Chapter One. Grannie Malone and the Twins. One day of the world, when it was young summer in Ireland, old Grannie Malone sat by her fireplace knitting. She was all alone, and in her lap lay a letter. Sometimes she took the letter in her hands, and turned it over and over, and looked at it. Then she would put it down again with a little sigh. “If I but had the learning,” said Grannie Malone to... more...

Who is sufficient for these things? is a question which any one may well ask when sitting down to the preparation of a treatise on popular education. The author of this work would have shrunk from the undertaking, but from deference to the judgment of the honorable body that unanimously invited its preparation. He has also been encouraged not a little by many kind friends, one of whom, distinguished... more...

CHAPTER I. Where the San Leandro turnpike stretches its dusty, hot, and interminable length along the valley, at a point where the heat and dust have become intolerable, the monotonous expanse of wild oats on either side illimitable, and the distant horizon apparently remoter than ever, it suddenly slips between a stunted thicket or hedge of "scrub oaks," which until that moment had been... more...

No. 1 THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER In response to Carnacki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and listen to a story, I arrived promptly at 427, Cheyne Walk, to find the three others who were always invited to these happy little times, there before me. Five minutes later, Carnacki, Arkright, Jessop, Taylor, and I were all engaged in the "pleasant occupation" of dining. "You've... more...

CHAPTER I Spring was manifest in the vast big-timber country of Mendocino County. "Uncle" Sebastian Burris felt the moist warmth of it oozing from the slowly drying road as he trudged along. The smell of it emanated from the white, pale-yellow, and pink fungi that flourished on the soaked and ancient logs along the way. He heard the voice of it in the soft murmuring of the South Fork of the... more...

What strange compulsion drove an ordinarily gentle and cultured man, on onenight of each week, to roam the city streets andcommit a ghastly crime? I am writing this account of my friend Jason Carse in the interests of both justice and psychiatry, and perhaps of demonology as well. There is no greater proof of what I relate than the sequence of murders which so recently shocked this city, the newspaper... more...

"With apologies to gent opposite," said Clowes, "I must say I don't think much of the team." "Don't apologise to me," said Allardyce disgustedly, as he filled the teapot, "I think they're rotten." "They ought to have got into form by now, too," said Trevor. "It's not as if this was the first game of the term." "First game!"... more...

CUMBERLAND TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK. The annexed Engraving completes our Series of Architectural Illustrations of the REGENT'S PARK, and is, withal the most magnificent Terrace in the circuit. It stands considerably above the road, and is approached by a fine carriage sweep, with handsome balustrades; below which, and level with the road, is the garden, or promenade for the residents of the... more...

I. SITUATION AND EXTENT SOMERSET is one of the S.W. counties of England. On the N. it is washed by the Bristol Channel; on the N.E. the Avon, like a silver streak, divides it from Gloucestershire; it is bordered on the E. by Wiltshire; its S.E. neighbour is Dorset; and on the S.W. it touches Devon. Its shape is so irregular that dimensions give a misleading indication of its extent. Its extreme length... more...

"Jimmie," said Lizzie, "couldn't we go see the pictures?" And Jimmie set down the saucer of hot coffee which he was in the act of adjusting to his mouth, and stared at his wife. He did not say anything; in three years and a half as a married man he had learned that one does not always say everything that comes into one's mind. But he meditated on the abysses that lie between... more...