Non-Classifiable Books

HABITAT. The west coast of Davao Gulf between Daliao and Digos is dotted with small villages, the inhabitants of which are largely Bagobo who have been converted to the Christian faith and have been induced to give up their mountain homes and settle in towns. Back of this coast line rise densely timbered mountain peaks, lateral spurs from which often terminate in abrupt cliffs overlooking the sea. From... more...

DANTE AND HIS TIME To know Dante we must know the age which produced Christianity's greatest poet, he whom Ruskin calls "the central man of all the world, as representing in perfect balance the imaginative, moral and intellectual faculties, all at their highest." Other writers are not so dependent upon their times for our clear understanding of their books. Dante to be intelligible to the... more...

What the Ocean has to Say—Its Whispers—Its Thunders—Its Secrets. There is a voice in the waters of the great sea. It calls to man continually. Sometimes it thunders in the tempest, when the waves leap high and strong and the wild winds shriek and roar, as if to force our attention. Sometimes it whispers in the calm, and comes rippling on the shingly beach in a still, small voice, as if to solicit... more...

MORGAN'S EXPOSE OF FREEMASONRY. Ceremonies of Opening a Lodge of Entered Apprentice Masons. One rap calls the Lodge to order; one calls up the Junior and Senior Deacons; two raps call up the subordinate officers; and three, all the members of the Lodge. The Master having called the Lodge to order, and the officers all seated, the Master says to the Junior Warden, "Brother Junior, are they all... more...

INTRODUCTION. The money to found a British Museum was raised by a lottery in the middle of the last century. Sir Hans Sloane having offered his books and museum of natural history to Parliament, for less than half its value (20,000£.), it was purchased, together with the famous Harleian and Cottonian MSS., and deposited in Montague House, Bloomsbury, which had been bought of the Earl of Halifax, for... more...

THE YOUNG TAMLANE The young Tamlane had lived among mortals for only nine short years ere he was carried away by the Queen of the Fairies, away to live in Fairyland. His father had been a knight of great renown, his mother a lady of high degree, and sorry indeed were they to lose their son. And this is how it happened. One day, soon after Tamlane's ninth birthday, his uncle came to him and said,... more...

A DAY WITH KEATS About eight o'clock one morning in early summer, a young man may be seen sauntering to and fro in the garden of Wentworth Place, Hampstead. Wentworth Place consists of two houses only; in the first, John Keats is established along with his friend Charles Armitage Brown. The second is inhabited by a Mrs. Brawne and her family. They are wooden houses, with festooning draperies of... more...

EARLY YEARS—FIRST PLAYS. Like his contemporary Smollett, Henry Fielding came of an ancient family, and might, in his Horatian moods, have traced his origin to Inachus. The lineage of the house of Denbigh, as given in Burke, fully justifies the splendid but sufficiently quoted eulogy of Gibbon. From that first Jeffrey of Hapsburgh, who came to England, temp. Henry III., and assumed the name of... more...

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE "Work crowned by the French Academy" is a significant line borne by the title-page of the original edition of Messieurs Cerfberr and Christophe's monumental work. The motto indicates the high esteem in which the French authorities hold this very necessary adjunct to the great Balzacian structure. And even without this word of approval, the intelligent reader needs... more...

THE SEEING HANDI   HAVE just touched my dog. He was rolling on the grass, with pleasure in every muscle and limb. I wanted to catch a picture of him in my fingers, and I touched him as lightly as I would cobwebs; but lo, his fat body revolved, stiffened and solidified into an upright position, and his tongue gave my hand a lick! He pressed close to me, as if he were fain to crowd himself into my... more...