THE CASE FOR THE EPHEMERAL I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this book. It is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current or rather flying subjects; and they must be published pretty much as they stand. They were written, as a rule, at the last moment; they were handed in the moment before... more...

July 22, 1914. Those who deny that Mr. Lloyd George is ruining land-owners will perhaps be impressed by the following advertisement in The Bazaar, Exchange and Mart:— "To be sold, small holding, well stocked with fruit trees, good double tenement house on good road and close to station, good outer buildings. Price, Four Marks, Alton, Hunts." The fact that the price should be translated into... more...

CHAPTER I RUPERT RAY BEGINS HIS STORY §1 "I'm the best-looking person in this room," said Archibald Pennybet. "Ray's face looks as though somebody had trodden on it, and Doe's—well, Doe's would be better if it had been trodden on." It was an early morning of the Kensingtowe Summer Term, and the three of us, Archie Pennybet, Edgar Gray Doe, and I, Rupert Ray, were... more...

LAURA SILVER BELL In the five Northumbrian counties you will scarcely find so bleak, ugly, and yet, in a savage way, so picturesque a moor as Dardale Moss. The moor itself spreads north, south, east, and west, a great undulating sea of black peat and heath. What we may term its shores are wooded wildly with birch, hazel, and dwarf-oak. No towering mountains surround it, but here and there you have a... more...

THE COD-FISHER Where leap the long Atlantic swellsIn foam-streaked stretch of hill and dale,Where shrill the north-wind demon yells,And flings the spindrift down the gale;Where, beaten 'gainst the bending mast,The frozen raindrop clings and cleaves,With steadfast front for calm or blastHis battered schooner rocks and heaves. To same the gain, to some the loss,To each the chance, the risk, the... more...

I PERSONAL AND PARTICULAR 'Perhaps there is something in old age that likes to have a young mind clinging to it.' Sir George Grey was speaking of the famous people he had known in his youth long, long before. He struck an inner note of nature which is surely equally valid the other way? Whenever I think of the remark, I am inclined to discover one reason why I came to know Sir George so well.... more...

VOWELS ā, as in fate, or in bare. ä, as in alms, Fr. âme, Ger. Bahn = á of Indian names. aË™, the same sound short or medium, as in Fr. bal, Ger. Mann. a, as in fat. a¨, as in fall. a, obscure, as in rural, similar to u in but, Ä— in her: common in Indian names. Ä“, as in me = i in machine. e, as in met. Ä—, as in her. Ä«, as in pine, or as ei in... more...

TO THE LITTLE COUSINS ANNIE, KITTY, AND CORDELIA I dedicate this book to you, my dearest dears, with more love than I have ink to write out, and more good wishes and fond hopes than any printer would care to print. You will see by these stories that the children of different countries are pretty much alike. I doubt not, if you were in France now, you would get along nicely with the little Monsieurs and... more...

CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER. I. WHAT VANDERBILT PAID FOR TWELVE LAUGHS. William K. Vanderbilt, when he last visited Constantinople, one day invited Coquelin the elder, so celebrated for his powers as a mimic, who happened to be in the city at the time, to give a private recital on board his yacht, lying in the Bosphorus. Coquelin spoke three of his monologues. A few days afterwards Coquelin received... more...

I O'DONOGHUE It was in a poor little cabin somewhere in Ireland. It does not matter where. The walls were of rough stone, the roof was of thatch, and the floor was the hard earth. There was very little furniture. Poor as it was, the whole place was clean. It is right to tell this, because, unhappily, a good many cabins in Ireland are not clean. What furniture there was had been rubbed smooth and... more...