BOOK I. Achilles sing, O Goddess! Peleus' son;His wrath pernicious, who ten thousand woesCaused to Achaia's host, sent many a soulIllustrious into Ades premature,And Heroes gave (so stood the will of Jove)5To dogs and to all ravening fowls a prey,When fierce dispute had separated onceThe noble Chief Achilles from the sonOf Atreus, Agamemnon, King of men. Who them to strife impell'd? What... more...

My subject is Some Conditions of Child Life in England. And ought we not to expect some of these to be sad? No one who reflects can fail to see the fact that in this country to-day many conditions contribute to make ill-living people; and to make them regard children as nuisances. Vagrant habits; gambling; extravagant self-indulgence; idleness; unmarried parentage, and unfaithfulness in married... more...

I I know of nothing more significant than the awakening of men and women throughout our country to the desire to improve their houses. Call it what you will—awakening, development, American Renaissance—it is a most startling and promising condition of affairs. It is no longer possible, even to people of only faintly æsthetic tastes, to buy chairs merely to sit upon or a clock merely that it should... more...

FALLING IN LOVE An ancient and famous human institution is in pressing danger. Sir George Campbell has set his face against the time-honoured practice of Falling in Love. Parents innumerable, it is true, have set their faces against it already from immemorial antiquity; but then they only attacked the particular instance, without venturing to impugn the institution itself on general principles. An old... more...

CHAPTER I. "Well, it were the grandest funeral as ever I set eyes on," said Allison, the blacksmith, folding his brawny arms under his leather apron, and leaning his shoulders against the open door of the smithy in an attitude of leisurely ease. The group, gathered round him on their way home from work, gave an assenting nod and waited for more. For convenience Allison shifted his pipe more to... more...

“Arms and the man” was Virgil’s strain; But we propose in lighter vein To browse a crop from pastures (Green’s) Of England’s Evolution scenes. Who would from facts prognosticate The future progress of this State, Must own the chiefest fact to be Her escalator is the Sea.   HISTORIANS erudite and sage, When writing of the past stone age, Tell us man once was clothed in skins And tattooed... more...

I I thought once how Theocritus had sungOf the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,Who each one in a gracious hand appearsTo bear a gift for mortals, old or young:And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,Those of my own life, who by turns had flungA shadow across me.  Straightway I was ’ware,So weeping, how a... more...

The name "Sam Slick" has passed into popular use as standing for a somewhat conventional Yankee, in whom sharpness and verdancy are combined in curious proportions; but the book which gave rise to the name has long been out of print. It is now revived, under the impression that the reading public will have an interest in seeing a work which, more probably than any other one book, served to fix... more...

Dr. Robert Von Engen, EditorJournal of the National Academy of Sciences,Constitution Avenue, N. W.,Washington, D. C. Dear Sir: I am taking the liberty of writing you this letter since I read your published volume, “Logical Control: The Computer vs. Brain” (Silliman Memorial Lecture Series, 1957), with the hope that you can perhaps offer me some advice and also publish this letter in the editorial... more...

Chapter One. Philip Western. “You positively annoy me, Joseph, and make me feel more angry than I care to admit. The matter is a serious one, and I am deeply distressed. After thirteen years of the most careful bringing-up there is complete and absolute failure. It is a miserable reward. And then, to make matters worse, you laugh at me, and egg the lad on to even greater crimes!” “Fiddlesticks,... more...