CHAPTER I. FIRST AND LAST STEP. Since my conversion from a dancing master and a servant of the "Evil One" to an earnest Christian and a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, the question has been repeatedly asked me: "Is there any harm in dancing?" And letters innumerable have been coming in with questions to the same effect. The more I mingle with people outside the dancing circle the more... more...

Chapter One Nothing could have been more painful to my sensitiveness than to occupy myself, confused with blushes, at the center of the whole world as a living advertisement of the least amusing ballet in Paris. To be the day's sensation of the boulevards one must possess an eccentricity of appearance conceived by nothing short of genius; and my misfortunes had reduced me to present such to all... more...

I. ON LANDSEER'S CHARACTER AS AN ARTIST. If the popularity of a painter were the measure of his artistic greatness, Sir Edwin Landseer's would be among the foremost of the world's great names. At the height of his career probably no other living painter was so familiar and so well beloved throughout the English-speaking world. There were many homes in England and America where his... more...

PREFACE. APPEARING before the Public as a translator of the Oracles of God, it would ill become me to deprecate the severity of criticism, when I most cordially desire the intelligent and learned of my brethren to point out my mistakes for correction, and, in love and in the spirit of meekness, to smite me friendly. Should, however, the shafts of malignity, and the weapons not of our warfare, be... more...

PREFACE. The present volume contains two curious documents concerning Dr. Dee, the eminent philosopher of Mortlake, now for the first time published from the original manuscripts. I. His Private Diary, written in a very small illegible hand on the margins of old Almanacs, discovered a few years ago by Mr. W. H. Black, in the library of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. II. A Catalogue of his Library... more...

SAKUNTALA or THE LOST RING. In ancient days, there was a mighty king of the Lunar dynasty by name Dushyanta. He was the king of Hastinapur. He once goes out a-hunting and in the pursuit of a deer comes near the hermitage of the sage Kanwa, the chief of the hermits, where some anchorites request him not to kill the deer. The king feels thirsty and was seeking water when he saw certain maidens of the... more...

COWBOY YARNS The centipede runs across my head, The vinegaroon crawls in my bed, Tarantulas jump and scorpions play, The broncs are grazing far away, The rattlesnake gives his warning cry, And the coyotes sing their lullaby, While I sleep soundly beneath the sky. OUT WHERE THE WEST BEGINSOUT where the handclasp's a little stronger,Out where the smile dwells a little longer,That's where the... more...

I am B-12, a metal person. If you read and the other progressive journals you will know that in some quarters of the galaxy there is considerable prejudice directed against us. It is ever so with minority races, and I do not complain. I merely make this statement so that you will understand about the alarm clock. An alarm clock is a simple mechanism used by the Builders to shock themselves into... more...

THE STORY OF THE TWO FRIARS BY EUGENE FIELD It befell in the year 1662, in which same year were many witchcrafts and sorceries, such as never before had been seen and the like of which will never again, by grace of Heaven, afflict mankind—in this year it befell that the devil came upon earth to tempt an holy friar, named Friar Gonsol, being strictly minded to win that righteous vessel of piety unto... more...

Chapter I. Christmas Eve. It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve, sinking towards the night. All day long the wintry light had been diluted with fog, and now the vanguard of the darkness coming to aid the mist, the dying day was well nigh smothered between them. When I looked through the window, it was into a vague and dim solidification of space, a mysterious region in which awful things might be going... more...