CHAPTER I. MIDAS. The condition of England, on which many pamphlets are now in the course of publication, and many thoughts unpublished are going on in every reflective head, is justly regarded as one of the most ominous, and withal one of the strangest, ever seen in this world. England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, supply for human want in every kind; yet England is dying of inanition.... more...

CHAPTER I.—THE MOOR. Crimson and gold. As far as one could see across the moor it was one broad expanse of purply heather, kindled into a glowing crimson by the blaze of ruddy sunshine, and lighted here and there by bright patches of the thorny golden rod. Dame Nature had evidently painted out of her summer paint-box, and had not spared her best and brightest colours. Crimson-lake, children; you know... more...

GUY DE MAUPASSANTA STUDY BY POL. NEVEUX"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to Jose Maria de Heredia on the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which, for ten years, the writer, by turns undaunted and sorrowful, with the fertility of a... more...

HISTORY OF THE SEE AND CITY At York the city did not grow up round the cathedral as at Ely or Lincoln, for York, like Rome or Athens, is an immemorial—a prehistoric—city; though like them it has legends of its foundation. Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose knowledge of Britain before the Roman occupation is not shared by our modern historians, gives the following account of its beginning:—"Ebraucus,... more...

TO THE PUBLIC. The papers which are herewith submitted to you for your perusal and consideration, were delivered into my hands by Mr. Berl Trout. The papers will speak for themselves, but Mr. Trout now being dead I feel called upon to say a word concerning him. Mr. Berl Trout was Secretary of State in the Imperium In Imperio, from the day of its organization until the hour of his sad death. He was,... more...

When I last made a memorandum, we were at Ephesus. We are in Syria, now, encamped in the mountains of Lebanon. The interregnum has been long, both as to time and distance. We brought not a relic from Ephesus! After gathering up fragments of sculptured marbles and breaking ornaments from the interior work of the Mosques; and after bringing them at a cost of infinite trouble and fatigue, five miles on... more...

PREFACE The "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin" was published in 1887. Since that date, through the kindness of various correspondents, additional letters have been received; among them may be mentioned those written by Mr. Darwin to Mr. Belt, Lady Derby, Hugh Falconer, Mr. Francis Galton, Huxley, Lyell, Mr. John Morley, Max Muller, Owen, Lord Playfair, John Scott, Thwaites, Sir William... more...

INTRODUCTION A Voyage to Cacklogallinia appeared in London, in 1727, from the pen of a pseudonymous "Captain Samuel Brunt." Posterity has continued to preserve the anonymity of the author, perhaps more jealously than he would have wished. Whatever his real parentage, he must for the present be referred only to the literary family of which his progenitor "Captain Lemuel Gulliver" is the... more...

THE LOVE-PHILTRE OF IKEY SCHOENSTEIN The Blue Light Drug Store is downtown, between the Bowery and First Avenue, where the distance between the two streets is the shortest. The Blue Light does not consider that pharmacy is a thing of bric-a-brac, scent and ice-cream soda. If you ask it for pain-killer it will not give you a bonbon. The Blue Light scorns the labour-saving arts of modern pharmacy. It... more...

I've got an office in the Daily Standard building and sometimes when things are slow in my line—theatrical bookings—I drift upstairs and talk to the guy who writes the column, The Soldier's Friend, for the Standard. On this particular morning I walked into his office and found it empty so I sat down and waited, figuring he was downstairs getting a mug of coffee. After I cleaned my nails... more...