A Very Strange Pair. He was very grubby, and all about his dark grey eyes there were the marks made by his dirty fingers where he had rubbed away the tickling tears. The brownish red dust of the Devon lanes had darkened his delicate white skin, and matted his shiny yellow curls. As to his hands, with their fat little fingers, with every joint showing a pretty dimple, they looked white and clean, but... more...

CHAPTER I. A native of Germany, I came to the United States soon after the Civil War, a healthy, strong boy of fifteen years. My destination was a village on the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, where I had relatives. I was expected to arrive at Junction City, in the State of Kansas, on a day of June, 1867, and proceed on my journey with a train of freight wagons over the famous old Santa Fe trail. Junction... more...

CHAPTER I. OUR GOVERNESS.HERE was nothing romantic in Miss Grantley's appearance, and yet she was the sort of person that you could not help looking at again and again if you once saw her. She was not very young, nor was she middle-aged—about thirty, perhaps. She was certainly not what is called a beauty, but she was not in the least plain. She was what some people would call "superior... more...

The life of a literary man offers but few points upon which even the pens of his professional brethren can dwell, with the hope of exciting interest among that large and constantly increasing class who have a taste for books. The career of the soldier may be colored by the hues of romantic adventure; the politician may leave a legacy to history, which it would be ingratitude not to notice; but what... more...

GOETHE. In an old, many-cornered, and gloomy house at Frankfort-on-the-Main, upon the 28th of August, 1749, was born the greatest German of his day, Wolfgang Goethe. The back of the house, from the second story, commanded a very pleasant prospect over an almost immeasurable extent of gardens stretching to the walls of the city, but the house itself was gloomy, being shut in by a high wall. Over these... more...

CHAPTER I The Jovian Tyrant Glavour, Jovian Viceroy of the Earth, looked arrogantly about as he lay at ease on the cushions of the ornate chariot which bore him through the streets of his capital city. Like all the Jovians, he was cast in a heroic mold compared to his Earth-born subjects. Even for a Jovian, Glavour was large. He measured a good eight feet from the soles of his huge splayed feet to the... more...

I.—THE LAW OF NATIONS. It seems certain that Mexico must ultimately submit to such terms of peace as the United States shall dictate. An heterogeneous population of seven millions, with very limited resources and no credit; distracted by internal dissensions, and by the ambition of its chiefs, a prey by turns to anarchy and to military usurpers; occupying among the nations of the civilized world,... more...

I have often wondered if the world ever thinks of what becomes of the children of great criminals who expiate their crime on the scaffold. Are they taken away and brought up somewhere in ignorance of who or what they are? Does some kind relative step forward always bring them up under another name? There is great criminal trial, and we hear that the man condemned to death leaves two daughters and a... more...

NORMAN DUNCAN An Appreciation byWilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. As our thoughts fly back to the days when the writer of these stories was a guest aboard our little hospital vessel, we remember realizing how vast was the gulf which seemed to lie between him and the circumstances of our sea life in the Northland. Nowhere else in the world, perhaps, do the cold facts of life call for a more unrelieved material... more...

ADMONITIONSto theDISSIPATED.   Excess to mankind oft’times brings,Remorse with all its bitter stings;When cares oppress us in this life.At times we drink to banish strife;But when its feeble aid is o’er,We are more wretched then before.Oft poverty the man disgrace,And shows a drunkard in his face;Suppose he is a man of wealth,Excess of liquor injures health;Not only health but sad to name,Such... more...