Of the many masterpieces which classical antiquity has bequeathed to modern times, few have attained, at intervals, to such popularity; few have so gripped the interest of scholars and men of letters, as has this scintillating miscellany known as the Satyricon, ascribed by tradition to that Petronius who, at the court of Nero, acted as arbiter of elegance and dictator of fashion. The flashing, wit, the... more...

WHAT PAUL BOURGET THINKS OF US He reports the American joke correctly. In Boston they ask, How much does he know? in New York, How much is he worth? in Philadelphia, Who were his parents? And when an alien observer turns his telescope upon us—advertisedly in our own special interest—a natural apprehension moves us to ask, What is the diameter of his reflector? I take a great interest in M.... more...

CHAPTER I: DISCUSSION AND BED Up at the League, says a friend, there had been one night a brisk conversational discussion, as to what would happen on the Morrow of the Revolution, finally shading off into a vigorous statement by various friends of their views on the future of the fully-developed new society. Says our friend: Considering the subject, the discussion was good-tempered; for those present... more...

CHAPTER I Long, long ago there lived far away in India a woodcutter called Subha Datta and his family, who were all very happy together. The father went every day to the forest near his home to get supplies of wood, which he sold to his neighbours, earning by that means quite enough to give his wife and children all that they needed. Sometimes he took his three boys with him, and now and then, as a... more...

CHAPTER I HOW IT CAME ABOUT Two men were sitting in the smoking-room of a London club. The room was almost empty, and as they occupied arm-chairs in one corner of it, they were able to talk freely without fear of being overheard. One of them was a man of sixty, the other some five or six and twenty. "I must do something," the younger man said, "for I have been kicking my heels about London... more...

HOW MR. CHOKEPEAR KEEPS A MERRY CHRISTMAS. Mr. CHOKEPEAR is, to the finger-nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews; and, as a proof of his devotion to the... more...

THE DEVIL CHAPTER I Herman Hofmann, the wealthy banker, and his beautiful young wife, Olga, had as their guest at dinner Karl Mahler, an artist. Some years earlier, before Hofmann married, Mahler, befriended by his family, had been sent away to Paris to study art. Olga, at that time a dependent ward in the Hofmann family, and the poor young art student loved each other with the sweet, pure affection of... more...

"I'm desperately afear'd, Sue, that that brother of thine will turn out a jackanapes," was the apostrophe of the good yeoman Michael Howe, to his pretty daughter Susan, as they were walking one fine afternoon in harvest through some narrow and richly wooded lanes, which wound between the crofts of his farm of Rutherford West, situate in that out-of-the-way part of Berkshire which is... more...

1 It was the first Saturday afternoon in August; it had been broiling hot all day, with a cloudless sky, and the sun had been beating down on the houses, so that the top rooms were like ovens; but now with the approach of evening it was cooler, and everyone in Vere Street was out of doors. Vere street, Lambeth, is a short, straight street leading out of the Westminster Bridge Road; it has forty houses... more...

The History of Company C is properly connected with the history of Oberlin College, the Alma Mater of its organization. The majority of its members were proud to be known as the exponents of the generous, Christian principles, there so fearlessly uttered and so zealously inculcated. The founders of Oberlin were pledged to the general law of benevolence. All known forms of virtue were cheerfully... more...