Non-Classifiable Books

CHAPTER I JOSEPH HAYDN It is, as a rule, inexpedient to begin a book with the peroration. Children are spared the physic of the moral till they have sucked in the sweetness of the tale. Adults may draw from a book what of good there is in it, and close it before reaching the chapter usually devoted to fine writing. But the case of Haydn is extraordinary. One can only sustain interest in a biography of... more...

CHAPTER I GENERAL PRINCIPLES Commerce and modern civilization go hand in hand, and the history of the one is the history of the other; and whatever may be the basis of civilization, commerce has been the chief agent by which it has been spread throughout the world. Peoples who receive nothing from their fellow-men, and who give nothing in return, are usually but little above a savage state. Civilized... more...

CHAPTER I Long, long ago there lived far away in India a woodcutter called Subha Datta and his family, who were all very happy together. The father went every day to the forest near his home to get supplies of wood, which he sold to his neighbours, earning by that means quite enough to give his wife and children all that they needed. Sometimes he took his three boys with him, and now and then, as a... more...

Preface. The Sleeping Bard was originally written in the Welsh language, and was published about the year 1720.  The author of it, Elis Wyn, was a clergyman of the Cambro Anglican Church, and a native of Denbighshire, in which county he passed the greater part of his life, at a place called Y las Ynys.  Besides the Sleeping Bard, he wrote and published a book in Welsh, consisting of advice to... more...

INTRODUCTION. In offering this little book—the third of its kind—to the public, I am glad to take the opportunity of recording the pleasure I have received at the appreciation its predecessors have met with, as attested by their wide circulation, and by the universally kind notices of them from the Press. To have been the means of administering innocent mirth to thousands, may surely be a just... more...

Doctors lay by your Irksome Books And all ye Petty-Fogging Rookes Leave Quacking; and Enucleate The vertues of our Chocolate. Let th’ Universall Medicine (Made up of Dead-mens Bones and Skin,)Be henceforth Illegitimate,And yeild to Soveraigne-Chocolate. Let Bawdy-Baths be us’d no more;Nor Smoaky-Stoves but by the whoreOf Babilon: since Happy-Fate Hath Blessed us with Chocolate. Let old Punctæus... more...

SECTION I."By Nature's swift and secret working handThe garden glows, and fills the liberal airWith lavish odors.There let me drawEthereal soul, there drink reviving gales,Profusely breathing from the spicy grovesAnd vales of fragrance."—Thomson. Among the numerous gratifications derived from the cultivation of flowers, that of rearing them for the sake of their perfumes stands... more...

Of Our Spiritual Strivings O water, voice of my heart, crying in the sand,All night long crying with a mournful cry,As I lie and listen, and cannot understandThe voice of my heart in my side or the voice of the sea,O water, crying for rest, is it I, is it I?All night long the water is crying to me. Unresting water, there shall never be restTill the last moon droop and the last tide fail,And the fire of... more...

PREFACE A few years ago I published a short sketch of Mendel's discovery in heredity, and of some of the recent experiments which had arisen from it. Since then progress in these studies has been rapid, and the present account, though bearing the same title, has been completely rewritten. A number of illustrations have been added, and here I may acknowledge my indebtedness to Miss Wheldale for the... more...

CHAPTER I. Origin.—The native country of the Peanut (Arachis hypogæa) is not definitely ascertained. Like many other extensively cultivated plants, it has not been found in a truly wild state. Some botanists regard the plant as a native of Africa, and brought to the New World soon after its discovery. Sloane, in his history of Jamaica, states that peanuts formed a part of the provisions taken by the... more...