Classics Books

CHAPTER I. The managing editor of the New York Argus sat at his desk with a deep frown on his face, looking out from under his shaggy eyebrows at the young man who had just thrown a huge fur overcoat on the back of one chair, while he sat down himself on another. 'I got your telegram,' began the editor. 'Am I to understand from it that you have failed?' 'Yes, sir,'... more...

PREFACE The modern Woman Movement, like the modern Labour Movement, may be said to have begun in the Eighteenth century. The Labour movement arose out of the Industrial Revolution with its resultant tendency to over-population, to unrestricted competition, to social misery and disorder. The Woman movement appeared as an at first neglected by-product of the French Revolution with its impulses of general... more...

INTRODUCTION A splendid book in which a soul lives so profoundly human and so purely feminine that any words of introduction seem leaden and intrusive. You feel as though you were violating the essential delicacy and powerful life of this soul to comment upon the remarkable revelation of it between the very covers that contain the revelation. Yet, as a modest friend of letters, I should like to express... more...

To Mr. Ray Gilbert Late Student, Aged Twenty-three Were you an older man, my dear Ray, your letter would be consigned to the flames unanswered, and our friendship would become constrained and formal, if it did not end utterly. But knowing you to be so many years my junior, and so slightly acquainted with yourself or womankind, I am going to be the friend you need, instead of the misfortune you invite.... more...

INTRODUCTION Though Southern rural life has necessarily changed since the Civil War, I doubt that there is in the entire South a place where it has changed less than on the Burge Plantation, near Covington, Georgia. And I do not know in the whole country a place that I should rather see again in springtime—the Georgia springtime, when the air is like a tonic vapor distilled from the earth, from pine... more...

INTRODUCTION. From the inauguration of the movement for woman's emancipation the Bible has been used to hold her in the "divinely ordained sphere," prescribed in the Old and New Testaments. The canon and civil law; church and state; priests and legislators; all political parties and religious denominations have alike taught that woman was made after man, of man, and for man, an inferior... more...

CHAPTER I. EARLY LIFE. At the earnest solicitation of many dear friends I have consented to leave on record some of the incidents that have fallen under my personal observation during three-score and ten years. My father, Daniel Smith, was a native of Eastern New York, and for many years an approved minister in the Society of Friends. He was a man of ability and influence, of clear perceptions, and... more...

To —— ——. Spring saw my little venture just begun;And then your hospitable message came,Inviting me to taste the strawberriesAt Strawberry Hill. I went. How long I stayed,Urged by dear friends and the restoring breeze,Let me not say; long enough to completeMy rhythmic structure; day by day it grew,And all sweet influences helped its growth.The lawn sloped green and ample till the treesMet on... more...

CHAPTER I The Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs. Behn. Mrs. Manley In the many volumes containing the records of the past, the names of few women appear, and the number is still smaller of those who have won fame in art or literature. Sappho, however, has shown that poetic feeling and expression are not denied the sex; Jeanne d'Arc was chosen to free France; Mrs. Somerville excelled in mathematics; Maria... more...

INTRODUCTION When the historian has described the rise and fall of empires and dynasties, and has recounted with care and exactness the details of the great political movements that have changed the map of continents, there remains the question: What was the cause of these revolutions in human society--what were the real motives that were operative in the hearts and minds of the persons in the great... more...