Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team PHILISTIA BY GRANT ALLEN CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. CHILDREN OF LIGHT II. THE COASTS OF THE GENTILES III. MAGDALEN QUAD IV. A LITTLE MUSIC V. ASKELON VILLA, GATH VI. DOWN THE RIVER VII. GHOSTLY COUNSEL VIII. IN THE CAMP OF THE PHILISTINES IX. THE WOMEN OF THE LAND X. THE DAUGHTERS OF CANAAN XI. CULTURE AND CULTURE XII. THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY XIII. YE MOUNTAINS OF GILBOA XIV. WHAT DO THESE HEBREWS HERE XV. EVIL TIDINGS XVI. FLAT REBELLION XVII. COME YE OUT AND BE YE SEPARATE! XVIII. A QUIET WEDDING XIX. INTO THE FIRE XX. LITERATURE, MUSIC, AND THE DRAMA XXI. OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE XXII. THE PHILISTINES TRIUMPH XXIII. THE STREETS OF ASKELON XXIV. THE CLOUDS BEGIN TO BREAK XXV. HARD PRESSED XXVI. IRRECLAIMABLE XXVII. RONALD COMES OF AGE XXVIII. TELL IT NOT IN GATH XXIX. A MAN AND A MAID XXX. THE ENVIRONMENT FINALLY TRIUMPHS XXXI. DE PROFUNDIS XXXII. PRECONTRACT OF MARRIAGE XXXIII. A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE XXXIV. HOPE XXXV. THE TIDE TURNS XXXVI. OUT OF THE HAND OF THE PHILISTINES XXXVII. LAND AT LAST: BUT WHAT LAND? CHAPTER I. CHILDREN OF LIGHT. It was Sunday evening, and on Sundays Max Schurz, the chief of the London Socialists, always held his weekly receptions. That night his cosmopolitan refugee friends were all at liberty; his French disciples could pour in from the little lanes and courts in Soho, where, since the Commune, they had plied their peaceful trades as engravers, picture-framers, artists'-colourmen, models, pointers, and so forth--for most of them were hangers-on in one way or another of the artistic world; his German adherents could stroll round, pipe in mouth, from their printing-houses, their ham-and-beef shops, or their naturalists' chambers, where they stuffed birds or set up exotic butterflies in little cabinets--for most of them were more or less literary or scientific in their pursuits; and his few English sympathisers, chiefly dissatisfied philosophical Radicals of the upper classes, could drop in casually for a chat and a smoke, on their way home from the churches to which they had been dutifully escorting their un-emancipated wives and sisters. Max Schurz kept open house for all on Sunday evenings, and there was not a drawing-room in London better filled than his with the very advanced and not undistinguished set who alone had the much-prized entrée of his exclusive salon.