OUR CHRISTMAS PLAY. Our Emily wrote a play for our Christmas entertainment. Emily, Ruth, Mary, and Uncle Peter, all took part in it. The curtain fell amid very great applause from grandma, grandpa, father, and Uncle Charles, Brothers Robert and John, Jane, the housemaid, Aunt Alice, and some six of our cousins. So you see we had a good audience. As it is the only play we have ever seen acted, we may be... more...

I.—FOOTBALL: ANCIENT AND MODERN. "Then strip, lads and to it, though cold be the weather,And if, by mischance you should happen to fall,There are worse things in life than a tumble on heather,For life is itself but a game at Football."—Sir Walter Scott. In Scotland, so closely associated with traditional lore, and the acknowledged birth-place of romance and patriotic song, it would be... more...

INTRODUCTIONThe parents of the learned child(His father and his mother)Were utterly aghast to noteThe facts he would at random quoteOn creatures curious, rare and wild;And wondering, asked each other:"An idle little child like this,How is it that he knowsWhat years of close analysisAre powerless to disclose? Our brains are trained, our books are big,And yet we always failTo answer why the... more...

THE HAMILTONS Fiction has said so much in regret of the old days when there were plantations and overseers and masters and slaves, that it was good to come upon such a household as Berry Hamilton's, if for no other reason than that it afforded a relief from the monotony of tiresome iteration. The little cottage in which he lived with his wife, Fannie, who was housekeeper to the Oakleys, and his... more...

AUTHOR’S PREFACE This Volume, specially prepared for the use of students at an early period of their study of English Heraldry, commends itself also to those inquirers who may desire to obtain some general information on the same subject, without having any intention to devote to Heraldry much either of their time or of their serious regard. The success, no less extraordinary than gratifying, of my... more...

THE HUMAN DRIFT “The Revelations of Devout and Learn’dWho rose before us, and as Prophets Burn’d,   Are all but stories, which, awoke from Sleep,They told their comrades, and to Sleep return’d.” The history of civilisation is a history of wandering, sword in hand, in search of food.  In the misty younger world we catch glimpses of phantom races, rising, slaying, finding food, building rude... more...

MR. REISS'S FINAL GRIEVANCE Mr. Adolf Reiss, merchant, sits alone on a gloomy December afternoon. He gazes into the fire with jaundiced eyes reflecting on his grievance against Life. The room is furnished expensively but arranged without taste, and it completely lacks home atmosphere. Mr. Reiss's room is, like himself, uncomfortable. The walls are covered with pictures, but their effect is... more...

CHAPTER XIII The Russian Ballet opened with what was called on the program, "A ballet comi-dramatic by Warslav Nijinsky, entitled 'Till Eulenspiegel.'" It would have been more to the point to have scheduled it as a pantomime; at least, such a course would have proved somewhat illuminating to an audience a little in the dark concerning the nature of the entertainment to be set before... more...

CHAPTER I ATTACK ON BELGIUM The first great campaign on the western battle grounds in the European War began on August 4, 1914. On this epoch-making day the German army began its invasion of Belgium—with the conquest of France as its ultimate goal. Six mighty armies stood ready for the great invasion. Their estimated total was 1,200,000 men. Supreme over all was the Emperor as War Lord, but... more...

Do you know what envy means? I hope you have never felt it, for it is a very wicked feeling. It is being sorry when another has any good thing. Perhaps you will know better what the word means when you have read my story; and I hope it will help you to keep the feeling away from your own heart. Not far from Mr. Lee's house, in Riverdale, lived a man by the name of Green. He was the agent of one of... more...