History Books

INTRODUCTION The number of books on the labor problem is indeed legion. The tragedy of the literature on any dynamic subject is that most of it is written by people who have time to do little else. Perhaps the best books on many subjects will never be written because those folk, who would be most competent to do the writing, through their vital connection with the problem at hand, never find the spare... more...

A VENETIAN CRUISER. It was late in the year 1431. The port of Venice was filled with ships from all parts of the world, bringing to her their choicest stores, and their most costly merchandise, and receiving from her and from her Grecian possessions rich shiploads of wine and spices, and bales of finest cotton. It would have been a sight never to have been forgotten could we have gazed then on that... more...

VOLUME I [p 2 is blank] p 3 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. ———————————- I CAN not more appropriately introduce the Cosmos than by presenting a brief sketch of the life of its illustrious author.* While the name of Alexander von Humboldt is familiar to every one, few, perhaps, are aware of the peculiar circumstances of his scientific career and of the extent of his labors in almost... more...

PRESENT:Cranch, chief justice, Thruston and Morsell, justices. F. S. Key, district attorney, and J. M. Carlisle, for the prosecution. R. S. Coxe and J. H. Bradley, for the defence. John H. King, Nicholas Callan, James Kennedy, Walter Clarke, George Crandall, William Waters, Thomas Hyde, Thomas Fenwick, Samuel Lowe, George Simmes, Wesley Stevenson, and Jacob Gideon, jr., were empannelled and sworn... more...

HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN In my book, The Father of a Soldier, I have already stated the conditions under which this book of my son's was produced. He was wounded in the end of June, 1917, in the fierce struggle before Lens. He was at once removed to a base-hospital, and later on to a military hospital in London. There was grave danger of amputation of the right arm, but this was happily avoided.... more...

THE BANISHED BRITON. 1819I n the afternoon of a warm and sultry day, towards the close of one of the warmest and most sultry summers which Upper Canada has ever known, an extraordinary trial took place at the court-house in the old town of Niagara. The time was more than threescore years ago, when York was a place of insignificant proportions; when Hamilton could barely be said to have an existence;... more...

CHAPTER I Celtic Literature—Antiquity of our Annals—Moore—How we should estimate Tradition—The Materials for Irish History—List of the Lost Books—The Cuilmenn—The Saltair of Tara, &c.—The Saltair of Cashel—Important MSS. preserved in Trinity College—By the Royal Irish Academy—In Belgium.   he study of Celtic literature, which is daily becoming of increased importance to the... more...

HOW TROY WAS TAKEN. The far-famed Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, was the most beautiful woman in the world. And from her beauty and faithlessness came the most celebrated of ancient wars, with death and disaster to numbers of famous heroes and the final ruin of the ancient city of Troy. The story of these striking events has been told only in poetry. We propose to tell it again in sober prose.... more...

I.—FORMATION AND HOME TRAINING. THE NATION'S CALL TO ARMS. Great Britain declared war on Germany on August 4th, 1914, and almost immediately the combatant strength of its Regular Army was on service and the great bulk of that gallant force engaged in those fierce actions against odds which marked the early fighting. The War Office was quickly alive to the fact that the Regular Army could not... more...

Crescent and Iron Cross, Chapter ITHE THEORY OF THE OLD TURKSThe maker of phrases plies a dangerous trade. Very often his phrase is applicable for the moment and for the situation in view of which he coined it, but his coin has only a temporary validity: it is good for a month or for a year, or for whatever period during which the crisis lasts, and after that it lapses again into a mere token, a thing... more...