CHAPTER I. A TRANSITION PERIOD Politicians at Washington very generally failed to realize that the advent of President Hayes marked the dismissal of the issues of war and reconstruction. They regarded as an episode what turned out to be the close of an era. They saw, indeed, that public interest in the old issues had waned, but they were confident that this lack of interest was transient. They admitted... more...

THE MORAL OF PUNCH. As we hope, gentle public, to pass many happy hours in your society, we think it right that you should know something of our character and intentions. Our title, at a first glance, may have misled you into a belief that we have no other intention than the amusement of a thoughtless crowd, and the collection of pence. We have a higher object. Few of the admirers of our prototype,... more...

THE IDEA OF PROGRESS F. S. Marvin The editor of these essays was busy in the autumn of last year collating the opinions attached by different people to the word 'progress'. One Sunday afternoon he happened to be walking with two friends in Oxford, one a professor of philosophy, the other a lady. The professor of philosophy declared that to him human progress must always mean primarily the... more...

SEA GARDEN SEA ROSERose, harsh rose,marred and with stint of petals,meagre flower, thin,sparse of leaf,more preciousthan a wet rosesingle on a stem—you are caught in the drift.Stunted, with small leaf,you are flung on the sand,you are liftedin the crisp sandthat drives in the wind.Can the spice-rosedrip such acrid fragrancehardened in a leaf? O be swift—we have always known you wanted us.We fled... more...

CHAPTER I THE WOLF PATROL ELECTS A baseball rose gracefully in the air, carried on a way, and dropped. Three scouts back from a hike halted under the maple tree that bordered the village field, and unslung their haversacks. "Gee!" cried Fred Ritter. "Did you see Ted Carter make that catch?" "And did you see Tim Lally get that one?" demanded Wally Woods. Andy Ford grinned.... more...

"Behold!The Sphinx is Africa. The bondOf Silence is upon her. OldAnd white with tombs, and rent and shorn;With raiment wet with tears and torn,And trampled on, yet all untamed."MILLER Africa is at once the most romantic and the most tragic of continents. Its very names reveal its mystery and wide-reaching influence. It is the "Ethiopia" of the Greek, the "Kush" and "Punt"... more...

LIFE OF DEMONAX It was in the book of Fate that even this age of ours should not be destitute entirely of noteworthy and memorable men, but produce a body of extraordinary power, and a mind of surpassing wisdom. My allusions are to Sostratus the Boeotian, whom the Greeks called, and believed to be, Heracles; and more particularly to the philosopher Demonax. I saw and marvelled at both of them, and with... more...

Outwards Bound. “How’s her head?” exclaimed Captain Dinks, the moment his genial, rosy, weather-beaten face appeared looming above the top-rail of the companion way that led up to the poop from the saloon below, the bright mellow light of the morning sun reflecting from his deep-tanned visage as if from a mirror, and making it as radiant almost as the orb of day. “West-sou’-west, sorr,”... more...

AN APOLOGY FOR ATHEISM It would be absurd to doubt that religion has an important bearing on all the relations and conditions of life. The connexion between religions faith and political practice is, in truth, far closer than is generally thought. Public opinion has not ripened into a knowledge that religious error is the intangible but real substratum of all political injustice. Though the... more...

CHAPTER I THOTH, THE AUTHOR OF EGYPTIAN LITERATURE.WRITING MATERIALS, ETC. The Literature of ancient Egypt is the product of a period of about four thousand years, and it was written in three kinds of writing, which are called hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic. In the first of these the characters were pictures of objects, in the second the forms of the characters were made as simple as possible so... more...