Side Lights

I knew James Runciman but little, and that little for the most part in the way of business. But no one could know that ardent and eager soul at all, no matter how slightly, with...

These fragments snatched from the mass of his literary output need no introduction from me. Mr. Grant Allen has written with friendly appreciation of the man. I gladly join him...

Burke kept his vast accumulations of knowledge perfectly fresh; and I notice in him that, instead of growing more staid and commonplace in his style as he increased in years, he...

The singular phrase at the head of this Essay came to me from a correspondent who wrote in great perplexity. This unhappy man was quite miserable because he found that his own v...

If any one happens to feel ashamed when he notices the far-off resemblances between the lower animals and man's august self, he will probably feel the most acute humiliation sho...

To see a household where love and unity reign drives ill-matched folk to madness. The man declares that his friend's wife makes the felicity; the woman praises the other husband...

But I am not minded to deal with the special instances of shrewism which have been pronounced enough to claim attention from powerful masters of fiction and history; I am rather...

And so this long procession of shrews passes before us, scolding and gibbering and dispensing miseries. Is there no way of appealing to reason so that they may be led to see tha...

Only about a quarter-century ago unlearned men of ability would often sigh and say, "Ah, if I was only a scholar!" Admirers of a clever and illiterate workman often said, "Why,...

You want to clear away rookeries and erect decent dwellings in their place? Good and beautiful! I sympathise with the intention, and I wish that it could be carried into effect...

The Modern Legislator is a most terrible creature. When he is not engaged in obstructing public business, he must needs be meddling with other people's private affairs--and some...

If we think about the ladies of the old days, we are more than ever driven to reflection. It is impossible to imagine a more insensate collection of gamblers than the women of H...

Take a man of another stamp, and observe how he met the first blows of Fortune. Thomas Carlyle had dwelt on a lonely moorland for six years. He came to London and employed himse...

The great English carnival of gamblers is over for a month or two; the bookmakers have retired to winter quarters after having waxed fat during the year on the money risked by a...

Perhaps Byron's own peculiar disposition--his constitution--prevented him from understanding the undoubted truth which I have stated. Like all other men, he possessed a dual nat...

One very remarkable thing in these homes of quietness is the marvellous power possessed by drink-sellers. These gentry form the main links in a very tough chain, and they hang t...

But around us there are others who have composedly accepted sorrow as their portion. We have, it may be, felt so much joy in living, we have been so pierced through and through...

When the mystic midnight passes, the bustle of Fleet Street slackens; but on each side of the thoroughfare hundreds of workers with hand and brain are toiling with eager intensi...