CHAPTER I THE GLADWYNE EXPEDITION Vernon Lisle was fishing with a determination that did not spring altogether from love of the sport. The water of the British Columbian river in which he stood knee-deep was icy cold; his rubber boots were badly ripped and leaky, and he was wet with the drizzle that drove down the lonely valley. It was difficult to reach the slack behind a boulder some distance... more...

Proem Profiles from China The Hand As you sit so, in the firelight, your hand is the color of    new bronze.I cannot take my eyes from your hand;In it, as in a microcosm, the vast and shadowy Orient    is made visible.Who shall read me your hand? You are a large man, yet it is small and narrow, like the    hand of a woman and the paw of a chimpanzee.It is supple and boneless as the hands... more...

PREFACE. If any one, taking up this book casually, should wonder why it was written, it may suffice to observe that "Gettysburg" is probably destined to mark an Epoch of the Republic;—as being one of the very few decisive battles of the Great Rebellion. Accordingly, whosoever took any part in it may hope to share its immortality of glory. But, says one, the militia were not engaged in the... more...

INTRODUCTION"... Argentea proles,Auro deterior, fulvo pretiosior aere."(Ovid)Succeeding times a silver age beholdExcelling brass, but more excelled by Gold. Hessiod, in his celebrated distribution of mankind, divides the species into three orders of intellect. "The first place," says he, "belongs to him who can, by his own powers, discern what is fit and right, and penetrate to the... more...

INTRODUCTION. "I have the feeling that every man's biography is at his own expense. He furnishes not only the facts, but the report. I mean that all biography is autobiography. It is only what he tells of himself that comes to be known and believed." So writes the man whose life we are to pass in review, and it is certainly as true of him as of any author we could name. He delineates... more...

Chapter I INTRODUCTORY.1. Plan of the Monograph.2. The Rise of the English Slave-Trade.1. Plan of the Monograph. This monograph proposes to set forth the efforts made in the United States of America, from early colonial times until the present, to limit and suppress the trade in slaves between Africa and these shores. The study begins with the colonial period, setting forth in brief the attitude of... more...

MORGAN'S EXPOSE OF FREEMASONRY. Ceremonies of Opening a Lodge of Entered Apprentice Masons. One rap calls the Lodge to order; one calls up the Junior and Senior Deacons; two raps call up the subordinate officers; and three, all the members of the Lodge. The Master having called the Lodge to order, and the officers all seated, the Master says to the Junior Warden, "Brother Junior, are they all... more...

I While travelling through the classic realms of Greece some years ago, sincerely desirous of discovering the lurking-place of a certain war which the newspapers of my own country were describing with some vividness, I chanced upon the base of the far-famed Mount Olympus. Night was coming on apace and I was tired, having been led during the day upon a wild-goose chase by my guide, who had assured me... more...

Under normal conditions a whole person has a decided advantage over a handicapped one. But out in deep space the normal may be reversed—for humans at any rate. Steena of the spaceways—that sounds just like a corny title for one of the Stellar-Vedo spreads. I ought to know, I’ve tried my hand at writing enough of them. Only this Steena was no glamour babe. She was as colorless as a Lunar... more...

INTRODUCTION No character in our literature, not even Mr. Pickwick, has more endeared himself to successive generations of readers than Addison’s Sir Roger de Coverley: there are many figures in drama and fiction of whom we feel that they are in a way personal friends of our own, that once introduced to us they remain a permanent part of our little world. It is the abiding glory of Dickens, it is one... more...