ACT 1 (SCENE—The sitting-room at Rosmersholm; a spacious room, comfortably furnished in old-fashioned style. In the foreground, against the right-hand wall, is a stove decorated with sprigs of fresh birch and wild flowers. Farther back, a door. In the back wall folding doors leading into the entrance hall. In the left-hand wall a window, in front of which is a stand filled with flowers and plants.... more...

CHAPTER I THE SECRET Listen, Violet, I am going to tell you a wonderful secret. And this wonderful secret is about your namesakes, the violets. Every little flower that grows is a living being, as you or I—and every plant is a household. How do I know this? The flowers told me themselves, and now I am going to let you into the secret. Of course, I must admit that the flowers do not talk as we do.... more...

CHAPTER I THE HORSE THIEF It was a warm summer morning in the town of Farewell. Save a dozen horses tied to the hitching-rail in front of various saloons and the Blue Pigeon Store and Bill Lainey, the fat landlord of the hotel, who sat snoring in a reinforced telegraph chair on the sidewalk in the shade of his wooden awning, Main Street was a howling wilderness. Dust overlay everything. It had not... more...

November 24, 1920. No sooner had the League of Nations met at Geneva than news came of the pending retirement of Mr. Charlie Chaplin. We never seem to be able to keep more than one Great Idea going at a time. "Have you read Mrs. Asquith's Book?" asks an evening paper advertisement. "What book?" may we ask. "In our generation," says Dean Inge, "there are no great... more...

The Engraving on the annexed page is, perhaps, one of the greatest antiquarian treasures it has for some time been our good fortune to introduce to the readers of the MIRROR. It represents the original SOMERSET HOUSE, which derived its name from Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, maternal uncle to Edward VI., and Protector of the realm during most of the reign of that youthful sovereign. The time at... more...

I. INTRODUCTION. ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS LIBERTY GENERALLY. The Jewish Question is part of the general question of Religious Toleration. Together with the questions relating to the toleration of "Turks and Infidels," it raises the question of Religious Liberty in its most acute form. It is both local and international. Locally it seeks a solution through Civil and Political Emancipation on... more...

CHAPTER I Peter Burnett stood on the top-most of the broad white steps leading to the "Shadyville Seminary for Young Ladies." He had just closed the door of that sacred institution behind him, and with a sigh of relief which was incompatible with the honors of his professorship. But Peter had never duly valued his position of instructor to Shadyville's feminine youth, though his reverence... more...

CHAPTER I.  THE HISTORY OF THE WELL. It has been remarked that the discovery of many of our medicinal springs has been due to some romantic incident, or, in other cases, to some occurrence partaking almost of the ludicrous.  At the famed Carlsbad, for instance, a princely hunter pursues his stag into the lake where it has sought refuge, whereupon the unusual cries of his hounds, too eagerly breasting... more...

THE NEW SCHOLAR While the larger boys in the village school of Greenbank were having a game of “three old cat” before school-time, there appeared on the playground a strange boy, carrying two books, a slate, and an atlas under his arm. He was evidently from the country, for he wore a suit of brown jeans, or woollen homespun, made up in the natural color of the “black” sheep, as we call it. He... more...

CHAPTER I—THE GLEN You find it dull walking up here upon Hartford Bridge Flat this sad November day?  Well, I do not deny that the moor looks somewhat dreary, though dull it need never be.  Though the fog is clinging to the fir-trees, and creeping among the heather, till you cannot see as far as Minley Corner, hardly as far as Bramshill woods—and all the Berkshire hills are as invisible as if it... more...