A Poet sang so wondrous sweet That toiling thousands paused and listened long; So lofty, strong and noble were his themes, It seemed that strength supernal swayed his song. He, god-like, chided poor, weak, weeping man, And bade him dry his foolish, shameful tears; Taught that each soul on its proud self should lean, And […]

Wild hair flying, in a matted maze, Hand firm as iron, eyes all ablaze; Bystanders timidly, breathlessly gaze, As o’er the keno board boldly he plays. -That’s Texas Bill. Wild hair flying, in a matted maze, Hand firm as iron, eyes all ablaze; Bystanders timidly, breathlessly gaze, As o’er the keyboard boldly he plays. -That’s […]

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 train was Tonia Weaver’s Easter hat. Espirition, the Mexican, who had been sent forty miles in a buckboard from the Espinosa Ranch to fetch it, returned with a shrugging shoulder and […]

[This story is especially interesting as an early treatment (1902) of the theme afterward developed with a surer hand in The Pendulum.] “Find yo’ shirt all right, Sam?” asked Mrs. Webber, from her chair under the live-oak, where she was comfortably seated with a paper- back volume for company. “It balances perfeckly, Marthy,” answered Sam, […]

Okochee, in Georgia, had a boom, and J. Pinkney Bloom came out of it with a “wad.” Okochee came out of it with a half-million-dollar debt, a two and a half per cent. city property tax, and a city council that showed a propensity for traveling the back streets of the town. These things came […]

There was a painless stage of incubation that lasted twenty-five years, and then it broke out on me, and people said I was It. But they called it humor instead of measles. The employees in the store bought a silver inkstand for the senior partner on his fiftieth birthday. We crowded into his private office […]

The young man in straitened circumstances who comes to New York City to enter literature has but one thing to do, provided he has studied carefully his field in advance. He must go straight to Madison Square, write an article about the sparrows there, and sell it to the ~Sun~ for $15. I cannot recall […]

At Denver there was an influx of passengers into the coaches on the eastbound B. & M. express. In one coach there sat a very pretty young woman dressed in elegant taste and surrounded by all the luxurious comforts of an experienced traveler. Among the newcomers were two young men, one of handsome presence with […]

The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative . A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one’s gloves. That is what Trysdale was doing, standing by a table […]

I was walking in Central Park with Avery Knight, the great New York burglar, highwayman, and murderer. “But, my dear Knight,” said I, “it sounds incredible. You have undoubtedly performed some of the most wonderful feats in your profession known to modern crime. You have committed some marvellous deeds under the very noses of the […]

First Mrs. Parker would show you the double parlours. You would not dare to interrupt her description of their advantages and of the merits of the gentleman who had occupied them for eight years. Then you would manage to stammer forth the confession that you were neither a doctor nor a dentist. Mrs. Parker’s manner […]

Every Saturday night the Clover Leaf Social Club gave a hop in the hall of the Give and Take Athletic Association on the East Side. In order to attend one of these dances you must be a member of the Give and Take–or, if you belong to the division that starts off with the right […]

When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard. That is our premise. This story shall draw a conclusion from it, and show at the same time that the premise is incorrect. That will be a new thing in logic, and a feat in story-telling somewhat older than the great wall of China. Joe […]

In an art exhibition the other day I saw a painting that had been sold for $5,000. The painter was a young scrub out of the West named Kraft, who had a favourite food and a pet theory. His pabulum was an unquenchable belief in the Unerring Artistic Adjustment of Nature. His theory was fixed […]

There were two or three things that I wanted to know. I do not care about a mystery. So I began to inquire. It took me two weeks to find out what women carry in dress suit cases. And then I began to ask why a mattress is made in two pieces. This serious query […]

The Blue Light Drug Store is downtown, between the Bowery and First Avenue, where the distance between the two streets is the shortest. The Blue Light does not consider that pharmacy is a thing of bric-a- brac, scent and ice-cream soda. If you ask it for pain-killer it will not give you a bonbon. The […]

I don’t suppose it will knock any of you people off your perch to read a contribution from an animal. Mr. Kipling and a good many others have demonstrated the fact that animals can express themselves in remunerative English, and no magazine goes to press nowadays without an animal story in it, except the old-style […]

It was a day in March. Never, never begin a story this way when you write one. No opening could possibly be worse. It is unimaginative, flat, dry and likely to consist of mere wind. But in this instance it is allowable. For the following paragraph, which should have inaugurated the narrative, is too wildly […]

Old Anthony Rockwall, retired manufacturer and proprietor of Rockwall’s Eureka Soap, looked out the library window of his Fifth Avenue mansion and grinned. His neighbour to the right–the aristocratic clubman, G. Van Schuylight Suffolk-Jones–came out to his waiting motor-car, wrinkling a contumelious nostril, as usual, at the Italian renaissance sculpture of the soap palace’s front […]

Suppose you should be walking down Broadway after dinner, with ten minutes allotted to the consummation of your cigar while you are choosing between a diverting tragedy and something serious in the way of vaudeville. Suddenly a hand is laid upon your arm. You turn to look into the thrilling eyes of a beautiful woman, […]