HABITATIONS AFFECTED BY ENVIRONMENT. It is conceded that the peculiarities of a culture-status are due chiefly to the necessities encountered during its development. In this sense the Pueblo phase of life was, like the Egyptian, the product of a desert environment. Given that a tribe or stock of people is weak, they will be encroached upon by neighboring stronger tribes, and driven to new surroundings... more...

I   t was shortly after ten o'clock one morning when Ezra Simpkins, a reporter from the Boston Banner, entered the Oriental Building, that dingy pile of brick and brownstone which covers a block on Sixth Avenue, and began to hunt for the office of the Royal Society of Egyptian Exploration and Research. After wandering through a labyrinth of halls, he finally found it on the second floor. A few... more...

THRILLS FROM THE TERMINI. Mr. Punch, following the example of his daily contemporaries, despatched a representative to some of the great London termini to note the August exodus from town. The following thrilling report is to hand:— At Waterton and Paddingloo great crowds continued to board the limited number of West-bound and South-west-bound trains. On being asked why they were leaving town, those... more...

To some the eighteenth-century definition of proper poetic matter is unacceptable; but to any who believe that true poetry may (if not "must") consist in "what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed," Gray's "Churchyard" is a majestic achievement—perhaps (accepting the definition offered) the supreme achievement of its century. Its success, so the great critic... more...

THE GOOD OLD TIMES. It is recorded of John Lowin, an actor contemporary with Shakespeare and associated with several of Shakespeare's greater characters (his range was so wide, indeed, that it included Falstaff, Henry the Eighth, and Hamlet), that, having survived the halcyon days of "Eliza and our James" and lingered into the drab and russet period of the Puritans, when all the theatres... more...

NO. I. THE PRESENT TIME. [February 1, 1850.] The Present Time, youngest-born of Eternity, child and heir of all the Past Times with their good and evil, and parent of all the Future, is ever a "New Era" to the thinking man; and comes with new questions and significance, however commonplace it look: to know it, and what it bids us do, is ever the sum of knowledge for all of us. This new Day,... more...

CHAPTER I. INVASION OF CAESAR: THE DISCOVERY OF TIN AND CONSEQUENT ENLIGHTENMENT OF BRITAIN. [Illustration: BUST OF CAESAR.] From the glad whinny of the first unicorn down to the tip end of the nineteenth century, the history of Great Britain has been dear to her descendants in every land, 'neath every sky. But to write a truthful and honest history of any country the historian should, that he may... more...

THE INVITATION "There goes the bell! It's the letter carrier! Let me answer!" Freddie exclaimed. "Oh, let me! It's my turn this week!" cried Flossie. "But I see a blue envelope. That's from Aunt Sarah!" the brother cried. Meanwhile both children, Freddie and Flossie, were making all possible efforts to reach the front door, which Freddie finally did by jumping... more...

Chapter I. It was a dark night; a chill breath was coming from the east; not enough to disturb the blaze of Trooper Peter Halket's fire, yet enough to make it quiver. He sat alone beside it on the top of a kopje. All about was an impenetrable darkness; not a star was visible in the black curve over his head. He had been travelling with a dozen men who were taking provisions of mealies and rice to... more...

CHAPTER I The House in Cradle Bay On an afternoon in the first week of November, 1918, under a sky bank full of murky cloud and an air freighted with a chill which threatened untimely snow, a man came rowing up along the western side of Squitty Island and turned into Cradle Bay, which lies under the lee of Point Old. He was a young man, almost boyish-looking. He had on a pair of fine tan shoes, brown... more...