GOING TO MAYNOOTH. Young Denis O'Shaughnessy was old Denis's son; and old Denis, like many great men before him, was the son of his father and mother in particular, and a long line of respectable ancestors in general. He was, moreover, a great historian, a perplexing controversialist, deeply read in Dr. Gallagher and Pastorini, and equally profound in the history of Harry the Eighth, and... more...

CHAPTER I. "Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?" "We find the prisoner guilty, my lord." A curious little thrill of emotion—half sigh, half sob—ran through the crowded court. Even the most callous, the most world-hardened, of human beings cannot hear unmoved the verdict which condemns a fellow-creature to a shameful death. The spectators of Andrew Westwood's trial... more...

The slingshot was, I believe, one of the few weapons of history that wasn't used in the last war. That doesn't mean it won't be used in the next! "Got a bogey at three o'clock high. Range about six hundred miles." Johnson spoke casually, but his voice in the intercom was thin with tension. Captain Paul Coulter, commanding Space Fighter 308, 58th Squadron, 33rd Fighter Wing,... more...

THE COMING OF "JAP HERRON" On the afternoon of the second Thursday in March, 1916, I responded to an invitation to the regular meeting of a small psychical research society. There was to be a lecture on cosmic relations, and the hostess for the afternoon, whom I had met twice socially, thought I might be interested, my name having appeared in connection with a recently detailed series of... more...

INTRODUCTION It is now one hundred years since Richard Wagner was born, thirty since he died. In every land he has his monument in one shape or another; his music-dramas can be heard all the world over; all the ancient controversies as to their merits or demerits have died down. The Bayreuth theatre, the outward and visible sign of his inner greatness, has risen to the point of its most splendid glory... more...

STORY I CURLY TWISTYTAIL IS NAMED Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, in the days when there were fairies and giants and all things like that, there lived in a little house, on the edge of a wood, a family of pigs. Now these pigs weren't like the pigs, which perhaps you children have seen on most farms. No, indeed! They were just the nicest cleanest, sweetest pigs you ever dreamed... more...

PARIS WAR DAYS Saturday, August 1, 1914 This war comes like the traditional "Bolt from the Blue!" I had made arrangements to retire from active journalism and relinquish the duties of Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune, which I had fulfilled for sixteen consecutive years. In reply to a request from Mr. Ogden Reid, I had expressed willingness to remain at my post in Paris until the... more...

CHAPTER I DARKNESS There was a house in this town where always by night lights burned. In one of its rooms many lights burned; in each of the other rooms at least one light. It stood on Clay Street, on a treeless plot among flower beds, a small dull-looking house; and when late on dark nights all the other houses on Clay Street were solid blockings lifting from the lesser blackness of their background,... more...

THE BUSTED EX-TEXAN. were camped amid the foot-hills on the trail which led up to the Kicking Horse Pass. The sun had already passed from sight, beyond the white summits above us, and the shadow of the monstrous mountain range darkened the prairie to the east, to the horizon's rim. Our bivouac was made in a grove of lofty firs, six or eight in number; and a little rivulet, trickling from the upper... more...

CHAPTER I: "THE RELIGION OF NUMA" [3] As, in the triumph of Christianity, the old religion lingered latest in the country, and died out at last as but paganism—the religion of the villagers, before the advance of the Christian Church; so, in an earlier century, it was in places remote from town-life that the older and purer forms of paganism itself had survived the longest. While, in Rome,... more...