Non-Classifiable Books

A popular and fairly orthodox opinion concerning book-collectors is that their vices are many, their virtues of a negative sort, and their ways altogether past finding out. Yet the most hostile critic is bound to admit that the fraternity of bibliophiles is eminently picturesque. If their doings are inscrutable, they are also romantic; if their vices are numerous, the heinousness of those vices is... more...

INTRODUCTION Emile Zola was born at Paris on 2nd April, 1840. His father, Francois Zola, was a man whose career up to that time had not been a success, though this was not due to any lack of energy or ability. Zola pere was of mixed nationality, his father being an Italian and his mother a Greek, and it is not unlikely that his unrest and want of concentration were due to the accident of his parentage.... more...

CHAPTER 1 If you were asked, "What did Columbus discover in 1492?" you would have but one answer. But what he discovered on his second voyage is not quite so easy to say. He was looking for gold when he landed on the island of Hayti on that second trip. So his eyes were blind to the importance of a simple game which he saw being played with a ball that bounced by some half-naked Indian boys on... more...

I HAVE selected to-night the particular subject of Yeast for two reasons—or, rather, I should say for three. In the first place, because it is one of the simplest and the most familiar objects with which we are acquainted. In the second place, because the facts and phenomena which I have to describe are so simple that it is possible to put them before you without the help of any of those pictures or... more...

CHAPTER I. Mammoth Cave—Where Situated—Green River—Improved Navigation—Range of Highlands—Beautiful Woodlands—Hotel—Romantic Dell—Mouth of the Cave—Coldness of the Air—Lamps Lighted—Bones of a Giant—Violence of the Wind—Lamps Extinguished—Temperature of the Cave—Lamps Lighted—First Hoppers—Grand Vestibule—Glowing Description—Audubon Avenue—Little Bat Room—Pit... more...

CHAPTER I ASPIRATIONS AND FOUNDATIONS I think I see, as it were above the hill-tops of time, the glimmerings of the dawn of a better and a nobler day for the country and the people that I love so well.—JOHN BRIGHT. The suggestion has been made to me that in these days of rapid development, when proposals, so bewildering in their extent, for change and for reconstruction are being made, it would be... more...

December.—They will not allow me to go home, and I must write these things down for fear I forget. It will help to pass the time away. It is very hard to endure this prison life, and know that my sons think me insane when I am not. How unkind Mrs. Mills is today; does she think this sort of treatment is for the good of our health? I begged for milk today, and she can't spare me any; she has not... more...

PREFACE In these lectures an attempt is made, not so much to restate familiar facts, as to accommodate them to new and supplementary evidence which has been published in America since the outbreak of the war. But even without the excuse of recent discovery, no apology would be needed for any comparison or contrast of Hebrew tradition with the mythological and legendary beliefs of Babylon and Egypt.... more...

JOHN BULL AND HIS ISLAND. BY ALFRED H. MILES. There's a doughty little Island in the ocean,—  The dainty little darling of the free;That pulses with the patriots' emotion,  And the palpitating music of the sea:She is first in her loyalty to duty;  She is first in the annals of the brave;She is first in her chivalry and beauty,  And first in the succour of the slave!Then here's... more...

               Hoc erat in votis: Modus agri non ila magnus               Hortus ubi, et leclo vicinus aqua fons;               Et paululum sylvae superhis forel. I cannot add, 'auctius acque di melius fecere'; but no matter, the former is enough for my purpose; I had no occasion to have any property there, it was sufficient that I enjoyed it; for... more...