A HORSEMAN IN THE SKY I One sunny afternoon in the autumn of the year 1861 a soldier lay in a clump of laurel by the side of a road in western Virginia. He lay at full length upon his stomach, his feet resting upon the toes, his head upon the left forearm. His extended right hand loosely grasped his rifle. But for the somewhat methodical disposition of his limbs and a slight rhythmic movement of the... more...

obert Thorpe reached languidly for a cigarette and, with lazy fingers, extracted a lighter from his pocket. "Be a sport," he repeated to the gray haired man across the table. "Be a sport, Admiral, and send me across on a destroyer. Never been on a destroyer except in port. It ... would be a new experience ... enjoy it a lot...." In the palm-shaded veranda of this club-house in Manila,... more...

 read the telegram for the second time. Then I folded it up, put it in my pocket, and pressed the little button on my desk. My mind was made up.To save Imee's race of Men-Who-Returned-To-The-Sea, two Land-Men answer the challenge of the dreaded Rorn, corsairs of the under-seas."Miss Fentress, I'm leaving this afternoon on an extended trip. The Florida address will reach me after... more...

A LECTURE, &c. THE greatest blessing we enjoy is health, without it, wealth, honors, and every other consideration, would be insipid, and even irksome; the preservation of this state therefore, naturally concerns us all. In this lecture, I shall not attempt to teach you to become your own physicians, for when the barriers of health are once broken down, and disease has established itself, it... more...

CHAPTER I "Some one to see you, Mr. Tom." It was Koku, or August, as he was sometimes called, the new giant servant of Tom Swift, who made this announcement to the young inventor. "Who is it, Koku?" inquired Tom, looking up from his work-bench in the machine shop, where he was busy over a part of the motor for his new noiseless airship. "Any one I know? Is it the 'Blessing... more...

The sun had dropped behind the Grimaldi plateau, although for a day twilight would linger over the Oceanus Procellarum. The sky was a hazy blue, and out over the deeper tinted waves the full Earth swung. All the long half-month it had hung there above the horizon, its light dimmed by the sunshine, growing from a thin crescent to its full disk three times as broad as that of the sun at setting. Now in... more...

INTRODUCTION IN an age of materialism like our own the phenomenon of spiritual power is as significant and inspiring as it is rare. No longer associated with the "divine right" of kings, it has survived the downfall of feudal and theocratic systems as a mystic personal emanation in place of a coercive weapon of statecraft. Freed from its ancient shackles of dogma and despotism it eludes... more...

Capital and Interest. My object in this treatise is to examine into the real nature of the Interest of Capital, for the purpose of proving that it is lawful, and explaining why it should be perpetual. This may appear singular, and yet, I confess, I am more afraid of being too plain than too obscure. I am afraid I may weary the reader by a series of mere truisms. But it is no easy matter to avoid this... more...

Someway I don't care for the word "Preface." As I think the matter over, I'm not sure that I ever read a preface to any book; and this fact suggests to me that possibly others would pass by this page in my book if I dubbed it by that much-worn and very trite word. So I've hailed you all with a much more cheery and stimulating title for my opening page; and perhaps, in... more...

CHAPTER I. FETICHISM. THE CHINESE. THE EGYPTIANS. 1. FETICHISM. The lowest stage of religious development is fetichism, as it is found among the savage tribes of the polar regions, and in Africa, America, and Australia. In this stage, man's needs are as yet very limited and exclusively confined to the material world. Still too little developed intellectually to worship the divine in nature and her... more...