Non-Classifiable Books

I. IN WHICH WE TAKE PASSAGE ON THE LIMITED It was a December morning,—the Missouri December of mild temperatures and saturated skies,—and the Chicago and Alton's fast train, dripping from the rush through the wet night, had steamed briskly to its terminal track in the Union Station at Kansas City. Two men, one smoking a short pipe and the other snapping the ash from a scented cigarette, stood... more...

CHAPTER I PAUL CAMERON HAS AN INSPIRATION It was the vision of a monthly paper for the Burmingham High School that first turned Paul Cameron's attention toward a printing press. "Dad, how much does a printing press cost?" he inquired one evening as he sat down to dinner. "A what?" "A printing press." Mr. Cameron glanced up quizzically from the roast he was carving.... more...

BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON 1832-1910 Eight years ago, taking a bird's-eye view of the mountain peaks of contemporary literature, and writing with particular reference to Björnson's seventieth birthday, it seemed proper to make the following remarks about the most famous European authors then numbered among living men. If one were asked for the name of the greatest man of letters still living in... more...

WILLIAM MAXWELL, EARL OF NITHISDALE.Cook, sculp.COUNTESS OF NITHISDALE. FROM A DRAWING BY CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE, ESQ.TAKEN FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER AT TERREGLES.It is happily remarked by the editor of the Culloden Papers, with regard to the devotion of many of the Highland clans to the exiled family of Stuart, that "it cannot be a subject requiring vindication;... more...

PERICLES When we agreed, O Aspasia! in the beginning of our loves, to communicate our thoughts by writing, even while we were both in Athens, and when we had many reasons for it, we little foresaw the more powerful one that has rendered it necessary of late. We never can meet again: the laws forbid it, and love itself enforces them. Let wisdom be heard by you as imperturbably, and affection as... more...

INTRODUCTION This volume of the Pleasure and Profit Library is offered to the hunter, trapper, fisher, vacationist and out of doors people in general. In the study and practice of taxidermy for several years I have failed to find any work written primarily for these every day nature lovers, though they probably handle a greater number of interesting specimens of animal life than all other classes of... more...

I HAVERHILL The whole valley of the Merrimac, from its source among the New Hampshire hills to where it meets the ocean at Newburyport, has been celebrated in Whittier's verse, and might well be called "Whittier-Land." But the object of these pages is to describe only that part of the valley included in Essex County, the northeastern section of Massachusetts. The border line separating New... more...

THE ALLEGED HAUNTINGOF B—— HOUSE It was in 1892 that Lord Bute first heard of the matter. It was not, as stated by The Times correspondent in that journal for June 8, 1897, in or from London, but at Falkland, in Fifeshire, and in the following manner:— There is no public chapel at Falkland, and the private chapel in the house is attended by a variety of priests, who usually come only from... more...

MY GARDENING. I. The contents of my Bungalow gave material for some "Legends" which perhaps are not yet universally forgotten. I have added few curiosities to the list since that work was published. My days of travel seem to be over; but in quitting that happiest way of life—not willingly—I have had the luck to find another occupation not less interesting, and better suited to grey hairs... more...

PREFACE Every generation demands that history shall be rewritten. This is not alone because it requires that the work should be adapted to its own point of view, but because it is instinctively seeking those lines which connect the problems and lessons of the past with its own questions and circumstances. If it were not for the existence of lines of this kind, history might be entertaining, but would... more...