In the opening of this subject we find the callow youth as he points towards the city's spires, exclaiming to his dear old mother, "Mother, there in the big city is my sphere. There will I turn the world over." Off he goes cityward, ambitious and presumptuous, and perhaps we may add reckless. Alas, the city's whirl is quite a change from the simple quiet life in the country and the youth falls a victim to the snares that beset the unsophisticated.

Agnes, a singer in a country church, is practicing one day when a vaudeville manager hears her and offers her a job. Over the objections of the curate who loves her, she accepts the offer and goes to the city. Later the curate goes to hear Agnes perform and, fearing that her soul is being corrupted by show business, he asks her to return to the small town with him. When she refuses, he is prepared to kill her in order to protect the purity of her soul. This brings about her change of heart, and together they return to the little church.

It's Bob Allen's twenty-first birthday. His mother and his brother Jack, a policeman present him with a cap, personalized with his initals in the lining. Jack then goes to work and Bob goes out also. Later in the evening, Jack is called to the scene of a robbery, where he finds the cap with his brother's initials. Dismayed by the idea that his brother is a thief, he goes home and confronts Bob with the evidence. Though it breaks their mother's heart, Jack does his duty and leads his brother out in handcuffs.

Nellie flees her old life and goes east to become a nurse, where she marries a doctor. One of her old colleagues finds her and tries to blackmail her. When the blackmail plot is exposed, Nellie's husband expresses his complete faith in her.

At the Italian boarding house the male boarders were all smitten with the charms of Minnie, the landlady's pretty daughter, but she was of a poetic turn of mind and her soul soared above plebeianism and her aspirations were romantic. Most persistent among her suitors was Grigo, a coarse Sicilian, whose advances were odiously repulsive. The arrival at the boarding house from the old country of Giuseppe Cassella, the violinist, filled the void in her yearning heart. Romantic, poetic and a talented musician, Giuseppe was indeed a desirable husband for Minnie.

A young maiden is seduced by a charming traveling peddler who persuades her to steal from her host family in order to repay his gambling debts.

Mrs. Wharton, a dashing widow, gives a party at her beautiful villa in honor of the presentation to her of a handsome diamond necklace by her fiancé. During the evening bridge participated in by a number of the guests, among whom is Myrtle Vane. Miss Vane is playing in wretched luck, and is advised several times by Mrs. Wharton to desist, but she still plays on in the vain hopes of the tide of fortune turning, until at last, in the extreme of desperation, she stakes her all and loses. Shame and disgrace stare her in the face. What can she do to recoup her depleted fortune? As one of the guests there is Professor Francois Paracelsus, the eminent palmister, who of course, was called upon to read the palms of those present. Sheets of paper were prepared and each imprinted their hand on a sheet to be read by the erudite soothsayer at his leisure, and so were left on the drawing room table.

A mountain girl is seduced by a traveler from the valley. Her brother tracks the seducer down and kills him. In retaliation, the sheriff captures the brother and prepares to lynch him. Mother intervenes and, to save her son the disgrace of hanging, shoots him.

During the American Revolution, a young soldier carrying a crucial message to General Washington is spotted and pursued by a group of enemy soldiers. He takes refuge with a civilian family, but is soon detected. The family and their neighbors must then make plans to see that the important message gets through after all.

A first-born baby girl is sent away and placed in the care of Gretchen, a trusted peasant woman, who is the widowed mother of a child about the same age. The two children grow up as sisters. Later, upon her deathbed, the noble lady repents and sends for her child to reinstate her. Gretchen takes this opportunity to make a great lady of her own daughter Lena, the goose girl, by sending her to court instead of the real heiress. Hence Lena is taken before the noble lady, happy in the belief that she has made reparation. Lena is now a great lady, but the title does not fit well-- She longs to be back with Gretchen and her "geeses".

An anonymous donor drops a gold coin in the shoe of a homeless girl as she sleeps. A gambler with a 'sure thing' borrows the coin and wins a fortune, but he can't find her again to repay her.

Ramona, residing on her wealthy Spanish adoptive mother's rancho in California, falls in love with the Indian Alessandro. When Ramona is denied permission to marry Alessandro, the lovers elope, only to find a life of great hardship and unhappiness amidst the greed and injustice of the white landowners.

A young couple's marriage is jeopardized by the husband's descent into alcoholism.

A group of youngsters grow up and love in a peaceful French village. But war intrudes and peace is shattered. The German army invades and occupies village, bringing both destruction and torture. The young people of the village resist, some successfully, others tragically, until French troops retake the town.

Behold in this film the Uplifter, a peculiarity of the human species, quite convinced that all that is, is wrong. Forth to the uplift he minds everybody's business but his own, until that business is as clean, pure and spotless as himself. Verily in these later days is there no school of art named, "Minding One's Business."

Adonese is returning home from seeing the woman he is courting, and he is driving around a corner when his car accidentally brushes against the tramp 'Faithful' and knocks him over. Feeling sorry for him, Adonese helps him up and buys him a new suit of clothes. The naively innocent Faithful reads too much into this gesture, and he begins to follow his benefactor everywhere, expecting to receive future gifts.