Non-Classifiable Books

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

INTRODUCTION TO OCEANA JAMES HARRINGTON, eldest son of Sir Sapcotes Harrington of Exton, in Rutlandshire, was born in the reign of James I, in January, 1661, five years before the death of Shakespeare. He was two or three years younger than John Milton. His great-grandfather was Sir James Harrington, who married Lucy, daughter of Sir William Sidney, lived with her to their golden wedding-day, and had... more...

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND USE OF STEAM While the time of man's first knowledge and use of the expansive force of the vapor of water is unknown, records show that such knowledge existed earlier than 150 B. C. In a treatise of about that time entitled "Pneumatica", Hero, of Alexander, described not only existing devices of his predecessors and contemporaries but also an... more...

CHAPTER I. Importance of Marie Antoinette in the Revolution.—Value of herCorrespondence as a Means of estimating her Character.—Her Birth,November 2d, 1755.—Epigram of Metastasio.—Habits of the ImperialFamily.—Schönbrunn.—Death of the Emperor.—Projects for the Marriage ofthe Archduchess.—Her Education.—The Abbé de Vermond.—Metastasio.—Gluck. The most striking event in the annals... more...

PREFACE When this book was projected, some one asked, "What is there to say about Browning's heroines beyond what he said himself?"—and the question, though it could not stay me, did chill momentarily my primal ardour. Soon, however, the restorative answer presented itself. "If there were nothing to say about Browning's heroines beyond what he said himself, it would be a bad... more...