FOREWORD This book is a faithful record, so far as I can make it, of the most marvellous phenomena which have come under my observation during the last sixteen or seventeen years. I have used my notes (made immediately after the sittings) and also my reports to the American Psychical Society (of which I was at one time a director) as the basis of my story. For literary purposes I have substituted... more...

CHAPTER I A GENTLEMAN RANKER Dan McLagan shifted his cigar, and his face lit with a grin of satisfaction. “Seventy-five per cent, of calves,” he murmured, glancing out at the sunlit yards. “Say, it’s been an elegant round-up.” Then his enthusiasm rose and found expression. “It’s the finest, luckiest ranch in Montana––in the country. Guess I’d be within my rights if I said ‘in the... more...

THE HOUSEHOLD WRECK. 'To be weak,' we need not the great archangel's voice to tell us, 'is to be miserable.' All weakness is suffering and humiliation, no matter for its mode or its subject. Beyond all other weakness, therefore, and by a sad prerogative, as more miserable than what is most miserable in all, that capital weakness of man which regards the tenure of his enjoyments... more...

CANADA, 1882. "Are hearts here strong enough to found  A glorious people's sway?"Ask of our rivers as they boundFrom hill to plain, or ocean-sound,  If they are strong to-day?If weakness in their floods be found,  Then may ye answer "Nay!" "Is union yours? may foeman's might  Your love ne'er break or chain?"Go see if o'er our land the flightOf Spring... more...

When MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI had made the gods and Skarl, Skarl made a drum, and began to beat upon it that he might drum for ever. Then because he was weary after the making of the gods, and because of the drumming of Skarl, did MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI grow drowsy and fall asleep. And there fell a hush upon the gods when they saw that MANA rested, and there was silence on Pegana save for the drumming of Skarl.... more...

LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. My dear young gentleman or young lady,—for many are the Cecil Dreemes of literature who superscribe their offered manuscripts with very masculine names in very feminine handwriting,—it seems wrong not to meet your accumulated and urgent epistles with one comprehensive reply, thus condensing many private letters into a printed one. And so large a proportion of... more...

THOSE WHO SMILED From the great villa, marble-white amid its yews and cedars, in which the invaders had set up their headquarters, the two officers the stout, formidable German captain and the young Austrian lieutenant went together through the mulberry orchards, where the parched grass underfoot was tiger-striped with alternate sun and shadow. The hush of the afternoon and the benign tyranny of the... more...

I.—THE CHRIST CROWNED, THE FACT "When God sought a King for His people of old,He went to the fields to find him;A shepherd was he, with his crook and his luteAnd a following flock behind him. "O love of the sheep, O joy of the lute,And the sling and the stone for battle;A shepherd was King, the giant was naught,And the enemy driven like cattle. "When God looked to tell of His good will to... more...

McLOUGHLIN BRO'S 30 BEEKMAN StThere was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile,And he found a crooked six-pence against a crooked stile;He bought a crooked hat, which caught a crooked mouse,And they all lived together in a little crooked house.Go to bed Tom, go to bed Tom—Merry or sober, go to bed Tom.Little Tommy Grace,Had a pain in his face,So that he could not learn a letter;When in came... more...

INTRODUCTION. I, Schanvoch, a descendant of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak; I, Schanvoch, now a freeman, thanks to the valor of my father Ralf and the bold Gallic insurrections that continued unabated from century to century; I, Schanvoch, write the following narrative two hundred and sixty-four years after my ancestress Genevieve, the wife of Fergan, witnessed in Judea the death of the poor... more...