CHAPTER I AMANDA’S MISTAKE “Do you think I might go, Aunt Martha?” There was a pleading note in the little girl’s voice as she stood close by Mrs. Stoddard’s chair and watched her folding the thin blue paper on which Rose Freeman’s letter was written. “It is a pleasant invitation, surely,” replied Mrs. Stoddard, “but the Freemans have ever been good friends to us; and so Rose is to... more...

CHAPTER I I Oliver Brand, the new member for Croydon (4), sat in his study, looking out of the window over the top of his typewriter. His house stood facing northwards at the extreme end of a spur of the Surrey Hills, now cut and tunnelled out of all recognition; only to a Communist the view was an inspiriting one. Immediately below the wide windows the embanked ground fell away rapidly for perhaps a... more...

  "A shout as of waters—a long-uttered cry:   Hark! hark! how it leaps from the earth to the sky!   From the sky to the earth, from the earth to the sea   It is grandly reechoed, We are free, we are free!" Every thing, the next morning, seemed as quiet and peaceful in the village, as if nothing unusual had occurred there. The commotion of the preceding night appeared to have wholly... more...

PREFACE There is no campaign in the history of the world which has left such a deep impression upon the heart of the people than that of Napoleon in Russia, Anno 1812. Of the soldiers of other wars who had not come home it was reported where they had ended on the field of honor. Of the great majority of the 600 thousand who had crossed the Niemen in the month of June Anno 1812, there was recorded in... more...

CHAPTER I ALL ABOUT GADABOUT   It was dark and still and four o'clock on a summer morning. The few cottages clustering about a landing upon a Virginia river were, for the most part, sleeping soundly, though here and there a flickering light told of some awakening home. Down close by the landing was one little house wide awake. Its windows were aglow; lights moved about; and busy figures passed... more...

To Mr. Ray Gilbert Late Student, Aged Twenty-three Were you an older man, my dear Ray, your letter would be consigned to the flames unanswered, and our friendship would become constrained and formal, if it did not end utterly. But knowing you to be so many years my junior, and so slightly acquainted with yourself or womankind, I am going to be the friend you need, instead of the misfortune you invite.... more...

Chapter One. The New Boy. “Hi! Blacky! Here—hold hard. D’you hear, Snowball?” The last peremptorily. He thus addressed, paused, turned, and eyed somewhat doubtfully, not without a tinge of apprehension, the group of boys who thus hailed him. “What’s your name?” pursued the latter, “Caesar, Pompey, Snowball—what?” “Or Uncle Tom?” came another suggestion. “I—new boy,” was... more...

The Northampton Bank Robbery bout midnight on Tuesday, January 25, 1876, five masked men entered the house of John Whittelsey in Northampton, Massachusetts. Mr. Whittelsey was the cashier of the Northampton National Bank, and was known to have in his possession the keys of the bank building and the combination to the bank vault. The five men entered the house noiselessly, with the aid of false keys,... more...

WALT WHITMAN IN EUROPE. With the death and burial of Walt Whitman passes away the most picturesque figure of contemporary literature. It is true that in England the name of the poet is more familiar than his poetry, and that students of literature are more conversant with the nature of his writings than are the mass of general readers; yet the character of the man and the spirit of his compositions... more...

I. WHAT I CONSIDER TO HAVE BEEN THE BEGINNING OF MY YOUTH I have said that my friendship with Dimitri opened up for me a new view of my life and of its aim and relations. The essence of that view lay in the conviction that the destiny of man is to strive for moral improvement, and that such improvement is at once easy, possible, and lasting. Hitherto, however, I had found pleasure only in the new ideas... more...