CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY When the history of the Nineteenth Century—'the Wonderful Century,' as it has, not inaptly, been called—comes to be written, a foremost place must be assigned to that great movement by which evolution has become the dominant factor in scientific progress, while its influence has been felt in every sphere of human speculation and effort. At the beginning of the... more...

The single thing to fear was fear—ghastly, walking fear! Stiff with shock, Naomi Heckscher stood just inside the door to Cappy's one-room cabin, where she'd happened to be when her husband discovered the old man's body. Her nearest neighbor—old Cappy—dead. After all his wire-pulling to get into the First Group, and his slaving to make a farm on this alien planet, dead in bed!... more...

Without speaking at any length I asked the young grand duke to give me an asylum in his dominions for as long as I might care to stay. I anticipated any questions he might have asked by telling him the reasons which had made me an exile from my native land. "As to my necessities," I added, "I shall ask for help of no one; I have sufficient funds to ensure my independence. I think of... more...

LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD To E. B. Cowell. 88 Gt. Portland St., London, Jan. 13/59. My dear Cowell, I have been here some five weeks: but before my Letter reaches you shall probably have slid back into the Country somewhere.  This is my old Lodging, but new numbered.  I have been almost alone here: having seen even Spedding and Donne but two or three times.  They are well and go on as before. ... more...

Chap. I Of Ketill Flatnose and his Descendants, 9th Century A.D. Ketill Flatnose was the name of a man. He was the son of Bjorn the Ungartered. Ketill was a mighty and high-born chieftain (hersir) in Norway. He abode in Raumsdale, within the folkland of the Raumsdale people, which lies between Southmere and Northmere. Ketill Flatnose had for wife Yngvild, daughter of Ketill Wether, who was a man of... more...

CHAPTER I. — Glendhu, or the Black Glen; Scene of Domestic Affection. Some twenty and odd years ago there stood a little cabin at the foot of a round hill, that very much resembled a cupola in shape, and which, from its position and height, commanded a prospect of singular beauty. This hill was one of a range that ran from north to southwest; but in consequence of its standing, as it were, somewhat... more...

THE COMING OF THE STORKIT was always a puzzle to the little girl how the stork that brought her ever reached the lonely Dakota farm-house on a December afternoon without her being frozen; and it was another mystery, just as deep, how the strange bird, which her mother said was no larger than a blue crane, was able, on leaving, to carry her father away with him to some family, a long, long distance off,... more...

CHAPTER I A MAKER OF MAPS There was a rustle in the bushes, the sound of twigs snapping, a soft foot-fall on the dead leaves. Marche stopped, took his pipe out of his mouth, and listened. Patter! patter! patter! over the crackling underbrush, now near, now far away in the depths of the forest; then sudden silence, the silence that startles. He turned his head warily, right, left; he knelt noiselessly,... more...

CHAPTER IA Quaker Gun “And will the Thunder Bird really lay its egg upon the moon? Such a hard egg, too! Will it–really–drop a pound weight of steel upon the head of the Man in the Moon?... Oh! de-ar Mammy Moon–what a shock she’ll get.” The girl, the fifteen-year-old Camp Fire Girl–all but sixteen now–to whom Mammy Moon had been the fairy foster-mother of her childhood, ever since she... more...

The Epistle to the generall andgentle Reader. Although (generall reader) the nature of this worst part of this last age hath conuerted all things to such vildnesse that whatsoeuer is truely good is now esteemed most vitious, learning being derided, fortitude drawne into so many definitions that it consisteth in meere words onely, and although nothing is happy or prosperous, but meere fashion &... more...