CHAPTER I. CLAUDIUS BOMBARNAC,       Special Correspondent,            “Twentieth Century.”                   Tiflis, Transcaucasia. Such is the address of the telegram I found on the 13th of May when I arrived at Tiflis. This is what the telegram said: “As the matters in hand will terminate on the 15th instant Claudius Bombarnac will repair to Uzun Ada, a... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HAY-LOFT I HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind. An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived there, and were so comfortable that they could not bear it any longer, and drowned themselves. My story is not the same as his. I do not think Herodotus had got the right account of the place. I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who went there. He lived in a... more...

OLD GREEK STORIES. A long time ago, when the world was much younger than it is now, people told and believed a great many wonderful stories about wonderful things which neither you nor I have ever seen. They often talked about a certain Mighty Being called Jupiter, or Zeus, who was king of the sky and the earth; and they said that he sat most of the time amid the clouds on the top of a very high... more...

THE TEMPEST (By Mary Lamb) There was a certain island in the sea, the only inhabitants of which were an old man, whose name was Prospero, and his daughter Miranda, a very beautiful young lady. She came to this island so young, that she had no memory of having seen any other human face than her father's. They lived in a cave or cell, made out of a rock: it was divided into several apartments, one... more...

CHAPTER I. A mile or two from Starnberg, on the shore of the beautiful lake, stands a plain country-house, whose chief ornament is a shady and rather wild little park of beeches and cedars. This stretches from the highway that connects Starnberg with the castle and fishermen's huts of Possenhofen, down to the lake--a narrow strip of woodland, separated only by picket fences from the neighboring... more...

ON A LAZY IDLE BOY. I had occasion to pass a week in the autumn in the little old town of Coire or Chur, in the Grisons, where lies buried that very ancient British king, saint, and martyr, Lucius,* who founded the Church of St. Peter, on Cornhill. Few people note the church now-a-days, and fewer ever heard of the saint. In the cathedral at Chur, his statue appears surrounded by other sainted persons... more...

CHAPTER I. IN WHICH THE NORTH POLAR PRACTICAL ASSOCIATION RUSHES A DOCUMENT ACROSS TWO WORLDS “Then Mr Maston, you pretend that a woman has never been able to make mathematical or experimental-science progress?” “To my extreme regret, I am obliged to, Mrs. Scorbitt,” answered J.T. Maston. “That there have been some very remarkable women in mathematics, especially in Russia, I fully and... more...

CHAPTER I. THE UNITY OF MANKIND. The Biblical Argument.—One Race and One Language.— One Blood.—The Curse of Canaan.   DURING the last half-century, many writers on ethnology, anthropology, and slavery have strenuously striven to place the Negro outside of the human family; and the disciples of these teachers have endeavored to justify their views by the most dehumanizing treatment of the Negro.... more...

Scene 1 Protásov's flat in Moscow. The scene represents a small dining-room. Anna Pávlovna, a stout grey-haired lady, tightly laced, is sitting alone at the tea-table on which is a samovár. Enter nurse, carrying a teapot. NURSE. May I have a little hot water, ma'am? ANNA PÁVLOVNA. Yes. How's Baby? NURSE. He's restless.… There's nothing worse than for a lady to nurse her... more...

The reason passes, like the heart, through certain epochs and transitions, but its development is not so often portrayed. Men seem to have been satisfied with unfolding the passions in their extremes, their aberration, and their results, without considering how closely they are bound up with the intellectual constitution of the individual. Degeneracy in morals roots in a one-sided and wavering... more...