Non-Classifiable Books

INTRODUCTORY. IT is about twenty-five years since, at my earnest desire, my father began to write some of the memories of his own life, of the friends whom he loved, and of the noteworthy people he had known; and it is by the help of these autobiographical papers, and of selections from his letters, that I am enabled to attempt a memoir of him. I should like to remind the elder generation and inform... more...

The suitability of Australia as a country for the dairyman is referred to in the report of the Scottish Agricultural Commission, who toured the States of the Commonwealth in 1910-11, in the following terms:—An up-to-date Milking Yard."The practice of dairying, in a limited domestic sense, as applied to the milking of a few cows and the making of a little butter and cheese for family use, is as... more...

THE COURS DE PHILOSOPHIE POSITIVE. For some time much has been said, in England and on the Continent, concerning "Positivism" and "the Positive Philosophy." Those phrases, which during the life of the eminent thinker who introduced them had made their way into no writings or discussions but those of his very few direct disciples, have emerged from the depths and manifested themselves on... more...

INTRODUCTION With so many excellent textbooks now in circulation, it seems almost audacious to add another treatise to current card literature. It happens, however, that the game of Auction, or Auction Bridge, as it is generally called ("Auction Whist" is perhaps a more appropriate title), has been so completely and so suddenly revolutionized that books written upon the subject a few months ago... more...

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION IN THE COURSE of occasional visits to Canada many years since, I became intimately acquainted with some of the principal partners of the great Northwest Fur Company, who at that time lived in genial style at Montreal, and kept almost open house for the stranger. At their hospitable boards I occasionally met with partners, and clerks, and hardy fur traders from the interior... more...

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. What is the basic principle of my system? It is, Learn by Thinking. What is Attention? It is the will directing the activity of the intellect into some particular channel and keeping it there. It is the opposite of mind-wandering. What is thinking? It consists in finding relations between the objects of thought with an immediate awareness of those relations. What is the Sensuous... more...

I.—WACE In the long line of Arthurian chroniclers Geoffrey of Monmouth deservedly occupies the first place. The most gifted and the most original of their number, by his skilful treatment of the Arthurian story in his Historia Regum Britanniae, he succeeded in uniting scattered legends attached to Arthur's name, and in definitely establishing their place in chronicle history in a form... more...

Embroidery may be looked at from more points of view than it would be possible in a book like this to take up seriously. Merely to hover round the subject and glance casually at it would serve no useful purpose. It may be as well, therefore, to define our standpoint: we look at the art from its practical side, not, of course, neglecting the artistic, for the practical use of embroidery is to be... more...

PREFACE I republish in this little volume a few of my numerous articles that have appeared in the Secularist, the Liberal, the National Reformer, and the Freethinker, during the last five or six years. I have included nothing (I hope) of merely ephemeral interest. Every article in this collection was at least written carefully, and with an eye to more than the exigencies of the moment. In disentombing... more...

CHAPTER I A stranger on first entering Arizona is impressed with the newness and wildness that surrounds him. Indeed, the change is so great that it seems like going to sleep and waking up in a new world. Everything that he sees is different from the familiar objects of his home, and he is filled with wonder and amazement at the many curious things that are brought to his notice. Judging the country by... more...