Preface It was a day in the spring of 1921. Dismal shadows, really Hechtian shadows, filled the editorial "coop" in The Chicago Daily News building. Outside the rain was slanting down in the way that Hecht's own rain always slants. In walked Hecht. He had been divorced from our staff for some weeks, and had married an overdressed, blatant creature called Publicity. Well, and how did he... more...

INTRODUCTION It is at my persuasion that these poems are now published. The earliest of them were read to me in London in 1896, when the writer was seventeen; the later ones were sent to me from India in 1904, when she was twenty-five; and they belong, I think, almost wholly to those two periods. As they seemed to me to have an individual beauty of their own, I thought they ought to be published. The... more...

IN THE name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. I rise in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who redeemed me by His precious blood. Bless, guide, and protect me from all evil, O Lord! Strengthen me to all good and lead me to eternal life. Amen. After dressing, kneel and say: My Lord and my God! I prostrate myself before the throne of Thy divine Majesty, and give Thee infinite... more...

This question has often been asked but seldom answered satisfactorily. Newspaper editors and correspondents have frequently attempted a practical elucidation of the mystery, by quoting from their own brains the rarest piece of absurdity which they could imagine, and entitling it ‘Transcendentalism.’ One good hit of this kind may be well enough, by way of satire upon the fogginess of certain writers... more...

CHAPTER I THE EUROPEAN DISCOVERY OF AMERICA Leif Ericson. 1. Leif Ericson discovers America, 1000.--In our early childhood many of us learned to repeat the lines:--Columbus sailed the ocean blueIn fourteen hundred, ninety-two.Leif discovers America, 1000. Higginson, 25-30; American History Leaflets, No. 3. We thought that he was the first European to visit America. But nearly five hundred years before... more...

I. Jimmy Crow belongs to Jack. Jack is a little . Jimmy is a big . Jack wears a white . Jimmy wears black . Jack says "Good Morning," and "Yes, sir," and "Thank you." Jimmy can say only "Caw, caw." Jack thinks Jimmy is a funnier pet than a or a . ne day, last summer, Jack was picking low in the pasture, when he saw a young hopping in the bushes. The little crow was lame... more...

CHAPTER I. THE VALLEY OF THE MARNE. How delicious to escape from the fever heat and turmoil of Paris during the Exhibition to the green banks and sheltered ways of the gently undulating Marne! With what delight we wake up in the morning to the noise, if noise it can be called, of the mower's scythe, the rustle of acacia leaves, and the notes of the stock-dove, looking back as upon a nightmare to... more...

Laugh and Play.       Laughand play all the day:Don't you think with meWhen I say that's the wayIf you'd happy be?Maid and lad, if we hadNever time for song,Always sad, never glad,Days would seem so long!Tear and sigh make the skyDark and sad and grey;Never cry—only tryJust to laugh and play.Faces bright make sunlightAll the merry day;Frowns they fright out of sight—So we'll... more...

CHAPTER I HENRY IN HIS KINGDOM A light wind blew over the great, primeval wilderness of Kentucky, the dense, green foliage rippling under it like the waves of the sea. In every direction forest and canebrake stretched in countless miles, the trees, infinite in variety, and great in size, showing that Nature had worked here with the hand of a master. Little streams flashing in silver or gold in the... more...

I was born at York on the first of March in the sixth year of the reign of King Charles the First. From the time when I was quite a young child, I had felt a great wish to spend my life at sea, and as I grew, so did this taste grow more and more strong; till at last I broke loose from my school and home, and found my way on foot to Hull, where I soon got a place on board a ship. When we had set sail... more...