CHAPTER I.BELIEVING AND DOING. MORALS pertain to right living, to the things we do, in relation to God and His law, as opposed to right thinking, to what we believe, to dogma. Dogma directs our faith or belief, morals shape our lives. By faith we know God, by moral living we serve Him; and this double homage, of our mind and our works, is the worship we owe our Creator and Master and the necessary... more...

How could a man tell the difference if all the reality of Earth turned out to be a cosmic hoax? Suppose it turned out that this was just a stage set for students of history? When the sharp snap of a pistol shot came from the half-finished building, Karnes wasn't anywhere near the sandpile that received the slug. He was fifteen feet away, behind the much more reliable protection of a neat stack of... more...

The greatest master of the short story our country has known found his inspiration and produced his best work in California. It is now nearly forty years since "The Luck of Roaring Camp" appeared, and a line of successors, more or less worthy, have been following along the trail blazed by Bret Harte. They have given us matter of many kinds, realistic, romantic, tragic, humorous, weird. In this... more...

I. THE VENDER OF VIOLETS."Violets!Violets! Violets!"This was the cry I heardAs I passed through the street of a city;And quickly my heart was stirredTo an incomprehensible pity,At the undertone of the cry;For it seemed like the voice of oneWho was stricken, and all undone,Who was only longing to die."Violets! Violets! Violets!"The voice came nearer still."Surely," I said,... more...

THE DREAMERS The gypsies passed her little gate—She stopped her wheel to see,—A brown-faced pair who walked the road,Free as the wind is free;And suddenly her tidy roomA prison seemed to be. Her shining plates against the walls,Her sunlit, sanded floor,The brass-bound wedding chest that heldHer linen's snowy store,The very wheel whose humming died,—Seemed only chains she bore. She watched... more...

CHAPTER I Tom Swift, who had been slowly looking through the pages of a magazine, in the contents of which he seemed to be deeply interested, turned the final folio, ruffled the sheets back again to look at a certain map and drawing, and then, slapping the book down on a table before him, with a noise not unlike that of a shot, exclaimed: "Well, that is certainly one wonderful story!"... more...

I think that every man ought to work for his living, without exception, and that when he has once avouched his willingness to work, society should provide him with work and warrant him a living. I do not think any man ought to live by an art. A man's art should be his privilege, when he has proven his fitness to exercise it, and has otherwise earned his daily bread; and its results should be free... more...

CHAPTER I Debby Alden, to use her own adjective in regard to herself, was not "slack." To this her friends added another term. Debby was "set." There could be no doubt of that. When Hester was but twelve years old, Debby had decided that the girl should have at least one year at the best boarding-school. Four years had passed, during which time, Debby's purpose had remained firm,... more...

(Beauchief Abbey.) Mr. Rhodes, the elegant topographer of the Peak, observes, "there are but few individuals in this country, possessing the means and the opportunities of travel, who have not, either from curiosity or some other motive, visited the Peak of Derbyshire." This remark is correct; and to it we may add, that the "few" who have not personally visited the Peak, have become... more...

THE AIM OF THE DETROIT NEWS Formation of a newspaper's ideals comes through a process of years. The best traditions of the past, blending with hopes of the future, should be the writer's guide for the day. Nov. 1, 1916, the editor-in-chief of The Detroit News, in a letter to the managing editor, wrote his interpretation of the principles under which the staff should work, in striving toward... more...