Laurence Vanderlyn, unpaid attaché at the American Embassy in Paris, strode down the long grey platform marked No. 5, of the Gare de Lyon. It was seven o'clock, the hour at which Paris is dining or is about to dine, and the huge station was almost deserted. The train de luxe had gone more than an hour ago, the Riviera rapide would not start till ten, but one of those trains bound for the South,... more...

The reason passes, like the heart, through certain epochs and transitions, but its development is not so often portrayed. Men seem to have been satisfied with unfolding the passions in their extremes, their aberration, and their results, without considering how closely they are bound up with the intellectual constitution of the individual. Degeneracy in morals roots in a one-sided and wavering... more...

Grave figure, with a pair of mysterious spectacles on his nose and a pen behind his ear, was seated at a desk in the corner of a metropolitan office. The apartment was fitted up with a counter, and furnished with an oaken cabinet and a Chair or two, in simple and business-like style. Around the walls were stuck advertisements of articles lost, or articles wanted, or articles to be disposed of; in one... more...

THE BROOK.I come from haunts of coot and hern,I make sudden sallyAnd sparkle out among the fern,To bicker down a valley.By thirty hills I hurry down,Or slip between the ridges,By twenty thorps, a little town,And half a hundred bridges.I chatter over stony ways,In little sharps and trebles,I bubble into eddying bays,I babble on the pebbles.With many a curve my banks I fretBy many a field and fallow,And... more...

Warden Halloran smiled slightly. "You expect to have criminals on Mars, then?" he asked. "Is that why you want me?" "Of course we don't, sir!" snapped the lieutenant general. His name was Knox. "We need men of your administrative ability—" "Pardon me, general," Lansing interposed smoothly, "I rather think we'd better give the warden a ... a more... more...

THE SHAH NAMEH According to the traditions of former ages, recorded in the Bastan-nameh, the first person who established a code of laws and exercised the functions of a monarch in Persia, was Kaiumers. It is said that he dwelt among the mountains, and that his garments were made of the skins of beasts.   His reign was thirty years, and o'er the earth  He spread the blessings of paternal... more...

Paul Bunyan was the logging industry; not, to be sure, as it is found in Forest Service Reports or in profit and loss statements, but rather as it burned in the bones of the true North Woods lumberjack. To understand the significance of the Bunyan stories one must know something of the men who first told them. While the lumber industry has found a place in every section of the country except 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...

Making a Lawn THE SMALL LAWN, OLD AND NEW TO the thousands of anxious inquirers, seeking solution of lawn difficulties, it would be more than delightful to say that a fine lawn could be had by very hard wishing, but honesty compels one to change the words "hard wishing" to "hard work," in order to keep strictly within the truth. A well-made lawn is a testimonial to a hustler, whether... more...

Chapter 1 The long boat of the Marjorie W. was floating down the broad Ugambi with ebb tide and current. Her crew were lazily enjoying this respite from the arduous labor of rowing up stream. Three miles below them lay the Marjorie W. herself, quite ready to sail so soon as they should have clambered aboard and swung the long boat to its davits. Presently the attention of every man was drawn from his... more...