Classics Books

Almost all the processes employed in the arts and manufactures fall within the range either of physics or of chemistry. In order to improve them, one must thoroughly understand them; and no one has a chance of really understanding them, unless he has obtained that mastery of principles and that habit of dealing with facts, which is given by long-continued and well-directed purely scientific training in... more...

Preface. The nightly custom of gathering around the camp fire, and entertaining one another with stories, began in 1875, after Sabadu, a page of King Mtesa, had astonished his hearers with the legend of the “Blameless Priest.” Our circle was free to all, and was frequently well attended; for when it was seen that the more accomplished narrators were suitably rewarded, and that there was a great... more...

THE WINGS OF THE DOVE She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without sight of him. It was at this point, however, that she remained; changing her place, moving from the shabby sofa to the... more...

Since Luther, Germany has produced no greater or better man than Gotthold Ephraim Lessing; these two are Germany's pride and joy. This is the witness of Heine, and with Goethe in memory, none would pronounce the statement too bold. Luther and Lessing are Germany's representative men; each inaugurates an epoch the very existence of which would not have been possible without him. Nor is this... more...

A Motor Trip in San Diego's Back Country. Come, you men and women automobilists, get off the paved streets of Los Angeles and betake yourselves to the back country of San Diego county, where you can enjoy automobile life to the utmost during the summer. There drink in the pure air of the mountains, perfumed with the breath of pines and cedars, the wild lilacs, the sweet-pea vines, and a thousand... more...

CHAPTER I   "For in the days we know not of  Did fate begin  Weaving the web of days that wove  Your doom." SWINBURNE. ". . . allahu akbar—la ilaha—illa 'llah!" Across the golden glory of the sky floated the insistent call of the muezzin just as Damaris, followed closely by Wellington, her bulldog, turned out of the narrow street into the Khan el-Khalili. Shrill and... more...

A MOVE ON THE “FORTY” In Paris, in Rome, in Florence, in Berlin, in Vienna—in fact, over half the face of Europe, from the Pyrenees to the Russian frontier—I am now known as “The Count’s Chauffeur.” An Englishman, as my name George Ewart denotes, I am of cosmopolitan birth and education, my early youth having been spent on the Continent, where my father was agent for a London firm. When I... more...

CHAPTER I "WHAT'S IN A NAME?" It is an appropriate time to produce a book on English schools for little children, now that Nursery Schools have been specially selected for notice and encouragement by an enlightened Minister for Education. It was Madame Michaelis, who in 1890 originally and most appropriately used the term Nursery School as the English equivalent of a title suggested by... more...

CHAPTER I. "Hold, Stranger!" The words fell from beautiful lips under the most exciting circumstances. A boat rocked upon the calm water that murmured along the shore, when a young man came down from the upper bank of white drift sand, and seized the tiller rope. He had the rope in his hand, his arm was upraised to draw the boat to his feet, when he was startled by hearing the words with which... more...

CHAPTER I Peter Van Hoosen was a result of Dutch Calvinism, and Dutch industry and thrift; also, of a belief in the Day of Judgment. The first motives were inherited tendencies, carefully educated; the last one, a conscious principle, going down to the depths of his nature and sharply dividing whatever was just and right from whatever was false and wrong. People whose religion was merely religiosity... more...