PART I. I. The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun. And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,And lifts his palms for the first... more...

THE WIND'S WORK MOTTO FOR THE MOTHER Power invisible that God reveals, The child within all nature feels, Like the great wind that unseen goes, Yet helps the world's work as it blows. One morning Jan waked up very early, and the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was his great kite in the corner. His big brother had made it for him; and it had a smiling face, and a long tail that... more...

CHAP. I. Of the Chronology of the First Ages of the Greeks. All Nations, before they began to keep exact accounts of Time, have been prone to raise their Antiquities; and this humour has been promoted, by the Contentions between Nations about their Originals. Herodotus tells us, that the Priests ofEgyptreckoned from the Reign ofMenesto that ofSethon, who putSennacheribto flight, three hundred forty and... more...

FOREWORD I am writing what should have been the last chapter of this book as a foreword because I want to bring home to our people the gravity of the situation; because I want to tell them that the military and naval power of the German Empire is unbroken; that of the twelve million men whom the Kaiser has called to the colours but one million, five hundred thousand have been killed, five hundred... more...

MY TRIP TO VERDUN—GENERAL PÉTAIN FACE TO FACE THE MEN WHO HOLD THE LINE—WHAT THEIR FACES TOLD OF THE PAST AND THE FUTURE OF FRANCE My road to Verdun ran through the Elysée Palace, and it was to the courtesy and interest of the President of the French Republic that I owed my opportunity to see the battle for the Meuse city at close range. Already through the kindness of the French General Staff I... more...

“Come in!” said Peter Hope. Peter Hope was tall and thin, clean-shaven but for a pair of side whiskers close-cropped and terminating just below the ear, with hair of the kind referred to by sympathetic barbers as “getting a little thin on the top, sir,” but arranged with economy, that everywhere is poverty’s true helpmate.  About Mr. Peter Hope’s linen, which was white though somewhat... more...

"What is this opportunity?" Conger asked. "Go on. I'm interested." The room was silent; all faces were fixed on Conger—still in the drab prison uniform. The Speaker leaned forward slowly. "Before you went to prison your trading business was paying well—all illegal—all very profitable. Now you have nothing, except the prospect of another six years in a cell." Conger... more...

SALISBURY PLAIN "We passed over the goodly plain, or rather sea of carpet, which I think for evenness, extent, verdure, and innumerable flocks, to be one of the most delightful prospects in nature."—"Evelyn's Diary," 1654. There is not a county in England which does not pride itself upon some outstanding characteristic which places it in a category by itself. And if there be a... more...

TheCourt Chaplain Eisenhart walked up the village street towards the schoolhouse. It was April, in the year 1750, and a soft west wind was blowing up the street, across the oak woods of the near forest. Between the forest and the village lay a valley of meadows, planted with thorn bushes and old birch trees with snow-white stems: the fresh green leaves trembled continually in the restless wind. On the... more...

There is a deathless charm, despite the efforts of modern novelists and playwrights to render it stale and hackneyed, attaching to the middle of the seventeenth century—that period of upheaval and turmoil which saw a stately debonnaire Court swept away by the flames of Civil War, and the reign of an usurper succeeded by the Restoration of a discredited and fallen dynasty. So long as the world lasts,... more...