CHAPTER I — ALL RIGHT! OFF WE GO! "Yet here... you are stayed for... There; my blessing with you,And these few precepts in thy memorySee thou character——-" "Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.I rather would entreat thy companyTo see the wonders of the world abroad,Than living dully, sluggardis'd at home,Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness." "Where unbruised... more...

CHAPTER I—START IN LIFE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull.  He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom... more...

THE HERO In the year —— there dwelt on Hampstead Heath a small thin gentleman of fifty-eight, gentle disposition, and independent means, whose wits had become somewhat addled from reading the writings and speeches of public men. The castle which, like every Englishman, he inhabited was embedded in lilac bushes and laburnums, and was attached to another castle, embedded, in deference to our national... more...

For nearly one hundred years this curious problem has exercised the imagination of writers of fiction—and of drama, and the patience of the learned in history. No subject is more obscure and elusive, and none more attractive to the general mind. It is a legend to the meaning of which none can find the key and yet in which everyone believes. Involuntarily we feel pity at the thought of that long... more...

Invitation. 1 Come to the house of prayer, O ye afflicted, come! The God of peace shall meet you there, He makes that house His home. 2 Come to the house of praise, Ye who are happy now; In sweet accord your voices raise, In kindred homage bow. 3 Ye aged, hither come, For ye have felt His love; Soon shall ye lift a holier song In fairer courts above. 4 Ye young, before His throne, Come, bow; your... more...

INTRODUCTION Upton Sinclair is one of the not too many writers who have consecrated their lives to the agitation for social justice, and who have also enrolled their art in the service of a set purpose. A great and non-temporizing enthusiast, he never flinched from making sacrifices. Now and then he attained great material successes as a writer, but invariably he invested and lost his earnings in... more...

WOODWARD'SCOUNTRY HOMES. In presenting to the public a new work on Domestic Architecture, it is our aim to furnish practical designs and plans, adapted to the requirements of such as are about to build, or remodel and improve, their Country Homes. The rapid progress in rural improvement and domestic embellishment all over the land, during the last quarter of a century, is evident to the... more...

I COMMUNICATION AMONG THE ANCIENTS     Signaling the Fall of Troy—Marine Signaling among the    Argonauts—Couriers of the Greeks, Romans, and    Aztecs—Sound-signaling—Stentorophonic Tube—The Shouting    Sentinels—The Clepsydra—Signal Columns—Indian Fire and Smoke    Signals. It was very early in the history of the world that man began to feel the urgent need of... more...

CONSTANTINE PAVLOVICH (1779-1831), grand-duke and cesarevich of Russia, was born at Tsarskoye Selo on the 27th of April 1779. Of the sons born to the unfortunate tsar Paul Petrovich and his wife Maria Feodorovna, née princess of Württemberg, none more closely resembled his father in bodily and mental characteristics than did the second, Constantine Pavlovich. The direction of the boy’s upbringing... more...

CHARIVARIA. "When the King and Queen visit Nottinghamshire as the guests of the Duke and Duchess of Portland at Welbeck, three representative colliery owners and four working miners will," we read, "be presented to their Majesties at Forest Town." A most embarrassing gift, we should say, and one which cannot, without hurting susceptibilities, be passed on to the Zoological Society. Are... more...