"Unexpected obstacle. Please don't come till thirtieth. Anna." All the way from Charing Cross to Dover the train had hammered the words of the telegram into George Darrow's ears, ringing every change of irony on its commonplace syllables: rattling them out like a discharge of musketry, letting them, one by one, drip slowly and coldly into his brain, or shaking, tossing, transposing... more...

INTRODUCTION When Edward J. O'Brien asked me to cooperate with him in choosing each year's best English short stories, to be published as a companion volume to his annual selection of the best American short stories, I had not realized that at the end of my arduous task, which has involved the reading of many hundreds of stories in the English magazines of an entire year, I should find myself... more...

INTRODUCTION Pío Baroja is a product of the intellectual reign of terror that went on in Spain after the catastrophe of 1898. That catastrophe, of course, was anything but unforeseen. The national literature, for a good many years before the event, had been made dismal by the croaking of Iokanaans, and there was a definite défaitiste party among the intelligentsia. But among the people in... more...

EVA Suggested by Mrs. Stowe's tale of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and written when the characters in the tale were realities by the fireside of countless American homes. Dry the tears for holy Eva,With the blessed angels leave her;Of the form so soft and fairGive to earth the tender care. For the golden locks of EvaLet the sunny south-land give herFlowery pillow of repose,Orange-bloom and budding... more...

Southern Aids To The North. Perhaps the most difficult question at present before the American people is that so often and so insolently put by Southern journals, and so ignorantly babbled in weak imitation of them by English newspapers, asking what, after all, in case of a victory, or even of many victories, can we do with the revolted provinces? The British press, prompt to put the worst construction... more...

CHAPTER I The blind Basket-maker and his family. It was a winter's day, and piercing cold; very few pedestrians were to be seen in Boston, and those few were carefully enveloped in warm cloak and great coats, for the weather was of that intense kind that chills the blood and penetrates to the very bone. Even Washington street—that great avenue of wealth and promenade of fashion, usually thronged... more...

DEAR TOM—Allow me to request you to introduce Mr. Peter Bell to the respectable family of the Fudges. Although he may fall short of those very considerable personages in the more active properties which characterize the Rat and the Apostate, I suspect that even you, their historian, will confess that he surpasses them in the more peculiarly legitimate qualification of intolerable dulness. You know... more...

Young Mrs. Herbert Cary picked up her work basket and slowly crossed the grass to a shady bench underneath the trees. She must go on with her task of planning a dress for Virgie. But the prospect of making her daughter something wearable out of the odds and ends of nothing was not a happy one. In fact, she was still poking through her basket and frowning thoughtfully when a childish voice came to her... more...

Chapter I An Appeal For Aid Tom Swift stepped from the door of the machine shop, where he was at work making some adjustments to the motor of his airship, and glanced down the road. He saw a cloud of dust, which effectually concealed whatever was causing it. "Some one must be in a hurry this morning," the lad remarked, "Looks like a motor speeding along. My! but we certainly do need... more...

Belgian and Arab Lieutenant Albert Werper had only the prestige of the name he had dishonored to thank for his narrow escape from being cashiered. At first he had been humbly thankful, too, that they had sent him to this Godforsaken Congo post instead of court-martialing him, as he had so justly deserved; but now six months of the monotony, the frightful isolation and the loneliness had wrought a... more...