25 MARCH 1914. The attention of the American Ambassador has been called to the danger of after-dinner speaking. There is many a true word said in digestion—and the truth is apt to hurt sensitive nations. Art circles continue to seethe with indignation over the National Gallery outrage. Even the Post-Impressionists have now no sympathy with the Suffragettes, for they realise that, while in this... more...

CHAPTER I WHAT IS A WERWOLF? WHAT is a werwolf? To this there is no one very satisfactory reply. There are, indeed, so many diverse views held with regard to the nature and classification of werwolves, their existence is so keenly disputed, and the subject is capable of being regarded from so many standpoints, that any attempt at definition in a restricted sense would be well-nigh impossible. The word... more...

HUM, THE SON OF BUZ. At Rye Beach, during our summer's vacation, there came, as there always will to seaside visitors, two or three cold, chilly, rainy days,—days when the skies that long had not rained a drop seemed suddenly to bethink themselves of their remissness, and to pour down water, not by drops, but by pailfuls. The chilly wind blew and whistled, the water dashed along the ground, and... more...

The Four Corners in Middleton made a pleasant drive from the university town of Camberton. Many a time in the history of the house a party of young fellows had driven over the old turnpike that started where the arsenal used to stand in the sacred quarter of Camberton, and as the evening sun gilded the low, fresh-water marshes beyond Spring Pond, would trot on toward the rolling hills of Middleton.... more...

Chapter I I am about to write a very curious history, as the reader will agree with me when he has read this book. We have more than one narrative of people being cast away upon desolate islands, and being left to their own resources, and no works are perhaps read with more interest; but I believe I am the first instance of a boy being left alone upon an uninhabited island. Such was, however, the case;... more...

SUSPICION Suspicion is a beast with a thousand eyes, but most of them are blind, or colour-blind, or askew, or rolling, or yellow. It is a beast with a thousand ears, but most of them are like the ears of the deaf man in the comic recitation who, when you say "whiskers" hears "solicitors," and when you are talking about the weather thinks you are threatening to murder him. It is a beast... more...

Bottarelli—A Letter from Pauline—The Avenging Parrot—Pocchini—Guerra, the Venetian—I Meet Sara Again; My Idea of Marrying Her and Settling in Switzerland—The Hanoverians Thus ended the first act of the comedy; the second began the next morning. I was just getting up, when I heard a noise at the street door, and on putting my head out of the window I saw Pocchini, the scoundrel who had... more...

PHELIM O'TOOLE'S COURTSHIP. Phelim O'Toole, who had the honor of being that interesting personage, an only son, was heir to a snug estate of half an acre, which had been the family patrimony since the time of his grandfather, Tyrrell O'Toole, who won it from the Sassenah at the point of his reaping-hook, during a descent once made upon England by a body of "spalpeens," in... more...

I shall read, We shall read,You will read, You will read,He will read, They will read. But when I desire to show determination on my part to do a certain thing, or when I exercise my authority over another, or express promise, command, or threat, will is used in the first person and shall in the second and third; as, I will read, We will read,You shall read, You shall read,He shall read, They shall... more...

I. PRELIMINARY. It is over twenty years since the death of Washington Irving removed that personal presence which is always a powerful, and sometimes the sole, stimulus to the sale of an author's books, and which strongly affects the contemporary judgment of their merits. It is nearly a century since his birth, which was almost coeval with that of the Republic, for it took place the year the... more...