Non-Classifiable Books

INTRODUCTION. Nothing is more usual and more natural for those, who pretend to discover anything new to the world in philosophy and the sciences, than to insinuate the praises of their own systems, by decrying all those, which have been advanced before them. And indeed were they content with lamenting that ignorance, which we still lie under in the most important questions, that can come before the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE GLACIÈRE OF LA GENOLLIÈRE, IN THE JURA. In the summer of 1861, I found myself, with some members of my family, in a small rustic pension in the village of Arzier, one of the highest villages of the pleasant slope by which the Jura passes down to the Lake of Geneva. The son of the house was an intelligent man, with a good knowledge of the natural curiosities which abound in that... more...

CHAPTER I OTAHEITE The gentle island, and the genial soil,The friendly hearts, the feasts without a toil,The courteous manners but from nature caught,The wealth unhoarded, and the love unbougnt, The bread-tree, which, without the ploughshare, yieldsThe unreap'd harvest of unfurrow'd fields,And bakes its unadulterated loavesWithout a furnace in unpurchased groves,And flings off famine from its... more...

FOREWORD Much research has been devoted to the effects of nuclear weapons. But studies have been concerned for the most part with those immediate consequences which would be suffered by a country that was the direct target of nuclear attack. Relatively few studies have examined the worldwide, long term effects. Realistic and responsible arms control policy calls for our knowing more about these wider... more...

The Devils of Loudun Loudun is a small town in France about midway between the ancient and romantic cities of Tours and Poitiers. To-day it is an exceedingly unpretentious and an exceedingly sleepy place; but in the seventeenth century it was in vastly better estate. Then its markets, its shops, its inns, lacked not business. Its churches were thronged with worshipers. Through its narrow streets proud... more...

Bernardino Pintoricchio (1454-1513) n looking at pictures of the old masters you will often see one called the "Holy Family." I want you to know who belonged to the Holy Family. The grown people are Joseph and Mary, the father and mother of Jesus; they had no last names at that time. The children are Jesus and his cousin, John the Baptist, six months older than Jesus. Sometimes the little... more...

THE POLITICAL MEANING OF MALPLAQUET That political significance which we must seek in all military history, and without which that history cannot be accurate even upon its technical side, may be stated for the battle of Malplaquet in the following terms. Louis XIV. succeeding to a cautious and constructive period in the national life of France, this in its turn succeeding to the long impotence of the... more...

CHILDHOOD IN IDEAL TYPES. O child! O new-born denizenOf life’s great city! on thy headThe glory of the morn is shed,Like a celestial benison!Here at the portal thou dost stand,And with thy little handThou openest the mysterious gateInto the future’s undiscovered land.Longfellow. CHAPTER I. If we could gather into one great gallery all the paintings of child-life which the world has ever produced,... more...

I. VERGIL, THE PRINCE OF LATIN POETS. The story of AE-ne'as, as related by the Roman poet Ver'gil in his celebrated poem called the AE-ne'id, which we are to tell about in this book, is one of the most interesting of the myths or legends that have come down to us from ancient authors. Vergil lived in the time of the Roman Emperor Au-gus'tus (63 B. C.—14 A. D.), grand-nephew and... more...

RICHARD WAGNER Was ever work like mine created for no purpose? Am I a miserable egotist, possessed of stupid vanity? It matters not, but of this I feel positive; yes, as positive as that I live, and this is, my "Tristan and Isolde," with which I am now consumed, does not find its equal in the world's library of music. Oh, how I yearn to hear it; I am feverish; I am worn. Perhaps that... more...