WHO BEGAN THE WAR, AND WHY? THE CASE FOR GERMANY SPEECHES BY KAISER WILHELM II. From the Balcony of the Palace, Berlin, July 31, 1914. A fateful hour has fallen for Germany. Envious peoples everywhere are compelling us to our just defense. The sword is being forced into our hand. I hope that if my efforts at the last hour do not succeed in bringing our opponents to see eye to eye with us and in... more...

To go back, now, to the remaining events of the year 1719. The Marquise de Charlus, sister of Mezieres, and mother of the Marquis de Levi, who has since become a duke and a peer, died rich and old. She was the exact picture of an "old clothes" woman and was thus subject to many insults from those who did not know her, which she by no means relished. To relieve a little the seriousness of these... more...

AUTHOR'S PREFACE The economic and social order of the modern world exhibits a strange enigma, which only a prosperous thoughtlessness can regard with indifference or, indeed, without a shudder. We have made such splendid advances in art and science that the unlimited forces of nature have been brought into subjection, and only await our command to perform for us all our disagreeable and onerous... more...

CELEBRATED DUTCHESS. MADAM, I am rather apprehensive that you will rank me among the Impertinents of the Age, in giving a performance which treats professedly of the Triumphs of Folly, the Sanction of Your Grace. But tho', in the too great quickness of apprehension, this may be the case; I have not the least doubt but, in some succeeding moments of coolness and candour, you will accompany me... more...

I had not seen my friend Stokeman since we were at college together, and now naturally we fell to talking of old times. I remembered him as a hard-headed man without a particle of superstition, if such a thing be possible in a land where we are brought up on superstition, from the bottle. He was at that time full of life and of enjoyment of whatever it brought. I found now that his wild and almost... more...

Ireland, lifting herself from the dust, drying her tears, and proudly demanding her legitimate place among the nations of the earth, is a spectacle to cause immense progress in political philosophy. Behold a nation whose fame had spread over all the earth ere the flag of England had come into existence. For 500 years her life has been apparently extinguished. The fiercest whirlwind of oppression that... more...

CHAPTER I—THE BRIGADIER AND THE LOTTERY One wet Saturday evening in May I found myself at Castelvetrano consulting Angelo, the guide, about the weather.  His opinion was that it would clear up during the night; I said that if it did we would go to Selinunte, and this confirmed his view; so, on the understanding that there was to be no rain, I appointed him padrone of the expedition and promised to... more...

TO A FRIEND. I have not asked your consent, my dear General, to the foregoing inscription, because it would have been no inconsiderable disappointment to me had you withheld it; for I have long desired to connect your name with some book of mine, in commemoration of an early friendship that has grown old between two individuals of widely dissimilar pursuits and fortunes. I only wish that the offering... more...

CHAPTER XX FLORENCE AND HER PROPHET It was drawing towards evening, as two travellers, approaching Florence from the south, checked their course on the summit of one of the circle of hills which command a view of the city, and seemed to look down upon it with admiration. One of these was our old friend Father Antonio, and the other the Cavalier. The former was mounted on an ambling mule, whose easy... more...

PREFACE. In my first novel, "The Shadow of a Crime," I tried to penetrate into the soul of a brave, unselfish, long-suffering man, and to lay bare the processes by which he raised himself to a great height of self-sacrifice. In this novel the aim has been to penetrate into the soul of a bad man, and to lay bare the processes by which he is tempted to his fall. To find a character that shall be... more...