In controversy, as in courtship, the good old rule to be off with the old before one is on with the new, greatly commends itself to my sense of expediency. And, therefore, it appears to me desirable that I should preface such observations as I may have to offer upon the cloud of arguments (the relevancy of which to the issue which I had ventured to raise is not always obvious) put forth by Mr.... more...

The Land of Anahuac. Away over the dark, wild waves of the rolling Atlantic—away beyond the summer islands of the Western Ind—lies a lovely land. Its surface-aspect carries the hue of the emerald; its sky is sapphire; its sun is a globe of gold. It is the land of Anahuac! The tourist turns his face to the Orient—the poet sings the gone glories of Greece—the painter elaborates the hackneyed... more...

CHAPTER I MIKE It was a morning in the middle of April, and the Jackson family were consequently breakfasting in comparative silence.  The cricket season had not begun, and except during the cricket season they were in the habit of devoting their powerful minds at breakfast almost exclusively to the task of victualling against the labours of the day.  In May, June, July, and August the silence was... more...

The cemetery of Père Lachaise is the Westminster Abbey of Paris. Both are the dwellings of the dead; but in one they repose in green alleys and beneath the open sky—in the other their resting place is in the shadowy aisle and beneath the dim arches of an ancient abbey. One is a temple of nature; the other a temple of art. In one the soft melancholy of the scene is rendered still more touching by the... more...

1640-1750 The Annals of Music in America during the first hundred years contain very little that would seem to be of any importance to the musicians of today. Nevertheless it is as interesting to note the beginnings of music in this newly settled country as to watch the appearance of the baby's first tooth. The first settlement at Plymouth took place in 1620, and we find that in 1640 the colonists... more...

PART I Once there was a great noise in our house,—a thumping and battering and grating. It was my own self dragging my big trunk down from the garret. I did it myself because I wanted it done. If I had said, "Halicarnassus, will you fetch my trunk down?" he would have asked me what trunk? and what did I want of it? and would not the other one be better? and couldn't I wait till after... more...

Chapter I All is quiet in Moscow. The squeak of wheels is seldom heard in the snow-covered street. There are no lights left in the windows and the street lamps have been extinguished. Only the sound of bells, borne over the city from the church towers, suggests the approach of morning. The streets are deserted. At rare intervals a night-cabman's sledge kneads up the snow and sand in the street as... more...

INTRODUCTION When the traveller, bent on some important quest, makes a prolonged and perilous journey and returns in safety to his friends and neighbors, instinctively those who have known him in former years realize that he is, and he is not, the same person who had dwelt among them. He has seen unfamiliar peoples, traversed strange lands, encountered unexpected dangers. Old prepossessions have been... more...

CHAPTER ONE THE RIM AND WHAT LAY BENEATH IT Not all of the West is tamed and trained to run smoothly on pneumatic tires and to talk more enthusiastically of the different “makes” of cars than of bits and saddles. There are still wide stretches unknown of tourists and movie men hunting locations for Western melodrama where men live in the full flavor of adventure and romance and never know it,... more...

TO ALL SVCH AS HAVE receiued either pleasure or profite by the two former published bookes of this Argument: And to all beside, that desire to know the wonderfull slie deuises of this hellish crew of Conny-catchers. [Illustration: I] In the time of king Henrie the fourth, as our English Chronicles haue kept in remembrance, liued diuerse sturdie and loose companions in sundrie places about the Citie of... more...