PREFACE. HOME! How at the word, a crowd of pleasant thoughts awaken. What sun-bright images are pictured to the imagination. Yet, there is no home without its shadows as well as sunshine. Love makes the home-lights and selfishness the shadows. Ah! how dark the shadow at times—how faint and fleeting the sunshine. How often selfishness towers up to a giant height, barring out from our dwellings every... more...

I It was February off the Banks, and so thick was the weather that, on the upper decks, one could have driven a sleigh. Inside the smoking-room Austin Ford, as securely sheltered from the blizzard as though he had been sitting in front of a wood fire at his club, ordered hot gin for himself and the ship's doctor. The ship's doctor had gone below on another "hurry call" from the widow.... more...

WITH THE AUXILIARY PATROL. An Honourable Record. Many years ago, in the reign of good Queen Victoria, a little ship sailed out of Grimsby Docks in all the proud bravery of new paint and snow-white decks, and passed the Newsand bound for the Dogger Bank. They had christened her the King George, and, though her feminine susceptibilities were perhaps a trifle piqued at this affront to her sex, it was a... more...

NOTES. FOLK LORE. The First Mole in Cornwall; a Morality from the Stowe of Morwenna, in the Rocky Land.—A lonely life for the dark and silent mole! She glides along her narrow vaults, unconscious of the glad and glorious scenes of earth, and air, and sea! She was born, as it were, in a grave, and in one long living sepulchre she dwells and dies! Is not existence to her a kind of doom? Wherefore is... more...

ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION Kiro Soran, the guard captain, stood in the shadow of the veranda roof, his white cloak thrown back to display the scarlet lining. He rubbed his palm reflectively on the checkered butt of his revolver and watched the four men at the table. "And ten tens are a hundred," one of the clerks in blue jackets said, adding another stack to the pile of gold coins.... more...

Chapter I The Workshop With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader. With this drop of ink at the end of my pen, I will show you the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in the village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the eighteenth of June, in... more...

INTRODUCTION TO NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION. Sir John Bennet Lawes kindly consented to write a Chapter for the new edition of this work. The Deacon, the Doctor, the Squire, Charlie and myself all felt flattered and somewhat bashful at finding ourselves in such distinguished company. I need not say that this new Chapter from the pen of the most eminent English agricultural investigator is worthy of a very... more...

CHAPTER I. ON LOVE."Love is of man's life a thing apart;'Tis woman's whole existence."So sings the poet, and so agrees the world. Humiliating as it is to make the confession, it is undeniably true. "Men and Dress are all women think about," cry the lords of creation in their unbounded vanity. And again, we must submit—and agree—to the truth of the accusation; at any... more...

In reprinting Anarchism and Socialism, by George Plechanoff, we realize that there is not the same need for assailing and exposing anarchism at present as there has been at different times in the past. Yet the book is valuable, not merely because of its historic interest but also to workers coming into contact with the revolutionary movement for the first time. The general conception of anarchism that... more...

Child Songs of Cheer A robin redbreast, fluting thereUpon the apple-bough,Is telling all the world how fairAre apple-blossoms now;The honey-dew its sweetness spillsFrom cuckoo-cups, and allThe crocuses and daffodilsAre drest for festival!Such pretty things are to be seen,Such pleasant things to do,The April earth it is so green,The April sky so blue,The path from dawn to even-songSo joyous is... more...