Preface It was a day in the spring of 1921. Dismal shadows, really Hechtian shadows, filled the editorial "coop" in The Chicago Daily News building. Outside the rain was slanting down in the way that Hecht's own rain always slants. In walked Hecht. He had been divorced from our staff for some weeks, and had married an overdressed, blatant creature called Publicity. Well, and how did he... more...

THE LADY LAWYER'S FIRST CLIENT. TWO PARTS.—II. What with Mrs. Stiles's ankle and the law's delays, the case was not tried until September. But at the September term Stiles vs. The Railway Company was reached, and stood at the head of the list. On the morning of the fated day Mrs. Tarbell could have proceeded to the court-room in state, for not only did the entire Stiles family present... more...

CLARENDON HOUSE, PICCADILLY. The virtuous and uncompromising chancellor, the Earl of Clarendon, had a splendid mansion facing the upper end of St. James's-street, on the site of the present Grafton-street. Of this princely pile, the above is an accurate engraving. It was built by Clarendon with the stone intended for the rebuilding of St. Paul's. "He purchased the materials," says... more...

INTRODUCTION.   Years ago I could not rid my mind of the notion that Free Trade meant some cunning policy of British statesmen designed to subject the world to British interests. Coming across Bastiat's inimitable Sophismes Economiques I learnt to my surprise that there were Frenchmen also who advocated Free Trade, and deplored the mischiefs of the Protective Policy. This made me examine the... more...

CHAPTER I. TROUBLE NO. 1 Whether you happen to be four or five, or six, or seven, or even older than that, no doubt you know by this time that a great many things need to be learned in this world, everything, in fact, and never more things than at seven. At least, so thought little Tattine, and what troubled her the most was that some of the things seemed quite wrong, and yet no one was able to right... more...

IN the lecture which I delivered last Monday evening, I endeavoured to sketch in a very brief manner, but as well as the time at my disposal would permit, the present condition of organic nature, meaning by that large title simply an indication of the great, broad, and general principles which are to be discovered by those who look attentively at the phenomena of organic nature as at present displayed.... more...

"To be taken into the American Union is to be adopted into a partnership. To belong as a Crown Colony to the British Empire, as things stand, is no partnership at all. "It is to belong to a power which sacrifices, as it has always sacrificed, the interest of its dependencies to its own. The blood runs freely through every vein and artery of the American body corporate. Every single citizen... more...

THE WEAVING OF DOOM In the early part of this century there lived at Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, a man called Liot Borson. He was no ignoble man; through sea-fishers and sea-fighters he counted his forefathers in an unbroken line back to the great Norwegian Bor, while his own life was full of perilous labor and he was off to sea every day that a boat could swim. Liot was the outcome of the most... more...

I. After months of disaster there had come authentic news of victory. All Union-loving men drew a long breath of relief when it was certain that Lee had given up the field and fallen back across the Potomac. The newsboys, yelling through the crowded streets in town, and the evening trains arriving from the neighboring city were besieged by eager buyers of the "extras," giving lists of the... more...

The Old Tower—Captain Askew’s Family—The Smugglers—Why Jack Askew went to Sea. There was an old grey weather-beaten stone tower standing on the top of a high rocky promontory, which formed the western side of a deep bay, on the south coast of England. The promontory was known as the Stormy Mount, which had gradually been abbreviated into Stormount, a very appropriate name, for projecting, as it... more...