CHAPTER I The patient, an old-fashioned man, thought the nurse made a mistake in keeping both of the windows open, and her sprightly disregard of his protests added something to his hatred of her. Every evening he told her that anybody with ordinary gumption ought to realize that night air was bad for the human frame. "The human frame won't stand everything, Miss Perry," he warned her,... more...

CHAPTER I. A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION. The beginning of this yarn is my poor father's character. There never was a better man, nor a handsomer, nor (in my view) a more unhappy—unhappy in his business, in his pleasures, in his place of residence, and (I am sorry to say it) in his son. He had begun life as a land-surveyor, soon became interested in real estate, branched off into many... more...

PETER'S PENCE Sailormen don't bother much about their relations, as a rule, said the night-watchman; sometimes because a railway-ticket costs as much as a barrel o' beer, and they ain't got the money for both, and sometimes because most relations run away with the idea that a sailorman has been knocking about 'arf over the world just to bring them 'ome presents. Then,... more...

PROLOGUE. The most important and the most sacred event in a woman's life is her marriage. It should never be lightly considered, no matter what may be the allurement—honor, wealth, social position. To play at marriage, even for a plausible pretext, is likely to be very imprudent, and may prove a sin against both God and man. The story we are about to tell chiefly concerns a refined and beautiful... more...

MADAME D'ARBLAY. BY LORD MACAULAY. Frances Burney was descended from a family which bore the name of Macburney, and which, though probably of Irish origin, had been long settled in Shropshire and was possessed of considerable estates in that county. Unhappily, many years before her birth, the Macburneys began, as if of set purpose and in a spirit of determined rivalry, to expose and ruin... more...

When I began, in the summer of 1882, to collect among the Passamaquoddy Indians at Campobello, New Brunswick, their traditions and folk-lore, I expected to find very little indeed. These Indians, few in number, surrounded by white people, and thoroughly converted to Roman Catholicism, promised but scanty remains of heathenism. What was my amazement, however, at discovering, day by day, that there... more...

Proem Profiles from China The Hand As you sit so, in the firelight, your hand is the color of    new bronze.I cannot take my eyes from your hand;In it, as in a microcosm, the vast and shadowy Orient    is made visible.Who shall read me your hand? You are a large man, yet it is small and narrow, like the    hand of a woman and the paw of a chimpanzee.It is supple and boneless as the hands... more...

DANTE AND HIS TIME To know Dante we must know the age which produced Christianity's greatest poet, he whom Ruskin calls "the central man of all the world, as representing in perfect balance the imaginative, moral and intellectual faculties, all at their highest." Other writers are not so dependent upon their times for our clear understanding of their books. Dante to be intelligible to the... more...

How young Denis kept guard. His Most Christian Majesty King Francis the First had a great preference for his Palace of Fontainebleau among the many places of residence from which he could choose, and it is interesting to glance into that magnificent palace on a certain afternoon in the year 151—. In a special apartment, from which direct access could be obtained to the guard chamber, where a... more...

INTRODUCTION. In an article, entitled "Then and Now," published in the December number, 1890, of "The Arena," its author, a distinguished Unitarian D.D. of Boston, Mass., says. "Astronomy has shattered the fallacies of Astrology; and people have found out that the stars are minding their own business instead of meddling with theirs." Now, while it is true that modern Astronomy... more...