THE SECOND CABIN I first encountered my fellow-passengers on the Broomielaw in Glasgow. Thence we descended the Clyde in no familiar spirit, but looking askance on each other as on possible enemies. A few Scandinavians, who had already grown acquainted on the North Sea, were friendly and voluble over their long pipes; but among English speakers distance and suspicion reigned supreme. The sun was soon... more...

Stars (At Locheven)Have you walked in the woodsWhen twilight wraps a veil of mistAround the gray-green treesIn early spring?It is then the snow-white trilliumGleam like stars from the carpetOf last year’s leaves:And tall white violets glowLike clouds of nebulæ along the path.And flecked, like points of lightIn the quiet pools of waterAmong the gray-green boles,Are the stars of heaven. Curling and... more...

BLACKMAIL Half way along the north side of the main street of Highmarket an ancient stone gateway, imposing enough to suggest that it was originally the entrance to some castellated mansion or manor house, gave access to a square yard, flanked about by equally ancient buildings. What those buildings had been used for in other days was not obvious to the casual and careless observer, but to the least... more...

INTRODUCTION. A friend of M. de Marigny (the brother of Madame de Pompadour) called on him one day and found him burning papers. Taking up a large packet which he was going to throw into the fire "This," said he, "is the journal of a waiting-woman of my sister's. She was a very estimable person, but it is all gossip; to the fire with it!" He stopped, and added, "Don't you... more...

THE ENTANGLED MERMAID Long ago, in Dutch Fairy Land, there lived a young mermaid who was very proud of her good looks. She was one of a family of mere or lake folks dwelling not far from the sea. Her home was a great pool of water that was half salt and half fresh, for it lay around an island near the mouth of a river. Part of the day, when the sea tides were out, she splashed and played, dived and... more...

MAX AND MAURICE. PREFACE.Ah, how oft we read or hear ofBoys we almost stand in fear of!For example, take these storiesOf two youths, named Max and Maurice,Who, instead of early turningTheir young minds to useful learning,Often leered with horrid featuresAt their lessons and their teachers.Look now at the empty head: heIs for mischief always ready.Teasing creatures, climbing fences,Stealing apples,... more...

PREFACE The study of social hygiene means the study of those things which concern the welfare of human beings living in societies. There can, therefore, be no study more widely important or more generally interesting. I fear, however, that by many persons social hygiene is vaguely regarded either as a mere extension of sanitary science, or else as an effort to set up an intolerable bureaucracy to... more...

THE loves of famous men and women, especially of those connected with literature and the fine arts, have always excited much curiosity. In the majority of cases the poet's and artist's choice of a partner falls on a person who is incapable of comprehending his aims and sometimes even of sympathising with his striving. The question "why poets are so apt to choose their mates, not for any... more...

PREFACE. The two dramas,—PICCOLOMINI, or the first part of WALLENSTEIN, and the DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN, are introduced in the original manuscript by a prelude in one act, entitled WALLENSTEIN'S CAMP. This is written in rhyme, and in nine-syllable verse, in the same lilting metre (if that expression may be permitted), with the second Eclogue of Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar. This prelude... more...

CHAPTER i A JOURNEY. "Peace to the spirits of my honoured parents, respected be their remains, and immortalized their virtues! may time, while it moulders their frail relicks to dust, commit to tradition the record of their goodness; and Oh, may their orphan-descendant be influenced through life by the remembrance of their purity, and be solaced in death, that by her it was unsullied!" Such was... more...