INTRODUCTION Among the few subjects which are still left at the disposal of the duly-gifted writer of romance is the Pirate. Not but that many have written of pirates. Defoe, after preparing the ground by a pamphlet story on the historic Captain Avery, wrote The Life, Adventures, and Piracies of Captain Singleton. Sir Walter Scott made use in somewhat the same fashion of the equally historic Gow—that... more...

TOWARDS THE GOAL No. 1 March 24th, 1917. DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,—It may be now frankly confessed—(you, some time ago, gave me leave to publish your original letter, as it might seem opportune)—that it was you who gave the impulse last year, which led to the writing of the first series of Letters on "England's Effort" in the war, which were published in... more...

Every age has its peculiar folly—some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation. Failing in these, it has some madness, to which it is goaded by political or religious causes, or both combined. Every one of these causes influenced the Crusades, and conspired to render them the most... more...

Lincoln's Last Hours One of the most cruel wars in the history of the world had nearly closed. The people of the United States were rejoicing at the prospect of peace and returning happiness. President Lincoln, after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee, visited Richmond, Virginia, exposing himself to great danger, and on his return delivered an address from the balcony of the White House. I was... more...

Samuel Butler: A Sketch Samuel Butler was born on the 4th December, 1835, at the Rectory, Langar, near Bingham, in Nottinghamshire.  His father was the Rev. Thomas Butler, then Rector of Langar, afterwards one of the canons of Lincoln Cathedral, and his mother was Fanny Worsley, daughter of John Philip Worsley of Arno’s Vale, Bristol, sugar-refiner.  His grandfather was Dr. Samuel Butler, the... more...

PART I 1813-1842 I was born at Leipzig on the 22nd of May 1813, in a room on the second floor of the 'Red and White Lion,' and two days later was baptized at St. Thomas's Church, and christened Wilhelm Richard. My father, Friedrich Wagner, was at the time of my birth a clerk in the police service at Leipzig, and hoped to get the post of Chief Constable in that town, but he died in the... more...

OBJECTS OF THE EXPEDITION. The expedition of which we have just detailed the proceedings was so far satisfactory in its results, that it not only set at rest the hypothesis of the existence of an internal shoal sea in southern Australia, and ascertained the actual termination of the rivers it had been directed to trace, but also added very largely to our knowledge of the country considerably to the... more...

INTRODUCTION HAVE THE SCHOOLS BEEN DISCREDITED BY THE REVELATIONS OF THE WAR? From School and Society, April 5, 1919 Knowing that I was about to publish a book on education in which the Great War, now happily closed, was not taken as the point of departure, a friend said to me one day, in substance, "Aren't you taking undue risks just now in putting out a book on education that isn't... more...

PRELUDE A young idealist, ætat four, was selling stars to put in the sky. She had cut them with her own scissors out of red tissue paper, so that she was able to give a guarantee. "But you'll have to get the ladder out of our bedroom to put 'em up wiv," she told purchasers honestly. The child was a wild dark creature, slim and elfish, with a queer little smile that flashed sudden as... more...

CHAPTER XXIII.——THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR—CHARLES VI. AND THE DUKES OF BURGUNDY. Sully, in his Memoirs, characterizes the reign of Charles VI. as "that reign so pregnant of sinister events, the grave of good laws and good morals in France." There is no exaggeration in these words; the sixteenth century with its St. Bartholomew and The League, the eighteenth with its reign of terror, and... more...