments of their sea-shore life, but have largely aided in the preservation of the bones of the animals on which they fed, and also of some of the more perishable implements used in their rude arts.

We may picture the tiny demure maiden pacing the green alleys and smooth sward of Bradgate, with her Latin books and her exalted religious meditations, a fervent mystic, with no knowledge of the great world of greed, ambition, and lust, of which she, poor child, was doomed to be the innocent victim.

The dining-halls had ivory ceilings, from which flowers fell. The walls were alive with the glisten of gems, with marbles rarer than jewels. In one hall was a dome of sapphire, a floor of malachite, crystal columns and red gold walls; about the palace were green savannahs, forest reaches, the call of the bird and deer; before it was a lake, eight acres of which Vespasian had drained and replaced by an amphitheatre, which is still the wonder of the world.

From her sprightly and volatile disposition, she at an early period took delight in reading the novels that were at that time fashionable,—such as Parismus and Parismanus, Don Bellianis of Greece, Amadis de Gaul, and Cassandra and Cleopatra; and in a little time really believed what she wished, even that she was a princess.

There is something Greek, something akin to Œdipus and Thyestes, in the tragedy of Anne Boleyn. It is difficult to believe that we are viewing the actions of real people subject to passions violent indeed yet common to those of mankind, and not the creatures of a nightmare. Yet I believe that the conduct of the three protagonists, Henry, Catherine, and Anne, can all be explained with the aid of a little medical knowledge and insight.

"No one can say that he is free from sin. I am a woman and human, and have offended God, and I repent of my sins, and pray God to forgive me, doing penance for the same; but at present I do not know to whom I could or should confess--God forbid that I should ask you to be my confessor."

Ninon, then, at fifteen, was left alone in the world. And her actions in this sad state conformed to those of the customary helpless orphan—about as closely as had her father's death speech to the customary "last words." With a shrewdness miraculous in so young a girl, she juggled her Touraine property in a series of deals that resulted in its sale at a little more than double its actual value. Rich beyond all fear of want, she settled in Paris.

When it was completed, I turned my thoughts bravely to the future, wondering, first, what the next day would bring forth, then making plans for the carrying out of my project. I wondered if I should be able to pass over the river to the goal of my strange ambition, to become eventually an inmate of the halls inhabited by my mentally wrecked sisters. And then, once in, what would be my experience? And after? How to get out? Bah! I said, they will get me out.

How few there are who are ambitious enough to risk the dangers of scanning at close range, or from points of vantage, the towers, the temples, the terraces, the ramparts, the pyramids, the domes, the pillars, the buttresses, the buttes, the palisades, the white marble walls, the red sandstone steps, the green serpentine cliffs of the Grand Canyon.

In time, as these fields became numerous from the industry of the people, they cultivated gardens of flowers and odoriferous plants, which they employed in the worship of their gods, and for the recreation of their nobles. At present they cultivate flowers, and every sort of garden herbs, upon them.

Whatever the impartial historian may write, he can never induce the people at large to understand that this queen was far from queenly, that the popular idea of her is almost wholly false, and that both in her domestic life and as the greatest lady in France she did much to bring on the terrors of that revolution which swept her to the guillotine.

In the 17th century, English travelers, merchants, and physicians were first introduced to cannabis, particularly in the form of bhang, an intoxicating edible which had been getting Indians high for millennia. Benjamin Breen charts the course of the drug from the streets of Machilipatnam to the scientific circles of London.

On New Year's Day, the queen did not disdain to receive presents from her servants. A laundress bid the Queen's acceptance of three pocket handkerchiefs. Another sought favor with a cambric nightcap. Apothecaries presented packets of green ginger, orange candy, and the sergeant of the pastry a great quince pie with gilt ornaments.

In Germany, biscuits, often of animal or human shape, are conspicuous on Christmas Eve. In Berlin a great pile of biscuits heaped up on your plate is an important part of the Christmas Eve supper. These of course are nowadays mere luxuries, but they may well have had some sort of sacrificial origin.

At the first Massachusetts Thanksgiving, in 1621, the Indians brought in five deer to the colonists for their feast. That year there was also "great store of wild turkies." These beautiful birds of gold and purple bronze were at first plentiful everywhere, and were of great weight, far larger than our domestic turkeys today.

As the French Revolution evolved, there emerged in print a recurring figure, the collective power of the people expressed as a single gigantic body — a king-eating Colossus. Explore the lineage of this nouveau Hercules, from Erasmus Darwin’s Bastille-breaking giant to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Explore how the witch craze of early modern Europe, along with the concurrent rise of the mass-produced woodcut, helped forge the archetype of the broom-riding crone — complete with cauldron and cats.

William of Auverne, who wrote in the thirteenth century, states that when the Witches of his time wished to go to the place of rendezvous, they took a reed or cane, and, on making some magical signs, and uttering certain barbarous words, it became transformed into a horse, which carried them thither with extraordinary rapidity.

In Italy on the night of All Souls', the spirits of the dead are thought to be abroad. In Naples the skeletons in the funeral vaults are dressed up, and the place visited on All Souls' Day. In Salerno before the people go to the all-night service at church they set out a banquet for the dead. If any food is left in the morning, evil is in store for the house.

There are three ghosts at Doughoregan Manor. One is the shade of an ancient housekeeper, whose quiet tread may be heard in the corridors. Another is the spectral coach—its wheels grind on the driveway when death rides to claim a member of the household.... The third is no gruesome phantom, but the warm lively pervading spirit of Charles Carroll himself.