THE PERFECT READER On Christmas Eve, while the Perfect Reader sits in his armchair immersed in a book—so absorbed that he has let the fire go out—I propose to slip gently down the chimney and leave this tribute in his stocking. It is not a personal tribute. I speak, on behalf of the whole fraternity of writers, this word of gratitude—and envy. No one who has ever done any writing, or has any... more...

MORALS IN TRADE AND COMMERCE The most beautiful thing about youth is its power and eagerness to make ideals, and he is unfortunate who goes out into the world without some picture of services to be rendered, or of a goal to be attained. There are very few of us who, at some time or another, have not cherished these ideals, perhaps secretly and half ashamed as though to us alone had come an inspiration... more...

Richard's Mother.The great quarrel between the houses of York and Lancaster.Terrible results of the quarrel.Origin of it.The mother of King Richard the Third was a beautiful, and, in many respects, a noble-minded woman, though she lived in very rude, turbulent, and trying times. She was born, so to speak, into one of the most widely-extended, the most bitter, and the most fatal of the family... more...

Preface Hawthorne in his Wonder Book has described the beautiful Greek myths and traditions, but no one has yet made similar use of the wondrous tales that gathered for more than a thousand years about the islands of the Atlantic deep. Although they are a part of the mythical period of American history, these hazy legends were altogether disdained by the earlier historians; indeed, George Bancroft made... more...

"We don't know what it is," said Andrew J. Burris, Director of the FBI. He threw his hands in the air and looked baffled and confused. Kenneth J. Malone tried to appear sympathetic. "What what is?" Burris frowned and drummed his fingers on his big desk. "Malone," he said, "make sense. And don't stutter." "Stutter?" Malone said. "You said you... more...

CHAPTER I.—A Tale of Two Clubs. "Such arts the gods who dwell on highHave given to the Greek."—Lays of Ancient Rome. In the Strangers' Room of the Olympic Club the air was thick with tobacco-smoke, and, despite the bitter cold outside, the temperature was uncomfortably high. Dinner was over, and the guests, broken up into little groups, were chattering noisily. No one had yet given any... more...

I February, 1918. I am sick of my life—The war has robbed it of all that a young man can find of joy. I look at my mutilated face before I replace the black patch over the left eye, and I realize that, with my crooked shoulder, and the leg gone from the right knee downwards, that no woman can feel emotion for me again in this world. So be it—I must be a philosopher. Mercifully I have no near... more...

CHAPTER I THE ADJECTIVE "BEAUTIFUL" THIS little book, like the great branch of mental science to which it is an introduction, makes no attempt to "form the taste" of the public and still less to direct the doings of the artist. It deals not with ought but with is, leaving to Criticism the inference from the latter to the former. It does not pretend to tell how things can be made... more...

UPS AND DOWNS; OR, DAVID STUART'S ACCOUNT OF HIS PILGRIMAGE. Old David Stuart was the picture of health—a personification of contentment. When I knew him, his years must have considerably exceeded threescore; but his good-natured face was as ruddy as health could make it; his hair, though mingled with grey, was as thick and strong as if he had been but twenty; his person was still muscular and... more...

aking his way from square to square of the big rope hairnet that served as guidelines on the outer surface of the big wheel, Mike Blackhawk completed his inspection of the gold-plated plastic hull, with its alternate dark and shiny squares. He had scanned every foot of the curved surface in this first inspection, familiarizing himself completely with that which other men had constructed from his... more...