A LOST OPPORTUNITY."Then came Peter to Him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brothersin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?" . . . ."So likewise shall My heavenly Father do also unto you, if yefrom your hearts forgive not every one his brother theirtrespasses."ST. MATTHEW xviii., 21-35.In a certain village there lived a peasant by the name of IvanScherbakoff. He was prosperous, strong, and vigorous, and wasconsidered the hardest worker in the whole village. He had threesons, who supported themselves by their own labor. The eldestwas married, the second about to be married, and the youngesttook care of the horses and occasionally attended to the...
SHERLOCK HOLMESTHE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING THREE-QUARTERby Sir Arthur Conan DoyleWe were fairly accustomed to receive weird telegrams at BakerStreet, but I have a particular recollection of one which reached uson a gloomy February morning, some seven or eight years ago, andgave Mr. Sherlock Holmes a puzzled quarter of an hour. It wasaddressed to him, and ran thus:Please await me. Terrible misfortune. Right wing three-quartermissing, indispensable to-morrow.OVERTON."Strand postmark, and dispatched ten thirty-six," said Holmes,...
Man and SupermanA COMEDY AND A PHILOSOPHYBy George Bernard ShawEPISTLE DEDICATORY TO ARTHUR BINGHAM WALKLEYMy dear Walkley:You once asked me why I did not write a Don Juan play. The levitywith which you assumed this frightful responsibility has probablyby this time enabled you to forget it; but the day of reckoninghas arrived: here is your play! I say your play, because quifacit per alium facit per se. Its profits, like its labor, belongto me: its morals, its manners, its philosophy, its influence onthe young, are for you to justify. You were of mature age whenyou made the suggestion; and you knew your man. It is hardlyfifteen years since, as twin pioneers of the New Journalism of...
MOTHER HOLLEONCE upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters;one of them was pretty and clever, and the other ugly andlazy. But as the ugly one was her own daughter, she liked her farthe best of the two, and the pretty one had to do all the work of thehouse, and was in fact the regular maid of all work. Every day shehad to sit by a well on the high road, and spin till her fingers wereso sore that they often bled. One day some drops of blood fell onher spindle, so she dipped it into the well meaning to wash it, but, asluck would have it, it dropped from her hand and fell right in. Sheran weeping to her stepmother, and told her what had happened,...
HIS DOGHIS DOGBy ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE 19221- Page 2-HIS DOGCHAPTER I. The DerelictLink Ferris was a fighter. Not by nature, nor by choice, but to keepalive.His battleground covered an area of forty acresbroken, scrubby,uncertain side-hill acres, at that. In brief, a worked-out farm among themountain slopes of the North Jersey hinterland; six miles from the nearest...
Mary Stuartby Alexandre Dumas, PereCHAPTER ISome royal names are predestined to misfortune: in France, there isthe name "Henry". Henry I was poisoned, Henry II was killed in atournament, Henry III and Henry IV were assassinated. As to Henry V,for whom the past is so fatal already, God alone knows what thefuture has in store for him.In Scotland, the unlucky name is "Stuart". Robert I, founder of therace, died at twenty-eight of a lingering illness. Robert II, themost fortunate of the family, was obliged to pass a part of his life,not merely in retirement, but also in the dark, on account ofinflammation of the eyes, which made them blood-red. Robert III...
IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODSIN THE CARQUINEZWOODSby Bret Harte1- Page 2-IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODSCHAPTER I.The sun was going down on the Carquinez Woods. The few shaftsof sunlight that had pierced their pillared gloom were lost in unfathomabledepths, or splintered their ineffectual lances on the enormous trunks of theredwoods. For a time the dull red of their vast columns, and the dull redof their cast-off bark which matted the echoless aisles, still seemed to hold...
THE SEVENTH LETTERby Platotranslated by J. HarwardPLATO TO THE RELATIVES AND FRIENDS OF DION. WELFARE.You write to me that I must consider your views the same as those ofDion, and you urge me to aid your cause so far as I can in word anddeed. My answer is that, if you have the same opinion and desire as hehad, I consent to aid your cause; but if not, I shall think morethan once about it. Now what his purpose and desire was, I caninform you from no mere conjecture but from positive knowledge. Forwhen I made my first visit to Sicily, being then about forty years...
The Golden Sayings of EpictetusIAre these the only works of Providence within us? What wordssuffice to praise or set them forth? Had we but understanding,should we ever cease hymning and blessing the Divine Power, bothopenly and in secret, and telling of His gracious gifts? Whetherdigging or ploughing or eating, should we not sing the hymn toGod:Great is God, for that He hath given us such instruments to tillthe ground withal:Great is God, for that He hath given us hands and the power ofswallowing and digesting; of unconsciously growing andbreathing while we sleep!Thus should we ever have sung; yea and this, the grandest and...
The Cask of Amontilladoby Edgar Allen PoeThe thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I bestcould, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, whoso well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, thatI gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged;this was a point definitely settledbut the very definitivenesswith which it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk. I must notonly punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed whenretribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressedwhen the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who hasdone the wrong....
The Red Acornby John McElroyPrefaceThe name given this story is that made glorious by the valor and achievements of the splendid First Division of the Fourteenth Army Corps, the cognizance of which was a crimson acorn, worn on the breasts of its gallant soldiers, and borne upon their battle flags. There are few gatherings of men into which one can go to-day without finding some one wearing, as his most cherished ornament, a red acorn, frequently wrought in gold and studded with precious stones, and which tells that its wearer is a veteran of Mill Springs, Perryville, Shiloh, Corinth, Stone River, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Atlanta, Jonesville, March to the Sea, and Bentonville....
Green Mansions A Romance of the Tropical Forestby W. H. HudsonFOREWORDI take up pen for this foreword with the fear of one who knows that he cannot do justice to his subject, and the trembling of one who would not, for a good deal, set down words unpleasing to the eye of him who wrote Green Mansions, The Purple Land, and all those other books which have meant so much to me. For of all living authorsnow that Tolstoi has gone I could least dispense with W. H. Hudson. Why do I love his writing so? I think because he is, of living writers that I read, the rarest spirit, and has the clearest gift of conveying to me the nature of that spirit. Writers are to their readers little new worlds to b