Introduction To First Edition. The incidents which are published in this volume, are vouched for upon the strongest proofs of authenticity possible to obtain, and are either of circumstances known amid my own experience, or connected with the lives of my correspondents and their friends. They are the thankful record and tribute to the power of persevering faith. Nothing has been published concerning... more...

The Norsemen in the West; Or America before Columbus. The Curtain Rises and the Play Begins. One fine autumn evening, between eight and nine hundred years ago, two large hairy creatures, bearing some resemblance to polar bears, might have been seen creeping slowly, and with much caution, toward the summit of a ridge that formed a spur to one of the ice-clad mountains of Greenland. The creatures went on... more...

CHAPTER I As Henry came blithely into the house with a heavy suit-case in one hand and a cumbersome kit-bag in the other, his Aunt Mirabelle marched out like a grenadier from the living-room, and posted herself in the hallway to watch him approach. There was this much to say for Aunt Mirabelle: she was at least consistent, and for twenty years she had worn the same expression whenever she looked at... more...

"I do mean it," declared Mrs. Korner, "I like a man to be a man." "But you would not like Christopher—I mean Mr. Korner—to be that sort of man," suggested her bosom friend. "I don't mean that I should like it if he did it often. But I should like to feel that he was able to be that sort of man.—Have you told your master that breakfast is ready?" demanded Mrs.... more...

HE message was an electronic shout, the most powerful and tightly-beamed short-wave transmission which men could generate, directed with all the precision which mathematics and engineering could offer. Nevertheless that pencil must scrawl broadly over the sky, and for a long time, merely hoping to write on its target. For when distances are measured in light-weeks, the smallest errors grow monstrous.... more...

"PLACE AUX DAMES!" [Following the brilliant success of Miss Fawcett at Cambridge, Mlle. Belcesco, a Roumanian lady, took her degree to-day as Docteur en Droit. Like Miss Fawcett, she obtained the highest place at the examination for the Licentiate's Degree, and her success was not less brilliant at the examination for the Doctor's Degree.—"Daily News" Paris Correspondent.]... more...

On a bright, still morning in October, the Doraine sailed from a South American port and turned her glistening nose to the northeast. All told, there were some seven hundred and fifty souls on board; and there were stores that filled her holds from end to end,—grain, foodstuffs, metals, chemicals, rubber and certain sinister things of war. Her passenger list contained the names of men who had... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY—THE COST AND ADVANTAGES OF ACETYLENE LIGHTING Acetylene is a gas [Footnote: For this reason the expression, "acetylene gas," which is frequently met with, would be objectionable on the ground of tautology, even if it were not grammatically and technically incorrect. "Acetylene-gas" is perhaps somewhat more permissible, but it is equally redundant and... more...

WINTER IN THE WOODS What can be more delightful, to a boy of spirit, than a day in the woods when there has been a good snow! If he also happens to have a good friend or two, and some good dogs (who are just as likely to be friends as his boy-companions), he ought to be much happier than an ordinary king. A forest is a fine place at any time, but when the ground is well covered with snow—especially... more...

A PURITAN BOYHOOD: WANSTEAD CHURCH AND CHIGWELL SCHOOL The mother of William Penn came from Rotterdam, in Holland. She was the daughter of John Jasper, a merchant of that city. The lively Mr. Pepys, who met her in 1664, when William was twenty years of age, describes her as a "fat, short, old Dutchwoman," and says that she was "mighty homely." He records a tattling neighbor's... more...