CHAPTER I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BROOK FARM MOVEMENT. Early in the present century, New England was the centre of progressive religious thought in America. A morbid theology had reigned supreme, but its forms were too cold, harsh and forbidding to attract or even retain the liberal-minded, educated and philosophic students of the rising generation, or hold in check the ardent humanitarian spirit, that... more...

THE FIDDLER If Chirpy Cricket had begun to make music earlier in the summer perhaps he wouldn’t have given so much time to fiddling in Farmer Green’s farmyard. Everybody admitted that Chirpy was the most musical insect in the whole neighborhood. And it seemed as if he tried his hardest to crowd as much music as possible into a few weeks, though he had been silent enough during all the spring. He... more...

How Phil Stukely and Dick Chichester narrowly escaped drowning. It was a little after seven o’clock on June 19 in the year of Our Lord 1577, and business was practically over for the day. The taverns and alehouses were, of course, still open, and would so remain for three or four hours to come, for the evening was then, as it is now, their most busy time; but nearly all the shops in Fore Street of... more...

CHAPTER I. THE UNSUSPECTING TRAVELER. The steamship Baltic was on the point of sailing from America to Europe. The usual scenes were visible on the wharf–the rushing on board of belated freight and baggage–the crush of passengers and their friends on deck, or down in the cabins, where partings were being drunk in wine; the crowd of steerage passengers forward, trying to keep out of the way of the... more...

PREFACE. This volume contains a large selection from Paul Gerhardt's “Spiritual Songs.” Every piece included is given in full, and is rendered into the metre of the original. A few of the following translations have appeared at various times during the last three years in different periodicals. They have been revised for this volume. Several of the hymns have been beautifully translated by... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TRIAL Some years ago there was a trial in Dublin, which, partly because the parties in the cause were in a well-to-do condition of life, and partly because the case in some measure involved the interests of the two conflicting Churches, excited considerable sensation and much comment. The contention was the right to the guardianship of a boy whose father and mother had ceased to live... more...

PREFACE. A little more than a year ago I put forth a collection of articles under the title of Flowers of Freethought. The little volume met with a favorable reception, and I now issue a Second Series. By a "favorable reception" I only mean that the volume found purchasers, and, it is to be presumed, readers; which is, after all, the one thing a writer needs to regard as of any real importance.... more...

CHAPTER I. WHY ROBERT WYNN EMIGRATED.night train drew up slowly alongside the platform at the Euston Square terminus. Immediately the long inanimate line of rail-carriages burst into busy life: a few minutes of apparently frantic confusion, and the individual items of the human freight were speeding towards all parts of the compass, to be absorbed in the leviathan metropolis, as drops of a shower in a... more...

INTRODUCTION BY CESARE LOMBROSO [Professor Lombroso was able before his death to give his personal attention to the volume prepared by his daughter and collaborator, Gina Lombroso Ferrero (wife of the distinguished historian), in which is presented a summary of the conclusions reached in the great treatise by Lombroso on the causes of criminality and the treatment of criminals. The preparation of the... more...

Introduction It is many years now since the American Girl began to engage the consciousness of the American novelist. Before the expansive period following the Civil War, in the later eighteen-sixties and the earlier eighteen-seventies, she had of course been his heroine, unless he went abroad for one in court circles, or back for one in the feudal ages. Until the time noted, she had been a heroine and... more...