CHAPTER I THE strangest, the most varied, the most erroneous opinions have been expressed with regard to the famous individual commonly known as Bluebeard. None, perhaps, was less tenable than that which made of this gentleman a personification of the Sun. For this is what a certain school of comparative mythology set itself to do, some forty years ago. It informed the world that the seven wives of... more...

QUIET WORKOne lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,One lesson which in every wind is blown,One lesson of two duties kept at oneThough the loud world proclaim their enmity—Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity!Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrowsFar noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose,Too great for haste, too high for rivalry!Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,Man's... more...

SISTER TERESA As soon as Mother Philippa came into the parlour Evelyn guessed there must be serious trouble in the convent. "But what is the matter, Mother Philippa?" "Well, my dear, to tell you the truth, we have no money at all." "None at all! You must have some money." "As a matter of fact we have none, and Mother Prioress won't let us order anything from the... more...

CHAPTER I The tall young lady who arrived fifteen minutes before the Freddy Tunbridges' dinner-hour, was not taken into the great empty drawing-room, but, as though she were not to be of the party expected that night, straight upstairs she went behind the footman, and then up more stairs behind a maid. The smart, white-capped domestic paused, and her floating muslin streamers cut short their... more...

CHAPTER I THE MARQUIS ARRIVES AT THE INN By the end of the second decade of the last century Monday Port had passed the height of prosperity as one of the principal depots for the West Indian trade. The shipping was rapidly being transferred to New York and Boston, and the old families of the Port, having made their fortunes, in rum and tobacco as often as not, were either moving away to follow the... more...

“Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.”—St. James iii. 5-6. In the development of Christian Truth a peculiar office was assigned to... more...

CHAPTER I. Clairvoyance means literally nothing more than "clear-seeing," and it is a word which has been sorely misused, and even degraded so far as to be employed to describe the trickery of a mountebank in a variety show. Even in its more restricted sense it covers a wide range of phenomena, differing so greatly in character that it is not easy to give a definition of the word which shall be... more...

CHAPTER I TWO weeks of instructive contact with the Bar-7 school of gallantry had prepared Mrs. Laithe to be amazed at her first encounter with Ewing's kid. Riding out from the ranch one afternoon and turning, for coolness, up the wooded mesa that rises from the creek flat, she overwhelmed him at a bend in the trail. Stricken motionless, he glared at the lady with eyes in which she was compelled... more...

The symptoms of cutaneous disease may be objective, subjective or both; and in some diseases, also, there may be systemic disturbance. What do you mean by objective symptoms? Those symptoms visible to the eye or touch. What do you understand by subjective symptoms? Those which relate to sensation, such as itching, tingling, burning, pain, tenderness, heat, anæsthesia, and hyperæsthesia. What do you... more...

CHAPTER I Remains of our good yeomanry blood will be found in Kent, developing stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women. The distinction survives there between Kentish women and women of Kent, as a true South-eastern dame will let you know, if it is her fortune to belong to that favoured portion of the county where the great battle was fought, in which the gentler sex performed manful... more...