CHAPTER I PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISMIts Origins Doubtful and Unimportant. It has been the customary and perhaps inevitable method of writers on Pantheism to trace its main idea back to the dreams of Vedic poets, the musings of Egyptian priests, and the speculations of the Greeks. But though it is undeniable that the divine unity of all Being was an almost necessary issue of earliest human thought upon the... more...

INTRODUCTORY. Near the end of February 1857, I think about the 20th or so, though it don't much matter; I only know it was near the latter end of summer, burning hot, with the bushfires raging like volcanoes on the ranges, and the river reduced to a slender stream of water, almost lost upon the broad white flats of quartz shingle. It was the end of February, I said, when Major Buckley, Captain... more...

NOTICE OF WILLIAM GRIFFITH, from the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society, with a few extracts from his private correspondence. “WILLIAM GRIFFITH, Esq., the youngest son of the late Thomas Griffith, was born on the 4th of March 1810, at his father’s residence at Ham Common, near Kingston-upon-Thames, in the county of Surrey. “He was educated for the Medical profession, and completed his studies at... more...

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born at Boston, May 25, 1803. He was of an ancient and honourable English stock, who had transplanted themselves, on one side from Cheshire and Bedfordshire, and on the other from Durham and York, a hundred and seventy years before. For seven or eight generations in a direct and unbroken line his forefathers had been preachers and divines, not without eminence in the Puritan... more...

Chapter 12. Gen. Gates — bon mot of British general Lee — how an army ought not to march — De Kalb prophecies — chickens counted before they are hatched, alias, Marion and the author sent by Gen. Gates to prevent the escape of Cornwallis, before he had run — the British and American armies meet — Gates and his militia-men leave De Kalb in the lurch — his gallant behavior, and glorious... more...

TO MY SONS. When I began the incidents of yore,Still in my soul's depths treasured, to record,A voice within said: Soon, life's journey o'er,Thy portrait sole remembrance will afford. And, ere the last hour also strikes for thee,Search thou the harvest of the vanished years.Not futile was thy toil, if thou canst seeThat for thy sons fruit from one seed appears. Upon the course of thine... more...

I POOR OLD CHINA When I came away last August, you said you wanted me to tell you about our travels, particularly about China. Like most Americans, you have a lurking sentimental feeling about China, a latent sympathy and interest based on colossal ignorance. Very well, I will write you as fully as I can. Two months ago my ignorance was fully as overwhelming as yours, but it is being rapidly dispelled.... more...

A SANDWICH AT RINI’S “You know, Lou, I’ve been doing a lot of wondering here of late,” remarked Penny Parker to her chum, Louise Sidell. The girls were riding in Penny’s mud-splattered blue coupe, otherwise known as the Leaping Lena. At the moment Lena was bouncing more than usual for the pavement was bumpy in this section of Riverview. “Wondering what?” inquired Louise, absently brushing... more...

PAX VOBISCUM I heard the other morning a sermon by a distinguished preacher upon "Rest." It was full of beautiful thoughts; but when I came to ask myself, "How does he say I can get Rest?" there was no answer. The sermon was sincerely meant to be practical, yet it contained no experience that seemed to me to be tangible, nor any advice which could help me to find the thing itself as I... more...

INTRODUCTORY It was at Mons in the third week of the Great War. The grey-green German hordes had overwhelmed the greater part of Belgium and were sweeping down into France whose people and military establishment were all unprepared for attack from that quarter. For days the little British army of perhaps 100,000 men, that forlorn hope which the Germans scornfully called "contemptible," but... more...