CHAPTER I.Geneva—The Robbery—Search for the Burglars—My Agency Notified.Geneva is one of the prettiest and most thriving little towns in the west. Situated, as it is, in the midst of one of the finest agricultural districts in the country, its growth has been rapid beyond expectation, while its social progress has been almost phenomenal. Stretching for miles in all directions, over a country... more...

CHAPTER I. In the year 1574 A. D. spring made its joyous entry into the Netherlands at an unusually early date. The sky was blue, gnats sported in the sunshine, white butterflies alighted on the newly-opened yellow flowers, and beside one of the numerous ditches intersecting the wide plain stood a stork, snapping at a fine frog; the poor fellow soon writhed in its enemy's red beak. One gulp—the... more...

MY COUSIN FANNY We do not keep Christmas now as we used to do in old Hanover. We have not time for it, and it does not seem like the same thing. Christmas, however, always brings up to me my cousin Fanny; I suppose because she always was so foolish about Christmas. My cousin Fanny was an old maid; indeed, to follow St. Paul's turn of phrase, she was an old maid of the old maids. No one who saw her... more...

THE MYSTERY OF JUSTICE 1 I speak, for those who do not believe in the existence of a unique, all-powerful, infallible Judge, for ever intent on our thoughts, our feelings and actions, maintaining justice in this world and completing it in the next. And if there be no Judge, what justice is there? None other than that which men have made for themselves by their laws and tribunals, as also in the social... more...

HE message was an electronic shout, the most powerful and tightly-beamed short-wave transmission which men could generate, directed with all the precision which mathematics and engineering could offer. Nevertheless that pencil must scrawl broadly over the sky, and for a long time, merely hoping to write on its target. For when distances are measured in light-weeks, the smallest errors grow monstrous.... more...

THE BURNING OF CHAMBERSBURG.   LETTER I. My dear Friend: Your request to give you a succinct and, as far as may be, detailed account of the terrible calamity with which our town was visited on the 30th day of July, is received. You are pleased to say, that not only my long residence in the place, but the fact that I had, as on former occasions, so also during the present one, remained at home, gives... more...

THE HERO In the year —— there dwelt on Hampstead Heath a small thin gentleman of fifty-eight, gentle disposition, and independent means, whose wits had become somewhat addled from reading the writings and speeches of public men. The castle which, like every Englishman, he inhabited was embedded in lilac bushes and laburnums, and was attached to another castle, embedded, in deference to our national... more...

The Boors. Hendrik Von Bloom was a boor. My young English reader, do not suppose that I mean any disrespect to Mynheer Von Bloom, by calling him a “boor.” In our good Cape colony a “boor” is a farmer. It is no reproach to be called a farmer. Von Bloom was one—a Dutch farmer of the Cape—a boor. The boors of the Cape colony have figured very considerably in modern history. Although naturally... more...

PREFACE. The British Colonies now form so prominent a portion of the Empire, that the Public will be compelled to acknowledge some interest in their welfare, and the Government to yield some attention to their wants. It is a necessity which both the Government and the Public will obey with reluctance. Too remote for sympathy, too powerless for respect, the Colonies, during ages of existence, have but... more...

THE FOUNDER'S PREFACE Despite all that can still be said against trade practices, against the business lies that are told, the false weights and measures that are used, the trade frauds to which the public is subjected, we are nearer a high commercial standard than ever before in the world's history. Man's confidence in man is greater than ever before, the commercial loss through fraud... more...