INTRODUCTION These disjointed thoughts about one of Leonard Merrick's most articulate books must begin with a personal confession. For many years I walked about this earth avoiding the works of Leonard Merrick, as other men might have avoided an onion. This insane aversion was created in my mind chiefly by admirers of what is called the "cheerful" note in fiction. Such people are... more...

INTRODUCTION The story of the West Indies and Spanish Main is one to stir the hearts of many nations. The shores of the Caribbean Sea have been the scene of marvellous adventures, of intense struggles between races and peoples, of pain, trouble, and disaster of almost every description. No wonder that the romance writer has laid his scenes upon its beautiful islands and deep blue waters, for nowhere in... more...

"REMEMBER ME." "Remember me!" How swift the tide   Of memory glideth o'er the past;Those sunny hours so quickly sped,   Perchance a few with clouds o'ercast.But memory hath more lasting flowers,   Which Time's rude hand can ne'er efface,The sweets we cull from friendship's bowers,   The gems affection's altar grace. "Remember me!" In... more...

INTRODUCTION. The most valuable part of a nation's history portrays its institutions of learning and religion. The alumni of a college which has moulded the intellectual and moral character of not a few of the illustrious living, or the more illustrious dead,—the oldest college in the valley of the Connecticut, and the only college in an ancient and honored State,—would neglect a most fitting... more...

I have told my wife quite plainly that in my opinion I am as little fitted by nature for the task she has laid upon my shoulders as any man alive. I have spent a great part of my life in action; and though the later part of it has been quieter and more peaceful than the earlier, and though I have enjoyed opportunities of study which I never had before, I am still anything but a bookish man, and I am... more...

MY DEAR MISS DOANE: You will permit me to address you with this semblance of familiarity, I trust, for the frankness of our conversation in my office gives me some right to claim you as an acquaintance. And first of all let me tell you that we shall be glad to print your review of The Kentons, and shall be pleased to send you a long succession of novels for analysis if you can always use the scalpel... more...

I If the author of this meandering record has noted elsewhere that an event occurring early in 1870 was to mark the end of his youth, he is moved here at once to qualify in one or two respects that emphasis. Everything depends in such a view on what one means by one's youth—so shifting a consciousness is this, and so related at the same time to many different matters. We are never old, that is... more...

INTRODUCTORY To the lovers of Ireland—to those who sympathize with her sufferings and resent her wrongs, there can be few things more interesting than the history of the struggles which sprang from devotion to her cause, and were consecrated by the blood of her patriots. The efforts of the Irish race to burst the fetters that foreign force and native dissensions imposed on them, and elevate their... more...

CHAPTER I. HELEN LINGARD. A swift, gray November wind had taken every chimney of the house for an organ-pipe, and was roaring in them all at once, quelling the more distant and varied noises of the woods, which moaned and surged like a sea. Helen Lingard had not been out all day. The morning, indeed, had been fine, but she had been writing a long letter to her brother Leopold at Cambridge, and had put... more...

Punky Dunk, so fat, was a black and white catOf exceedingly tender years.He had black on his nose and the tips of his toes,On the end of his tail and his ears.He cast his lot in a very soft spotFor his bed was a box full of straw,And he slept all night with his eyes shut tightAnd his little black nose on his paw.Punky Dunk would peep, though he seemed asleep,At the bird in its cage of brass,And his tail... more...