INTRODUCTORY. "If humour only meant laughter," said Thackeray, in his essay on the English humorists, "you would scarcely feel more interest about humorous writers than the life of poor Harlequin, who possesses with these the power of making you laugh. But the men regarding whose lives and stories you have curiosity and sympathy appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides our... more...

I. THE START One day in 1908, when my presidential term was coming to a close, Father Zahm, a priest whom I knew, came in to call on me. Father Zahm and I had been cronies for some time, because we were both of us fond of Dante and of history and of science—I had always commended to theologians his book, "Evolution and Dogma." He was an Ohio boy, and his early schooling had been obtained in... more...

CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY, AND OF COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE, FROM THE EARLIEST RECORDS, TO THE TIME OF HERODOTUS. B.C. 450. The earliest traces of navigation and commerce are necessarily involved in much obscurity, and are, besides, few and faint. It is impossible to assign to them any clear and definite chronology; and they are, with a few exceptions, utterly... more...

PRIMITIVE LAW AND THE NEGRO The psychology of large bodies of men is a surprisingly difficult topic and it is often true that we are inclined to seek the explanation of phenomena in too recent a period of human development. The truth seems to be that ideas prevail longer than customs, habits of dress or the ordinary economic processes of the community, and the ideas are the controlling factors. The... more...

INTRODUCTION "When I first dabbled in this art, the old distemper call'd Melancholy was exchang'd for Vapours, and afterwards for the Hypp, and at last took up the now current appellation of the Spleen, which it still retains, tho' a learned doctor of the west, in a little tract he hath written, divides the Spleen and Vapours, not only into the Hypp, the Hyppos, and the Hyppocons;... more...

MAN PROPOSES. "H'm! And you scarcely remember your mother, I suppose?" "No, Lucian; I was such a mere babe when she died, I have often wondered what it would be like to have a mother. Auntie Hagar was always very kind to me, however; so kind, in fact, that my step-father, fearing, he said, that I would grow up self-willed and disobedient, sent her away, and procured the services of the... more...

January 28, 1914. Lord Howard de Walden is starting a movement with the admirable object of reinvigorating the drama in Wales by forming a travelling troupe of first-rate actors. It is rumoured that an option has already been obtained on a native comedian who is at present a member of the Cabinet. The Chancellor of the Exchequer received last week a deputation of the Men of Kent in order to hear their... more...

CHAPTER I AN ESKIMO IGLOO "How could William get the croup that way?" Violet asked with much emphasis. Of course, Vi was always asking questions—so many questions, indeed, that it was often impossible for her elders to answer them all; and certainly Rose and Russ Bunker, who were putting together a "cut-up" puzzle on the table, could not be bothered by Vi's insistence. "I... more...

Second Sight (Note: The following excerpts from Amy Ballantine's journal have never actually been written down at any time before. Her account of impressions and events has been kept in organized fashion in her mind for at least nine years (even she is not certain when she started), but it must be understood that certain inaccuracies in transcription could not possibly have been avoided in the... more...

CHAPTER I. The Jubilee Monarch, King George III., and his last name-sake, had succeeded so much that was unsettled in the previous hundred years, that the last half of the 18th Century was a period almost of comparative quiet in home affairs. Abroad were stirring events in abundance in which England played its part, for the century gives, at a rough calculation, 56 years of war to 44 years of peace,... more...