Once upon a time there lived a king who was so fond of wine that he could not go to sleep unless he knew he had a great flaskful tied to his bed-post. All day long he drank till he was too stupid to attend to his business, and everything in the kingdom went to […]

Once upon a time, in the very middle of the middle of a large kingdom, there was a town, and in the town a palace, and in the palace a king. This king had one son whom his father thought was wiser and cleverer than any son ever was before, and indeed his father had […]

Once upon a time there lived a stone-cutter, who went every day to a great rock in the side of a big mountain and cut out slabs for gravestones or for houses. He understood very well the kinds of stones wanted for the different purposes, and as he was a careful workman he had plenty […]

Among the best brief masterpieces of fiction are Lytton’s The Haunters and the Haunted, and Thackeray’s Notch on the Axe in Roundabout Papers.* Both deal with a mysterious being who passes through the ages, rich, powerful, always behind the scenes, coming no man knows whence, and dying, or pretending to die, obscurely– you never find […]

I THE LEGEND The Mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask is, despite a pleasant saying of Lord Beaconsfield’s, one of the most fascinating in history. By a curious coincidence the wildest legend on the subject, and the correct explanation of the problem, were offered to the world in the same year, 1801. According […]

Last night I found the violets You sent me once across the sea; From gardens that the winter frets, In summer lands they came to me. Still fragrant of the English earth, Still humid from the frozen dew, To me they spoke of Christmas mirth, They spoke of England, spoke of you. The flowers are […]

Vain is the dream! However Hope may rave, He perished with the folk he could not save, And though none surely told us he is dead, And though perchance another in his stead, Another, not less brave, when all was done, Had fled unto the southward and the sun, Had urged a way by force, […]

One day a powerful king and his beautiful wife were sitting in the gardens of their capital city, talking earnestly about the future life of their little son, who was sleeping by their side in his beautiful golden cradle. They had been married for many years without children, so when this baby came they thought […]