Non-Classifiable Books

THE BOYHOOD OF TECUMSEH Three Indian figures stand out in bold relief on the background of Canadian history—the figures of Pontiac, Brant, and Tecumseh. The Ottawa chief Pontiac was the friend of the French, and, when the French suffered defeat, he plotted and fought to drive the English from the Indian country. Brant, the Mohawk, took the king's side against the Americans in the War of... more...

CHAPTER I The beginnings—Library law If the establishment of a free public library in your town is under consideration, the first question is probably this: Is there a statute which authorizes a tax for the support of a public library? Your state library commission, if you have one, will tell you if your state gives aid to local public libraries. It will also tell you about your library law. If you... more...

PREFACE Let it be made clear at the very outset of this Preface that the pages which follow do not pretend to be a history of piracy, but are simply an attempt to gather together, from various sources, particulars of those redoubtable pirates and buccaneers whose names have been handed down to us in a desultory way. I do not deal here with the children of fancy; I believe that every man, or woman... more...

GEORGE BORROWSELECTED PASSAGES It is very possible that the reader during his country walks or rides has observed, on coming to four cross-roads, two or three handfuls of grass lying at a small distance from each other down one of these roads; perhaps he may have supposed that this grass was recently plucked from the roadside by frolicsome children, and flung upon the ground in sport, and this may... more...

Many pens have been burnished this year of grace for the purpose of celebrating with befitting honour the second centenary of the birth of Henry Fielding; but it is more than doubtful if, when the right date occurs in March 1921, anything like the same alacrity will be shown to commemorate one who was for many years, and by such judges as Scott, Hazlitt, and Charles Dickens, considered Fielding's... more...

The Story of Joseph This is the story of Joseph, the boy who had the strangest and most exciting adventures of any boy who ever lived. Joseph was but a little lad when his mother died. His father, Jacob, had loved that mother more than any one else in the world, so that when she died leaving Joseph and a baby brother, Benjamin, all the love in the father's heart turned to his two little sons. The... more...

CHAPTER I. OUR COTTAGE HOME. MY early days were all spent in the beautiful county of Dumfries, which Scotch folks call the Queen of the South. There, in a small cottage, on the farm of Braehead, in the parish of Kirkmahoe, I was born on the 24th May, 1824. My father, James Paton, was a stocking manufacturer in a small way; and he and his young wife, Janet Jardine Rogerson, lived on terms of warm... more...

BOOK ONE VINCENT: Who would have thought, O my good uncle, a few years past, that those in this country who would visit their friends lying in disease and sickness would come, as I do now, to seek and fetch comfort of them? Or who would have thought that in giving comfort to them they would use the way that I may well use to you? For albeit that the priests and friars be wont to call upon sick men to... more...

PREFACE I need not explain how these Shadows were suggested, to any one who has seen WILKIE'S picture, "The Rabbit on the Wall." But by what pains they were invented can never be revealed; for it is known to my tortured digits alone, and they, luckily for me, are dumb. I calculate that I put my ten fingers through hundreds of various exercises before my "Bird" took wing; my left... more...

The design of this book is twofold,—to meet the present demand for new selections suited to the spirit of the hour, and also to furnish a choice collection of standard pieces for elocutionary exercises on which time has set its lasting seal. In the execution of this design no pains have been spared in selecting and preparing the best pieces, both new and old. The extracts from recent productions,... more...