I BEFORE THE WAR The world war represents not the triumph, but the birth of democracy. The true ideal of democracy—the rule of a people by the demos, or group soul—is a thing unrealized. How then is it possible to consider or discuss an architecture of democracy—the shadow of a shade? It is not possible to do so with any degree of finality, but by an intention of consciousness upon this... more...

THE GREY ANGEL Her predilection for things French came from childish recollections of school-days in Paris, and a hasty removal thence by her father during the revolution of '48, of later travels as a little maiden, by diligence, to Pau and the then undiscovered Pyrenees, to a Montpellier and a Nice as yet unspoiled. Unto her seventy-eighth year, her French accent had remained unruffled, her soul... more...

ANCIENT BANNER.In boundless mercy, the Redeemer left,The bosom of his Father, and assumedA servant's form, though he had reigned a king,In realms of glory, ere the worlds were made,Or the creating words, "Let there be light"In heaven were uttered. But though veiled in flesh,His Deity and his Omnipotence,Were manifest in miracles. DiseaseFled at his bidding, and the buried deadRose from the... more...

MARIA FELICIA MALIBRAN. The Childhood of Maria Garcia.—Her Father's Sternness and Severe Discipline.—Her First Appearance as an Artist on the Operatic Stage.—Her Genius and Power evident from the Beginning.—Anecdotes of her Early Career.—Manuel Garcia's Operatic Enterprise in New York.—Maria Garcia is inveigled into marrying M. Malibran.—Failure of the Garcia Opera, and... more...

BALKS IN A BRUSH. FLORA, having no relations in the world that she knew of, had, ever since her seventh new bonnet, known no other home than Macassar Female College, in the Alms-House, and regarded Miss CAROWTHERS as her mother-in-lore. Her memory of her own mother was of a lady-like person who had swiftly waisted away in the effort to be always taken for her own daughter, and was, one day, brought... more...

PREFACE To gather stones and fallen boughs is soon to ask, what may be done with them, can they be piled and fastened together for shelter? So begins architecture, with the hut as its first step, with the Alhambra, St. Peter's, the capitol at Washington, as its last. In like fashion the amassing of fact suggests the ordering of fact: when observation is sufficiently full and varied it comes to the... more...

THE MINERS' OPERA. About a week ago, when they took Titterby away to the large red-brick establishment which he now adorns, certain papers which were left lying in his study passed into my hands, for I was almost his only friend. It had long been Titterby's belief that a great future lay before the librettist who should produce topical light operas on the Gilbert and Sullivan model, dealing... more...

PREFATORY NOTE. The purpose in the following pages is a simple one. It is to discover the trend of thought in connection with Public Worship within the Presbyterian Church, particularly in Scotland, during the course of her history since the Reformation. The spirit of the Church in her stirring and formative periods, especially if that spirit is a constant one, is pregnant with instruction. Such a... more...

ASPECTS OF RECENT SCIENCE STUDENTS of the classics will recall that the old Roman historians were accustomed to detail the events of the remote past in what they were pleased to call annals, and to elaborate contemporary events into so-called histories. Actuated perhaps by the same motives, though with no conscious thought of imitation, I have been led to conclude this history of the development of... more...

As Easy as A.B.C. (1912) The A.B.C., that semi-elected, semi-nominated body of a few score persons, controls the Planet. Transportation is Civilisation, our motto runs. Theoretically we do what we please, so long as we do not interfere with the trafficand all it implies.Practically, the A.B.C. confirms or annuls all international arrangements, and, to judge from its last report, finds our tolerant,... more...