Fielding's third great novel has been the subject of much more discordant judgments than either of its forerunners. If we take the period since its appearance as covering four generations, we find the greatest authority in the earliest, Johnson, speaking of it with something more nearly approaching to enthusiasm than he allowed himself in reference to any other work of an author, to whom he was on... more...

CHAPTER I. DIDDIE, DUMPS, AND TOT.   They were three little sisters, daughters of a Southern planter, and they lived in a big white house on a cotton plantation in Mississippi. The house stood in a grove of cedars and live-oaks, and on one side was a flower-garden, with two summer-houses covered with climbing roses and honeysuckles, where the little girls would often have tea-parties in the pleasant... more...

INTRODUCTION THE characteristic of a revolutionary country is that change is a quicker process there than elsewhere. As the revolution recedes into the past the process of change slackens speed. Russia is no longer the dizzying kaleidoscope that it was in 1917. No longer does it change visibly from week to week as it changed in 19l8. Already, to get a clear vision of the direction in which it is... more...

A VENERABLE IMPOSTOR. As I glance across my table, I am somewhat distracted by the spectacle of a venerable head whose crown occasionally appears beyond, at about its level. The apparition of a very small hand—whose fingers are bunchy and have the appearance of being slightly webbed—which is frequently lifted above the table in a vain and impotent attempt to reach the inkstand, always affects me as... more...

CHAPTER VIII. FLIGHT AND DEATH OF POMPEY. Pursuit of the vanquished.Pompey recovers himself. Caesar pursued the discomfited and flying bodies of Pompey's army to the camp. They made a brief stand upon the ramparts and at the gates in a vain and fruitless struggle against the tide of victory which they soon perceived must fully overwhelm them. They gave way continually here and there along the... more...

CHAPTER I With a rattle and a clatter the muddy flivver stopped with a squeak of brakes in front of Diamond X ranch house. From the car leaped three boys, one of them carrying a small leather pouch. "Here's the mail!" yelled this lad—Bud Merkel by name, and his cousins, Nort and Dick Shannon, added the duet of their voices to his as they cried: "Mail's in! Lots of letters!"... more...

CHAPTER IWhen a soldier's watch, with its luminous face,Loses its light and grows dim and black,He holds it out in the sun a spaceAnd the radiance all comes back;And that is the reason I'm thinking to-dayOf the glad days now long past;I am leaving my heart where the sunbeams play:I am trying to drive my fears away:I am charging my soul with a spirit gay,And hoping that it will last! We were... more...

INTRODUCTORY NOTE Sir Francis Drake, the greatest of the naval adventurers of England of the time of Elizabeth, was born in Devonshire about 1540. He went to sea early, was sailing to the Spanish Main by 1565, and commanded a ship under Hawkins in an expedition that was overwhelmed by the Spaniards in 1567. In order to recompense himself for the loss suffered in this disaster, he equipped the... more...

ANCESTORS To arrive at a full understanding of the complex and unusual character of Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson, which perhaps played as large a part as her beauty and intellectual charm in drawing to her the affections of one of the greatest romance writers of our day, one must go back and seek out all the uncommon influences that combined to produce it—a long line of sturdy ancestors, running back... more...

THE MAN OF SONGS. "Thou wanderest in the land of dreams,  O man of many songs!To thee what is, but looks and seems;  No realm to thee belongs!" "Seest thou those mountains, faint and far,  O spirit caged and tame?""Blue clouds like distant hills they are,  And like is not the same." "Nay, nay; I know each mountain well,  Each cliff, and peak, and dome!In that... more...