The Twelve-Forty-Five (For Edward J. Wheeler) Within the Jersey City shedThe engine coughs and shakes its head,The smoke, a plume of red and white,Waves madly in the face of night.And now the grave incurious starsGleam on the groaning hurrying cars.Against the kind and awful reignOf darkness, this our angry train,A noisy little rebel, poutsIts brief defiance, flames and shouts —And passes on, and... more...

INTRODUCTION. This translation of Xenophon’s “Memorabilia of Socrates” was first published in 1712, and is here printed from the revised edition of 1722.  Its author was Edward Bysshe, who had produced in 1702 “The Art of English Poetry,” a well-known work that was near its fifth edition when its author published his translation of the “Memorabilia.”  This was a translation that... more...

THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE At the half-conscious moment of awakening Prime had a confused impression that he must have gone to bed leaving the electric lights turned on full-blast. Succeeding impressions were even more disconcerting. It seemed that he had also gone to bed with his clothes on; that the bed was unaccountably hard; that the pillow had borrowed the characteristics of a pillory. Sitting up to... more...

Nothing was further from my mind, when I discovered the "Release Drug" Relin, than the realization that it would lead me through as strange and ghastly and revealing a series of adventures as any man has ever experienced. I encountered it, in a way, as a mere by-product of my experiments; I am a chemist by profession, and as one of the staff of the Morganstern Foundation have access to some of... more...

INTRODUCTION There are few people in the world who have more opportunity for getting close to the hot, interesting things of one's time than the special correspondent of a great paper. He is enabled to see "the wheels go round;" has the chance of getting his knowledge at first hand. In stirring times the drama of life is to him like the first night of a play. There are no preconceived... more...

Richard's Predecessors. There have been three monarchs of the name of Richard upon the English throne.Three Richards.Richard the Crusader.Richard I. is known and celebrated in history as Richard the Crusader. He was the sovereign ruler not only of England, but of all the Norman part of France, and from both of his dominions he raised a vast army, and went with it to the Holy Land, where he fought... more...

COWARDS It was Harrington who brought forward the topic that men take up in their most cheerful moments. I mean, of course, the subject of death. Harrington quoted a great scientist as saying that death is the one great fear that, consciously or not, always hovers over us. But the five men who were at table with Harrington that night immediately and sharply disagreed with him. Harding was the first to... more...

VIOLETS. I. "And she tied a bunch of violets with a tress of her pretty brown hair." She sat in the yellow glow of the lamplight softly humming these words. It was Easter evening, and the newly risen spring world was slowly sinking to a gentle, rosy, opalescent slumber, sweetly tired of the joy which had pervaded it all day. For in the dawn of the perfect morn, it had arisen, stretched out its... more...

arney Chard, thirty-seven—financier, entrepreneur, occasional blackmailer, occasional con man, and very competent in all these activities—stood on a rickety wooden lake dock, squinting against the late afternoon sun, and waiting for his current business prospect to give up the pretense of being interested in trying to catch fish. The prospect, who stood a few yards farther up the dock, rod in one... 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... more...