CHAPTER I This is not a story about myself. Like Canning's organ-grinder I have none to tell. It is the story of Paragot, the belovéd vagabond—please pronounce his name French-fashion—and if I obtrude myself on your notice it is because I was so much involved in the medley of farce and tragedy which made up some years of his life, that I don't know how to tell the story otherwise. To... more...

PREFATORY NOTICE. The following sketch of Turkish history was the substance of Lectures delivered in the Catholic Institute of Liverpool during October, 1853. It may be necessary for its author to state at once, in order to prevent disappointment, that he only professes in the course of it to have brought together in one materials which are to be found in any ordinarily furnished library. Not intending... more...

A Scouting Party. Frank, of course, could not agree to the scout's proposition without first obtaining permission of either the admiral or Captain Wilson—the commander of the division to which the Boxer belonged. He did not know where to go to find the former, and besides, the latter had given him strict orders not to leave his station until relieved by some other vessel, and to allow no one to... more...

CHAPTER I Kedzie Thropp had never seen Fifth Avenue or a yacht or a butler or a glass of champagne or an ocean or a person of social prominence. She wanted to see them. For each five minutes of the day and night, one girl comes to NewYork to make her life; or so the compilers of statistics claim. This was Kedzie Thropp's five minutes. She did not know it, and the two highly important, because... more...

FLOURISHING MEDIOCRITY Humanity is rapidly becoming less the outcome of a natural process of development, and more and more the product of an organized educational plan. The average educated man possesses no real individuality. He is simply a manufactured article bearing the stamp of the maker. Year by year this fact is becoming more emphasized. During the past century almost every civilized country... more...

CHAPTER I. CALDERWELL DOES SOME TALKING Calderwell had met Mr. M. J. Arkwright in London through a common friend; since then they had tramped half over Europe together in a comradeship that was as delightful as it was unusual. As Calderwell put it in a letter to his sister, Belle: "We smoke the same cigar and drink the same tea (he's just as much of an old woman on that subject as I am!), and... more...

TALES OF A TRAVELLER PART FIRST STRANGE STORIES BY A NERVOUS GENTLEMAN.   I'll tell you more; there was a fish taken,  A monstrous fish, with, a sword by's side, a long sword,  A pike in's neck, and a gun in's nose, a huge gun,  And letters of mart in's mouth, from the Duke of Florence.    Cleanthes. This is a monstrous lie.    Tony. I do confess it.  Do you... more...

LONGFELLOW: 1807-1882 Every year when the lilac buds begin to burst their sheaths and until the full-blown clusters have spent themselves in the early summer air, the remembrance of Longfellow—something of his presence—wakes with us in the morning and recurs with every fragrant breeze. "Now is the time to come to Cambridge," he would say; "the lilacs are getting ready to receive... more...

May 3, 1916. Sir Roger Casement, it appears, landed in Ireland from a collapsible boat. And by a strange coincidence his arrival synchronised with the outbreak of a collapsible rebellion. Hard soap can now be obtained in Germany only by those who purchase bread tickets. The soft variety cannot be obtained at all, the whole supply, it seems, having been commandeered by the Imperial Government for export... more...

CHAPTER I I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth’s credit.  He kept a summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter months and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain.  When summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and... more...