CHAPTER I. Of Sigi, the Son of Odin. Here begins the tale, and tells of a man who was named Sigi, and called of men the son of Odin; another man withal is told of in the tale, hight Skadi, a great man and mighty of his hands; yet was Sigi the mightier and the higher of kin, according to the speech of men of that time. Now Skadi had a thrall with whom the story must deal somewhat, Bredi by name, who was... more...

PRELUDE The works of great artists are silent books of eternal truths. And thus it is indelibly written in the face of Balzac, as Rodin has graven it, that the beauty of the creative gesture is wild, unwilling and painful. He has shown that great creative gifts do not mean fulness and giving out of abundance. On the contrary the expression is that of one who seeks help and strives to emancipate... more...

A LITTLE MATTER OF REAL ESTATE Four weeks of teaching in a lower East Side school had deprived Constance Bailey of many of the "Ideals in Education" which, during four years at college, she had trustingly acquired. But, despite many discouragements, despite an unintelligible dialect and an autocratic "Course of Study," she clung to an ambition to establish harmony in her kingdom and to... more...

Living as we do in the midst of a people, which, if not of unmixed English blood, is at least English in institutions, language and laws, where can we better read our destiny than in the pages of English history? “In our own hearts,” some will at once answer. But no, the thread of our fate is, to-day, more in the hands of the American people than in our own. The three nations, which have in modern... more...

Chapter One. Grannie Malone and the Twins. One day of the world, when it was young summer in Ireland, old Grannie Malone sat by her fireplace knitting. She was all alone, and in her lap lay a letter. Sometimes she took the letter in her hands, and turned it over and over, and looked at it. Then she would put it down again with a little sigh. “If I but had the learning,” said Grannie Malone to... more...

CHAPTER I An unresisted lady-killer is probably less aware that he roams the pastures in pursuit of a coquette, than is the diligent Arachne that her web is for the devouring lion. At an early age Clotilde von Rudiger was dissatisfied with her conquests, though they were already numerous in her seventeenth year, for she began precociously, having at her dawn a lively fancy, a womanly person, and... more...

I It happened in the 'seventies in winter, on the day after St. Nicholas's Day. There was a fete in the parish and the innkeeper, Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov, a Second Guild merchant, being a church elder had to go to church, and had also to entertain his relatives and friends at home. But when the last of them had gone he at once began to prepare to drive over to see a neighbouring... more...

Who is sufficient for these things? is a question which any one may well ask when sitting down to the preparation of a treatise on popular education. The author of this work would have shrunk from the undertaking, but from deference to the judgment of the honorable body that unanimously invited its preparation. He has also been encouraged not a little by many kind friends, one of whom, distinguished... more...

No. 1 THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER In response to Carnacki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and listen to a story, I arrived promptly at 427, Cheyne Walk, to find the three others who were always invited to these happy little times, there before me. Five minutes later, Carnacki, Arkright, Jessop, Taylor, and I were all engaged in the "pleasant occupation" of dining. "You've... more...

What strange compulsion drove an ordinarily gentle and cultured man, on onenight of each week, to roam the city streets andcommit a ghastly crime? I am writing this account of my friend Jason Carse in the interests of both justice and psychiatry, and perhaps of demonology as well. There is no greater proof of what I relate than the sequence of murders which so recently shocked this city, the newspaper... more...