JONGLEURS. What is the stir in the street?Hurry of feet!And after,A sound as of pipes and of tabers! Men of the conflicts and labors,Struggling and shifting and shoving,Pushing and pounding your neighbors,Fighting for leeway for laughter,Toiling for leisure for loving!Hark, through the window and up to the rafter,Madder and merrier,Deeper and verier,Sweeter, contrarier,Dafter and dafter,A song... more...

he sleek transcontinental airliner settled onto one of the maze of runways that was Stevenson Airport. With its turbojets fading into a dense roar, it taxied across the field toward the central building. Inside the plane a red light went off. Senator Vance Duran unhooked the seat belt, reached for his briefcase, and stepped into the crowded aisle. The other passengers were all strangers, which had... more...

ALEXANDER CRUMMELLAN APOSTLE OF NEGRO CULTURE. A noted English lawyer-author has declared that the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes is the final word of the world’s philosophy; that no ancient or modern thinker has uttered a profounder word. And in the seventh verse of that chapter it reads, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”... more...

HOW RICHARD BEGAN TO WOO On this far-away November morning, it being ten by every steeple clock and an hour utterly chaste, there could have existed no impropriety in one's having had a look into the rooms of Mr. Richard Storms, said rooms being second-floor front of the superfashionable house of Mr. Lorimer Gwynn, Washington, North West. Richard, wrapped to the chin in a bathrobe, was sitting... more...

Methinks, for a person whose instinct bids him rather to pore over the current of life, than to plunge into its tumultuous waves, no undesirable retreat were a toll-house beside some thronged thoroughfare of the land. In youth, perhaps, it is good for the observer to run about the earth, to leave the track of his footsteps far and wide,—to mingle himself with the action of numberless... more...

Arch Trevlyn had had a good day. Business had been brisk. The rain had fallen steadily since daybreak, and the street-crossings in New York were ankle deep in mud. The little street-sweeper's arms ached fearfully, but his pocket was full of pennies, interspersed with an occasional half-dime. The clouds were breaking in the west, and a gleam of sunshine gilded the tall tower of St. John's.... more...

THE TRAIN ARRIVES IT was twenty minutes past three by the clock of the Lourdes railway station, the dial of which was illumined by a reflector. Under the slanting roof sheltering the platform, a hundred yards or so in length, some shadowy forms went to and fro, resignedly waiting. Only a red signal light peeped out of the black countryside, far away. Two of the promenaders suddenly halted. The taller... more...

TOWN-HALL, LIVERPOOL. From a small inconsiderable hamlet, Liverpool, within a century and a half, has been singularly advanced in national importance. In Leland's time it had only a chapel, its parish church being at Walton, a distance of four miles from the town. In the year 1571 the inhabitants of Liverpool sent a memorial to Queen Elizabeth, praying relief from a subsidy which they thought... more...

The troops belonging to the first Hessian Division had as yet not all been assembled in the harbor of Portsmouth, for, on account of the lack of transport ships, General von Mirbach with his regiment and that of Commander Rall, a Knyphausen Company, and a part of the Commissariat still remained at Bremerlehe, when the fleet was ready and the wind often long in coming, was just then very favorable to... more...

NEWBURY. Early the next morning, after Richard had left the cottage for Raglan castle, mistress Rees was awaked by the sound of a heavy blow against her door. When with difficulty she had opened it, Richard or his dead body, she knew not which, fell across her threshold. Like poor Marquis, he had come to her for help and healing. When he got out of the quarry, he made for the highroad, but missing the... more...