CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. The ancient and famous metropolis of the North sits overlooking a windy estuary from the slope and summit of three hills.  No situation could be more commanding for the head city of a kingdom; none better chosen for noble prospects.  From her tall precipice and terraced gardens she looks far and wide on the sea and broad champaigns.  To the east you may catch at sunset the... more...

THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY Under a burning blue sky, among the pine-trees and junipers, the cypresses and olives of that Odyssean coast, we came one afternoon on a pink house bearing the legend: "Osteria di Tranquillita,"; and, partly because of the name, and partly because we did not expect to find a house at all in those goat-haunted groves above the waves, we tarried for contemplation. To the... more...

Upon a certain gladsome occasion a certain man went into a certain restaurant in a certain large city, being imbued with the idea that he desired a certain kind of food. Expense was with him no object. The coming of the holidays had turned his thoughts backward to the care-free days of boyhood and he longed for the holidaying provender of his youth with a longing that was as wide as a river and as deep... more...

As I sit by my Christmas fire I now and then give it a poke with a bayonet. It is an old-fashioned British bayonet which has seen worse days. I picked it up in a little shop in Birmingham for two shillings. I was attracted to it as I am to all reformed characters. The hardened old sinner, having had enough of war, was a candidate for a peaceful position. I was glad to have a hand in his reformation. To... more...

Our theme for the hour is the American Newspaper. It is a subject in which everybody is interested, and about which it is not polite to say that anybody is not well informed; for, although there are scattered through the land many persons, I am sorry to say, unable to pay for a newspaper, I have never yet heard of anybody unable to edit one. The topic has many points of view, and invites various study... more...

THE ESPERANTO ALPHABET(WITH PHONETIC PRONUNCIATION). The Esperanto Alphabet has 28 letters—23 consonants, 5 vowels:—A, a(ah) likeainfatherorpa; aspatro(pah'troh). In unaccented syllables it should not be dwelt upon, and in all cases it should be pronounced quite purely, without the slight drawlingr-sound which is sometimes added to the corresponding vowel in EnglishahB, b(bo) as in EnglishbC,... more...

To many people in England the mention of Australia conjures pictures of tented gold-fields and tall, black-bearded, red-shirted bushrangers; of mounted police recruited from "flaxen-haired younger sons of good old English families, well-groomed and typically Anglo-Saxon"; of squatters and sheep runs; of buckjumpers ridden by the most daring riders in the world; and of much more to the same... more...

A RELIC 1918. Yesterday I found in a cupboard an old, small, battered portmanteau which, by the initials on it, I recognised as my own property. The lock appeared to have been forced. I dimly remembered having forced it myself, with a poker, in my hot youth, after some journey in which I had lost the key; and this act of violence was probably the reason why the trunk had so long ago ceased to travel. I... more...

I. THE SCENE Yes, of course it is an experiment! But it is made in corpore vili. It is not irreparable, and there is no reason, more's the pity, why I should not please myself. I will ask—it is a rhetorical question which needs no answer—what is a hapless bachelor to do, who is professionally occupied and tied down in a certain place for just half the year? What is he to do with the other... more...

FIRST STUDY The fire on the hearth has almost gone out in New England; the hearth has gone out; the family has lost its center; age ceases to be respected; sex is only distinguished by a difference between millinery bills and tailors' bills; there is no more toast-and-cider; the young are not allowed to eat mince-pies at ten o'clock at night; half a cheese is no longer set to toast before the... more...