INTRODUCTION When the historian has described the rise and fall of empires and dynasties, and has recounted with care and exactness the details of the great political movements that have changed the map of continents, there remains the question: What was the cause of these revolutions in human society--what were the real motives that were operative in the hearts and minds of the persons in the great drama of history that has been displayed? The... more...

The Women of Prehistoric Britain It is to the unpremeditated contributions of savage and barbarous conditions of existence that we must look for those primal elements of social order which became fundamental in English life and character. Insomuch as those contributions are intimately connected with woman's life and work, they must be sought out and set in order if we are to trace the development of the status of the women of Britain. In doing... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE DAYS OF THE CAPETIAN KINGS In the older conception, history was a record chiefly of battles, of intrigues, of wicked deeds; it was true that the evil that men did lived after them; at least, the even tenor of their ways was passed over without notice by the chroniclers, and only a salient point, a great battle or a great crime, attracted attention. If little but deeds of violence is recorded about men, still less notice does... more...

CHAPTER I WOMAN IN POLITICS French women of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, when studied according to the distinctive phases of their influence, are best divided into three classes: those queens who, as wives, represented virtue, education, and family life; the mistresses, who were instigators of political intrigue, immorality, and vice; and the authoresses and other educated women, who constituted themselves the... more...

PREFACE Adequately to write the history of the woman of any race would mean the writing of the history of the nation itself. There is no phase of the cultural life of any people that is not founded upon the physical and moral nature of its women. On the other hand, mental and moral heredity, both through paternity and maternity, determines the character and innermost being of woman. If we knew all the preponderating influences of heredity for... more...

FOREWORDS ON BEHALF OF THE STUDIES COMMITTEE OF THE FABIAN WOMEN'S GROUP The present economic position of women bristles with anomalies. It is the outcome of long ages of semi-serfdom, when women toiled continuously to produce wealth, which, if they were married, they could enjoy only at the good pleasure of their lords,—ages when the work of most women was conditioned and subordinated by male dominance. Yet in those days the working... more...

It is often recorded in Scripture that Jesus was moved by compassion; and we are told in this verse that after the disciples of John had come to Him and told Him that their master had been beheaded, that he had been put to a cruel death, He went out into a desert place, and the multitude followed Him, and that when He saw the multitude He had “compassion” on them, and healed their sick. If He were here to-night in person, standing in... more...

OVERWORK AND RECREATION—OUTING AND OUTERS HOW TO DO IT, AND WHY THEY MISS IT   t does not need that Herbert Spencer should cross the ocean to tell us that we are an overworked nation; that our hair turns gray ten years earlier than the Englishman's; or, "that we have had somewhat too much of the gospel of work," and, "it is time to preach the gospel of relaxation." It is all true. But we work harder, accomplish more in a given time, and... more...

PREFACE Woodrow Wilson prefers not to be written about. His enemies may, and of course will, say what they please, but he would like to have his friends hold their peace. He seems to think and feel that if he himself can keep silent while his foes are talking, his friends should be equally stoical. He made this plain in October, 1920, when he learned that I had slipped away from my office at the White House one night shortly before the election... more...

APPENDIX NO. I. THE WOODSTOCK SCUFFLE; or, Most dreadfull apparitions that were lately seene in the Mannor-house of Woodstock, neere Oxford, to the great terror and the wonderful amazement of all there that did behold them. It were a wonder if one unites,And not of wonders and strange sights;For ev'ry where such things affrightsPoore people, That men are ev'n at their wits' end;God judgments ev'ry where doth send,And yet we don't our lives... more...