Non-Classifiable Books

I. To W. M. Thackeray. Sir,—There are many things that stand in the way of the critic when he has a mind to praise the living. He may dread the charge of writing rather to vex a rival than to exalt the subject of his applause. He shuns the appearance of seeking the favour of the famous, and would not willingly be regarded as one of the many parasites who now advertise each movement and action of... more...

PREFACE. This little treatise was written for the purpose of supplying a want felt by the author while giving instruction upon the subject. It was intended for an aid to the young Engineer, and is not to be considered as a complete substitute for the more elaborate works on the subject. The first portion of this work mentions the various strains to which beams are subjected, and gives the formulæ used... more...

PREFACE. The Author of the following pages has been urged by numerous friends, and more particularly by his own conscience, to present to the Christian Public a brief account of the people called Gipsies, now wandering in Britain.  This, to many readers, may appear inexpedient; as Grellman and Hoyland have written largely on this neglected part of the human family.  But it should be recollected, that... more...

THE LAST SPIKE "Then there is nothing against him but his poverty?" "And general appearance." "He's the handsomest man in America." "Yes, that is against him, and the fact that he is always in America. He appears to be afraid to get out." "He's the bravest boy in the world," she replied, her face still to the window. "He risked his life to drag me... more...

The League.—War Declared against the Huguenots.—Queen Marguerite Sets out for Spa. At length my brother returned to Court, accompanied by all the Catholic nobility who had followed his fortunes. The King received him very graciously, and showed, by his reception of him, how much he was pleased at his return. Bussi, who returned with my brother, met likewise with a gracious reception. Le Guast was... more...

Chapter 1. Individuality. The boyish belief that on the other side of our globe all things are of necessity upside down is startlingly brought back to the man when he first sets foot at Yokohama. If his initial glance does not, to be sure, disclose the natives in the every-day feat of standing calmly on their heads, an attitude which his youthful imagination conceived to be a necessary consequence of... more...

I. VIRCHOW AND HAECKEL AT THE CONGRESS OF MUNICH. On the 18th of September, 1877, Ernest Haeckel, the celebrated embryologist of Jena, delivered at the Congress of Naturalists, which was held at Munich, an eloquent address defending and propagating Darwinism, which was at that time the object of the most bitter polemical attacks. A few days afterward, Virchow, the great pathologist,—an active member... more...

I OLD CUBA Christopher Columbus was a man of lively imagination. Had he been an ordinary, prosaic and plodding individual, he would have stayed at home combing wool as did his prosaic and plodding ancestors for several generations. At the age of fourteen he went to sea and soon developed an active curiosity about regions then unknown but believed to exist. There was even then some knowledge of western... more...

CHAPTER I "PICKWICK" AND THE COACHING AGE Dickens, like all great authors, had a tendency to underestimate the value of his most popular book. At any rate, it is certainly on record that he thought considerably more of some of his other works than he did of the immortal Pickwick. But The Pickwick Papers has maintained its place through generations, and retains it to-day, as the most popular... more...

PROLEGOMENA Religion is the opium of the people. The suppression of religion as the happiness of the people is the revindication of its real happiness. The invitation to abandon illusions regarding its situation is an invitation to abandon a situation which has need of illusions. Criticism of religion is therefore the germ of a criticism of the vale of tears, of which religion is the holy aspect.... more...