It was not until Miss Menemon's engagement to John Usselex was made public that the world in which that young lady moved manifested any interest in her future husband. Then, abruptly, a variety of rumors were circulated concerning him. It was said, for instance, that his real name was Tchurchenthaler and that his boyhood had been passed tending geese in a remote Bavarian dorf, from which, to avoid... more...

THE KING OF PERSIA AND THE PRINCESS OF THE SEA. There once was a king of Persia, who at the beginning of his reign had distinguished himself by many glorious and successful conquests, and had afterwards enjoyed such profound peace and tranquillity as rendered him the happiest of monarchs. His only occasion for regret was that he had no heir to succeed him in the kingdom after his death. One day,... more...

Chapter I. It is impossible that the stupendous events which followed the disastrous invasion of the earth by the Martians should go without record, and circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, I deem it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participants in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at its ruthless enemy in the heavens, to write down... more...

INTRODUCTORY POEM"The stories that the fairies told I learnt in English lanes of old, Where honeysuckle, wreathing high, Twined with the wild rose towards the sky, Or where pink-tinged anemones Grew thousand starred beneath the trees. I saw them, too, in London town, But sly and cautious, glancing down, Where in the grass the crocus grow And ladies ride in Rotten Row, St James's... more...

CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF FAIRY STORIES. We are going into Fairy Land for a little while, to see what we can find there to amuse and instruct us this Christmas time. Does anybody know the way? There are no maps or guidebooks, and the places we meet with in our workaday world do not seem like the homes of the Fairies. Yet we have only to put on our Wishing Caps, and we can get into Fairy Land in a moment.... more...

CHAPTER I. ROMANTIC ROBIN. I've found at last the hiding placeWhere the fairy people dwell,And to win the secrets of their raceI hold the long-sought spell.Havergal. One hundred years ago, in the great land of Canada, there lived a boy whose name was Robin. His home was in the grand old woods, with wapitis, wolves and bears. It was near the edge of a deep ravine that opened out on the east by a... more...

I. SPIRIT AND MATTER. In commencing a course of lectures on Mental Science, it is somewhat difficult for the lecturer to fix upon the best method of opening the subject. It can be approached from many sides, each with some peculiar advantage of its own; but, after careful deliberation, it appears to me that, for the purpose of the present course, no better starting-point could be selected than the... more...

The Educated Negro and His Mission. Human thought is like a pendulum. It sways from belief to belief, from theory to theory, from plan to plan, and the length of its vibrations is governed by a multitude of contending forces operating from both within and without. Two of these influences, in the present age, are all potential. One is the ardent desire to find the best ways and means by which the human... more...

THE FAITHFUL STEWARD. PART I. "GOD IS LOVE." Perfectly blessed in Himself, he desired that other intelligences should participate in his own holy felicity. This was his primary motive in creating moral beings. They were made in his own image—framed to resemble him in their intellectual and moral capacities, and to imitate him in the spirit of their deportment. Whatever good they enjoyed, like... more...

CHAPTER I. "MONEY, MONEY!""Shoe the horse and shoe the mare,And let the little colt go bare."East or West, it matters not where—the story may, doubtless, indicate something of latitude and longitude as it proceeds—in the city of Mishaumok, lived Henderson Gartney, Esq., one of those American gentlemen of whom, if she were ever canonized, Martha of Bethany must be the patron... more...