LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS. No. VII.—TO VANITY. DEAR VANITY, Imagine my feelings when I read the following letter. It lay quite innocently on my breakfast-table in a heap of others. It was stamped in the ordinary way, post-marked in the ordinary way, and addressed correctly, though how the charming writer discovered my address I cannot undertake to say; in fact, there was nothing in its outward... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCING THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS "If I'm not mistaken," said Calvin Parks, "this is the ro'd where Sam and Sim used to live!" He checked his horse and looked about him. "And there—well, I'm blowed if that ain't the house now. Same old pumpkin-color; same old well-sweep; same old trees; it certinly is the house. Well!" He looked earnestly at... more...

ACT THE FIRST. SCENE I. A GARDEN.Enter Castalio, Polydore, and Page.Cas.Polydore, our sportHas been to-day much better for the danger:When on the brink the foaming boar I met,And in his side thought to have lodg'd my spear,The desperate savage rush'd within my force,And bore me headlong with him down the rock.Pol.But then——Cas.Ay, then, my brother, my friend, Polydore,Like Perseus mounted... more...

PREFACE. The following treatise was awarded the Harness Prize at Cambridge in 1904. I have, however, revised it since then, and in some matters considerably enlarged it. A list of the chief authorities to whom I am indebted will be found at the end of the book, but it is fitting that I should here make particular mention of my obligations to the exhaustive work of Mr Bond. Not only have his labours of... more...

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE THIRD KITTEN   Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, came walking slowly up the front path that led to his hollow-stump bungalow. He was limping a little on his red, white and blue striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, had gnawed for him out of a corn-stalk. “Well, I’m glad to be home again,” said... more...

The little man had a head like an old-fashioned light bulb and a smile that seemed to say he had secrets from the rest of the world. He didn't talk much, just an occasional "Oh," "Mm" or "Ah." Krayton figured he must be all right, though. After all he'd been sent to Computer City by the Information Department itself, and his credentials must have been checked in a... more...

THE FROG AND MOUSE.There was a frog liv'd in a well,Kitty alone, Kitty alone;There was a frog liv'd in a well,Kitty alone and I.There was a frog liv'd in a well,And a farce mouse in a mill.Cock me cary, Kitty alone,Kitty alone and I.This frog he would a wooing ride,Kitty alone, etc.This frog he would a wooing ride,And on a snail he got astride.Cock me cary, etc.He rode till he came to my... more...

CHAPTER I "Well, Robin, on what folly do you employ yourself? Do you cut sticks for our fire o' mornings?" Thus spoke Master Hugh Fitzooth, King's Ranger of the Forest at Locksley, as he entered his house. Robin flushed a little. "These are arrows, sir," he announced, holding one up for inspection. Dame Fitzooth smiled upon the boy as she rose to meet her lord. "What... more...

I. In the year nineteen hundred and fourteen Anno Domini, amid a world conflict, the birth of the infant State of Ireland was announced. Almost unnoticed this birth, which in other times had been cried over the earth with rejoicings or anger. Mars, the red planet of war, was in the ascendant when it was born. Like other births famous in history, the child had to be hidden away for a time, and could not... more...

The Supreme Literary Gift When we have been reading some transcendent passage in one of the world's masterpieces we experience that mental sensation which Longinus declares to be the test of true sublimity, to wit, our mind "undergoes a kind of proud elation and delight, as if it had itself begotten the thing we read." We are disposed by such literature very much as we are disposed by the... more...