ACT I The SCENE is the Italian Room in ROSCOE CROSBY'S Home in New York. It is a handsome room. A plan of the setting will be found at the end of the play. As the curtain rises Miss HELEN O'NEILL and WILLIAM CROSBY are discovered standing R.C. They are in each other's arms, and the rising curtain discloses them as they kiss. The window blinds are drawn. HELEN. I love you so. WILLIAM. You... more...

A PLEA FOR HUMOR More than half a dozen years have passed since Mr. Andrew Lang, startled for once out of his customary light-heartedness, asked himself, and his readers, and the ghost of Charles Dickens—all three powerless to answer—whether the dismal seriousness of the present day was going to last forever; or whether, when the great wave of earnestness had rippled over our heads, we would pluck... more...

CHAPTER I The Man Himself 1 Hark, Hark! The giant’s ponderous hammer rings on the anvil of destiny. Enter, thou massive figure, Bismarck, and in deadly earnest take thy place before Time’s forge. ¶ It is, it must be, a large story—big with destiny! The details often bore with their monotony; they do not at all times march on; they drag, but they do indeed never halt permanently; ahead always is... more...

Along one of the most precipitous of the many Rocky Mountain trails a man and a woman climbed slowly one spring morning. The air was cold, and farther up the mountains little patches of snow lay here and there in the hollows. Two or three miles below them nestled one of the most famous pleasure resorts of the entire region. Three or four times as distant lay the nearest town of any importance. Over the... more...

CHAPTER I. REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was signed by Louis XIV. of France, on the 18th of October, 1685, and published four days afterwards. Although the Revocation was the personal act of the King, it was nevertheless a popular measure, approved by the Catholic Church of France, and by the great body of the French people. The King had solemnly sworn, at the... more...

CHAPTER I A long level of dull gray that further away became a faint blue, with here and there darker patches that looked like water. At times an open space, blackened and burnt in an irregular circle, with a shred of newspaper, an old rag, or broken tin can lying in the ashes. Beyond these always a low dark line that seemed to sink into the ground at night, and rose again in the morning with the first... more...

HOW TWO LAY IN A CLEFT A girl and a boy lay in a cubby-hole in the north side of the cliff overlooking Port Gorey, and watched the goings-on down below. The sun was tending towards Guernsey and the gulf was filled witn golden light. A small brig, unkempt and dirty, was nosing towards the rough wooden landing-stage clamped to the opposite rocks, as though doubtful of the advisability of attempting its... more...

CHAPTER FIRST CULTURE: ITS NECESSITY TO A YOUNG PRIEST If you question any priest of experience and observation who has lived on the foreign mission, and ask him what constitutes the greatest drawbacks, what seriously impedes the efficiency of our young priests abroad, without hesitation he will answer—First, want of social culture; and, secondly, a defective English education. To the first of these... more...

DEAR SIR,—I have received your letter of the 27th instant, and beg to reply that there cannot be the least objection to your sending a copy of your work, with the autograph addition; and that if you will send it to me, I will present it to His Majesty. I do not presume you wish to apply for permission to dedicate the work to His Majesty, which is not usually given for work of fiction. I remain, Dear... more...

CHAPTER I The day had opened so brightly, in such a welcome wave of April sunshine, that by mid-afternoon there were two hundred players scattered over the links of the Long Island Country Club at Belvedere Bay; the men in thick plaid stockings and loose striped sweaters, the women's scarlet coats and white skirts making splashes of vivid color against the fresh green of grass and the thick... more...