CHAPTER I The Title. "Book of the Dead" is the title now commonly given to the great collection of funerary texts which the ancient Egyptian scribes composed for the benefit of the dead. These consist of spells and incantations, hymns and litanies, magical formulae and names, words of power and prayers, and they are found cut or painted on walls of pyramids and tombs, and painted on coffins and... more...

A procession of the damned. By the damned, I mean the excluded. We shall have a procession of data that Science has excluded. Battalions of the accursed, captained by pallid data that I have exhumed, will march. You'll read them—or they'll march. Some of them livid and some of them fiery and some of them rotten. Some of them are corpses, skeletons, mummies, twitching, tottering, animated by... more...

Down at my feet on the red tiles in front of a roaring great fire sit a great black cat and a soft white Angora pussy. They are named Ebony and Snowball and are as different in nature as they are in colour, but are devoted friends for all that. Possibly because of it! for where Snowball is timid, Ebony will bravely lead the way; while if Ebony is cross, Snowball will purr and coax and cuddle until he... more...

PURGING OUT THE OLD LEAVEN. While the world was young, nations could be founded peaceably. There was plenty of unoccupied country, and when two neighbouring patriarchs found their flocks were becoming too numerous for the pasture, one said to the other: "Let there be no quarrel, I pray, between thee and me; the whole earth is between us, and the land is watered as the garden of Paradise. If thou... more...

I. The Cup of Humanity Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the eighth century, it entered the realm of poetry as one of the polite amusements. The fifteenth century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticism—Teaism. Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery... more...

THE FIRST CHAPTER IIT happens that I twice saw Susan's mother, one of those soiled rags of humanity used by careless husbands for wiping their boots; but Susan does not remember her. John Stuart Mill studied Greek at three, and there is a Russian author who recalls being weaned as the first of his many bitter experiences. Either Susan's mental life did not waken so early or the record has... more...

Preface here is no need here to enter a plea for story-telling. Its value in the home and in the school is assured. Miss Bryant, in her charming book, How to Tell Stories to Children, says, "Perhaps never, since the really old days, has story-telling so nearly reached a recognized level of dignity as a legitimate and general art of entertainment as now." And, in the guise of entertainment, the... more...

PREFACE. The prime object of this book is to induce and to teach boys and girls to spend their hours out of school in such a manner, as to gain innocent enjoyment while they promote their own health and bodily strength. The Author has never lost sight of this object, considering it to be what properly belongs to a Book of Sports. He has, however, in many instances, had in view, in a subordinate degree,... more...

(The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved by felicitous illustrations:—I am the individual destined to write that work—My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence—I show that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the MAN—Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large... more...

SAINT BRIDGET ANDTHE KING'S WOLFEVERY one has heard of Bridget, the little girl saint of Ireland. Her name is almost as well known as that of Saint Patrick, who drove all the snakes from the Island. Saint Bridget had long golden hair; and she was very beautiful. Many wonderful things happened to her that are written in famous books. But I suspect that you never heard what she did about the... more...