TO THE CHILDREN   The greater part of this book is made up of stories from the poems of Homer and Virgil. Homer is thought to have lived in Greece about three thousand years ago, and yet his poems never seem old-fashioned and people do not tire of reading them. Boys and girls almost always like them, because they are so full of stories. If you want to read about giants or mermaids or shipwrecks or... more...

THE CLEVER KID TIME: this morning. PLACE: a pasture. GRAY WOLF.WHITE WOLF.KID. [The GRAY WOLF and the WHITE WOLF are standing at the foot of a hill; at the top of the hill is a KID.] GRAY WOLF. Look, brother, there is a kid! WHITE WOLF. Where? Where? GRAY WOLF. On that hill to the south. WHITE WOLF. I do not see her. GRAY WOLF. She is on the very top. WHITE WOLF. Ah, now I see her! GRAY WOLF. I wish we... more...

PREFACE. The unexpectedly favorable reception of the poetical compilation entitled "Child Life" has induced its publishers to call for the preparation of a companion volume of prose stories and sketches, gathered, like the former, from the literature of widely separated nationalities and periods. Illness, preoccupation, and the inertia of unelastic years would have deterred me from the... more...

MY DEAR ECCLES, You will, I know, permit me to address you these essays which are more the product of your erudition than of my enthusiasm. With the motives of their appearance you are familiar. We have wondered together that a society so avid of experience and enlargement as is ours, should ignore the chief expression of its closest neighbour, its highest rival and its coheir in Europe: should ignore,... more...

CAUGHT IN THE EBBING TIDE A REMINISCENCE OF RAXTOX CLIFFS The mightiest Titan's stroke could not withstand  An ebbing tide like this. These swirls denote  How wind and tide conspire. I can but floatTo the open sea and strike no more for land.Farewell, brown cliffs, farewell, beloved sand  Her feet have pressed—farewell, dear little boat  Where Gelert,[Footnote] calmly sitting on my... more...

CHILD LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY FANCHON FANCHON went early one morning, like Little Red Riding-Hood, to see her grandmother, who lives right at the other end of the village. But Fanchon did not stop like little Red Riding-Hood, to gather nuts in the wood. She went straight on her way and she did not meet the wolf. From a long way off she saw her grandmother sitting on the stone step at her cottage door,... more...

INTRODUCTION It is to two English scholars, father and son, Edward Pococke, senior and junior, that the world is indebted for the knowledge of one of the most charming productions Arabian philosophy can boast of. Generally looked upon as a subject of repulsive aridity, in its strange combination of the most heterogeneous philosophical systems, devoid of the grace and charm of attractive style,... more...

PART I "Oh, Pink! Mother can't lift you.... I would if I could.... Yes, I know I used to— "Molly, take the baby. Couldn't you amuse him, somehow? Perhaps, if you tried hard, you could keep him still. When he screams so, it seems to hit me—here. It makes it harder to breathe. He cried 'most all night. And if you could contrive to keep Pink, too— "What is it,... more...

CHAPTER 1. At the age of fifteen I found myself in St. Louis, Mo., probably five hundred miles from my childhood home, with one dollar and a half in money in my pocket. I did not know one person in that whole city, and no one knew me. After I had wandered about the city a few days, trying to find something to do to get a living, I chanced to meet what proved to be the very best that could have happened... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TWO SISTERS.  When Egbert Dormer died he left his two daughters utterly penniless upon the world, and it must be said of Egbert Dormer that nothing else could have been expected of him. The two girls were both pretty, but Lucy, who was twenty-one, was supposed to be simple and comparatively unattractive, whereas Ayala was credited,—as her somewhat romantic name might show,—with... more...