It is generally conceded that the Grand Cañon of Arizona beggars description. I shall therefore endeavor to refrain from doing so. I realize that this is going to be a considerable contract. Nearly everybody, on taking a first look at the Grand Cañon, comes right out and admits its wonders are absolutely indescribable—and then proceeds to write anywhere from two thousand to fifty thousand words,... more...

PREFACE I ventured to express the opinion in my book, 'With General French and the Cavalry in South Africa,' that if a high ideal of the duties and possibilities of Cavalry is set before our officers, and the means of instruction and training are placed within their reach, we shall possess in our next great War a force which, if led by men of the stamp of General Sir John French, will prove... more...

CHAPTER I. THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW. How many of us, I wonder, can look back over the misty, half-forgotten years and not see a few that stand out clear and golden, sharp-cut against the sky-line of memory? Years that we wish we could live again, so that we might revel in every full-blooded hour. For we so seldom get the proper focus on things until we look at them through the clarifying telescope of... more...

PROLOGUE Overture; forest sounds, roaring of lions, Christian hymn faintly. A jungle path. A lion's roar, a melancholy suffering roar, comes from the jungle. It is repeated nearer. The lion limps from the jungle on three legs, holding up his right forepaw, in which a huge thorn sticks. He sits down and contemplates it. He licks it. He shakes it. He tries to extract it by scraping it along the... more...

The decade of the nineties in League history bids fair to surpass, in exciting events, that of every preceding series of years known in the annals of professional base ball. The decade in question began with the players' revolt in 1890 and was followed up by the secession of the old American Association, a fatal movement, which ended in the death of that organization in the winter of 1891-92; the... more...

HANSEL AND GRETEL In a little cottage at the edge of a forest in Germany, lived Peter, a poor broom maker, and his wife Gertrude. They had two children, Hansel and Gretel. One day Hansel and Gretel were left alone at home. Their father had gone to the village to sell brooms. Their mother was away, too. The children were left busily at work. The boy was mending brooms, the girl knitting stockings. After... more...

FROM DAY TO DAY. (A Study in Political Journalism, from some of the Morning Papers.) No. I. To-day, the first pollings of the General Election take place, and the electors will be called upon to decide one of the most momentous issues that have ever been submitted to the judgment of the country. For ourselves, we cannot doubt for a moment as to what the verdict will be. It is impossible that a policy... more...

INTRODUCTION. Since the issue of my "Studies and Illustrations of Mushrooms," as Bulletins 138 and 168 of the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, there have been so many inquiries for them and for literature dealing with a larger number of species, it seemed desirable to publish in book form a selection from the number of illustrations of these plants which I have accumulated... more...

AN EASTER ADMISSION This is not, strictly speaking, an Easter tale, nor a love story. It is merely the truthful account of certain incidents of a love affair culminating one Easter Day. It may be relied upon. I am familiar with the facts, and I want to say here that if there be any one who thinks he could relate similar facts more exactly—I will admit that he might do the relation in much... more...

"THEY were all gone now, The Masters, all dead and their atoms scattered to the never ceasing winds that swept the great crysolite city towers in ever increasing fury. That had been the last wish of each as he had passed away, dying from sheer old age. True they had fought on as long as they could to save their kind from utter extinction but the comet that had trailed its poisoning wake across... more...