Classics Books

CHAPTER I Raw Materials Used in Soap Making. Soap is ordinarily thought of as the common cleansing agent well known to everyone. In a general and strictly chemical sense this term is applied to the salts of the non-volatile fatty acids. These salts are not only those formed by the alkali metals, sodium and potassium, but also those formed by the heavy metals and alkaline earths. Thus we have the... more...

IV.—THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION UNDER ROOF.THE BRIDGE ACROSS LANSDOWNE RAVINE, CONNECTING MEMORIAL AND HORTICULTURAL HALLS.None of the European exhibitions we have sketched partook of the nature of an anniversary or was designed to commemorate an historical event. Some idea of celebrating the close of the calendar half-century may have helped to determine the choice of 1851 as the year for holding the... more...

The frequent observation of foreigners is, that in England we have few “celebrated women.” Perhaps they mean that we have few who are “notorious;” but let us admit that in either case they are right; and may we not express our belief in its being better for women and for the community that such is the case: “celebrity” rarely adds to the happiness of a woman, and almost as rarely increases... more...

The origin of "Old Mortality," perhaps the best of Scott's historical romances, is well known. In May, 1816, Mr. Joseph Train, the gauger from Galloway, breakfasted with Scott in Castle Street. He brought gifts in his hand,—a relic of Rob Roy, and a parcel of traditions. Among these was a letter from Mr. Broadfoot, schoolmaster in Pennington, who facetiously signed himself... more...

BENJAMIN DISRAELI, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD When Lord Beaconsfield died in 1881 we all wondered what people would think of him fifty years thereafter. Divided as our own judgments were, we asked whether he would still seem a problem. Would opposite views regarding his aims, his ideas, the sources of his power, still divide the learned, and perplex the ordinary reader? Would men complain that history cannot... more...

CHAPTER I WHEREIN JONATHAN REUBEN WIX BEGINS TO THINK “ A natural again!” exulted Jonathan Reuben Wix, as the dice bounded from his plump hand and came to rest upon the billiard-table in Leiniger’s Select Café, with a five and a deuce showing. “Somebody ring the bell for me, because I’m a-going to get off.” He was a large young man in every dimension, broad of chest and big and pink of... more...

CHAPTER I. AT THE SIGN OF THE SHIP. On a September evening, before the setting of the sun, a man entered the tavern of the Ship in Thursley, with a baby under his arm. The tavern sign, rudely painted, bore, besides a presentment of a vessel, the inscription on one side of the board:—   "Now before the hill you climb,   Come and drink good ale and wine." On the other side of the board the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE ORPHAN'S TRIAL. "We met ere yet the world had come To wither up the springs of youth, Amid the holy joys of home, And in the first warm blush of youth. We parted as they never part, Whose tears are doomed to be forgot; Oh, by what agony of heart Forget me not!—forget me not!" —Anonymous.   At nine o'clock the next morning Traverse went to the library to keep his... more...

Philip Danvers, heading a small party of horsemen, galloped around the corner of a warehouse and pulled up on the levee at Bismarck as the mate of the Far West bellowed, "Let 'er go!" "Hold on!" he shouted, leaping from his mount. "Why in blazes!" The mate's impatience flared luridly as he ordered the gang-plank replaced. His heat ignited the smouldering resentment of... more...

THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS. The volume in which "The Bay of Seven Islands" was published was dedicated to the late Edwin Percy Whipple, to whom more than to any other person I was indebted for public recognition as one worthy of a place in American literature, at a time when it required a great degree of courage to urge such a claim for a pro-scribed abolitionist. Although younger than I, he had... more...