RICHARD WAGNER Was ever work like mine created for no purpose? Am I a miserable egotist, possessed of stupid vanity? It matters not, but of this I feel positive; yes, as positive as that I live, and this is, my "Tristan and Isolde," with which I am now consumed, does not find its equal in the world's library of music. Oh, how I yearn to hear it; I am feverish; I am worn. Perhaps that... more...

INTRODUCTION THE characteristic of a revolutionary country is that change is a quicker process there than elsewhere. As the revolution recedes into the past the process of change slackens speed. Russia is no longer the dizzying kaleidoscope that it was in 1917. No longer does it change visibly from week to week as it changed in 19l8. Already, to get a clear vision of the direction in which it is... more...

CHAPTER I RECORDS AND EVENTS Edward MacDowell, the first Celtic voice that has spoken commandingly out of musical art, achieved that priority through natural if not inevitable processes. Both his grandfather and grandmother on his father's side were born in Ireland, of Irish-Scotch parents. To his paternal great-grandfather, Alexander MacDowell, the composer traced the Scottish element in his... more...

PROLEGOMENA Religion is the opium of the people. The suppression of religion as the happiness of the people is the revindication of its real happiness. The invitation to abandon illusions regarding its situation is an invitation to abandon a situation which has need of illusions. Criticism of religion is therefore the germ of a criticism of the vale of tears, of which religion is the holy aspect.... more...

ACT I. Scene. The Doctor's consulting room. Ground floor, 13 Marmalade Street, Pimlico. (See Scene Plot.) (Aurora. the slavey, discovered laying out Doctor's letters lovingly on his writing table; she kisses each one as she lays it down—all are in blue envelopes.) Aurora. They're all for 'im—the dear doctor. Won't 'e be pleased when 'e comes back and finds all... more...

INTRODUCTION The Inspector-General is a national institution. To place a purely literary valuation upon it and call it the greatest of Russian comedies would not convey the significance of its position either in Russian literature or in Russian life itself. There is no other single work in the modern literature of any language that carries with it the wealth of associations which the Inspector-General... more...

CHAPTER I THE COMIC IN GENERAL—THE COMIC ELEMENT IN FORMS AND MOVEMENTS—EXPANSIVE FORCE OF THE COMIC. What does laughter mean? What is the basal element in the laughable? What common ground can we find between the grimace of a merry-andrew, a play upon words, an equivocal situation in a burlesque and a scene of high comedy? What method of distillation will yield us invariably the same essence from... more...

CHAPTER I GENERAL PRINCIPLES Commerce and modern civilization go hand in hand, and the history of the one is the history of the other; and whatever may be the basis of civilization, commerce has been the chief agent by which it has been spread throughout the world. Peoples who receive nothing from their fellow-men, and who give nothing in return, are usually but little above a savage state. Civilized... more...

CHAPTER I “SNUGGY” AND THE ROSE PONY “Hi, Rose! Up, girl! There’s another party making for the View by the far path. Get a move on, Rosie.” The strawberry roan tossed her cropped mane and her dainty little hoofs clattered more quickly over the rocky path which led up from the far-reaching grazing lands of Sunset Ranch to the summit of the rocky eminence that bounded the valley upon the east.... more...

It may surprise some people to learn that in 1915 this little play was a recruiting poster in disguise. The British officer seldom likes Irish soldiers; but he always tries to have a certain proportion of them in his battalion, because, partly from a want of common sense which leads them to value their lives less than Englishmen do [lives are really less worth living in a poor country], and partly... more...