INTRODUCTION A man, so it has been said, is distinguished from the creatures beneath him by his power to ask a question. To which we may add that one man is distinguished from another by the kind of question that he asks. A man is to be measured by the size of his question. Small men ask small questions: of here and now; of to-day and to-morrow and the next day; of how they may quickest fill their... more...

THE PREFACE Since this little book appeared in print, it has had no less than three answers, and fresh attacks are daily expected from the powers of Grub-street; but should threescore antagonists more arise, unless they say more to the purpose than the forementioned, they shall not tempt me to reply. Nor shall I engage in a paper war, but leave my book to answer for itself, having advanced nothing... more...

CHAPTER I—THE FEUDAL AGE It is a very common thing now-a-days to meet people who are going to "China," which can be reached by the Siberian railway in fourteen or fifteen days. This brings us at once to the question—What is meant by the term China? Taken in its widest sense, the term includes Mongolia, Manchuria, Eastern Turkestan, Tibet, and the Eighteen Provinces, the whole being... more...

GOING SHOPPING A lively game of "talk and touch." The company is seated in a circle, and one who understands the game commences by saying to his neighbor at the right: "I have been shopping." "What did you buy?" is the required response. "A dress," "a book," "some flowers," "a pencil"—whatever the first speaker wishes, provided always that he... more...

One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away. A mist of fine snowflakes was curling and eddying about the cluster of low drab buildings huddled on the gray prairie, under a gray sky. The dwelling-houses were set about haphazard on the tough prairie sod; some of them looked as if they had been moved in overnight,... more...

Her red-blond hair was stained and discolored when they found her in the sewer, and her lungs were choked with muck because her killer hadn't bothered to see whether she was really dead when he dumped her body into the manhole, so she had breathed the stuff in with her last gasping breaths. Her face was bruised, covered with great blotches, and three of her ribs had been broken. Her thighs and... more...

The cool green disk of Alphard Six on the screen was infinitely welcome after the arid desolation and stinking swamplands of the inner planets, an airy jewel of a world that might have been designed specifically for the hard-earned month of rest ahead. Navigator Farrell, youngest and certainly most impulsive of the three-man Terran Reclamations crew, would have set the Marco Four down at once but for... more...

CHAPTER I THE HUNTER "Dick, why do you study Arabic so closely?" "To understand Arabic." "And further?" Dick Compton closed his book and placed it carefully in a leather case. "It is a pity you were born curious, Venning, otherwise you would have made an excellent companion for a studious man. 'Why do I wish to understand Arabic?' Why do you stand on one leg... more...

When observing the spectrum formed by looking at a long vertical slit through a simple prism, I noticed an elongated dark spot running up and down in the blue, and following the motion of the eye as it moved up and down the spectrum, but refusing to pass out of the blue into the other colours. It was plain that the spot belonged both to the eye and to the blue part of the spectrum. The result to which... more...

LITTLE BO-PEEP. Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,And can’t tell where to find them;Leave them alone, and they’ll come home,And bring their tails behind them. Little Bo-Peep fell fast asleep,And dreamt she heard them bleating;But when she awoke, she found it a joke,For they were still a-fleeting. Then up she took her little crook,Determined for to find them;She found them indeed, but it made her... more...