As usual, it had begun quite harmlessly and inconspicuously. It is not my business to tell how it all came to pass, how the way was prepared. That may be left to the spinners of yarns and to those on the trail of the sources of history. I shall leave it to them to ascertain when the idea that there must be a conflict, and that the fruit must be plucked before it had time to ripen, first took root in... more...

I am sitting on the edge of what passes for a bed. It is made of loosely woven strips of steel, and there is no mattress, only an extra blanket of thin olive-drab. It isn't comfortable; but of course they expect to make me still more uncomfortable. They expect to take me out of this precinct jail to the District prison and eventually to the death house. Sure, there will be a trial first, but that... more...

Among the day-dreams of the Rulers of Venice the island of Cyprus had long loomed large and fair—Cyprus, the happy isle of romance, l'isola fortunata, sea-girdled, clothed with dense forests of precious woods, veined with inexhaustible mines of rich metals; a very garden of luscious fruits, garlanded with ever-blooming flowers—a land flowing with milk and honey and steeped in the fragrance of... more...

CHAPTER I Edgewood, like all the other villages along the banks of the Saco, is full of sunny slopes and leafy hollows.  There are little, rounded, green-clad hillocks that might, like their scriptural sisters, “skip with joy,” and there are grand, rocky hills tufted with gaunt pine trees—these leading the eye to the splendid heights of a neighbour State, where snow-crowned peaks tower in the... more...

1 My Dear Antony,The letters which I wrote "On the world about you" having shown you that throughout all the universe, from the blazing orbs in infinite space to the tiny muscles of an insect's wing, perfect design is everywhere manifest, I hope and trust that you will never believe that so magnificent a process and order can be without a Mind of which it is the visible expression. The... more...

A MODERN RICHELIEU The Howe and Webster farms adjoined, lying on a sun-flooded, gently sloping New Hampshire hillside. Between them loomed The Wall. It was not a high wall. On the contrary, its formidableness was the result of tradition rather than of fact. For more than a century it had been an estranging barrier to neighborliness, to courtesy, to broad-mindedness; a barrier to friendship, to... more...

Captain Baird stood at the window of the laboratory where the thousand parts of the strange rocket lay strewn in careful order. Small groups worked slowly over the dismantled parts. The captain wanted to ask but something stopped him. Behind him Doctor Johannsen sat at his desk, his gnarled old hand tight about a whiskey bottle, the bottle the doctor always had in his desk but never brought out except... more...

CHAPTER I A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK The 25th day of August, 1751, about two in the afternoon, I, David Balfour, came forth of the British Linen Company, a porter attending me with a bag of money, and some of the chief of these merchants bowing me from their doors. Two days before, and even so late as yestermorning, I was like a beggarman by the wayside, clad in rags, brought down to my last shillings, my... more...

NOTES. TRADITIONAL ENGLISH BALLADS. The task of gathering old traditionary song is surely a pleasant and a lightsome one. Albeit the harvest has been plentiful and the gleaners many, still a stray sheaf may occasionally be found worth the having. But we must be careful not to "pick up a straw." One of your corespondents recommends, as an addition to the value of your pages, the careful getting... more...

Chapter 1 Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart. It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country; but what was Miss Bart doing in town at that season? If she had appeared to be catching a train, he might have inferred that he had come on her in the... more...