Some men just haven't got good sense. They just can't seem to learn the most fundamental things. Like when there's no use trying—when it's time to give up because it's hopeless.... The meteor, a pebble, a little larger than a match head, traveled through space and time since it came into being. The light from the star that died when the meteor was created fell on Earth before the first lungfish ventured from the sea. In its last... more...

CHAPTER I CHANGING IT FOR VEE Say, what's next to knowin' when you're well off? Why, thinkin' you are. Which is a little nugget of wisdom I panned out durin' a chat I had not long ago with Mr. Quinn, that I used to work under when I was on the door of the Sunday sheet, three or four years back. "Hail, Torchy!" says he, as we meets accidental on Broadway. "Still carrying the burning bush under your hat, aren't you?" I grins good-natured at... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY There are no rules for writing a play. It is easy, indeed, to lay down negative recommendations--to instruct the beginner how not to do it. But most of these "don'ts" are rather obvious; and those which are not obvious are apt to be questionable. It is certain, for instance, that if you want your play to be acted, anywhere else than in China, you must not plan it in sixteen acts of an hour apiece; but where is the tyro... more...

INTRODUCTION. The Protagoras, like several of the Dialogues of Plato, is put into the mouth of Socrates, who describes a conversation which had taken place between himself and the great Sophist at the house of Callias—'the man who had spent more upon the Sophists than all the rest of the world'—and in which the learned Hippias and the grammarian Prodicus had also shared, as well as Alcibiades and Critias, both of whom said a few... more...

It was pouring with rain; and Dorine van Lowe was tired out when, by way of a last visit, she dropped in on Karel and Cateau just before dinner. But Dorine was pleased with herself. She had gone out immediately after lunch and had trotted and trammed all over the Hague; she had done much, if not everything; and her tired face looked very glad and her bright black eyes sparkled. "Have meneer and mevrouw gone in to dinner yet, Sientje?" she asked,... more...

IF ENGLAND KNEW No sane person can deny that England is in grave danger of invasion by Germany at a date not far distant. This very serious fact I endeavoured to place vividly before the public in my recent forecast, The Invasion of 1910, the publication of which, in Germany and in England, aroused a storm of indignation against me. The Government, it will be remembered, endeavoured to suppress its publication, because it contained many... more...

INTRODUCTION. Of all the works of Plato the Symposium is the most perfect in form, and may be truly thought to contain more than any commentator has ever dreamed of; or, as Goethe said of one of his own writings, more than the author himself knew. For in philosophy as in prophecy glimpses of the future may often be conveyed in words which could hardly have been understood or interpreted at the time when they were uttered (compare... more...

PREFACE. It has been somewhere said by Johnson, that merely to invent a story is no small effort of the human understanding. How much more difficult is it to construct stories suited to the early years of youth, and, at the same time, conformable to the complicate relations of modern society—fictions, that shall display examples of virtue, without initiating the young reader into the ways of vice—narratives, written in a style level... more...

PREFACE The prevailing taste of the public for anecdote has been censured and ridiculed by critics who aspire to the character of superior wisdom; but if we consider it in a proper point of view, this taste is an incontestable proof of the good sense and profoundly philosophic temper of the present times. Of the numbers who study, or at least who read history, how few derive any advantage from their labours! The heroes of history are so decked... more...

CHAPTER I. "How the wind is rising!" said Rosamond.—"God help the poor people at sea to-night!" Her brother Godfrey smiled.—"One would think," said he, "that she had an argosy of lovers at sea, uninsured." "You gentlemen," replied Rosamond, "imagine that ladies are always thinking of lovers." "Not always," said Godfrey; "only when they show themselves particularly disposed to humanity." "My humanity, on the present occasion,... more...