FIRST LESSONS; OR, DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE I was appointed adjutant of the One Hundred and Thirty-second Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, by our great war Governor, Andrew G. Curtin, at the solicitation of Colonel Richard A. Oakford, commanding the regiment, my commission dating the 22d day of August, 1862. I reported for duty to Colonel Oakford at Camp Whipple, where the regiment was then encamped, on... more...

CHAPTER I. A TERRIBLE SECRET. On a pleasant evening in the month of May, 1840, a group of young ladies might have been seen on the portico of Plympton Terrace, a fashionable boarding-school near Derwentwater. They all moved about with those effusive demonstrations so characteristic of young girls; but on this occasion there was a general hush among them, which evidently arose from some unusual cause.... more...

AN APPRECIATION Though Russell H. Conwell's Acres of Diamonds have been spread all over the United States, time and care have made them more valuable, and now that they have been reset in black and white by their discoverer, they are to be laid in the hands of a multitude for their enrichment. In the same case with these gems there is a fascinating story of the Master Jeweler's life-work... more...

INTRODUCTORY It is a commonplace that the characteristic virtue of Englishmen is their power of sustained practical activity, and their characteristic vice a reluctance to test the quality of that activity by reference to principles. They are incurious as to theory, take fundamentals for granted, and are more interested in the state of the roads than in their place on the map. And it might fairly be... more...

AT PLAY. Three little foals you see at play.They romp and sport all through the day,But sometimes they are most sedateAnd try to ape their mothers’ gait. They wheel and race and leap and prance,And sometimes they are said to dance:But always they will stand and stareAt anyone who passes there.   [4] [5] [6] The horse, like us, must go to schoolTo learn by precept and by rule.Like us, he does not... more...

INTRODUCTION The articles here presented are modern and unhackneyed. Selected primarily as models for teaching the methods of exposition employed in the explanation of mechanisms, processes, and ideas, they are nevertheless sufficiently representative of certain tendencies in science to be of intrinsic value. Indeed, each author is a recognized authority. Another feature is worthy of mention. Although... more...

April 5, 1916. A severe blizzard hit London last week, and Mr. Pemberton-Billing has since been heard to admit, however reluctantly, that there are other powers of the air. After more than five weeks the bubble blown by Sir James Dewar at the Royal Institution on February 17th has burst. A still larger bubble, blown by some eminent German scientists as long ago as August, 1914, is said to be on the... more...

ike sparks flaring briefly in the darkness, awareness first came to him. Then, there were only instants, shocking-clear, brief: finding himself standing before the main damper control, discovering himself adjusting complex dials, instants that flickered uncertainly only to become memories brought to life when awareness came again. He was a kind of infant, conscious briefly that he was, yet unaware of... more...

I: A Gesture and a Quest Telemachus had wandered so far in search of his father he had quite forgotten what he was looking for. He sat on a yellow plush bench in the café El Oro del Rhin, Plaza Santa Ana, Madrid, swabbing up with a bit of bread the last smudges of brown sauce off a plate of which the edges were piled with the dismembered skeleton of a pigeon. Opposite his plate was a similar plate his... more...

Report of the Spanish Council of State on Appointment of a Governor for the Philippines Sire: On the occasion of a letter written to your Majesty by Don Alonso Fajardo de Tenzá, governor and captain-general of the Filipinas Islands, and president of the royal Audiencia established therein, on the seventeenth of August of the past year 623, petitioning among other things for permission to come to... more...