PREFACE. To Mayall the Valley of the Mohawk was a land where flowers bloomed, where one fair girl flitted about through green glades and virgin forests, and lifted his mind to the supernatural, and he seemed to listen to the voice of seraphs. Then sweet memory brought him again to the morning of life, and he stood by his mother's knee, and leaned upon the cradle where he was rocked to soothe his... more...

THE FIVE GIANTS. When I was a boy, few things pleased me better than to hear a tale about a giant. Silly and untrue as were the stories that I heard, they vastly delighted me; but were you now to ask what information they gave me, or what good I gathered from them, sadly should I be at fault for a reply. But if a tale about giants, that was not true, and that added nothing to my knowledge, amused me,... more...

When I was honoured by the invitation to deliver this course of lectures, I did not accept without some hesitation. I am not qualified to speak with authority upon such subjects as have been treated by my predecessors—the course of political events or the growth of legal institutions. My attention has been chiefly paid to the history of literature, and it might be doubtful whether that study is... more...

November 17th, 1920. It is rumoured that a gentleman who purchased a miniature two-seater car at the Motor Show last week arrived home one night to find the cat playing with it on the mat. It appears that nothing definite has yet been decided as to whether The Daily Mail will publish a Continental edition of the Sandringham Hat. The matter having passed out of the hands of D.O.R.A., the Westminster... more...

MIXED NOTIONS. No. 1.—BI-METALLISM. Scene—A Railway-carriage in a suburban morning train to London. There are four Passengers, two of whom are well-informed men, while the third is an inquirer, and the fourth an average man. They travel up to London together every morning by the same train. The two Well-informed Men and the Average Man are City men; the Inquirer is a young Solicitor. They have just... more...

The American transatlantic tourist, after a week or more spent upon the ocean, is usually glad to again see the land. After skirting the bold Irish coast, and peeping into the pretty cove of Cork, with Queenstown in the background, and passing the rocky headlands of Wales, the steamer that brings him from America carefully enters the Mersey River. The shores are low but picturesque as the tourist moves... more...

THE THREE TABERNACLES And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. MARK ix. 5. Caught up in glory and in rapture, the Apostle seems to have forgotten the world from which he had ascended, and to which he still belonged, and to have craved permanent shelter and extatic communion within... more...

Who shot the Dog? A shot! a yell! silence! Such, as soon as I could collect myself sufficiently to form an idea at all, were my midnight sensations as I sat up in my bed, with my chin on my knees, my hair on end, my body bedewed with cold perspiration, and my limbs trembling from the tips of my fingers to the points of my toes. I had been peacefully dreaming—something about an automatic machine into... more...

BIRTHPLACE OF LOCKE. At the village of Wrington, in Somersetshire, in a cottage by the churchyard, was born JOHN LOCKE. What a simple, unostentatious record is this of him whom the biographers call “one of the most eminent philosophers and valuable writers of his age and country.” Yet the cottage is not preserved with any special care;—there is nothing about it to denote that within its walls the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE IDEAS AND SOURCES OF MYTH. Myth, as it is understood by us, and as It will be developed and explained in this work, cannot be defined in summary terms, since its multiform and comprehensive nature embraces and includes all primitive action, as well as much which is consecutive and historical in the intelligence and feelings of man, with respect to the immediate and the reflex... more...