Literary Collections Books

ONE of the most delightful books in my father's library was White's "Natural History of Selborne." For me it has rather gained in charm with years. I used to read it without knowing the secret of the pleasure I found in it, but as I grow older I begin to detect some of the simple expedients of this natural magic. Open the book where you will, it takes you out of doors. In our broiling... more...

SECTION I (Pandava-Pravesa Parva) OM! Having bowed down to Narayana, and Nara, the most exalted of male beings, and also to the goddess Saraswati, must the word Jaya be uttered. Janamejaya said, "How did my great-grandfathers, afflicted with the fear of Duryodhana, pass their days undiscovered in the city of Virata? And, O Brahman, how did the highly blessed Draupadi, stricken with woe, devoted to... more...

CHAPTER I The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian Church had just ceased ringing. North Liberty, Connecticut, never on any day a cheerful town, was always bleaker and more cheerless on the seventh, when the Sabbath sun, after vainly trying to coax a smile of reciprocal kindliness from the drawn curtains and half-closed shutters of the austere dwellings and the equally sealed and hard-set... more...

THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE AMONG LANGUAGES. A distinguished Positivist friend of mine, who is in most matters a practical man of the world, astonished me greatly the other day at Venice, by the grave remark that Italian was destined to be the language of the future. I found on inquiry he had inherited the notion direct from Auguste Comte, who justified it on the purely sentimental and unpractical ground... more...

WHAT IS MAN? I a. Man the Machine. b. Personal Merit (The Old Man and the Young Man had been conversing. The Old Man had asserted that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing more. The Young Man objected, and asked him to go into particulars and furnish his reasons for his position.) Old Man. What are the materials of which a steam-engine is made? Young Man. Iron, steel, brass, white-metal,... more...

FOREWORD BY SIR ARTHUR PEARSON, BART., G.B.E. Those who buy "Over the Fireside" will purchase for themselves the real joy of mentally absorbing the delightful thoughts which Mr. Richard King so charmingly clothes in words. And they will purchase, too, a large share of an even greater pleasure—the pleasure of giving pleasure to others—for the author tells me that he has arranged to give half... more...

CHAPTER XXII The night was pitch dark, and on rounding the adjacent corner no vehicle could be seen; but a peculiar whistle from Dick was answered by the sound of approaching wheels and the rapid footfalls of a horse, mingled with the light rattle of a smart gig. On the vehicle coming up, Dick took his little mare, that was blacker than the night, by the head, the apron of the gig was thrown down, and... more...

RICHARD HENRY DANA, SENIOR (1787-1879)Richard H. Danaichard Henry Dana the elder, although he died less than twenty years in 1787, in Cambridge, four years after Washington Irving. He came of a distinguished and scholarly family: his father had been minister to Russia during the Revolution, and was afterwards Chief Justice of Massachusetts; through his mother he was descended from Anne Bradstreet. At... more...

ROB, JOHN, AND JESSE IN CAMP “ Well, here we are, fellows,” said Jesse Wilcox, as he threw down an armful of wood at the side of the camp-fire. “For my part, I believe this is going to be about the best trip we ever had.” “That’s what I was telling Rob to-day,” said John Hardy, setting down a pail of water near by. “But I hope I won’t have to carry water up a bank a hundred feet high... more...

THE MYSTERY OF JUSTICE 1 I speak, for those who do not believe in the existence of a unique, all-powerful, infallible Judge, for ever intent on our thoughts, our feelings and actions, maintaining justice in this world and completing it in the next. And if there be no Judge, what justice is there? None other than that which men have made for themselves by their laws and tribunals, as also in the social... more...