CHAPTER I. 'Lisbeth Lillibun lived a hundred miles from London. If she had not lived a hundred miles from London, it is likely you would never have heard of her. She would have liked it better had somebody else lived where she did instead of herself. 'Lisbeth was a very little girl when she found out that she lived a hundred miles from London. So was Dickon, her brother, very little when he... more...

OUT OF NO MAN'S LAND On the muddy verge of a shallow little pool the man lay prone and still, as still as those poor dead whose broken bodies rested all about him, where they had fallen, months or days, hours or weeks ago, in those grim contests which the quick were wont insensately to wage for a few charnel yards of that debatable ground. Alone of all that awful company this man lived and, though... more...

AN INDICATION. Some laymen are very fond of deprecating the work of specialists, holding that specialisation tends to narrowness, to inability to see more than one side of a question. It is, of course, true that the specialist tends to “go off at a tangent” on his particular subject, and even to treat with contempt or opposition the views of other specialists who differ from him. But all work that... more...

"He just lies here tossing and moaning until he's so weak that he sinks into a kind of coma," said the boy's father huskily. "There doesn't seem anything particular the matter with him now but weakness. Only," he choked, "that he doesn't care much about getting well." Miss Beaver kept her eyes on that thin little body outlined by the fine linen sheet. She... more...

CHAPTER I The Colonel's House in Bedford Place The dinner was at the colonel's—an old-fashioned, partly furnished, two-story house nearly a century old which crouches down behind a larger and more modern dwelling fronting on Bedford Place within a stone's throw of the tall clock tower of Jefferson Market. The street entrance to this curious abode is marked by a swinging wooden gate... more...

CHAPTER FIRST    "I never saw an eye so bright,     And yet so soft as hers;   It sometimes swam in liquid light,     And sometimes swam in tears;   It seemed a beauty set apart     For softness and for sighs."                                 —MRS. WELBY. The school-room at Roselands was a very pleasant apartment; the ceiling, it is... more...

CAUGHT IN THE EBBING TIDE A REMINISCENCE OF RAXTOX CLIFFS The mightiest Titan's stroke could not withstand  An ebbing tide like this. These swirls denote  How wind and tide conspire. I can but floatTo the open sea and strike no more for land.Farewell, brown cliffs, farewell, beloved sand  Her feet have pressed—farewell, dear little boat  Where Gelert,[Footnote] calmly sitting on my... more...

APRIL 8, 1914. "Mr. Asquith Cleans the Slate." Daily Chronicle. The pity is that so many of his followers seem to prefer to slate the clean. Even The Nation is not quite satisfied with the Government, and has been alluding to "the extreme slackness of Cabinet methods," and complains that "situations are not thought out beforehand." The Government, apparently, is now taking the... more...

The early days of the literary career of Robert Louis Stevenson can hardly be said to have been entirely devoid of recognition, though it would appear doubtful if the world at large was willing to recognize his abilities had it not been for his wonderful personality; with a soul and an imagination far above those of his early associates he gradually drew around him the respect and admiration of that... more...

In narrating these few episodes in the undulatory, not to say switchback, career of my friend Aristide Pujol, I can pretend to no chronological sequence. Some occurred before he (almost literally) crossed my path for the first time, some afterwards. They have been related to me haphazard at odd times, together with a hundred other incidents, just as a chance tag of association recalled them to his... more...