The Story of Joseph This is the story of Joseph, the boy who had the strangest and most exciting adventures of any boy who ever lived. Joseph was but a little lad when his mother died. His father, Jacob, had loved that mother more than any one else in the world, so that when she died leaving Joseph and a baby brother, Benjamin, all the love in the father's heart turned to his two little sons. The... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Social organisation. Associations in the lower stages of culture. Consanguinity and Kinship. The Tribe. Kinship groups; totem kins; phratries. The passage from what is commonly termed savagery through barbarism to civilisation is marked by a change in the character of the associations which are almost everywhere a feature of human society. In the lower stages of culture, save... more...

Eulalia. God spede, & a thousand mine old acqueintāce. xantippa. xan. As many agayn, my dere hert. Eulalia. me semets ye ar warē much faire now of late. Eula. Saye you so? gyue you me a mocke at the first dash. xan. Nay veryly but I take you so. Eula. Happely mi new gown maketh me to loke fayrer then I sholde doe. xan. Sothe you saye, I haue not sene a mynioner... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                                NOVEMBER                                  1668 November 1st (Lord's day). Up, and with W. Hewer at my chamber all this morning, going further in my great business for the Duke of York, and so at noon to dinner, and then W. Hewer... more...

The Pets "Of all the worlds I ever broke into, this one's the most curious," said Red. "And one of the curiousest things in it is that I think it's queer. Why should I, now? What put it into our heads that affairs ought to go so and so and so, when they never do anything of the sort? Take any book you read, or any story a man tells you: it runs along about how Mr. Smith made up... more...

JOSEPH CONRAD "Under all his stories there ebbs and flows a kind of tempered melancholy, a sense of seeking and not finding...." I take the words from a little book on Joseph Conrad by Wilson Follett, privately printed, and now, I believe, out of print. They define both the mood of the stories as works of art and their burden and direction as criticisms of life. Like Dreiser, Conrad is forever... more...

ESSAYS ON ART "The Adoration of the Magi" There is one beauty of nature and another of art, and many attempts have been made to explain the difference between them. Signor Croce's theory, now much in favour, is that nature provides only the raw material for art. The beginning of the artistic process is the perception of beauty in nature; but an artist does not see beauty as he sees a cow.... more...

I Next morning he saw her again. He had left his very new law office, just around in Bienville Street, and had come but a few steps down Royal, when, at the next corner below, she turned into Royal, toward him, out of Conti, coming from Bourbon. The same nine-year-old negro boy was at her side, as spotless in broad white collar and blue jacket as on the morning before, and carrying the same droll air... more...

THE LAST EVENING AT HOME "Now, then, everyone join in the chorus," commanded Hippy Wingate. There was an answering tinkle from Reddy's mandolin, the deeper notes of a guitar sounded, then eight care-free young voices were raised in the plaintive chorus of "My Old Kentucky Home." It was a warm night in September. Miriam Nesbit and seven of the Eight Originals were spending a last... more...

CHAPTER I. MR. SOLOMON SMOOTH IN WASHINGTON. "Dear Uncle—Once upon a time you were called Sam; but now that the reign of Pierce is upon us it is difficult to tell what you may not be called. Not long since you were the son of greatness, you are now the shadow of Pierce—the man whose little light posterity will snuff out. I have thought of you frequently, Uncle: I have seen you in sorrow looking... more...