March 9, 1918Caribbean SeaThe Cyclops had less than one hour to live. In forty-eight minutes she would bee a mass tomb for her 309 passengers and crew a tragedy unforeseen and unheralded by ominous premonitions, mocked by an empty sea and a diamond-clear sky. Even the seagulls that had haunted her wake for the past week darted and soared in languid indifference, their keen instincts dulled by the mild weather.There was a slight breeze from the southeast that barely curled the American flag on her stern. At three-thirty in the morning, most of the off-duty crewmen and passengers were asleep. A few, unable to drift off under the oppressive heat of the trade winds, stood around on the upper de　

THE YOUNG KING[TO MARGARET LADY BROOKE - THE RANEE OF SARAWAK]It was the night before the day fixed for his coronation, and theyoung King was sitting alone in his beautiful chamber. Hiscourtiers had all taken their leave of him, bowing their heads tothe ground, according to the ceremonious usage of the day, and hadretired to the Great Hall of the Palace, to receive a few lastlessons from the Professor of Etiquette; there being some of themwho had still quite natural manners, which in a courtier is, I needhardly say, a very grave offence.The lad - for he was only a lad, being but sixteen years of age -was not sorry at their departure, and had flung himself back with a...　

The Vanished Messengerby E. Phillips OppenheimCHAPTER IThere were very few people upon Platform Number Twenty-one ofLiverpool Street Station at a quarter to nine on the eveningof April 2 - possibly because the platform in question is one ofthe most remote and least used in the great terminus. Thestation-master, however, was there himself, with an inspector inattendance. A dark, thick-set man, wearing a long travellingulster and a Homburg hat, and carrying in his hand a brown leatherdressing-case, across which was painted in black letters the nameMR. JOHN P. DUNSTER, was standing a few yards away, smoking along cigar, and, to all appearance absorbed in studying the...　

Abraham Lincoln and the UnionA Chronicle of the Embattled Northby Nathaniel W. StephensonPREFACEIn spite of a lapse of sixty years, the historian who attempts to portray the era of Lincoln is still faced with almost impossible demands and still confronted with arbitrary points of view. It is out of the question, in a book so brief as this must necessarily be, to meet all these demands or to alter these points of view. Interests that are purely local, events that did not with certainty contribute to the final outcome, gossip, as well as the mere caprice of the scholarthese must obviously be set aside.The task imposed upon the volume resolves itself, at bottom, into just two questions: Why w　

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOMPROPOSED ROADS TOFREEDOMBY BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S.1- Page 2-PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOMINTRODUCTIONTHE attempt to conceive imaginatively a better ordering of humansociety than the destructive and cruel chaos in which mankind has hithertoexisted is by no means modern: it is at least as old as Plato, whose``Republic' set the model for the Utopias of subsequent philosophers.Whoever contemplates the world in the light of an idealwhether what he...　

Chapter One: THE PLAIN OF FEARThe still desert air had a lens-like quality. The riders seemed frozen in time, moving without drawing closer. We took turns counting. I could not get the same number twice running.A breath of a breeze whined in the coral, stirred the leaves of Old Father Tree. They tinkled off one another with the song of wind chimes. To the north, the glimmer of change lightning limned the horizon like the far clash of warring gods.A foot crunched sand. I turned. Silent gawked at a talking menhir. It had appeared in the past few seconds, startling him. Sneaky rocks. Like to play games."There are strangers on the Plain," it said.I jumped. It chuckled. Menhirs have the most 　

The Diary of a Man of Fiftyby Henry JamesFlorence, April 5th, 1874.They told me I should find Italy greatlychanged; and in seven-and-twenty years there is room for changes.But to me everything is so perfectly the same that I seem to beliving my youth over again; all the forgotten impressions of thatenchanting time come back to me. At the moment they were powerfulenough; but they afterwards faded away. What in the world became ofthem? Whatever becomes of such things, in the long intervals ofconsciousness? Where do they hide themselves away? in what unvisitedcupboards and crannies of our being do they preserve themselves?...　

The Soul of the Far Eastby Percival LowellContentsChapter 1. IndividualityChapter 2. FamilyChapter 3. AdoptionChapter 4. LanguageChapter 5. Nature and ArtChapter 6. ArtChapter 7. ReligionChapter 8. ImaginationChapter 1. Individuality.The boyish belief that on the other side of our globe all things are of necessity upside down is startlingly brought back to the man when he first sets foot at Yokohama. If his initial glance does not, to be sure, disclose the natives in the every-day feat of standing calmly on their heads, an attitude which his youthful imagination conceived to be a necessary consequence of their geographical position, it does at least reveal them looking at the world as if 　

The Boy CaptivesAn Incident of the Indian War of 1695by John Greenleaf WhittierTHE township of Haverhill, even as late as the close of theseventeenth century, was a frontier settlement, occupying anadvanced position in the great wilderness, which, unbroken by theclearing of a white man, extended from the Merrimac River to theFrench villages on the St. Francois. A tract of twelve miles on theriver and three or four northwardly was occupied by scatteredsettlers, while in the centre of the town a compact village hadgrown up. In the immediate vicinity there were but few Indians,and these generally peaceful and inoffensive. On the breaking out...　

　　 THE girl walked past the secretary who held the door open, and surveyed the law office with eyes that showed just a trace of panic.　 The secretary gently closed the door and the girl selected an old fashioned, high-backed, black leather chair. She sat down in it, crossed her legs, pulled her skirt down over her knees, and sat facing the door. After a moment, she pulled the skirt up for an inch or two, taking some pains to get just the effect she wanted. Then she leaned back so that her spun-gold hair showed to advantage against the shiny black leather of the big chair.　 She looked pathetic and helpless as she sat in the big office, dwarfed by the huge proportions of the leath　

　Winters on Ballybran were generally mild, so the fury of the first spring storms as they howled across the land was ever unexpected. This first one of the new season swept ferociously across the Milekey Ranges, bearing before its westward course the fleeing sleds of crystal singers like so much jetsam. Those laggard singers who had tarried too long at their claims were barely able to hold their bucking sleds on course as they bolted for the safety of the Heptite Guild plex.　Inside the gigantic Hangar, its baffles raised against the mach winds, ordered confusion reigned. Crystal singers lurched from their sleds, half deafened by windscream, exhausted by their turbulent flights. The Hangar c　

　　The story is based on a screen treatment by K. McClory, J. Whittingham, and the author.　　1. "Take It Easy, Mr. Bond"　　It was one of those days when it seemed to James Bond that all life, as someone put it, was nothing but a heap of six to four against.　　To begin with he was ashamed of himself-a rare state of mind. He had a hangover, a bad one, with an aching head and stiff joints. When he coughed-smoking too much goes with drinking too much and doubles the hangover-a cloud of small luminous black spots swam across his vision like amoebae in pond water. The one drink too many signals itself unmistakably. His final whisky and soda in the luxurious flat in Park Lane had been no different fro