CHAPTER I EVENING IN GLENAVELIN From the heart of a great hill land Glenavelin stretches west and south to the wider Gled valley, where its stream joins with the greater water in its seaward course. Its head is far inland in a place of mountain solitudes, but its mouth is all but on the lip of the sea, and salt breezes fight with the flying winds of the hills. It is a land of green meadows on the brink... more...

I. GENOA I The traveller who on his way to Italy passes along the Riviera di Ponente, through Marseilles, Nice, and Mentone to Ventimiglia, or crossing the Alps touches Italian soil, though scarcely Italy indeed, at Turin, on coming to Genoa finds himself really at last in the South, the true South, of which Genoa la Superba is the gate, her narrow streets, the various life of her port, her picturesque... more...

Gentlemen of the Canadian Club:—Your president has asked me to address you this afternoon in the English language. It is with great pleasure that I received this invitation and that I avail myself of the privilege of speaking to you in that language with regard to the very troublesome, somewhat distorted, and certainly much misrepresented school question in your sister province. First of all, I wish... more...

When he could stand it no longer, he fired a revolver up through the roof of his mouth, but he made a mess of it. The ball tore out his left eye, and then lodged somewhere under his skull, so they bundled him into an ambulance and carried him, cursing and screaming, to the nearest field hospital. The journey was made in double-quick time, over rough Belgian roads. To save his life, he must reach the... more...

THE BOY THE ELF Sunday, March twentieth. Once there was a boy. He was—let us say—something like fourteen years old; long and loose-jointed and towheaded. He wasn't good for much, that boy. His chief delight was to eat and sleep; and after that—he liked best to make mischief. It was a Sunday morning and the boy's parents were getting ready to go to church. The boy sat on the edge of the... more...

CHAPTER I Value of Scientific Knowledge.—In the practice of any intelligent occupation or art, in so far as the practice attains to perfection, there are manifested in the processes certain scientific principles and methods to which the work of the one practising the art conforms. In the successful practice, for example, of the art of composition, there are manifested the principles of rhetoric; in... more...

THE USE OF IRON IN FORTIFICATION. Roumania is thinking of protecting a portion of the artillery of the forts surrounding her capital by metallic cupolas. But, before deciding upon the mode of constructing these formidable and costly affairs, and before ordering them, she has desired to ascertain their efficacy and the respective merits of the chilled iron armor which was recently in fashion and of... more...

MOTHER When handsome young Richard Field—he was very handsome and very young—announced to our assembled company that if his turn should really come to tell us a story, the story should be no invention of his fancy, but a page of truth, a chapter from his own life, in which himself was the hero and a lovely, innocent girl was the heroine, his wife at once looked extremely uncomfortable. She changed... more...

WHAT THE ANIMALS DO AND SAY. "Could you not tell us a traveller's story of some strange people that we have never heard of before?" said Harry to his mother, the next evening. After a moment or two of thought, Mis. Chilton said, "Yes, I will tell you about a people who are great travellers. They take journeys every year of their lives. They dislike cold weather so much that they go... more...

FOREWORD There are two immortal imbecilities that I have no patience for. The other one is the treatment of little towns as if they were essentially different from big towns. Cities are not "Ninevehs" and "Babylons" any more than little towns are Arcadias or Utopias. In fact we are now unearthing plentiful evidence of what might have been safely assumed, that Babylon never was a... more...