One evening in the winter, some years ago, my brother came to my rooms in the city of Chicago bringing with him a book by Gertrude Stein. The book was called and, just at that time, there was a good deal of fuss and fun being made over it in American newspapers. I had already read a book of Miss Stein's called and had thought it contained some of the best writing ever done by an American. I was... more...

PREFACE In 1899 I began to write out a text-book of sociology from material which I had used in lectures during the previous ten or fifteen years. At a certain point in that undertaking I found that I wanted to introduce my own treatment of the "mores." I could not refer to it anywhere in print, and I could not do justice to it in a chapter of another book. I therefore turned aside to write a... more...

MORE THAN SATISFIED! (With Mr. Punch's apologies to the Daily Telegraph's "Academic Enthusiast.") "She-Pantaloons? seedy? Now, do we look like it?" The speaker was a tall, robust maiden with fair hair; on her knee was an edition (without notes) of the Anabasis of Xenophon, and by her side was Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, in which she had just been tracking an... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                                DECEMBER                                  1667 December 1st (Lord's day). Up, and after entering my journal for 2 or 3 days, I to church, where Mr. Mills, a dull sermon: and in our pew there sat a great lady, which I afterwards... more...

On that morning, which was the morning before Christmas, two important events happened simultaneously—the sun rose, and so did M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy. Unquestionably the sun, illuminating suddenly the whole of Paris with its morning rays, is an old friend regarded with affection by everybody, It is particularly welcome after a fortnight of misty atmosphere and gray skies, when the wind has cleared... more...

SIR EDWARD DERING'S HOUSEHOLD BOOK, A.D. 1648-52. About ten years since, I remember seeing, in the hands of a London bookseller, a curious MS. purporting to be the "Household Book of Receipts and Expences of Sir Edward Dering, Bart., of Surrenden Dering, Kent, from Lady-Day, 1648, to April, 1652." It was a think folio, in the original binding, entirely in the hand-writing of the... more...

The Magic Comb One bright morning in August little Mary Louise put on her hat and went trudging across the meadow to the beach. It was the first time she had been trusted out alone since the family had moved to the seashore for the summer; for Mary Louise was a little girl, nothing about her was large, except her round gray eyes. There was a pale mist on the far-off sea, and up around the sun were... more...

CHAPTER I SUNDOWN IN ANTELOPE Sundown Slim, who had enjoyed the un-upholstered privacy of a box-car on his journey west from Albuquerque, awakened to realize that his conveyance was no longer an integral part of the local freight which had stopped at the town of Antelope, and which was now rumbling and grumbling across the Arizona mesas. He was mildly irritated by a management that gave its passengers... more...

CHAPTER I. A NEW WINNEBAGO. Sahwah the Sunfish sat on top of the diving tower squinting through Nakwisi's spy-glass at the distant horizon. "Sister Anne, sister Anne," called Migwan from the rocks below, "do you see any one coming?" Sahwah lowered her glass and shook her head. "No sign of the Bluebird yet," she answered. "If Gladys doesn't come pretty soon I shall... more...

THE NURSERY AND ITS RHYMES It is a mistake to suppose that any one nation or people has exclusive right to Mother Goose. She is an omnipresent old lady. She is Asiatic as well as European or American. Wherever there are mothers, grandmothers, and nurses there are Mother Gooses,—or; shall we say, Mother Geese—for I am at a loss as to how to pluralize this old dame. She is in India, whence I have... more...