1 STRAY birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh. O TROUPE of little vagrants of the world, leave your footprints in my words. 3 THE world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover. It becomes small as one song, as one kiss of the eternal. IT is the tears of the earth that keep her smiles in bloom. 5... more...

DAVID MAYDOLE, HAMMER-MAKER. When a young man begins to think of making his fortune, his first notion usually is to go away from home to some very distant place. At present, the favorite spot is Colorado; awhile ago it was California; and old men remember when Buffalo was about as far west as the most enterprising person thought of venturing. It is not always a foolish thing to go out into the world... more...

Chapter I Julia Brabazon The gardens of Clavering Park were removed some three hundred yards from the large, square, sombre-looking stone mansion which was the country-house of Sir Hugh Clavering, the eleventh baronet of that name; and in these gardens, which had but little of beauty to recommend them, I will introduce my readers to two of the personages with whom I wish to make them acquainted in the... more...

THE STORY OF STEAM That which was utterly unknown to the most splendid civilizations of the past is in our time the chief power of civilization, daily engaged in making that history of a new era that is yet to be written in words. It has been demonstrated long since that men's lives are to be influenced not by theory, or belief, or argument and reason, so much as by that course of daily life which... more...

Uncle Indefer  "I have a conscience, my dear, on this matter," said an old gentleman to a young lady, as the two were sitting in the breakfast parlour of a country house which looked down from the cliffs over the sea on the coast of Carmarthenshire. "And so have I, Uncle Indefer; and as my conscience is backed by my inclination, whereas yours is not—" "You think that I shall give... more...

CHAPTER I. INDUSTRIAL AMERICA AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR A comprehensive survey of the United States, at the end of the Civil War, would reveal a state of society which bears little resemblance to that of today. Almost all those commonplace fundamentals of existence, the things that contribute to our bodily comfort while they vex us with economic and political problems, had not yet made their... more...

Gentlemen, In the course of the present year, one of our friends, distinguished by rank, fortune, and science, came to me upon the following occasion: In the country, he said, a young woman was taken up, and committed to jail to take her trial, for the supposed murder of her bastard child. According to the information which he had received, he was inclined to believe, from the circumstances, that she... more...

CHAPTER I. THE REMNANTS OF THE AMEDROZ FAMILY.  Mrs. Amedroz, the wife of Bernard Amedroz, Esq., of Belton Castle, and mother of Charles and Clara Amedroz, died when those children were only eight and six years old, thereby subjecting them to the greatest misfortune which children born in that sphere of life can be made to suffer. And, in the case of this boy and girl the misfortune was aggravated... more...

CHAPTER I. In a small house, in a back street, in the large manufacturing town of Cottonborough, the young wife of “Cobbler” Horn lay dying. It was the dusk of a wild evening in early winter; and the cruel cough, which could be heard every now and then, in the lulls of the wind, from the room upstairs, gave deepening emphasis to the sad fact that the youthful wife and mother—for such also she... more...

The poet Kabîr, a selection from whose songs is here for the first time offered to English readers, is one of the most interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism. Born in or near Benares, of Mohammedan parents, and probably about the year 1440, be became in early life a disciple of the celebrated Hindu ascetic Râmânanda. Râmânanda had brought to Northern India the religious... more...