Weep with me, all you that readThis little story;And know, for whom a tear you shed,Death's self is sorry. Ben Jonson. This story is no invention of mine. I could not invent anything half so lovely and pathetic as seems to me the incident which has come ready-made to my hand. Some of you, doubtless, have heard of James Speaight, the infant violinist, or Young Americus, as he was called. He was... more...

THE RHYTHM OF LIFE If life is not always poetical, it is at least metrical.  Periodicity rules over the mental experience of man, according to the path of the orbit of his thoughts.  Distances are not gauged, ellipses not measured, velocities not ascertained, times not known.  Nevertheless, the recurrence is sure.  What the mind suffered last week, or last year, it does not suffer now; but it will... more...

PRELUDEAN ANGLER'S WISH IN TOWNWhen tulips bloom in Union Square,And timid breaths of vernal airAre wandering down the dusty town,Like children lost in Vanity Fair; When every long, unlovely rowOf westward houses stands aglowAnd leads the eyes toward sunset skies,Beyond the hills where green trees grow; Then weary is the street parade,And weary books, and weary trade:I'm only wishing to go... more...

A NOVELIST'S ALLEGORY Once upon a time the Prince of Felicitas had occasion to set forth on a journey. It was a late autumn evening with few pale stars and a moon no larger than the paring of a finger-nail. And as he rode through the purlieus of his city, the white mane of his amber-coloured steed was all that he could clearly see in the dusk of the high streets. His way led through a quarter but... more...

THAT WE SHOULD NOT JUDGE OF OUR HAPPINESSE UNTILL AFTER OUR DEATH      scilicet ultima semper     Expectanda dies homini est, dicique beatus     Ante obitum nemo, supremaque funera debat.     [Footnote: Ovid. Met. 1, iii. 135.]      We must expect of man the latest day,     Nor ere he die, he's happie, can we say. The very children are acquainted with the storie of... more...

LETTER the FIRST From ISABEL to LAURA How often, in answer to my repeated intreaties that you would give my Daughter a regular detail of the Misfortunes and Adventures of your Life, have you said "No, my freind never will I comply with your request till I may be no longer in Danger of again experiencing such dreadful ones." Surely that time is now at hand. You are this day 55. If a woman may... more...

QUALITY I knew him from the days of my extreme youth, because he made my father's boots; inhabiting with his elder brother two little shops let into one, in a small by-street-now no more, but then most fashionably placed in the West End. That tenement had a certain quiet distinction; there was no sign upon its face that he made for any of the Royal Family—merely his own German name of Gessler... more...

Perhaps the reader may not feel in these papers that inner solidarity which the writer is conscious of; and it is in this doubt that the writer wishes to offer a word of explanation. He owns, as he must, that they have every appearance of a group of desultory sketches and essays, without palpable relation to one another, or superficial allegiance to any central motive. Yet he ventures to hope that the... more...

THE HERO. His name is George, generally speaking. "Call me George!" he says to the heroine. She calls him George (in a very low voice, because she is so young and timid). Then he is happy. The stage hero never has any work to do. He is always hanging about and getting into trouble. His chief aim in life is to be accused of crimes he has never committed, and if he can muddle things up with a... more...

A CRITICISM OF THE HEGELIAN PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT As far as Germany is concerned the criticism of religion is practically completed, and the criticism of religion is the basis of all criticism. The profane existence of error is threatened when its heavenly oratio pro aris et focis has been refuted. He who has only found a reflexion of himself in the fantastic reality of heaven where he looked for a... more...