INTRODUCTION As we have moved down the ages, now and then, from the religious teacher, the statesman, the inventor, the social worker, or from the doctor, surgeon, or sexologist, there has been a "vox clamantis in deserto." Usually these voices have fallen on unheeding ears; but again and again some delver in books, some student of men, some inspired, self-effacing, or altruistic one has taken... more...

PREFACE "Sanine" is a thoroughly uncomfortable book, but it has a fierce energy which has carried it in a very short space of time into almost every country in Europe and at last into this country, where books, like everything else, are expected to be comfortable. It has roused fury both in Russia and in Germany, but, being rather a furious effort itself, it has thriven on that, and reached an... more...

CHAPTER I. Two years of service in the Zouaves had wrought a change in Anastase Gouache, the painter. He was still a light man, nervously built, with small hands and feet, and a delicate face; but constant exposure to the weather had browned his skin, and a life of unceasing activity had strengthened his sinews and hardened his compact frame. The clustering black curls were closely cropped, too, while... more...

Berryman Livingstone was a successful man, a very successful man, and as he sat in his cushioned chair in his inner private office (in the best office-building in the city) on a particularly snowy evening in December, he looked it every inch. It spoke in every line of his clean-cut, self-contained face, with its straight, thin nose, closely drawn mouth, strong chin and clear gray eyes; in every... more...

PALOMITAS I’ve been around considerable in the Western Country––mostly some years back––and I’ve seen quite a little, one way and another, of the folks living there: but I can’t really and truly say I’ve often come up with them nature’s noblemen––all the time at it doing stunts in natural nobility––the story-books make out is the chief population of them parts. Like enough the... more...

APPRECIATION AND INTRODUCTION With a view to the work of my classes this session, I took old Abraham Woodhead’s two black-letter quartos with me to the Engadine last July.  And I spent every rainy morning and every tired evening of that memorable holiday month in the society of Santa Teresa and her excellent old-English translator.  Till, ever, as I crossed the Morteratch and the Roseg, and climbed... more...

PREFACE It is remarkable how little has been written about the Dominican Republic, a country so near to our shores, which has for years had intimate commercial and political relations with our country, which is at present under the provisional administration of the American Government, and which is destined to develop under the protection and guidance of the United States. The only comprehensive... more...

Bass for Breakfast. “Have some more bass, Gwyn?” “Please, father.” “You should not speak with your mouth full, my dear,” said Mrs Pendarve, quietly. “No, mother; but I didn’t like to keep father waiting.” “And between the two stools you came to the ground, eh?” said Colonel Pendarve, smiling. “Never mind; hold your plate. Lucky for us, my dear, that we have only one boy. This... more...

SAPPHO Cyprus, Paphos, or PanormusMay detain thee with their splendourOf oblations on thine altars,O imperial Aphrodite. Yet do thou regard, with pity 5For a nameless child of passion,This small unfrequented valleyBy the sea, O sea-born mother. II What shall we do, Cytherea?Lovely Adonis is dying.  Ah, but we mourn him! Will he return when the AutumnPurples the earth, and the sunlight 5  Sleeps in... more...

In the first place, Miss Minchin lived in London. Her home was a large, dull, tall one, in a large, dull square, where all the houses were alike, and all the sparrows were alike, and where all the door-knockers made the same heavy sound, and on still days—and nearly all the days were still—seemed to resound through the entire row in which the knock was knocked. On Miss Minchin's door there was... more...