INTRODUCTION I was talking the other day to Alfred Coppard, who has steered more successfully than most English story writers away from the Scylla and Charybdis of the modern artist. He told me that he had been reading several new novels and volumes of short stories by contemporary American writers with that awakened interest in the civilization we are framing which is so noticeable among English... more...

A MERCURY OF THE FOOT-HILLS It was high hot noon on the Casket Ridge. Its very scant shade was restricted to a few dwarf Scotch firs, and was so perpendicularly cast that Leonidas Boone, seeking shelter from the heat, was obliged to draw himself up under one of them, as if it were an umbrella. Occasionally, with a boy's perversity, he permitted one bared foot to protrude beyond the sharply marked... more...

I THE QUEST OF FREEDOM THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY Expectancy of freedom is the dominant note of to-day. Amid the crash of armies and the clash of systems we await some liberating stroke which shall release us from the old dreary thralldoms. As Nietzsche says, "It would seem as though we had before us, as a reward for all our toils, a country still undiscovered, the horizons of which no one has yet... more...

THE ISLE OF THE HAPPY (From the Early Irish) Once when Bran, son of Feval, was with his warriors in his royal fort, they suddenly saw a woman in strange raiment upon the floor of the house. No one knew whence she had come or how she had entered, for the ramparts were closed. Then she sang these quatrains of Erin, the Isle of the Happy, to Bran while all the host were listening:A branch I bear from... more...

SCENE I.—JULIA, THE VISCOUNT. Visc. What! you are here already? Ju. Yes, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Cléante; it is not right for a lover to be the last to come to the rendezvous. Visc. I should have been here long ago if there were no importunate people in the world. I was stopped on my way by an old bore of rank, who asked me news of the court, merely to be able himself to detail to... more...

BRONSON HOWARD (1842-1908) The present Editor has just read through some of the vivacious correspondence of Bronson Howard—a sheaf of letters sent by him to Brander Matthews during a long intercourse. The time thus spent brings sharply to mind the salient qualities of the man—his nobility of character, his soundness of mind, his graciousness of manner, and his thorough understanding of the dramatic... more...

Lou Phillips sat on the cold metal deck of the control room, seething with a growing dislike for the old man. "What you are here for," the other had told him when the guards had brought Phillips in, "is a simple crime of violence. You'll do, I'm sure." The old man paced the deck impatiently, while a pair of armed guards maintained a watchful silence by the door. Two more men... more...

aving released the netting of his bunk, George Tremont floated himself out. He ran his tongue around his mouth and grimaced. "Wonder how long I slept ... feels like too long," he muttered. "Well, they would have called me." The "cabin" was a ninety-degree wedge of a cylinder hardly eight feet high. From one end of its outer arc across to the other was just over ten feet, so that... more...

CHILDREN AND THEIR BOOKS The most vital educational problem will always be how to make the best use of the child's earlier years, not only for the reason that in them many receive their entire school training, but also because, while the power of the child to learn increases with age, his susceptibility to formative influences diminishes, and so rapid is the working of this law that President... more...

FARCOT'S IMPROVED WOOLF COMPOUND ENGINE. In a preceding article, we have described a ventilator which is in use at the Decazeville coal mines, and which is capable of furnishing, per second, 20 cubic meters of air whose pressure must be able to vary between 30 and 80 millimeters. In order to actuate such an apparatus, it was necessary to have a motor that was possessed of great elasticity, and... more...