History Books

REMINISCENCES my return in May, 1860, from a six months' leave of absence spent in Europe, I found an appointment as professor of chemistry and commandant of cadets in the University of Alabama awaiting my acceptance. During my absence the President of the University and a committee of the Board of Trustees visited West Point and the Virginia Military Institute and, pleased with the discipline of... more...

A WALK ROUND MELBOURNE. Although most educated people know that Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide are populous towns, I should doubt whether one Englishman, who has not been to Australia, out of a hundred realizes that fact. I well remember that, although I had taken some trouble to read up information about Melbourne, I was never more thoroughly surprised than during the first few hours after my arrival... more...

CHAPTER I Cuba for Cuba must be the grateful theme of the present volume. We have seen the identification of the Queen of the Antilles with the Spanish discovery and conquest of America. We have traced the development of widespread international interests in that island, especially implicating the vital attention of at least four great powers. We have reviewed the origin and development of a peculiar... more...

CHAPTER I. OUR HERO'S HOME—GUERNSEY. Off the coast of Brittany, where the Bay of Biscay fights the white horses of the North Sea, the Island of Guernsey rides at anchor. Its black and yellow, red and purple coast-line, summer and winter, is awash with surf, burying the protecting reefs in a smother of foam. Between these drowned ridges of despair, which warn the toilers of the sea of an... more...

INTRODUCTION Diderot, writing to the Princess Dashkoff in 1771, thus analysed the spirit of his century: Chaque siècle a son esprit qui le caractérise. L'esprit du nôtre semble être celui de la liberté. La première attaque contre la superstition a été violente, sans mesure. Une fois que les hommes ont osé d'une manière quelconque donner l'assaut à la barrière de la religion,... more...

POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS THE CZAR BUSINESS Like the human-hair business and the green-goods business it is not what it used to be. "Yes, Abe," Morris Perlmutter said to his partner, Abe Potash, as they sat in their office one morning in September, "the English language is practically a brand-new article since the time when I used to went to night school. In them days when a feller says... more...

THE FIRST CHAPTER. INAS. 689. After that Ceadwalla, late K. of the Westsaxons was gone to Rome, where he departed this life (as afore is shewed) his coosen Inas or Ine was made king of the Westsaxons, begining his reigne in the yéere of our Lord 689, in the third yeere of the emperor Iustinianus the third, the 11 yéere of the reigne of Theodoricus K. of France, and about the second The Britains... more...

ADVERTISEMENT. What I have here to say is rather in the nature of an apology than of a preface or advertisement. The very title of a Treatise upon the art of dancing by a dancing-master, implicitly threatens so much either of the exageration of the profession, or of the recommendation of himself, and most probably of both, that it cannot be improper for me to bespeak the reader’s favorable precaution... more...

THE DEATH OF AN EMPEROR His Imperial Majesty, Tsai-Shun, deputed by Heaven to reign over all within the four seas, expired on the evening of Tuesday the 13th January 1875, aged eighteen years and nine months. He was erroneously known to foreigners as the Emperor T'ung Chih; but T'ung Chih was merely the style of his reign, adopted in order that the people should not profane by vulgar... more...

If I can say anything to show that my name is really Makepeace, and to increase the source of love between the two countries, then please, God, I will."—W. M. Thackeray, in Letters to an American Family. "Certainly there is nothing like England, and there never has been anything like England in the world. Her wonderful history, her wonderful literature, her beautiful architecture, the... more...