CHAPTER I. THE TAVERN OF ALISON THE HUFFY. On a Sunday, towards the end of the month of October of 1356, a great stir was noticeable since early morning in the little town of Nointel, situated a few leagues from the city of Beauvais, in the department of Beauvoisis. The tavern of Alison the Huffy—so nicknamed from her hot temper, although she was a good woman—was rapidly filling with... more...

SOME THOUGHTS OF A READER OF TENNYSON Fifty years after Tennyson’s birth he was saluted a great poet by that unanimous acclamation which includes mere clamour.  Fifty further years, and his centenary was marked by a new detraction.  It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the obscure but not unmajestic law of change from the sorry custom of reaction.  Change hastes not and rests not, reaction... more...

§ 1. THE TERM The names ‘rationalist’ and ‘rationalism’ have been used in so many senses within the past three hundred years that they cannot be said to stand quite definitely for any type or school of philosophic thought. For Bacon, a ‘rationalist’ or rationalis was a physician with a priori views of disease and bodily function; and the Aristotelian humanists of the Helmstadt school were... more...

CHAPTER I A REUNION "Here, Harry, catch hold." "Ouch—I dropped that cartridge box on my pet corn." "Say, you fellows, are we going to Africa or are we on a ConeyIsland picnic?" "Be serious now, Billy Barnes, you may be all right as a reporter, but as a shipping clerk you're no more good than a cold storage egg." "Well, I'm doing the best I can," was... more...

INTRODUCTION I am sitting in the doorway of a house of the Stone Age—neolithic, paleolithic, troglodytic man—with a roofless city of the dead lying in the valley below and the eagles circling with lonely cries along the yawning caverns of the cliff face above. My feet rest on the topmost step of a stone stairway worn hip-deep in the rocks of eternity by the moccasined tread of foot-prints that run... more...

Chapter 1 He darted through the orange orchard searching for slugs for his breakfast, and between whiles he rocked on the branches and rang over his message of encouragement to men. The song of the Cardinal was overflowing with joy, for this was his holiday, his playtime. The southern world was filled with brilliant sunshine, gaudy flowers, an abundance of fruit, myriads of insects, and never a thing... more...

I have already spoken of my earliest meetings with Lowell at Cambridge when I came to New England on a literary pilgrimage from the West in 1860. I saw him more and more after I went to live in Cambridge in 1866; and I now wish to record what I knew of him during the years that passed between this date and that of his death. If the portrait I shall try to paint does not seem a faithful likeness to... more...

Wiesbaden (the "Meadow-Bath"), though an inland town, partakes of some of the Rhine characteristics, though even if it did not, its notoriety as a spa would be enough to make some mention of it necessary. Its promenade and Kurhaus, its society, evening concerts, alleys of beautiful plane trees, its frequent illuminations with Bengal lights, reddening the classic peristyles and fountains with... more...

Chapter I. — CHAPLAIN MULLER WAITS ON THE CROWN-PRINCE. Friedrich's feelings at this juncture are not made known to us by himself in the least; or credibly by others in any considerable degree. As indeed in these confused Prussian History-Books, copulent in nugatory pedantisms and learned marine-stores, all that is human remains distressingly obscure to us; so seldom, and then only as through... more...

December 9, 1914. We are told that "it is confidently believed by the advisers to the Treasury that the new issue of £1 notes cannot be successfully imitated." We think that it is a mistake to put our artists on their mettle in this way. A black eagle, a contemporary tells us, was seen one day last week at Westgate-on-Sea. A Prussian bird, no doubt, in mourning for lost Calais. The German... more...