Non-Classifiable Books

CHAPTER I—HOW MY MOTHER GOT HER SOFT FACE On the day I was born we bought six hair-bottomed chairs, and in our little house it was an event, the first great victory in a woman’s long campaign; how they had been laboured for, the pound-note and the thirty threepenny-bits they cost, what anxiety there was about the purchase, the show they made in possession of the west room, my father’s unnatural... more...

CHARLES DICKENS Charles John Huffham Dickens, the master story-teller, was born in Landport, England, February 7, 1812. His father was a clerk in one of the offices of the Navy, and he was one of eight children. When he was four years old, his father moved to the town of Chatham, near the old city of Rochester. Round about are chalk hills, green lanes, forests and marshes, and amid such scenes the... more...

The following Lectures are printed, as far as possible, just as they were delivered. Here and there a sentence which seemed obscure has been mended, and the passages which had not been previously written, have been, of course imperfectly, supplied from memory. But I am well assured that nothing of any substantial importance which was said in the lecture-room, is either omitted, or altered in its... more...

I.—INTRODUCTION. At present marriage is easily the most dangerous of all our social institutions. This is partly due to the colossal ignorance of the public in regard to sex, and partly due to the fact that marriage is mainly controlled by lawyers and priests instead of by women and doctors. The legal and religious aspects of marriage are not the primary ones. A marriage may be legal—and miserable;... more...

LETTER I. SIR, am now going to obey your Commands; but you must let me do it in my own way, that is, write as much, or as little at a time as I may have an Inclination to, and just as things offer themselves. After this manner you may receive in a few Letters, all that I have said to you about poetical Translations, and the resemblance there is between Virgil's and Milton's Versification, and... more...

CHAPTER I. "GOOD-BY, MAMMA!" "I don't see how I can do such a thing," said mamma, shading her eyes with a hand so white and thin that you could almost see through it. "I never, never can go away, for five weeks, and leave these children; I should not have a moment's peace." "But, my darling," said papa, "the doctor says it is the only thing that will... more...

GENERAL The Custom Mark III CP Series Oil Fired Unit is a high quality heating unit that will provide many years of comfortable and economical heat if properly installed and given proper care. It is IMPORTANT therefore that these instructions should be followed carefully. SHIPMENT The unit is completely assembled at the factory except for the following parts which are packed in a separate carton and... more...

The biography of CHARLES LAMB lies within a narrow compass. It comprehends only few events. His birth and parentage, and domestic sorrows; his acquaintance with remarkable men; his thoughts and habits; and his migrations from one home to another,—constitute the sum and substance of his almost uneventful history. It is a history with one event, predominant. For this reason, and because I, in common... more...

THE ORIGIN AND DEEDS OF THE GOTHS (Preface) Though it had been my wish to glide in my little boat 1 by the shore of a peaceful coast and, as a certain writer says, to gather little fishes from the pools of the ancients, you, brother Castalius, bid me set my sails toward the deep. You urge me to leave the little work I have in hand, that is, the abbreviation of the Chronicles, and to condense in my own... 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...