G.K. Chesterton DEDICATION To C. F G. Masterman, M. P. My Dear Charles, I originally called this book "What is Wrong," and it would have satisfied your sardonic temper to note the number of social mis...

Robert Louis Stevenson TO MY WIFE I saw rain falling and the rainbow drawn On Lammermuir. Hearkening I heard again In my precipitous city beaten bells Winnow the keen sea wind. And here afar, Intent o...

Herbert Darling Foster FOREWORD It is very curious that much of the history of the United States in the Forties and Fifties of the last century has vanished from the general memory. When a skilled his...

Jack London PREFACE When I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature, because, forsooth, I was a socialist. Reporters from local papers interviewed me, and the interviews, when pub...

Italy, France and Britain at War H. G. Wells THE PASSING OF THE EFFIGY 1 One of the minor peculiarities of this unprecedented war is the Tour of the Front. After some months of suppressed informatio...

Henry David Thoreau Walking I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil--to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and...

PART I TWELVE STORIES O. Henry THE RED ROSES OF TONIA A trestle burned down on the International Railroad. The south- bound from San Antonio was cut off for the next forty-eight hours. On that tra...

By MARY ROBERTS RINEHART CHAPTER I I HAVE A WARNING When it was all over Mr. Sam came out to the spring-house to say good-by to me before he and Mrs. Sam left. I hated to see him go, after all we had ...

By Jack London WHEN GOD LAUGHS (with compliments to Harry Cowell) "The gods, the gods are stronger; time Falls down before them, all men's knees Bow, all men's prayers and sorrows climb Like incense t...

HUGH LOFTING To Colin and Elizabeth PROLOGUE ALL that I have written so far about Doctor Dolittle I heard long after it happened from those who had known him-- indeed a great deal of it took place bef...