VERSE MAKING IN GENERAL It is scarcely necessary to write a defense of verse making. As a literary exercise it has been recommended and practiced by every well-known English writer and as a literary asset it has been of practical value at one time or another to most of the authors of to-day. Indirectly it helps one’s prose and is an essential to the understanding of the greatest literature. The fact... more...

CHAPTER I. PLAYING TRUANT A breezy morning after a night of rain. Fleecy clouds, some in massive folds and fantastic shape, some in small half-transparent wisps like sunlit ghosts, were driven rapidly across the blue. Hurrying shadows flecked the swelling bosom of the downs, and where the grass was long it rippled like a green sea, making rustling music. Overhead the larks fluttering upward,... more...

OUR HERO Two men were standing in front of the Empire Theatre on Broadway, at the outer edge of the sidewalk, amiably discussing themselves in the first person singular. It was late in September and somewhat early in the day for actors to be abroad, a circumstance which invites speculation. Attention to their conversation, which was marked by the habitual humility, would have convinced the listener... more...

THE THREE KINGS.BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.Three Kings came riding from far away,Melchior and Gaspar and Baltazar;Three Wise Men out of the East were they,And they traveled by night and they slept by day,For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.The star was so beautiful, large and clear,That all the other stars of the skyBecame a white mist in the atmosphere,And the Wise Men knew that the coming was... more...

SHAKESPEARE. TEMPEST. Act i. Sc. 2. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:If the ill spirit have so fair a house,Good things will strive to dwell with 't. Act i. Sc. 2. I will be correspondent to command,And do my spiriting gently. Act ii. Sc. 2. A very ancient and fishlike smell. Act ii. Sc. 2. Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows. Act iv. Sc. 1. Our revels row are ended:... more...

A SELECTION FROM THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS. OF THE THINGS WHICH ARE IN OUR POWER AND NOT IN OUR POWER.—Of all the faculties (except that which I shall soon mention), you will find not one which is capable of contemplating itself, and, consequently, not capable either of approving or disapproving. How far does the grammatic art possess the contemplating power? As far as forming a judgment about what... more...

AN HISTORICAL ROCKY-MOUNTAIN OUTPOST. GOING TO THE JUDGE'S. The day might have graced the month of June, so balmy was the air, so warmly shone the sun from a cloudless sky. But the snow-covered mountain-range whose base we were skirting, the leafless cottonwoods fringing the Fontaine qui Bouille and the sombre plains that stretched away to the eastern horizon told a different story. It was on one... more...

I THE TUMBLERS It was late of a beautiful afternoon in May. In the hedges outside the village roses were blossoming, yellow and white. Overhead the larks were singing their happiest songs, because the sky was so blue. But nearer the village the birds were silent, marveling at the strange noises which echoed up and down the narrow, crooked streets. "Tom-tom; tom-tom; tom-tom"; the hollow thud of... more...

PREFACE. In offering to the Government and the public this little volume on Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post, I am conscious of my inability to present any new views on a subject that has engaged the attention of many of the most gifted statesmen and economists of this country and Europe. There is, however, no work, so far as I am informed, in any country, which treats of Marine Steam... more...

I know that to some of my audience a satisfactory address at a summer convention would be like that which many people regard as a satisfactory sermon—something soothing and convincing, to the effect that you are not as other men are, but better. While I appreciate very fully, however, the honor of being able to address you, I am going to look trouble in the face in an effort to convince you that, in... more...