THE ROMANCE of AN OLD FOOL IF it had not been for Bunsey, the novelist, I might have attained the heights. As a critic Bunsey has never commanded my highest admiration, and yet I have had my tender moments for him. From a really exacting standpoint he was not much of a novelist, and to his failure to win the wealth which is supposed to accompany fame I may have owed much of the debt of his sustained... more...

PREFACE. The history of this volume can be given in a few words. Months ago I said to a beloved relative that during the greater part of my life I had more to do than I could well accomplish, and that now, with health and strength in a measure restored, I sometimes thought I had not enough to do. He said: "Why not write the reminiscences of your Indian life?" The counsel struck me as good, and... more...

There are two worlds in the minds of men: the one is artificial, selfish, and personal, the other is real and universal; the one is limited, material, essentially of the earth, the other supposes a kind of larger cosmopolitanism, and has no geographical limits at all; it is as wide as humanity itself, and only bounded by the capacity for experience, insight, and sympathy in the mind and heart of man. A... more...

CHAPTER I. I BEGIN LIFE. I was just nineteen years of age when I began my career as articled pupil with the Miss Bagshots of Albury Lodge, Fendale, Yorkshire. My father was a country curate, with a delicate wife and four children, of whom I was the eldest; and I had known from my childhood that the day must come in which I should have to get my own living in almost the only vocation open to a poor... more...

INTRODUCTION The impersonal character of the Homeric poems has left us entirely in the dark as to the birthplace, the history, and the date, of their author. So complete is the darkness which surrounds the name of Homer that his very existence has been disputed, and his works have been declared to be an ingenious compilation, drawn from the productions of a multitude of singers. It is not my intention... more...

INTRODUCTION Since the first publication of Walter Harte's An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad,[] it has reappeared more than once: the unsold sheets of the first edition were included in A Collection of Pieces in Verse and Prose, Which Have Been Publish'd on Occasion of the Dunciad (1732), and the Essay is also found in at least three late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century... more...

'Twasthe night before Christmas, and it was very quiet in Mrs. Muffet's house,—altogether too quiet, thought little Miss Muffet, as she sat trying to eat her curds and whey. For Mrs. Muffet was a very severe mother and had her own ideas about bringing up children,—and so had Mr. Muffet, or rather he had the same ideas, only warmed over. One of these was on the necessity of care in the diet... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION THE WORLD OUTSIDE AND THE PICTURES IN OUR HEADS There is an island in the ocean where in 1914 a few Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans lived. No cable reaches that island, and the British mail steamer comes but once in sixty days. In September it had not yet come, and the islanders were still talking about the latest newspaper which told about the approaching trial of Madame... more...

Caution in the Truth Perhaps no doctrine of Christian Science rouses so much natural doubt and questioning as this, that God knows no such thing as sin. Indeed, this may be set down as one of the "things hard to be understood," such as the apostle Peter declared were taught by his fellow-apostle Paul, "which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest ... unto their own destruction." (2... more...

CHAPTER I. Introductory.—Coming from the Eastward.—Interesting Ocean Phenomena.—Denizens of the Sea.—Bird Travelers.—Delusive Mirage.—A Thrilling Adventure.—Prompt Seamanship.—A Struggle for Life.—Dust of the Sea.—A Dangerous Wreck.—Night Watches.—Sighting the Island of Ceylon.—Adam's Peak, among the Clouds.—A Beautiful Shore.—Steamers and Sailing Ships.—Curious... more...