Who can doubt that this is an infinite gain to the listener and to art? Again, take an instance selected from a large number of compositions which are purely emotional, with no kind of realistic reference to nature or action, the Revolutionary Etude, by Chopin, Opus 10, No. 12. The emotional elements here expressed are fierce indignation, vain but desperate struggle, wrathful despair. These are easily recognized by the trained esthetic sense. Indeed, the work cannot be properly rendered by one who does not feel them in playing it; and they can be eloquently described in a general way by one possessing a little gift of language and some imagination; but many persons find it hard to grasp abstract emotions without a definite assignable cause for them, and are incalculably aided if told that the study was written as the expression of Chopin’s feelings, and those of every Polish patriot,...
From whence it hath proceeded, that nothing of this kind was ever, as yet, published in England, I cannot easily determine; except, as some will say, from some secret Ragion di Stato. Let the reason be as t'will; this is certain, so much the more we are obliged unto this present Author, who though a stranger unto our Nation, yet with that Candour and Fidelity hath recorded our Actions, as to render the Metal of our true English Valour to be the more believed and feared abroad, than if these things had been divulged by our selves at home. From hence peradventure will other Nations learn, that the English people are of their Genius more inclinable to act than to write; seeing as well they as we have lived unacquainted with these actions of our Nation, until such time as a Foreign Author to our Country came to tell them....
Lieutenant Jeffries blinked at his superior. "I appreciate the compliment," he said dryly. "For which thanks. But what happens if I don't produce?" His superior, Captain Edwards of the Solar Police, smiled vaguely. "I have a dual purpose," he said. "First-off, you need a vacation of sorts. Knowing you as I do, I know that sheer vacation would bring about seventeen kinds of psychoneuroses, some mental aberrations, and possible revolt. However, this job is unattached." "Unattached?" gasped Jeffries. "Uh-huh. You have six months in which to track down, and/or procure evidence which will result in the identification, arrest, and conviction of the man known as Black Morgan, the Pirate." "I ... ah—?" "This is your only order. You will not be called upon to do anything else for six months. If at the end of that time you bring about such evidence, et cetera, you will be promptly promoted. If...
The original purpose of this little volume was to indicate the place of the New Testament in the literature of the Hebrew people, to show in fact how it is comprehended in the scope of that literature. The plan has been widened to satisfy the demands of a larger class of readers, and to record more fully the work of its leading idea. Still the consideration of the New Testament literature is of primary importance. The writer submits that the New Testament is to be received as a natural product of the Hebrew genius, its contents attesting the creative power of the Jewish mind. He hopes to make it seem probable to unprejudiced people, that its different books merely carry to the last point of attenuation, and finally exhaust the capacity of ideas that exerted a controlling influence on the development of that branch of the human family. To profundity...
Farewell to the Old Southern Home. I have often wondered, when viewing a modern passenger coach, with its palace cars, its sleeping and dining cars, if those who cross the "Great American Desert," from the Mississippi to the Pacific in four days, realize the hardships, dangers and privations of the Argonauts of fifty-eight years ago. The "Plains" were then an unbroken wilderness of three thousand miles, inhabited by hordes of wild Indians, and not too friendly to the white man journeying through his country. The trip then required careful preparation—oxen, wagons, provisions, arms and ammunition must be first of all provided. These were essentials, and woe to the hapless immigrant who neglected these provisions. To be stranded a thousand miles from the "settlements" was a fate none but the most improvident and reckless cared to hazard. It is to recount some of the trials, adventures, hardships, privations, as I remember...
Gourmont's literary career was particularly identified with the notable French Review, the Mercure de France . How he came to join the staff of that organ is interestingly recounted by Louis Dumur, in the same obituary note from which the above quotation was translated. Incidentally we obtain a glimpse of the young man just as he was emerging into note. "The great writer whom we have just lost," wrote M. Dumur, "was to us more than a friend, better than a master: he seemed to us the most complete representative, the very expression,—in all its aspects and in all its complexity,—of our literary generation. "When, in the autumn of 1889, the small group which proposed to found the Mercure de France thought first of adding several collaborators to its number," while one went off in search of Jules Renard, another invited Julien Leclercq and a third promised the assistance of...
The barren trees which lined the broad deserted thoroughfare jutted starkly into the night, waving their menacing, ice-crusted arms. The December gale, sweeping westward, shrieked through the glistening branches. It shrieked warning and horror, howled and sighed, sighed and howled. Spike Walters felt suddenly ill. He forgot the cold, and was conscious of a fear which acted like a temporary anesthesia. For a few seconds he stood staring, until the match which he held burned out and scorched the flesh of his fingers. His jaw dropped, his eyes widened. He opened his lips and tried to speak, but closed them again without having uttered a sound save a choking gasp. He tried again, feeling an urge for speech—something, anything, to make him believe that he was here, alive—that the horror within the cab was real. This time he uttered an "Oh, my God!" The words seemed to vitalize him. He...
Joe Linger raised up on one elbow and stared at the door, frowning. "Who is it?" he called out. A muffled voice answered from beyond the cracked, peeling wood. "Package for Mr. Joseph Linger!" "Just a minute!" Joe laid his magazine aside, rolled to the edge of the bed, and pulled on his trousers. Rising, he poked his feet into frayed slippers and, walking to the door, swung it open. "Sign here, please!" A little, old man stood in the doorway. He held a large square package under one arm and extended the other, holding out a clipboard and pencil to Joe. He had a thatch of white hair and a red, wrinkled face with blue eyes and a scowl. He wore a loose, blue uniform with a cloth badge on his shallow chest, reading: Time Deliveries, Inc. Joe took the clipboard and pencil, scrawled his name and frowned with...
HARDSHIPS OF THE CAMPAIGN I have taken to the big hills in some despair and to rest from the hardships of this campaign. Truly the life of the war correspondent is hard in Japan. The Happy Exile left America three years ago with a Puck-purpose of girdling the world. He got no farther than Japan, and here most likely he will rest. He is a big man and a gentle one, and I have seen his six-feet-two frame quiver with joy like jelly as we rickshawed through the streets, he pointing out to me meanwhile little bits of color and life on either side. I have heard him when the dusk rushes seaward muttering half-unconsciously to himself: "I'm so glad I am here. I'm so glad I am here." It is the "lust of the eye" he says, and the lust is as fierce now as on the day he...
Me, I'm just a radio mechanic. No genius, that is. But handy with a soldering iron. If it's genius you want, take my friend Bill Marra. He's a communications engineer—telephone, radio, or what have you. He's invented enough gimmicks so he doesn't have to work any more, just potters around his basement inventing more gimmicks. Thinking them up, actually, is all he does. Give him a screwdriver and a pair of pliers and he can wreck anything in five minutes. That's where I come in. He thinks 'em up, I build 'em. He busts 'em, I fix 'em. And when he gets into a jam, I'm the guy comes to bail him out. Like, for instance, this last gadget of his. Nothing dangerous about it, but it could have got him sunk in the river with his feet in a block of cement. It all started with an amplifier. I...
The Party—Across America to Vancouver—On Board the Warrimo—Steamer Chairs—The Captain—Going Home under a Cloud—A Gritty Purser—The Brightest Passenger—Remedy for Bad Habits—The Doctor and the Lumbago—A Moral Pauper—Limited Smoking—Remittance-men. Change of Costume—Fish, Snake, and Boomerang Stories—Tests of Memory—A Brahmin Expert—General Grant’s Memory—A Delicately Improper Tale Honolulu—Reminiscences of the Sandwich Islands—King Liholiho and His Royal Equipment—The Tabu—The Population of the Island—A Kanaka Diver—Cholera at Honolulu—Honolulu; Past and Present—The Leper Colony Leaving Honolulu—Flying-fish—Approaching the Equator—Why the Ship Went Slow—The Front Yard of the Ship—Crossing the Equator—Horse Billiards or Shovel Board—The Waterbury Watch—Washing Decks—Ship Painters—The Great Meridian—The Loss of a Day—A Babe without a Birthday A lesson in Pronunciation—Reverence for Robert Burns—The Southern Cross—Troublesome Constellations—Victoria for a Name—Islands on the Map—Alofa and Fortuna—Recruiting for the Queensland Plantations—Captain Warren’s NoteBook—Recruiting not thoroughly Popular Missionaries Obstruct Business—The Sugar Planter and the Kanaka—The Planter’s View—Civilizing the Kanaka—The Missionary’s View—The Result—Repentant Kanakas—Wrinkles—The Death Rate in Queensland The Fiji...
(Note: The following excerpts from Amy Ballantine's journal have never actually been written down at any time before. Her account of impressions and events has been kept in organized fashion in her mind for at least nine years (even she is not certain when she started), but it must be understood that certain inaccuracies in transcription could not possibly have been avoided in the excerpting attempted here. The Editor .) Tuesday, 16 May. Lambertson got back from Boston about two this afternoon. He was tired; I don't think I've ever seen Lambertson so tired. It was more than just exhaustion, too. Maybe anger? Frustration? I couldn't be sure. It seemed more like defeat than anything else, and he went straight from the 'copter to his office without even stopping off at the lab at all. It's good to have him back, though! Not that I haven't had a nice enough...
Triton was a dead world. The hydrogen snow that covered the illimitable desolation of the plain glowed a weird green in the dying Neptune-light. Above it, grim and black, towered the west wall of the great Temple of Triton. The evening gale had drifted the snow high against its east wall, but here, in its lee, the ground was bare. The faint light struck sparks of color from the gravel, the stones, the boulders—gravel that was ruby and sapphire, stones that were giant moissonites, boulders that were titanic diamonds. The Wolf Cub rested on that gravel, its beryllium sides a sickly green. In all that world, only Wolf Larsen lived and moved and breathed. An alien might have correctly supposed that this world had been dead for untold ages, that the builders of its Temple had perished incalculably long ago, that nothing would ever live here again. Wolf Larsen knew...
Stiff fingers of icy, wind-driven snow beat a tattoo on the hull of the cargo ship, filtered through the jagged tears in the metal skin, sifted down over the useless control board with its dead gauges and bank upon bank of pushbuttons. Amidship, a wind-thrashed branch screechingly scraped the reverberating hull, and the sound, like the rasp of sliding hatch covers, echoed through the ship. Dazedly, Allison watched the sifting snow settle on the buttons, each one acquiring a grotesque, lop-sided, conical hat which grew as he stared. He reached forward an already stiffening finger and brushed one of the hats away, and almost idly watched another one form in its place. "Come on, Allison, come on. Snap out of it." Endicott came out of the passageway into the control room, returned from his inspection of the machinery. "You hurt in the landing?" Allison didn't answer. He shivered and pushed...
The conversion of light into electricity by spectrum is an interesting possibility. The idea of using foreign proteins on the human system to repel enemies, is also interesting. Do you get it? We didn't either until we read the story. Read the yarn and you'll get it too. Although Divine intervention in human affairs passed into the realm of the mythical toward the end of the twentieth or at the dawn of the twenty-first century, one is almost inclined to give thanks to the Supernatural for the marvelous efficacy of Dr. Rutledge's discovery and stratagem which so recently freed us from the Oriental menace. A year ago only the Mississippi and the most severe winter in many generations was staying the complete invasion of the United States. In an unbelievably secret manner our enemies had for five decades been developing a scientific offensive against which our laboratories could not in...
The world newspapers had heralded the event for months. "The First Personal Visit from Outer Space" was the most important headline of the decade. Now there were perhaps sixty thousand people crowding behind ropes and guards at the Earth Interspace Airport, waiting patiently for Mr. Kramvit of Planet Six. Fourth Vice President Vincent J. Carrowick had been selected to be Mr. Kramvit's guide for the length of his visit. He was waiting now, with Secretary Gordon, in the airport's executive office. Carrowick spoke first, "Well, this is it. I've spoken to Kramvit at least eight times on the Vidcope phone, but I'm as nervous as a contestant right now." Gordon eyed the screen which was noting the ship's approach. "I don't see why you should be. You know what he's like basically. Their bodies and physical capabilities are the same as ours, and most of the people of Six speak...
The rings of Saturn stretched like a level sheet in all directions, though actually composed of millions of tiny bodies. Homer Timkin carefully braked with the nose rockets till he floated motionlessly with respect to the ring's own rotary motion around its primary. Then he eagerly donned his vac-suit. Had he struck it rich this time? Through his binoculars, a moment ago, he had seen the glint of one small jagged lump among the ring debris—and it had glinted like gold or silver. There was vast treasure among the rings, if one could find it.... In his vac-suit he used his reaction pistol to propel him down toward the glinting mass. In his eagerness, he almost failed to see the other ring body which now hurtled up, pursuing its own independent orbit within the grander sweep of the rings. Timkin braked with his reaction pistol only in time to let...
Baruch de Spinoza was born into the Jewish community of Amsterdam on November 24, 1632. His parents were Jews who had fled, along with many others, from the vicious intolerance of the Inquisition to the limited and hesitant freedom of Holland. At the time Spinoza was born, the Jewish refugees had already established themselves to a certain extent in their new home. They had won, for example, the important right to build a synagogue. Still, they did not enjoy the complete freedom and peace of mind of an independent and securely protected people. Although one could be a Jew in Amsterdam, one had to be a Jew with considerable circumspection. Whatever might prove in any way offensive to the political authority had to be scrupulously eschewed. For, as is always the case, minority groups which are simply tolerated have to suffer for the offenses of any of their members. The...
Dare I say it? Dare I say that I, a plain, prosaic lieutenant in the republican service have done the incredible things here set out for the love of a woman—for a chimera in female shape; for a pale, vapid ghost of woman-loveliness? At times I tell myself I dare not: that you will laugh, and cast me aside as a fabricator; and then again I pick up my pen and collect the scattered pages, for I MUST write it—the pallid splendour of that thing I loved, and won, and lost is ever before me, and will not be forgotten. The tumult of the struggle into which that vision led me still throbs in my mind, the soft, lisping voices of the planet I ransacked for its sake and the roar of the destruction which followed me back from the quest drowns all other sounds in my ears! I must...
He had been overwhelmingly elected. Messages of sympathy poured in, but they couldn't help ... nothing could. eorge Wong stood pale and silent by the video screen, listening to the election returns, a long-stemmed glass of champagne clutched forgotten in his trembling right hand. The announcer droned on: "—latest returns from Venus, with half of the election districts reporting, give three billion four hundred and ninety-six million votes for Wong, against one billion, four hundred million for Thompson, one billion one hundred million for Miccio, and nine hundred million for Kau. These results, added to the almost complete returns from Earth and the first fragmentary reports from Mars, clearly indicate a landslide vote for Wong as the next President of the Solar Union. The two billion votes from Ganymede and Callisto, which will be received early tomorrow morning, cannot appreciably affect the results. The battle for the twenty-five Vice-Presidents is...
BY JOHN D. CARRICK. IN TWO VOLUMES. EDINBURGH: CONSTABLE AND CO., 19, WATERLOO PLACE; AND HURST, CHANCE, AND CO., LONDON. BOURRIENNE. Preparing for immediate Publication IN CONSTABLE’S MISCELLANY, MEMOIRS OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, FROM THE FRENCH OF M. DE BOURRIENNE, PRIVATE SECRETARY TO THE EMPEROR. BY JAMES S. MEMES, LL.D. IN THREE VOLUMES. CONSTABLE’S MISCELLANY, OF ORIGINAL AND SELECTED PUBLICATIONS “A real and existing Library of Useful and Entertaining knowledge.” Literary Gazette. ADVERTISEMENT. The unlimited desire of knowledge which now pervades every class of Society, suggested the design, of not only reprinting, without abridgment or curtailment, in a cheap form, several interesting and valuable Publications, hitherto placed beyond the reach of a great proportion of readers, but also of issuing, in that form, many Original Treatises, by some of the most Distinguished Authors of the age. Such is the object of the present Work, which is publishing in a series...
WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1905 Mr. President, and you, my fellow-members of the Republican Club, and you, my fellow-guests of the Republican Club : In his second inaugural, in a speech which will be read as long as the memory of this nation endures, Abraham Lincoln closed by saying: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; * * * to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.” Immediately after his reelection he had already spoken thus: “The strife of the election is but human nature practically applied to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this case must ever recur in similar cases. Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial,...
The cause of a war and the object of a war are not necessarily the same. The cause of this war was the invasion of Luxemburg and Belgium. We declared war because we were bound by treaty to declare war. We have been pledged to protect the integrity of Belgium since the kingdom of Belgium has existed. If the Germans had not broken the guarantees they shared with us to respect the neutrality of these little States we should certainly not be at war at the present time. The fortified eastern frontier of France could have been held against any attack without any help from us. We had no obligations and no interests there. We were pledged to France simply to protect her from a naval attack by sea, but the Germans had already given us an undertaking not to make such an attack. It was our Belgian treaty and...
Conversation on the Subject of the Bullet—Construction of a Canoe—Hunting—At the Top of a Kauri—Nothing to attest the Presence of Man—Neb and Herbert's Prize—Turning a Turtle—The Turtle disappears—Cyrus Harding's Explanation. It was now exactly seven months since the balloon voyagers had been thrown on Lincoln Island. During that time, notwithstanding the researches they had made, no human being had been discovered. No smoke even had betrayed the presence of man on the surface of the island. No vestiges of his handiwork showed that either at an early or at a late period had man lived there. Not only did it now appear to be uninhabited by any but themselves, but the colonists were compelled to believe that it never had been inhabited. And now, all this scaffolding of reasonings fell before a simple ball of metal, found in the body of an inoffensive rodent! In fact, this bullet must have...
APPY is the boy who discovers the bent of his life-work H during childhood. That, indeed, was my good fortune. At the early age of twelve, my goal was fairly clear. My closest friends were Fenimore Cooper and Jules Verne, Livingstone and Stanley, Franklin, Payer, and Nordenskiéld, particularly the long line of heroes and martyrs of Arctic exploration. Nordenskiold was then on his daring journey to Spitsbergen, Nova Zembla, and the mouth of the Yenisei River. I was just fifteen when he returned to my native city—Stockholm—-having accomplished the Northeast Passage. In June, 1878, Nordenskiold had sailed from Sweden, in the “Vega,” under the command of Captain Palander. He followed the northern shores of Europe and Asia, until he became stuck in the ice at the extreme eastern end of the Arctic coast of Siberia. The ice held him there for ten months. At home, a great anxiety was felt...
Author of "Social Progress," "People vs. Wall Street," "Our Gods on Trial," "War Resistance." New York THE FREETHOUGHT PRESS ASSOCIATION. Copyright 1932 By THE FREETHOUGHT PRESS ASSN., INC. TO DEVOTEES OF TRUTH The tradition regarding Jesus is so glamorous that it is difficult to review his life and character with an unbiased mind. While Fundamentalists and Modernists differ regarding the divinity of Christ, all Christians and many non-Christians still cling to preconceived notions of the perfection of Jesus. He alone among men is revered as all-loving, omniscient, faultless—an unparalleled model for mankind. This convention of the impeccability of Jesus is so firmly established that any insinuation of error on his part is deemed a blasphemy. Doubting Jesus is more impious than mocking God Almighty. Jehovah may be exposed to some extent with impunity; a God who destroyed 70,000 of his chosen people because their king took a census [1] is...
Since the United States began to be there never was such a post as Fort Philip Kearney, commonly called Fort Phil Kearney. [3] From its establishment, in 1866, to its abandonment, some two years later, it was practically in a state of siege. I do not mean that it was beleaguered by the Indians in any formal, persistent investment, but it was so constantly and so closely observed by war parties, hidden in the adjacent woods and the mountain passes, that there was little safety outside its stockade for anything less than a company of infantry or a troop of cavalry; and not always, as we shall see, for those. Rarely in the history of the Indian wars of the United States have the Indians, no matter how preponderant in force, conducted a regular siege, Pontiac’s investment of Detroit being almost unique in that particular. But they literally surrounded Fort...
This little essay on a great subject is neither a guidebook nor a history, though it may, for many, be enough, for their purpose, of both. With its illustrations of ancient and famous scenes it is, let us say, a keepsake or memorial for some of the hundred thousand pilgrims who still annually visit Canterbury, and fall under the spell of its enchantments. It may recall to them in distant homes, some of them overseas, the thrill with which they first beheld the mother-city of English Christianity, the great church, inwoven with so much of English history, which in the Middle Ages contained one of the most venerated and far-sought shrines in Europe. There are certainly not more than one or two cities in the kingdom which rival Canterbury in interest, or bring back to us more vividly "the days that are no more". Here is the work of pre-historic...
"To the Right Reverend Father in God, the Lord Bishop of London. "62, Fleet Street, November 18,1833. "My Lord, "I have long and deliberately thought, that the state of the Country, the state of the Church, and the state of the Public Mind in relation to the Church, calls upon me to offer myself for an interview with your Lordship, as my Diocesan, that your Lordship may hear from me what I have to advance against the present state and condition of the Church, and what I have to propose as an immediately necessary and proper Reform. "I offer to wait on your Lordship, with your Lordship's consent; and promise, that my conversation shall be altogether courteous and reasonable. "I am one of your Lordship's scattered sheep, wishing for the fold of a good shepherd,—(which is Christ Jesus),— "RICHARD CARLILE." "P. S.—I may add, my Lord Bishop, that I am...
SCENE: One side of a sleeping-car on the Boston and Albany Road. The curtains are drawn before most of the berths; from the hooks and rods hang hats, bonnets, bags, bandboxes, umbrellas, and other travelling gear; on the floor are boots of both sexes, set out for THE PORTER to black. THE PORTER is making up the beds in the upper and lower berths adjoining the seats on which a young mother, slender and pretty, with a baby asleep on the seat beside her, and a stout old lady, sit confronting each other—MRS. AGNES ROBERTS and her aunt MARY. MRS. ROBERTS. Do you always take down your back hair, aunty? AUNT MARY. No, never, child; at least not since I had such a fright about it once, coming on from New York. It’s all well enough to take down your back hair if it is yours; but if it isn’t,...
How “Joe” Tinker Changed Overnight from a Weakling at the Plate to the Worst Batter I Had to Face—“Fred” Clarke of Pittsburg cannot be Fooled by a Change of Pace, and “Hans” Wagner’s Only “Groove” Is a Base on Balls—“Inside” Information on All the Great Batters. I have often been asked to which batters I have found it hardest to pitch. It is the general impression among baseball fans that Joseph Faversham Tinker, the short-stop of the Chicago Cubs, is the worst man that I have to face in the National League. Few realize that during his first two years in the big show Joe Tinker looked like a cripple at the plate when I was pitching. His “groove” was a slow curve over the outside corner, and I fed him slow curves over that very outside corner with great regularity. Then suddenly, overnight, he became from my point of...
A Delta class freighter can carry anything—maybe more than its skipper can bear! A delta class freighter isn't pretty to look at, but it can be adapted to carry most anything, and occasionally even to carry it profitably. So when I saw one I didn't recognize sitting under the gantry at Helmholtz Spaceport, I hurried right over to Operations. It looked as if I might be able to get my Gasha root off-planet before it started to spoil, after all. It was the Delta Crucis , they told me. She was a tramp, and she hadn't yet been signed for a cargo. The skipper was listed as his own agent. They told me where they thought I could find him, so I drifted over to the Spaceport bar, and looked around. I found my man quickly enough. He had the young-old look of a deep spacer. He wore a neat...
"I don't like it at all," the tall thin man said. His name was Tharn, and he was known throughout the sprawling colony for the high-strung nervousness that was understandable enough in a youth of fifty, but hardly normal for a man of his years. You had to be careful how you talked to Tharn, even if you were Angelo, Dean of Masters, himself. "I don't like it," Tharn reiterated, with another dramatic sweep of his long bony arm, "one bit, Angelo. Look at them, circling up there." The thin, lined face turned squarely to Angelo's own, and the large, almost protruding black eyes snapped with all the vibrant fire of the fine artistic mind that boiled constantly behind them. Angelo turned his own eyes upward, momentarily following Tharn's still-upthrust arm. Although he did not need to look again. It was as the Second-Eldest of the colony said, of course....
OT long after Connecticut began to be settled by the English, a stranger Indian came one day to a tavern in one of its towns in the dusk of the evening, and requested the hostess to supply him with something to eat and drink; at the same time he honestly told her that he could not pay for either, as he had had no success in hunting for several days; but that he would return payment as soon as he should meet with better fortune. The hostess, who was a very ill-tempered woman, not only flatly refused to relieve him, but added abuse to her unkindness, calling him a lazy, drunken fellow, and told him that she did not work so hard herself, to throw away her earnings upon such vagabonds as he was. There was a man sitting in the same room of the tavern, who, on hearing the...
Douglass, Frederick. “My Escape from Slavery.” The Century Illustrated Magazine 23, n.s. 1 (Nov. 1881): 125-131. In the first narrative of my experience in slavery, written nearly forty years ago, and in various writings since, I have given the public what I considered very good reasons for withholding the manner of my escape. In substance these reasons were, first, that such publication at any time during the existence of slavery might be used by the master against the slave, and prevent the future escape of any who might adopt the same means that I did. The second reason was, if possible, still more binding to silence: the publication of details would certainly have put in peril the persons and property of those who assisted. Murder itself was not more sternly and certainly punished in the State of Maryland than that of aiding and abetting the escape of a slave. Many...
It is said that an old sailor looking at the first ocean steamer, exclaimed, “There’s an end to seamanship.” More correctly he might have predicted the end of the romance of ocean travel. Steam abridges time and space to such a degree that the world grows rapidly prosaic. Countries once distant and little known are at this day near and familiar. Railways on land and steamships on the ocean, will transport us, at frequent and regular intervals, around the entire globe. From New York to San Francisco and thence to our antipodes in Japan and China, one may travel in defiance of propitious breezes formerly so essential to an ocean voyage. The same untiring power that bears us thither will bring us home again by way of Suez and Gibraltar to any desired port on the Atlantic coast. Scarcely more than a hundred days will be required for such a...
Jerry Foster told the bartender that nobody loved him. The bartender, with the experience of his trade, said that Jerry was mistaken, and how about another drink. “Why not?” said the unhappy Mr. Foster, examining the scanty contents of his wallet. “ ‘I’ll take the daughter of the vine to spouse. Nor heed the music of a distant drum.’ That’s Omar.” “Sure,” the bartender said surprisingly. “But you want to look out you don’t go out by the same door that in you went. No brawls allowed here. This isn’t East Fifth, chum.” “You may call me chum,” Foster said, reverting to the main topic, “but you don’t mean it. I’m nobody’s pal. Nobody loves me.” “What about that babe you brought in last night?” Foster tested his drink. He was a good-looking, youngish man with slick blond hair and a rather hazy expression in his blue eyes. “Betty?” he murmured....
Article I: Of God. The First Article of our Confession our adversaries approve, in which we declare that we believe and teach that there is one divine essence, undivided, etc., and yet, that there are three distinct persons, of the same divine essence, and coeternal, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This article we have always taught and defended, and we believe that it has, in Holy Scripture, sure and firm testimonies that cannot be overthrown. And we constantly affirm that those thinking otherwise are outside of the Church of Christ, and are idolaters, and insult God. Article II (I): Of Original Sin. The Second Article, Of Original Sin, the adversaries approve, but in such a way that they, nevertheless, censure the definition of original sin, which we incidentally gave. Here, immediately at the very threshold, His Imperial Majesty will discover that the writers of the Confutation were deficient not only...
SCOTLAND AND ITS TROUBLES DURING MARY’S INFANCY. James V. left, as an inheritance to his kingdom, an expensive and destructive war with England. He likewise left what, under such circumstances, was a very questionable advantage, a treasury well stored with gold, and a coinage in good condition, produced from the mines which he had worked in Scotland. The foreign relations of the country demanded the utmost attention; but the long minority necessarily ensuing, as Mary, his only surviving lawful child, was but a few days old when James died, awakened hopes and wishes in the ambitious which superseded all other considerations. For a time England was forgotten; and the prize of the Regency became a bone of civil contention and discord. There were three persons who aspired to that office, and the pretensions of each had their supporters, as interest or reason might dictate. The first was the Queen-Dowager, a...
About seven hundred and fifty years before the Christian era some Latian settlers founded a town on the banks of the Tiber and became the Roman people. Where did they come from? Had they come across what was later to be known as the ager romanus from the Latin stronghold of Alba Longa, or were they a mixed people, partly composed of those men from Etruria who were already settled in the country round? In the confused pictures which tradition has handed down to us we see Latins in conflict with Etruscans, and Romulus relegating the latter to a special quarter of the city; but we also see one of the three tribes into which he divided the people bearing an Etruscan name, an Etruscan chief as his ally, and we know that while two at least of her six kings belonged to this race, the religion, the art, and...
Three miles from Truckee, Nevada County, California, lies one of the fairest and most picturesque lakes in all the Sierra. Above, and on either side, are lofty mountains, with castellated granite crests, while below, at the mouth of the lake, a grassy, meadowy valley widens out and extends almost to Truckee. The body of water is three miles long, one and a half miles wide, and four hundred and eighty-three feet in depth. Tourists and picnic parties annually flock to its shores, and Bierstadt has made it the subject of one of his finest, grandest paintings. In summer, its willowy thickets, its groves of tamarack and forests of pine, are the favorite haunts and nesting places of the quail and grouse. Beautiful, speckled mountain trout plentifully abound in its crystalline waters. A rippling breeze usually wimples and dimples its laughing surface, but in calmer moods it reflects, as in a...
THE MAGNIFICENT BY ALFRED VON REUMONT TRANSLATED from THE GERMAN by ROBERT HARRISON IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II. LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1876 [ All rights reserved ] FOURTH BOOK— continued SECOND PART TIME OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT. LORENZO AS A POET. In April 1465, as already stated, Federigo of Aragon, Prince of Naples, and Lorenzo de’ Medici, then seventeen years old, met at Pisa. A letter addressed by the young Florentine to his royal friend, probably in the following year, begins thus: [1] ‘When thou, illustrious Federigo, didst visit the most ancient city of Pisa, thou didst turn our conversation to the subject of those who have written poetry in the Tuscan language, and didst manifest a laudable desire to see all their works collected by my care. Endeavouring to fulfil thy wishes, I had a diligent search made for all the old manuscripts, and...
Origin. —The native country of the Peanut ( Arachis hypogæa ) is not definitely ascertained. Like many other extensively cultivated plants, it has not been found in a truly wild state. Some botanists regard the plant as a native of Africa, and brought to the New World soon after its discovery. Sloane, in his history of Jamaica, states that peanuts formed a part of the provisions taken by the slave ships for the support of the negroes on the voyage, and leaves it to be inferred that the plant was introduced in this manner. De Candolle, in Géographie Botanique Raisonnée , and his latter work on L'Origine des Plantes Cultivées , strongly inclines to the American origin of the Peanut. The absence of any mention of the plant by early Egyptian and Arabic writers, and the fact that there is no name for it in Sanscrit and Bengalese, are regarded...
Appearances oftentimes can be deceiving, and things most certainly aren't always as they seem. Take the case of Nathanial Evergood, for instance. The nature of this old man was such that nobody ever called him Nat, not even his closest working companions in the company's bookkeeping department. As long as any of them had ever known Nathanial Evergood there had never been the slightest indication of any desire of his for intimacy or even friendship. Not once had he shared a drink or lunch or relaxed conversation with anyone, so far as his associates knew. To say Nathanial was reserved is putting it mildly. It would be more accurate to describe this little old man as dull—completely and absolutely dull. In his appearance, his dress, his speech, in every way imaginable. But, in addition to being quite dull—as everyone knew, Nathanial Evergood was also a thoroughly evil and obscene old...
Let us commence, then, with the sceptical. They are not inclined, for the present at least, to propagate their views. Rightly or wrongly, they still hold the popular opinion that, while they themselves can dispense with belief, the masses cannot. All that is asked of a “cultured” man is that he keep his opinion to himself. He may be an agnostic or—whether he realises it or not—practically an atheist; but he must not think of calling himself by such ugly names. “The uneducated freethinker,” our modern philosopher will say, “manifests a Philistine Voltaireanism—a spirit now disapproved by scholars and philosophers, who regard with serious consideration all the manifestations and products of human thought, from the earliest fetichism to the most recent developments of that religious tendency which appears to be a constitutional element in man.” Such high thoughts, according to this philosopher, are not for the common herd, who must...
Transcriber’s Notes The cover image was provided by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. Punctuation has been standardized. Most abbreviations have been expanded in tool-tips for screen-readers and may be seen by hovering the mouse over the abbreviation. This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged unless indicated with a Transcriber’s Note. Footnotes are identified in the text with a superscript number and have been accumulated in a table at the end of the text. Transcriber’s Notes are used when making corrections to the text or to provide additional information for the modern reader. These notes have been accumulated in a table at the end of the book and are identified in the text by a dotted underline and may be...
—and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins.— Matthew i. 21. I would help some to understand what Jesus came from the home of our Father to be to us and do for us. Everything in the world is more or less misunderstood at first: we have to learn what it is, and come at length to see that it must be so, that it could not be otherwise. Then we know it; and we never know a thing really until we know it thus. I presume there is scarce a human being who, resolved to speak openly, would not confess to having something that plagued him, something from which he would gladly be free, something rendering it impossible for him, at the moment, to regard life as an altogether good thing. Most men, I presume, imagine that, free of such and...
The rather extraordinary story revealed by the experiments of the Neighborhood Club have been until now a matter only of private record. But it seems to me, as an active participant in the investigations, that they should be given to the public; not so much for what they will add to the existing data on psychical research, for from that angle they were not unusual, but as yet another exploration into that still uncharted territory, the human mind. The psycho-analysts have taught us something about the individual mind. They have their own patter, of complexes and primal instincts, of the unconscious, which is a sort of bonded warehouse from which we clandestinely withdraw our stored thoughts and impressions. They lay to this unconscious mind of ours all phenomena that cannot otherwise be labeled, and ascribe such demonstrations of power as cannot thus be explained to trickery, to black silk threads...
The traveller who descends into Italy by an Alpine pass never forgets the surprise and delight of the transition. In an hour he is whirled down the slopes from the region of eternal snow to the verdure of spring or the ripeness of summer. Suddenly—it may be at a turn in the road—winter is left behind; the plains of Lombardy are in view; the Lake of Como or Maggiore gleams below; there is a tree; there is an orchard; there is a garden; there is a villa overrun with vines; the singing of birds is heard; the air is gracious; the slopes are terraced, and covered with vineyards; great sheets of silver sheen in the landscape mark the growth of the olive; the dark green orchards of oranges and lemons are starred with gold; the lusty fig, always a temptation as of old, leans invitingly over the stone wall; everywhere...
"I am afraid I don't understand you, Mr. Lyne." Odette Rider looked gravely at the young man who lolled against his open desk. Her clear skin was tinted with the faintest pink, and there was in the sober depths of those grey eyes of hers a light which would have warned a man less satisfied with his own genius and power of persuasion than Thornton Lyne. He was not looking at her face. His eyes were running approvingly over her perfect figure, noting the straightness of the back, the fine poise of the head, the shapeliness of the slender hands. He pushed back his long black hair from his forehead and smiled. It pleased him to believe that his face was cast in an intellectual mould, and that the somewhat unhealthy pastiness of his skin might be described as the "pallor of thought." Presently he looked away from her through...
Two names were used for the only girl at Overlook. In addressing her, the men of the place always said "Miss Warriner." In mentioning her, they often said "Mary Mite." The reason for this distinctive difference was revealed by the sight of Miss Mary Warriner herself, as she sat on a high stool behind a rude desk, under a roughly-boarded shelter, and with rapid fingers clicked the key of a telegraphic instrument. There was a perfect poise of quiet self-possession which would have been very impressive dignity in an older and bigger person, and which, although here limited by eighteen years and one hundred pounds, still made a demand for respectful treatment. Therefore the men, when in her presence, never felt like calling her anything else than "Miss Warriner." If she had been less like a stately damsel in miniature, and more like such a child as she was in...
The Roman Catholic Church, which I sincerely respect, consists of one hundred and thirty-nine millions of individuals—without counting little Mortara. It is governed by seventy Cardinals, or Princes of the Church, in memory of the twelve Apostles. The Cardinal-Bishop of Rome, who is also designated by the name of Vicar of Jesus Christ, Holy Father, or Pope, is invested with boundless authority over the minds of these hundred and thirty-nine millions of Catholics. The Cardinals are nominated by the Pope; the Pope is nominated by the Cardinals; from the day of his election he becomes infallible, at least in the opinion of M. de Maistre, and the best Catholics of our time. This was not the opinion of Bossuet; but it has always been that of the Popes themselves. When the Sovereign Pontiff declares to us that the Virgin Mary was born free from original sin, the hundred and thirty-nine...
I. I have already announced that during this Advent season I would call your attention to the state of the blessed dead. My object in so doing is simply that we may recall to ourselves that which Scripture has revealed respecting them, for our edification, and for our personal comfort. And I would guard that which will be said by one or two preliminary observations. With Death as an object of terror, with Death from the mere moralist’s point of view, as the termination of human schemes and hopes, we Christians have nothing to do. We are believers in and servants of One who has in these senses abolished Death. Our schemes and hopes are not terminated by Death, but reach onward into a state beyond it. Again, with that state beyond, except as one of blessedness purchased for us by the Son of God, I am not at present...
ONE who looks for the first time at a large map of Holland must be amazed to think that a country so made can exist. At first sight, it is impossible to say whether land or water predominates, and whether Holland belongs to the continent or to the sea. Its jagged and narrow coast-line, its deep bays and wide rivers, which seem to have lost the outer semblance of rivers and to be carrying fresh seas to the sea; and that sea itself, as if transformed to a river, penetrating far into the land, and breaking it up into archipelagoes; the lakes and vast marshes, the canals crossing each other everywhere,—all leave an impression that a country so broken up must disintegrate and disappear. It would be pronounced a fit home for only beavers and seals, and surely its inhabitants, although of a race so bold as to dwell there,...
So many unkind things have been said of the affair at Morris Valley that I think it best to publish a straightforward account of everything. The ill nature of the cartoon, for instance, which showed Tish in a pair of khaki trousers on her back under a racing-car was quite uncalled for. Tish did not wear the khaki trousers; she merely took them along in case of emergency. Nor was it true that Tish took Aggie along as a mechanician and brutally pushed her off the car because she was not pumping enough oil. The fact was that Aggie sneezed on a curve and fell out of the car, and would no doubt have been killed had she not been thrown into a pile of sand. It was in early September that Eliza Bailey, my cousin, decided to go to London, ostensibly for a rest, but really to get some...
I trust this initial effort of mine in the world of letters will find a place among both novices and experts in the tennis world. I am striving to interest the student of the game by a somewhat prolonged discussion of match play, which I trust will shed a new light on the game. May I turn to the novice at my opening and speak of certain matters which are second nature to the skilled player? The best tennis equipment is not too good for the beginner who seeks really to succeed. It is a saving in the end, as good quality material so far outlasts poor. Always dress in tennis clothes when engaging in tennis. White is the established colour. Soft shirt, white flannel trousers, heavy white socks, and rubber-soled shoes form the accepted dress for tennis. Do not appear on the courts in dark clothes, as they are...
The Rell, a great and ancient Martian race, faced extinction when all moisture was swept from their planet. Then, one day, a lone visitor—a strange, two-legged creature composed mostly of water—landed on Mars … BY VERNON L. MC CAIN T he dehydration of the planet had taken centuries in all. The Rell had still been a great race when the process started. Construction of the canals was a prodigious feat but not a truly remarkable one. But what use are even canals when there is nothing to fill them? What cosmic influences might have caused the disaster baffled even the group-mind of the Rell. Through the eons the atmosphere had drifted into space; and with it went the life-giving moisture. Originally a liquid paradise, the planet was now a dry, hostile husk. The new life was bitter and difficult and as their resources were depleted so also did their numbers diminish....
Cruise in the Frigate “United States”—Elba—Piombino—Porto Ferrajo—Appearance of the Bay—Naval Discipline—Visit to the Town Residence of Napoleon—His Employment during his Confinement on the Island—His sisters Eliza and Pauline—His Country House—Simplicity of the Inhabitants of Elba. I had come from Florence to join the “United States,” at the polite invitation of the officers of the ward-room, on a cruise up the Mediterranean. My cot was swung immediately on my arrival, but we lay three days longer than was expected in the harbour, riding out a gale of wind, which broke the chain cables of both ships, and drove several merchant vessels on the rocks. We got under way on the 3rd of June, and the next morning were off Elba, with Corsica on our quarter, and the little island of Capreja just ahead. The firing of guns took me just now to the deck. Three Sardinian gun-boats had saluted the commodore’s...
With his nephews as willing companions and eager listeners, Uncle Paul continued his walks and talks in the pleasant summer afternoons. “Bread is made of flour,” he began, “and flour is wheat reduced to powder under the millstone. What an interesting mechanism that is, the flour-mill, driven by water, by the wind, sometimes by steam! What wearisome effort, what waste of time, if we had not this invention and were forced to do its work of grinding by sheer strength of arm! “I must tell you that in ancient times, for want of knowing how to grind wheat, people had to content themselves with crushing it between two stones after parching it a little over the fire. The coarse meal thus obtained was cooked in water to a sort of porridge and eaten with no further preparation. Bread was unknown. “Later the plan was hit upon of kneading the meal...
"But, damme, sir, the thing's an outrage! I don't mince my words, Mr. Narkom—I say plump and plain the thing's an outrage, a disgrace to the police, an indignity upon the community at large; and for Scotland Yard to permit itself to be defied, bamboozled, mocked at in this appalling fashion by a paltry burglar—" "Uncle, dear, pray don't excite yourself in this manner. I am quite sure that if Mr. Narkom could prevent the things—" "Hold your tongue, Ailsa—I will not be interfered with! It's time that somebody spoke out plainly and let this establishment know what the public has a right to expect of it. What do I pay my rates and taxes for—and devilish high ones they are, too, b'gad—if it's not to maintain law and order and the proper protection of property? And to have the whole blessed country terrorised, the police defied, and people's houses...
BY W. CLARK RUSSELL London MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1894 All rights reserved CONTENTS THE BUCCANEERS—NAVIGATION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY—FEATURES OF THE VOCATIONAL LIFE OF THE EARLY MARINER In or about the middle of the seventeenth century the island of San Domingo, or Hispaniola as it was then called, was haunted and overrun by a singular community of savage, surly, fierce, and filthy men. They were chiefly composed of French colonists, whose ranks had from time to time been enlarged by liberal contributions from the slums and alleys of more than one European city and town. These people went dressed in shirts and pantaloons of coarse linen cloth, which they steeped in the blood of the animals they slaughtered. They wore round caps, boots of hogskin drawn over their naked feet, and belts of raw hide, in which they stuck their sabres and knives. They also armed themselves...
BY FERDINAND PRAEGER NEW YORK LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 15 EAST SIXTEENTH STREET 1892 Copyright, 1892, By CHARLES J. MILLS. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF DYSART, President of the London Branch of the United Richard Wagner Society. My Lord :— If an intimacy, an uninterrupted friendship, of close upon half a century during which early associations, ambitions, failures, successes, and their results were frankly discussed, entitles one to speak with authority on Richard Wagner, the man, the artist, his mental workings, and the doctrine he strove to preach, then am I fully entitled so to speak of my late friend. To vindicate Wagner in all things is not my intention. He was but mortal, and no ordinary mortal, and had his failings, which will be fearlessly dealt with. My sole purpose is to set Richard Wagner before the world as I knew him; to help to an...
It was a strange world and a deadly one, the incredible alien planet— Gral and Hodnuth were playing phph. In case you are not a phph fan, and haven't ever seen Bliten's classic Ways of Improving Your Phph Game , its essence consists in lobbing pebbles at a target as near the horizon as your skill permits. After each throw, you fly over to see how far you went. It sounds like a simple game, but it has complicated restrictions and rules, and a good phph player can command any amount of heavy service from the spectators. Since a lot of the Ground Dwellers are also phph addicts (they could never become players, of course, being far too small and light to handle the phph pebbles), this means that a real champion never has to do any kind of work again, being fed, clothed, housed and entertained by his admirers,...
The news rang through the world that Stanley was safe. For more than a year he had been given up as lost in African wilds by all but the most hopeful. Even hope had nothing to rest upon save the dreamy thought that he, whom hardship and danger had so often assailed in vain, would again come out victorious. The mission of Henry M. Stanley to find, succor and rescue Emin Pasha, if he were yet alive, not only adds to the life of this persistent explorer and wonderful adventurer one of its most eventful and thrilling chapters, but throws more light on the Central African situation than any event in connection with the discovery and occupation of the coveted areas which lie beneath the equatorial sun. Its culmination, both in the escape of the hero himself and in the success of his perilous errand, to say nothing of its...
Giving Certain Powers the business for a change would be a joy—but it must not backfire—and here at last was the perfect recoilless diddle! In 1962, the United States Air Force found itself possessed of a formidable tool of battle, a radar resistant airplane. While this was the occasion for much rejoicing among the Defense Department members who were cleared for Top Secret, this national-defense solution merely posed a greater problem: What should we do with it? "There must," said the Secretary of Defense, "be some utilization of this new device to demonstrate to 'Certain Powers' that the world can be made safe for Freedom and Democracy!" "'Certain Powers,' my foot," said the President. "Why don't we ever come out and just say it?" "Policy," the Secretary said. "We've always walked softly in our Foreign Policy; especially softly in cases where we didn't have the 'big stick' to carry." "Well,"...