CHAPTER I EARLY DAYS Do we all become garrulous and confidential as we approach the gates of old age? Is it that we instinctively feel, and cannot help asserting, our one advantage over the younger generation, which has so many over us?—the one advantage of time! After all, it is not disputable that we have lived longer than they. When they talk of past poets, or politicians, or novelists, whom the... more...

CHAPTER I [The Knighted Knave of Bergen] One day it occurred to me that it had been many years since the world had been afforded the spectacle of a man adventurous enough to undertake a journey through Europe on foot. After much thought, I decided that I was a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle. So I determined to do it. This was in March, 1878. I looked about me for the right sort of... more...

A friend of mine, a soldier, who died in Greece of fever some years since, described to me one day his first engagement. His story so impressed me that I wrote it down from memory. It was as follows: I joined my regiment on September 4th. It was evening. I found the colonel in the camp. He received me rather bruskly, but having read the general's introductory letter he changed his manner and... more...

INTRODUCTION In recent years American literature has been enriched by certain autobiographies of men and women who had been born abroad, but who had been brought to this country, where they grew up as loyal citizens of our great nation. Such assimilated Americans had to face not only the usual conditions confronting a stranger in a strange land, but had to develop within themselves the noble conception... more...

ZANZIBAR. The sudden death on August 25 of Sultan Hamid bin Thwain, the ruler of Zanzibar, the attempted usurpation by Seyyid Khalid, and the bombardment of the palace by the British warships, have directed public attention to this comparatively little known but important city on the east coast of Africa. The Zanzibar dominions achieved their independence some forty years ago under Seyyid Majid, whose... more...

The disciples had been with Christ, and seen Him pray. They had learnt to understand something of the connection between His wondrous life in public, and His secret life of prayer. They had learnt to believe in Him as a Master in the art of prayer—none could pray like Him. And so they came to Him with the request, 'Lord, teach us to pray.' And in after years they would have told us that... more...

There was nothing peculiar about that certain night I suppose—except to me personally. A little earlier in the evening I'd walked out on the Doll, Margie Hayman—and a man doesn't do that and cheer over it. Not if he's in love with the Doll he doesn't—not this doll. If you've ever seen her you'll give the nod on that. The trouble had been Air Force's new... more...

KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE IN WHICH THE LEADING TRADESMEN OF POINTVIEW BECOME A BOARD OF ASSESSORS The Honorable Socrates Potter was the only "scientific man" in the village of Pointview, Connecticut. In every point of manhood he was far ahead of his neighbors. In a way he had outstripped himself, for, while his ideas were highly modern, he clung to the dress and manners that prevailed in his... more...

I THE SECOND-CLASS PASSENGER The party from the big German mail-boat had nearly completed their inspection of Mozambique, they had walked up and down the main street, admired the palms, lunched at the costly table of Lazarus, and purchased "curios"—Indian silks, Javanese; knives, Birmingham metal-work, and what not—as mementoes of their explorations. In particular, Miss Paterson had... more...

INTRODUCTION It may well be doubted whether works of controversy serve any useful purpose.  ‘On an opponent,’ as Mr. Matthew Arnold said, ‘one never does make any impression,’ though one may hope that controversy sometimes illuminates a topic in the eyes of impartial readers.  The pages which follow cannot but seem wandering and desultory, for they are a reply to a book, Mr. Max Müller’s... more...