LETTER I MISS BYRON, TO MISS SELBY Miss Byron, To Miss Selby. O my Lucy! What think you!—But it is easy to guess what you must think.I will, without saying one word more, enclose DR. BARTLETT'S TENTH LETTER The next day (proceeds my patron) I went to make my visit to the family. I had nothing to reproach myself with; and therefore had no other concern upon me but what arose from the unhappiness... more...

INTRODUCTION. After an interval of some months or years, and at Phlius, a town of Peloponnesus, the tale of the last hours of Socrates is narrated to Echecrates and other Phliasians by Phaedo the 'beloved disciple.' The Dialogue necessarily takes the form of a narrative, because Socrates has to be described acting as well as speaking. The minutest particulars of the event are interesting to... more...

"I do mean it," declared Mrs. Korner, "I like a man to be a man." "But you would not like Christopher—I mean Mr. Korner—to be that sort of man," suggested her bosom friend. "I don't mean that I should like it if he did it often. But I should like to feel that he was able to be that sort of man.—Have you told your master that breakfast is ready?" demanded Mrs.... more...

CHAPTER I THE DECLINE OF MANCHESTER HOUSE Take a mining townlet like Woodhouse, with a population of ten thousand people, and three generations behind it. This space of three generations argues a certain well-established society. The old "County" has fled from the sight of so much disembowelled coal, to flourish on mineral rights in regions still idyllic. Remains one great and inaccessible... more...

I—TOULON On the 18th June, 1815, at the very moment when the destiny of Europe was being decided at Waterloo, a man dressed like a beggar was silently following the road from Toulon to Marseilles. Arrived at the entrance of the Gorge of Ollioulles, he halted on a little eminence from which he could see all the surrounding country; then either because he had reached the end of his journey, or because,... more...

Madam Fulton and her granddaughter Electra were sitting at the breakfast-table. It was a warm yet inspiriting day in early spring, and, if the feel and look of it were not enough, the garden under the dining-room windows told the season's hour like a floral clock. The earliest blossoms had been pushed onward by the mounting spirit of the year, and now the firstlings of May were budding. The great... more...

CHAPTER I Lizzie, who happened to be the Salisbury's one servant at the time, was wasteful. It was almost her only fault, in Mrs. Salisbury's eyes, for such trifles as her habit of becoming excited and "saucy," in moments of domestic stress, or to ask boldly for other holidays than her alternate Sunday and Thursday afternoons, or to resent at all times the intrusion of any person,... more...

CHAPTER I THE FARAWAY CLUB A cold, thick drizzle, blown by a biting wind that sent chills to the marrow, marred the early spring night, and kept indoors the few hardy members who had haunted the clubhouse since the season's opening a week before. Not more than a dozen loyal devotees to the sports of the open air lounged about the big clubhouse. Three or four rangy young women in sweaters and... more...

INTRODUCTION I think that a book like the following, which deals with a subject so great and so mysterious as our hope of immortality, by means of an allegory or fantasy, needs a few words of preface, in order to clear away at the outset any misunderstandings which may possibly arise in a reader's mind. Nothing is further from my wish than to attempt any philosophical or ontological exposition of... more...

The First Home in the Metropolis. We had never lived in New York. This fact will develop anyway, as I proceed, but somehow it seems fairer to everybody to state it in the first sentence and have it over with. Still, we had heard of flats in a vague way, and as we drew near the Metropolis the Little Woman bought papers of the train boy and began to read advertisements under the head of "Flats and... more...