"What's your name, boy?" The question came so suddenly that the boy nearly tumbled from the fence upon which he was perched, as Judge Barton stopped squarely in front of him, and waited for an answer. "Wilbert Fairlaw, sir," was the timid reply. "Go to school?" "No, sir." "Do any work?" "Yes, sir; I 'tend marm's cows and fetch wood."... more...

CHAPTER I. Early mass was being celebrated in the chapel attached to the royal summer palace. The palace stood on a slight eminence in the center of the park. The eastern slope of the hill had been planted with vineyards, and its crest was covered with mighty, towering beeches. The park abounded with maples, plane-trees and elms, with their rich foliage, and firs of various kinds, while the thick... more...

CHAPTER I. SERAPHITUS As the eye glances over a map of the coasts of Norway, can the imagination fail to marvel at their fantastic indentations and serrated edges, like a granite lace, against which the surges of the North Sea roar incessantly? Who has not dreamed of the majestic sights to be seen on those beachless shores, of that multitude of creeks and inlets and little bays, no two of them alike,... more...

Honore de Balzac is known to the world in general as a novel-writer, a producer of romances, in which begin the reign of realism in French fiction. His Comedie Humaine is a description of French society, as it existed from the time of the Revolution to that of the Restoration. In this series of stories we find the author engaged in analyzing the manners, motives and external life of the French man and... more...

THE NEGRO'S PART IN THE WAR By Professor Kelly Miller, the Well-Known Thinker and Writer. This treatise will set forth the black man's part in the world's war with the logical sequence of facts and the brilliant power of statement for which the author is famous. The mere announcement that the author of "Race Adjustment," "Out of the House of Bondage," and "The... more...

CHAPTER I The White Linen Nurse was so tired that her noble expression ached. Incidentally her head ached and her shoulders ached and her lungs ached and the ankle-bones of both feet ached quite excruciatingly. But nothing of her felt permanently incapacitated except her noble expression. Like a strip of lip-colored lead suspended from her poor little nose by two tugging wire-gray wrinkles her... more...

INTRODUCTION There is a sacred privacy in the life of a blind person. It is led apart from much of the ordinary work of the world, and is unaffected by many external incidents which help to make up the important events of other lives. It is passed in the shade and not in the open sunlight of eager activity. At first we should be disposed to say that such a life, with its inevitable restrictions and... more...

INTRODUCTION Emile Zola was born at Paris on 2nd April, 1840. His father, Francois Zola, was a man whose career up to that time had not been a success, though this was not due to any lack of energy or ability. Zola pere was of mixed nationality, his father being an Italian and his mother a Greek, and it is not unlikely that his unrest and want of concentration were due to the accident of his parentage.... more...

THE THREE KINGS OF COLOGNE. A CHRISTMAS TALE FROM AN OLD ENGLISH CHRONICLE. (Written by John of Hildesheim in the Fourteenth Century.) Here followeth the manner and form of seeking and offering; and also of the burying and translations of the three Holy and Worshipful Kings of Cologne: Jaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. Now when the Children of Israel were gone out of Egypt and had won and made subject... more...

Bimala's Story I MOTHER, today there comes back to mind the vermilion mark [1] at the parting of your hair, the __sari__ [2] which you used to wear, with its wide red border, and those wonderful eyes of yours, full of depth and peace. They came at the start of my life's journey, like the first streak of dawn, giving me golden provision to carry me on my way. The sky which gives light is blue,... more...