CHAPTER I IN THE CITY OF THE WINDS The Ebro, as all the world knows--or will pretend to know, being an ignorant and vain world--runs through the city of Saragossa. It is a river, moreover, which should be accorded the sympathy of this generation, for it is at once rapid and shallow. On one side it is bordered by the wall of the city. The left bank is low and sandy, liable to flood; a haunt of lizards... more...

I STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY From Ste. Marie's little flat, which overlooked the gardens, they drove down the quiet rue du Luxembourg, and at the Place St. Sulpice turned to the left. They crossed the Place St. Germain des Prés, where lines of home-bound working-people stood waiting for places in the electric trams, and groups of students from the Beaux Arts or from... more...

INTRODUCTION The eighteenth century was an age addicted to gossiping about its literary figures. This addiction was nowhere better demonstrated than by the countless reflections, sermons, poems, pamphlets, biographical sketches, and biographies about Samuel Johnson. The most productive phase of this activity commenced almost immediately after Johnson's death in December, 1784, and continued into... more...

A DISCOVERY In the great public square of the ancient city of Liege, in Belgium, a troop of Belgian Boy Scouts stood at attention. Staffs in hand, clad in the short knickerbockers, the khaki shirts and the wide campaign hats that mark the Boy Scout all over the world, they were enough of a spectacle to draw the attention of the busy citizens of Liege, who stopped to watch them admiringly. Their... more...

CHARITY THE PECULIAR VIRTUE OF CHRIST OUR Divine Saviour shows both by precept and example that His favourite virtue, His own and, in a certain sense, characteristic virtue, was charity. Whether He treated with His ignorant and rude Apostles, with the sick and poor, or with His enemies and sinners, He is always benign, condescending, merciful, affable, patient; in a word, His charity appeared in all... more...

CHAPTER I. Oh ye seas and floods,Bless ye the Lord:Praise him, and magnify him forever. "Oh! what beautiful weather," exclaimed George Wilton, as he drew his chair nearer the fire. "This sort of evenings is so suitable for story-telling, that I regret more than ever the disagreeable necessity which has taken Mr. Stanley to foreign countries, and broken up our delightful parties. But yet,... more...

The space-ship Viking—two hundred feet of gleaming metal and polished duralite—lay on the launching platform of New York City's municipal airport. Her many portholes gleamed with light. She was still taking on rocket fuel from a tender, but otherwise all the final stores were aboard. Her helicopters were turning over slowly, one at a time, as they were tested. In the Viking's upper... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE DANGER ZONE She stood on the crown of the hill, silhouetted against a sky-line of deepest blue. Already the sun was sinking in a crotch of the plains which rolled to the horizon edge like waves of a great land sea. Its reflected fires were in her dark, stormy eyes. Its long, slanted rays were a spotlight for the tall, slim figure, straight as that of a boy. The girl's gaze was... more...

IN CAMP "Well, well, young ladies, I certainly am glad to see you again! Indeed I am.""Ladies, ladies, one and all, I'm very glad to have you call!"Thus Mr. Lagg made our friends welcome as they entered his "emporium," as the sign over the door had it. "What will it be to-day?" he went on."I've prunes and peaches, pies and pills, To feed you well, and... more...

PREFACE. The following lectures, drawn up under the pressure of more imperative and quite otherwise directed work, contain many passages which stand in need of support, and some, I do not doubt, more or less of correction, which I always prefer to receive openly from the better knowledge of friends, after setting down my own impressions of the matter in clearness as far as they reach, than to guard... more...