The Postage Stamp follows the Flag. The same small talisman which passes our letters across the seven seas to friends the world over maintains the lines of personal communication with our soldiers and sailors in time of war. Wherever the British Tommy goes he must have his letters from home; like the lines of communication, which are the life-line of the army, postal communication is the chief support... more...

MOZART The composer whom we call WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART was called Wolferl when he was a little boy. He had a sister, MARIA ANNA, who was called NANNERL. Nannerl was five years older than her brother. She had lessons from her father on a kind of piano called a harpsichord. Here is a picture of one. MOZART'S HARPSICHORD When Wolferl was three years old he used to listen to Nannerl's playing.... more...

CHAPTER I BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN The subject of this memoir is revered by multitudes of his countrymen as the preserver of their commonwealth. This reverence has grown with the lapse of time and the accumulation of evidence. It is blended with a peculiar affection, seldom bestowed upon the memory of statesmen. It is shared to-day by many who remember with no less affection how their own fathers fought... more...

The Talking Thrush  CERTAIN man had a garden, and in his garden he sowed cotton seeds. By-and-by the cotton seeds grew up into a cotton bush, with big brown pods upon it. These pods burst open when they are ripe; and you can see the fluffy white cotton bulging all white out of the pods. There was a Thrush in this garden, and the Thrush thought within herself how nice and soft the cotton looked. She... more...

BOOK-WORSHIP.   A book belongs in a peculiar manner to the age and nation that produce it. It is an emanation of the thought of the time; and if it survive to an after-time, it remains as a landmark of the progress of the imagination or the intellect. Some books do even more than this: they press forward to the future age, and make appeals to its maturer genius; but in so doing they still belong to... more...

CHAPTER I THE LITTLE FURRY ONES THAT SLIDE DOWN HILL In the brown, balsam-smelling log cabin on the shores of Silverwater, loveliest and loneliest of wilderness lakes, the Babe's great thirst for information seemed in a fair way to be satisfied. Young as he was, and city-born, the lure of the wild had nevertheless already caught him, and the information that he thirsted for so insatiably was all... more...

he cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before... more...

Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other indomitable huntresses of erudition. The Lunch Club, after three or four winters of lunching and debate, had acquired such local distinction that the entertainment of distinguished strangers became... more...

My dear ————, On a bright afternoon in summer, when we stand on the high ground above Saint Andrew's, and look seaward for the Inchcape Rock, we can discern at first nothing at all, and then, if the day favours us, an occasional speck of whiteness, lasting no longer than the wave that is reflecting a ray of sunlight upwards against the indistinguishable tower. But if we were to climb the... more...

INTRODUCTION THOMAS DEKKER Thomas Dekker is believed to have been born in London around 1572, but nothing is known for certain about his youth. He embarked on a career as a theatre writer early in his adult life, the first extant text of his work being 'Old Fortunatus' written around 1596, although there are plays connected with his name which were performed as early as 1594. The period from... more...