LETTER I The Straits of New York—When is a Ship not a Ship?—Nationality of Passengers—A Dream Realized. R.M.S. Lucania. The Atlantic Ocean is geographically a misnomer, socially and politically a dwindling superstition. That is the chief lesson one learns—and one has barely time to take it in—between Queenstown and Sandy Hook. Ocean forsooth! this little belt of blue water that we cross... more...

INTRODUCTION. This volume contains a record of twenty lives, of which only one—that of Edward Young—is treated at length. It completes our edition of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, from which a few only of the briefest and least important have been omitted. The eldest of the Poets here discussed were Samuel Garth, Charles Montague (Lord Halifax), and William King, who were born within the years... more...

TO MY READERS NAY, blame me not; I might have sparedYour patience many a trivial verse,Yet these my earlier welcome shared,So, let the better shield the worse. And some might say, "Those ruder songsHad freshness which the new have lost;To spring the opening leaf belongs,The chestnut-burs await the frost." When those I wrote, my locks were brown,When these I write—ah, well a-day!The autumn... more...

Well you might say I practically grew up with him. He was my hero in those days. I thought few wiser or greater men ever lived. In my eyes he was greater than Babe Ruth, Lindy, or the President. Of course, time, and my growing up caused me to bring him into a perspective that I felt to be more consonant with his true position in his field of endeavor. When he died his friends mourned for fond... more...

Consecration of the Nuncio at Saint James's Palace; his public ReceptionThe Duke of SomersetDissolution of the Parliament; Military Offences illegally punishedProceedings of the High Commission; the UniversitiesProceedings against the University of CambridgeThe Earl of MulgraveState of OxfordMagdalene College, OxfordAnthony Farmer recommended by the King for PresidentElection of the PresidentThe... more...

BEAUTY AND THE BLOSSOMS Every one of the field people in Pleasant Valley, and the forest folk as well, was different from his neighbors. For instance, there was Jasper Jay. He was the noisiest chap for miles around. And there was Peter Mink. Without doubt he was the rudest and most rascally fellow in the whole district. Then there was Freddie Firefly, who was the brightest youngster on the farm—at... more...

NOBLE SOCIETY OFCOLLEDGE-YOUTHS. Gentlemen, I have seen a Treatise intituled, de Tintinnabulis—that is, of little Bells, the Language Latin, but pen'd by a Dutchman, being a Discourse of striking tunes on little Bells with traps under the feet, with several Books on several Instruments of Music, and Tunes prick't for the same; Then considering that the Well-wishers to either of them, took... more...

While "The Choir Invisible" was primarily a love story, the setting in which its action moved was historical. Apart from the masterly handling of human passion and the harmony of thought and expression with which he has treated the larger and deeper movements of life, it is probably Mr. Allen's ability to picture forth the early settlement of Kentucky that has given his writings so solid a... more...

CHAPTER I ON WAGNER CRITICISM A new work on Wagner requires some justification. It might be urged that, since the Meister has been dead for some decades and the violence of party feeling may be assumed to have somewhat abated, we are now in a position to form a sober estimate of his work, to review his aims, and judge of his measure of success. Such, however, is not my purpose in the following pages. I... more...

First, the Statement So bountiful hath been the earth and so securely have we drawn from it our substance, that we have taken it all for granted as if it were only a gift, and with little care or conscious thought of the consequences of our use of it; nor have we very much considered the essential relation that we bear to it as living parts in the vast creation. It is good to think of ourselves—of... more...