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CHAPTER I LITTLE JIM Little Jim knew that something strange had happened, because Big Jim, his father, had sold their few head of cattle, the work team, and the farm implements, keeping only the two saddle-horses and the pack-horse, Filaree. When Little Jim asked where his mother had gone, Big Jim told him that she had gone on a visit, and would be away a long time. Little Jim wanted to know if his... more...

THOUGHTS ON CHRISTIANITY. I. WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? This question refers to a matter of fact. I do not ask whether the Christian religion is true, but only, What is the Christian religion? What is that religion which has existed for eighteen centuries; which is professed by Christendom; and which has been more precious than life itself to millions who have died in its faith, and is so still to millions... more...

INTRODUCTORY. Late in the day of the 30th October, 1870, the agitation was great in Paris; the news had spread that the village of Le Bourget had been retaken by the Prussians. The military report had done what it could to render the pill less bitter by saying that "this village did not form a part of the system of defence," but the people though kept in ignorance perceived instinctively that... more...

CHAPTER I. It was a bright day in the early spring of 1869. All Paris seemed to have turned out to enjoy itself. The Tuileries, the Champs Elysees, the Bois de Boulogne, swarmed with idlers. A stranger might have wondered where Toil was at work, and in what nook Poverty lurked concealed. A millionaire from the London Exchange, as he looked round on the magasins, the equipages, the dresses of the women;... more...

CHAPTER I. MY GOSSIP, MAISIE MAY. It was upon the fair green braes that look over the Black Water of Dee near by where it meets the clear Ken, that Maisie May and I played many a morning at Wanderers and King's men. I mind it as it were yesterday, for the dales and holms were pranked out with white hawthorn and broad gowans, and by our woodland hiding-places little frail wildflowers grew, nodding... more...

THE SHORT STORIES OF M. LUDOVIC HALÉVY To most American readers of fiction I fancy that M. Ludovic Halévy is known chiefly, if not solely, as the author of that most charming of modern French novels, The Abbé Constantin. Some of these readers may have disliked this or that novel of M. Zola's because of its bad moral, and this or that novel of M. Ohnet's because of its bad taste, and all of... more...

CHAPTER XVIII. The streets swarmed with the populace troops as they passed to their destination. Among those of the Mobiles who especially caught the eye were two companies in which Enguerrand de Vandemar and Victor de Mauleon commanded. In the first were many young men of good family, or in the higher ranks of the bourgeoisie, known to numerous lookers-on; there was something inspiriting in their gay... more...

THE BIRTHRIGHT OF CHILDHOOD It Is the Sacred Right of the Child To Be Well-Born If the child has any divine right in this world, it is the right to be well-born, to be brought into the world sound of body and whole in mind. To be given anything short of such a good beginning is to be handicapped throughout life. Education and training cannot make up for the defects imposed on the child by the sins of... more...

INTRODUCTION. On ushering into the world a literary production, custom has established that its parent should give some account of his offspring. Indeed, this becomes the more necessary at the present moment, as the short-lived peace, which gave birth to the following sheets, had already ceased before they were entirely printed; and the war in which England and France are now engaged, is of a nature... more...