A SPRING MORNING I Spring puts the old pipe to his lips and blows a note or two. At the sound, little thrills pass across the wintry meadows. The bushes are dotted with innumerable tiny sparks of green, that will soon set fire to the whole hedgerow; here and there they have gone so far as those little tufts which the children call 'bread and cheese.' A gentle change is coming over the grim... more...

I INTRODUCTORY The object of a full-dress biography is to present as complete a picture as may be of a man and his work, the influence of his character upon his achievement, the struggle with opposing influences to carry out some guiding purpose or great idea. With abundant documents at hand the individual development, the action of events upon character, and of character upon events, can be shown in... more...

CHAPTER I. The inner room of a tobacconist's shop is not perhaps the spot which a writer of fiction would naturally choose as the theatre of his play, nor does the inventor of pleasant romances, of stirring incident, or moving love-tales feel himself instinctively inclined to turn to Munich as to the city of his dreams. On the other hand, it is by no means certain that, if the choice of a stage... more...

PREFACE Utterances of poets regarding their character and mission have perhaps received less attention than they deserve. The tacit assumption of the majority of critics seems to be that the poet, like the criminal, is the last man who should pass judgment upon his own case. Yet it is by no means certain that this view is correct. Introspective analysis on the part of the poet might reasonably be... more...

Mrs. Douglas was looking over her shopping list, and Lily Douglas was looking over her mother's shoulder. The Christmas Charity Fair was so soon to be held that Mrs. Douglas had a world of business to attend to, for of course her table must be full of pretty things suitable for the season. She was going out this morning to finish all her purchases, and Lily had been promised a corner of the... more...

CHAPTER I A STRANGE MESSAGE Behind locked and barred doors, surrounded by numberless mysterious-looking instruments, sat Curlie Carson. To the right of him was a narrow window. Through that window, a dizzy depth below, lay the city. Its square, flat roofs formed a mammoth checker-board. Between the squares criss-crossed the narrow black streets. Like a white chalk-line, drawn by a careless child, the... more...

THE RECKONING The scene is a barber shop. At the center is the chair, facing a mirror and washstand at the right. The tiled walls are sprinkled with the usual advertisements. At the rear, a door leads up to the street by a flight of two or three steps. A dock on the left wall indicates three. At the rise of curtain, THE BARBER, a man of fifty, is discovered sharpening a razor, and whistling softly to... more...

And how he Dined with the Admiral. We were cruising off Callao on the Pacific station when it all happened, and I daresay there are a good many others who will recollect all about it as well as myself. But to explain the matter properly I must go back a little in my dates; for, instead of Callao at the commencement of my yarn, you must read Calabar. You see, I was in the Porpoise at the time, a small... more...

CHAPTER I THE GIRL FROM WYOMING Conscious that something had disturbed him, Wallie Macpherson raised himself on his elbow in bed to listen. For a full minute he heard nothing unusual: the Atlantic breaking against the sea-wall at the foot of the sloping lawn of The Colonial, the clock striking the hour in the tower of the Court House, and the ripping, tearing, slashing noises like those of a... more...

CHAPTER I A FORBIDDEN COUNTRY Tibet was a forbidden land. That is why I went there. This strange country, cold and barren, lies on a high tableland in the heart of Asia. The average height of this desolate tableland—some 15,000 feet above sea-level—is higher than the highest mountains of Europe. People are right when they call it the "roof of the world." Nothing, or next to nothing, grows... more...