INTRODUCTION Of all the myths which have come down to us from the East, and of all the creations of Western fancy and belief, the Personality of Evil has had the strongest attraction for the mind of man. The Devil is the greatest enigma that has ever confronted the human intelligence. So large a place has Satan taken in our imagination, and we might also say in our heart, that his expulsion therefrom,... more...

To the Senate and House of Representatives: In coming before you for the first time as Chief Magistrate of this great nation, it is with gratitude to the Giver of All Good for the many benefits we enjoy. We are blessed with peace at home, and are without entangling alliances abroad to forebode trouble; with a territory unsurpassed in fertility, of an area equal to the abundant support of 500,000,000... more...

SMAÏN "When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe." Sahara Saying. Far away in the desert I heard the sound of a flute, pure sound in the pure air, delicate, sometimes almost comic with the comicality of a child who bends women to kisses and to nonsense-words. We had passed through the sandstorm, Safti and I, over the wastes of saltpetre, and come into a land of palm gardens where... more...

THE CHIEF AIM OF EDUCATION. What is the central purpose of education? If we include under this term all the things commonly assigned to it, its many phases as represented by the great variety of teachers and pupils, the many branches of knowledge and the various and even conflicting methods in bringing up children, it is difficult to find a definition sufficiently broad and definite to compass its... more...

CHAPTER I.   "The changing guests, each in a different mood,     Sit at the road-side table and arise:     And every life among them in likewise  Is a soul's board set daily with new food.   "May not this ancient room thou sitt'st in dwell     In separate living souls for joy or pain?     Nay, all its corners may be painted plain  Where Heaven shows... more...

THE GENIUS OF JOSEPH CONRAD I In these piping days when fiction plays the handmaid or prophet to various propaganda; when the majority of writers are trying to prove something, or acting as venders of some new-fangled social nostrums; when the insistent drums of the Great God Réclame are bruising human tympani, the figure of Joseph Conrad stands solitary among English novelists as the very ideal of a... more...

CHAPTER I   "Aujourd'hui le primtetemps, Ninon, demain l'hiver.  Quoi! tu nas pas l'étoile, est tu vas sur la mer!"            DE MUSSET. Count Emile Poleski was obliged to be at the Barcelona Station at five o'clock in the afternoon one hot Friday in May. His business, having to do with that which was known to himself and his associates as "the... more...

Once upon a time there was an old pig with three little pigs, and, as she had not enough to keep them, she sent them out to seek their fortunes. The first that went off met a man with a bundle of straw, and said to him, "Please, man, give me that straw to build me a house;" which the man did, and the little pig built a house with it.   Presently a wolf came along and knocked at the door, and... more...

APRIL DAYS. "Can trouble dwell with April days?" In Memoriam. In our methodical New England life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons reluctantly resign themselves to being decently happy in June, at least. They accept June. They compliment its weather. They complained of the earlier months as cold, and so spent them in the city; and they will complain of the later months as... more...

"MATRIMONIAL OPENINGS" Mr. Dowson sat by the kitchen fire smoking and turning a docile and well- trained ear to the heated words which fell from his wife's lips. "She'll go and do the same as her sister Jenny done," said Mrs. Dowson, with a side glance at her daughter Flora; "marry a man and then 'ave to work and slave herself to skin and bone to keep him." "I... more...