Non-Classifiable Books

LETTER I. Dear Sir:—You ask for information calculated to enable you to act understandingly in reference to the international copyright treaty now awaiting the action of the Senate. The subject is an important one, more so, as I think, than is commonly supposed, and being very glad to see that it is now occupying your attention, it will afford me much pleasure to comply, as far as in my power, with... more...

CHAPTER I—THE ELEMENTS OF DISCORD: NATIVE The story I have to tell is still going on as I write; the characters are alive and active; it is a piece of contemporary history in the most exact sense.  And yet, for all its actuality and the part played in it by mails and telegraphs and iron war-ships, the ideas and the manners of the native actors date back before the Roman Empire.  They are... more...

SCOTTISH EMIGRATION TO THE AMERICAN COLONIES Scottish emigration to America came in two streams—one direct from the motherland and the other through the province of Ulster in the north of Ireland. Those who came by this second route are usually known as "Ulster Scots," or more commonly as "Scotch-Irish," and they have been claimed as Irishmen by Irish writers in the United States.... more...

CHAPTER I THE TIMES AND THE MEN There was rejoicing throughout the Thirteen Colonies, in the month of September 1760, when news arrived of the capitulation of Montreal. Bonfires flamed forth and prayers were offered up in the churches and meeting-houses in gratitude for deliverance from a foe that for over a hundred years had harried and had caused the Indians to harry the frontier settlements. The... more...

INTRODUCTION. Of late years it has been my fate or my whim to write a good deal about the early days of the Præraphaelite movement, the members of the Præraphaelite Brotherhood, and especially my brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and my sister Christina Georgina Rossetti. I am now invited to write something further on the subject, with immediate reference to the Præraphaelite magazine “The Germ,”... more...

ADRIFT ON THE FLOODED RIVER "What is it, Rex, old boy? What are you after? Somebody else in trouble, eh?" Ross looked down through the pouring rain at his Airedale, who was pulling at his trouser leg with sharp, determined jerks. The dog looked far more like a seal than a terrier, his hair dripping water at every point, while a cascade streamed from his tail. The boy was every whit as wet. Here... more...

The facilitation and abbreviation of mental labor is at the bottom of all mental progress. The reasoning faculties of Newton were not different in qualitative character from those of a ploughman; the difference lay in the extent to which they were exerted and the number of facts which could be treated. Every thinking being generalizes more or less, but it is the depth and extent of his generalizations... more...

GERAINT AND ENID Queen Guinevere lay idly in bed dreaming beautiful dreams. The sunny morning hours were slipping away, but she was so happy in dreamland, that she did not remember that her little maid had called her long ago. But the Queen’s dreams came to an end at last, and all at once she remembered that this was the morning she had promised to go to the hunt with King Arthur. Even in the... more...

Departure from Winter Island.—Meet with some Esquimaux travelling to the Northward.—Obstruction and Danger from the Ice and Tides.—Discovery of the Barrow River, and its Fall.—Favourable Passage to the Northward.—Arrival off the Strait of the Fury and Hecla.—Progress opposed by a fixed barrier of Ice.—Communicate with the Natives of Igloolik.—Unsuccessful Attempt to get between the Ice... more...

PREFACE. It has long been a subject of regret that we should have so few remains of so great a writer as the author of the “Analogy,” not only the greatest thinker of his day, but one almost equally remarkable for his personal religion and amiability. The few fragments and letters which remain unpublished, derive from this circumstance a value wholly incommensurate with their extent, though, as to... more...