ESSAYS ON ART "The Adoration of the Magi" There is one beauty of nature and another of art, and many attempts have been made to explain the difference between them. Signor Croce's theory, now much in favour, is that nature provides only the raw material for art. The beginning of the artistic process is the perception of beauty in nature; but an artist does not see beauty as he sees a cow.... more...

JOSEPH CONRAD "Under all his stories there ebbs and flows a kind of tempered melancholy, a sense of seeking and not finding...." I take the words from a little book on Joseph Conrad by Wilson Follett, privately printed, and now, I believe, out of print. They define both the mood of the stories as works of art and their burden and direction as criticisms of life. Like Dreiser, Conrad is forever... more...

CERTAIN PERSONAL MATTERS THOUGHTS ON CHEAPNESS AND MY AUNT CHARLOTTE The world mends. In my younger days people believed in mahogany; some of my readers will remember it—a heavy, shining substance, having a singularly close resemblance to raw liver, exceedingly heavy to move, and esteemed on one or other count the noblest of all woods. Such of us as were very poor and had no mahogany pretended to... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                                NOVEMBER                                  1668 November 1st (Lord's day). Up, and with W. Hewer at my chamber all this morning, going further in my great business for the Duke of York, and so at noon to dinner, and then W. Hewer... more...

Many pens have been burnished this year of grace for the purpose of celebrating with befitting honour the second centenary of the birth of Henry Fielding; but it is more than doubtful if, when the right date occurs in March 1921, anything like the same alacrity will be shown to commemorate one who was for many years, and by such judges as Scott, Hazlitt, and Charles Dickens, considered Fielding's... more...

PREFACE Adequately to write the history of the woman of any race would mean the writing of the history of the nation itself. There is no phase of the cultural life of any people that is not founded upon the physical and moral nature of its women. On the other hand, mental and moral heredity, both through paternity and maternity, determines the character and innermost being of woman. If we knew all the... more...

SEPTEMBER 2, 1914. Reports still continue to come in as to the outbursts of rage which took place in Germany when the news of our participation in the War reached that country. Seeing that we had merely been asked to allow our friends to be robbed and murdered, our interference is looked upon as peculiarly gratuitous. We hear, by the way, that the Germans, who hold Kiao-chau on a long lease, appealed... more...

PREFACE. In giving this book to the public we do so under the same plea which justifies those pleasant gatherings called "reunions," where men of the same regiment, corps, or army, meet to extend friendly greetings to each other, to friends, and all comrades in arms. The writer has found it a pleasant task to recall the scenes of fifteen years ago, when, a mere boy in years, he had a part in... more...

Eulalia. God spede, & a thousand mine old acqueintāce. xantippa. xan. As many agayn, my dere hert. Eulalia. me semets ye ar warē much faire now of late. Eula. Saye you so? gyue you me a mocke at the first dash. xan. Nay veryly but I take you so. Eula. Happely mi new gown maketh me to loke fayrer then I sholde doe. xan. Sothe you saye, I haue not sene a mynioner... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Social organisation. Associations in the lower stages of culture. Consanguinity and Kinship. The Tribe. Kinship groups; totem kins; phratries. The passage from what is commonly termed savagery through barbarism to civilisation is marked by a change in the character of the associations which are almost everywhere a feature of human society. In the lower stages of culture, save... more...