BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. There comes a time in the career of every man of genius who has devoted a long life to the instruction and enlightenment of his fellow-creatures, when he receives before his death all the honours paid by posterity. Thus when a great essayist or historian lives to attain a classic and world-wide fame, his own biography becomes as interesting to the public as those he himself... more...

About the middle of the Miocene period, as well as I can now remember (for I made no note of the precise date at the moment), my islands first appeared above the stormy sheet of the North-West Atlantic as a little rising group of mountain tops, capping a broad boss of submarine volcanoes. My attention was originally called to the new archipelago by a brother investigator of my own aerial race, who... more...

VII On the following day as Pierre, after a long ramble, once more found himself in front of the Vatican, whither a harassing attraction ever led him, he again encountered Monsignor Nani. It was a Wednesday evening, and the Assessor of the Holy Office had just come from his weekly audience with the Pope, whom he had acquainted with the proceedings of the Congregation at its meeting that morning.... more...

COUNCIL OF DOGS.Why aCouncilofDogswas convened on the Plain,ThePresident Sheep Dogthus rose to explain.—"This meeting I call, to complain of misusageFrom the poets, who now a days have a strange usageOf leading up Insects and Birds to Parnassus,While, without rhyme or reason, unnotic'd they pass us.—Declare then those talents by which we may claimSome pretensions, I hope, to poetical... more...

THE UNCANNY UNDER FIRE "Do you think there is anything in it?" He was a clean-set six-foot specimen of English manhood, an officer of the R.F.A. wounded at Mons, who spoke. "I mean I haven't studied these subjects much—in fact, I haven't studied them at all. Sport is more in my line than spiritualism and that kind of thing, but when you have experiences brought under your very... more...

A SELECTION FROM THE LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE. MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS OF WALES—VERY LIVELY.[1] [Footnote 1: This letter, written before he was nineteen, is worth noticing as a proof how innate was his liveliness of style, since in that respect few of the productions of his maturer age surpasses it. It also shows how strong already was his expectations that his letters would hereafter be regarded... more...

CHAPTER I—THE DWELLINGS OF MID-MARK The tale tells that in times long past there was a dwelling of men beside a great wood.  Before it lay a plain, not very great, but which was, as it were, an isle in the sea of woodland, since even when you stood on the flat ground, you could see trees everywhere in the offing, though as for hills, you could scarce say that there were any; only swellings-up of the... more...

We may believe in the doctrine of Progress or we may not, but in either case it is a matter of interest to examine the origins and trace the history of what is now, even should it ultimately prove to be no more than an idolum saeculi, the animating and controlling idea of western civilisation. For the earthly Progress of humanity is the general test to which social aims and theories are submitted as a... more...

Rutherford B. Hayes Rutherford B. Hayes was born in Delaware: Ohio, October 4, 1822. His father had died in July, 1822, leaving his mother in modest circumstances. He attended the common schools, and began early the study of Latin and Greek with Judge Sherman Finch, of Delaware. Prepared for college at an academy at Norwalk, Ohio, and at a school in Middletown, Conn. In the autumn of 1838 entered... more...

PROLOGUE Several years had elapsed since I had found the opportunity to do any big-game hunting; for at last I had my plans almost perfected for a return to my old stamping-grounds in northern Africa, where in other days I had had excellent sport in pursuit of the king of beasts. The date of my departure had been set; I was to leave in two weeks. No schoolboy counting the lagging hours that must pass... more...