Zalen Lindsay stood on the rostrum in the huge new United Worlds auditorium on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain and looked out at an ocean of eye-glasses. Individually they ranged in hue from the rose-tinted spectacles of the Americans to the dark brown of the Soviet bloc. Their shapes and adornments were legion: round, harlequin, diamond, rhomboid, octagonal, square, oval; rimless, gem-studded,... more...

HENRI RENÉ ALBERT GUY DE MAUPASSANT The Necklace She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a mistake of destiny, born in a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded, by any rich and distinguished man; and she let herself be married to a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction. She dressed plainly... more...

The first beams of the morning sun were tipping with fire the jagged and icy peaks of the Wellhorn and Matterhorn, those gigantic monarchs of the Bernese Oberland, when a slender youth came out to the door of a small herdsman's cottage near Meyringen, and looked up at the sky to note the weather. "We shall have a splendid day, father," said he, after glancing all around for a few minutes.... more...

CHAPTER I. SPILLED OUT. Sylvie Argenter was driving about in her mother's little basket-phæton. There was a story about this little basket-phæton, a story, and a bit of domestic diplomacy. The story would branch away, back and forward; which I cannot, right here in this first page, let it do. It would tell—taking the little carriage for a text and key—ever so much about aims and ways and... more...

INTRODUCTORY It was a night of bright moonlight that made for pitchy shadows under wall or tree. Patsy Kenny was looking for the goat, she having broken her tether. He had been driven forth by his fierce old grandfather with threats of the most awful nature if he should return without the goat. The tears were not yet dry on Patsy's small face. He had kneaded them in with his knuckles, but the... more...

A BROTHER TO DRAGONS. I. In the year of grace, 1586, on the last day of the month of May, to all who may chance to read this narrative, these: I will first be at the pains of stating that had it not been for Marian I had never indited these or any other papers, true or false. Secondly, that the facts herein set down be true facts; none the less true that they are strange. I will furthermore explain... more...

CHAPTER I A FLUTTERING PAPER Four girls were walking down an elm-shaded street. Four girls, walking two by two, their arms waist-encircling, their voices mingling in rapid talk, punctuated with rippling laughter—and, now and then, as their happy spirits fairly bubbled and overflowed, breaking into a few waltz steps to the melody of a dreamy song hummed by one of their number. The sun,... more...

INTRODUCTION. Parliamentary Law. Parliamentary Law refers originally to the customs and rules of conducting business in the English Parliament; and thence to the customs and rules of our own legislative assemblies. In England these customs and usages of Parliament form a part of the unwritten law of the land, and in our own legislative bodies they are of authority in all cases where they do not... more...

GIST The Crowd is my Hero. The Hero of this book is a hundred million people. I have come to have the feeling—especially in regard to political conventions, that it might not be amiss to put forward some suggestions just now as to how a hundred million people can strike—make themselves more substantial, more important in this country, so that we shall really have in this country in time a hundred... more...

CHAPTER IFATHER AND DAUGHTER The old man lay back in his chair asleep. The morning sun beat against the drawn window shades, filling the room with a dim, almost cathedral light. An oil lamp, which had performed its duty faithfully through the night, now seemed to resent its neglect, and spluttered angrily. There was the usual sound of the busy city’s street outside the window, for the morning was... more...