Non-Classifiable Books

I. The first sign of our approach to Lourdes was a vast wooden cross, crowning a pointed hill. We had been travelling all day, through the August sunlight, humming along the straight French roads beneath the endless avenues; now across a rich plain, with the road banked on either side to avert the spring torrents from the Pyrenees; now again mounting and descending a sudden shoulder of hill. A few... more...

INTRODUCTION. It is less than twenty-five years since the first cold Grapery was erected on the Hudson. Since the success of the culture of the delicious varieties of the exotic Grape has been demonstrated, the number of graperies has annually increased, and during the last ten years in a very rapid ratio, until they have become recognized as possible and desirable, among those even whose circumstances... more...

CHAPTER I. To produce a good balance staff requires more skill than to produce any other turned portion of a watch, and your success will depend not alone on your knowledge of its proper shape and measurements, nor the tools at your command, but rather upon your skill with the graver and your success in hardening and tempering. There are many points worthy of consideration in the making of a balance... more...

The few pages of which the present edition is composed, were principally written under the circumstances there stated, which had forcibly called my attention to the fatal effects of those ever-recurring tempests, which scatter devastation and misery round our coasts, where the veteran commander and his hardy crew, with their helpless passengers of every age and station in life, are left wretchedly to... more...

"HOW PLEASANT TO KNOW MR. LEAR!" "How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!"Who has written such volumes of stuff! Some think him ill-tempered and queer,But a few think him pleasant enough. His mind is concrete and fastidious,His nose is remarkably big; His visage is more or less hideous,His beard it resembles a wig. He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,Leastways if you reckon two thumbs;... more...

FOREWORD Piracy embodies the romance of the sea at its highest expression. It is a sad but inevitable commentary on our civilization, that, so far as the sea is concerned, it has developed from its infancy down to a century or so ago, under one phase or another of piracy. If men were savages on land they were doubly so at sea, and all the years of maritime adventure—years that added to the map of the... more...

PREFACE. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. If I had chosen to introduce myself to the greatest possible advantage to the reader, in this Preface to a Second Edition of the "Bibliographical, Antiquarian, and Picturesque Tour," I could not have done better than have borrowed the language of those Foreigners, who, by a translation of the Work (however occasionally vituperative their criticisms) have,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE EARLIER PEOPLE. A PATRIARCH'S STORY.This is the City of Winnipeg. Its growth has been wonderful. It is the highwater mark of Canadian enterprise. Its chief thoroughfare, with asphalt pavement, as it runs southward and approaches the Assiniboine River, has a broad street diverging at right angles from it to the West. This is Broadway, a most commodious avenue with four boulevards... more...

DE AMICITIA. The De Amicitia, inscribed, like the De Senectute, to Atticus, was probably written early in the year 44 B.C., during Cicero's retirement, after the death of Julius Caesar and before the conflict with Antony. The subject had been a favorite one with Greek philosophers, from whom Cicero always borrowed largely, or rather, whose materials he made fairly his own by the skill, richness,... more...

LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. The story of Lincoln, revealing how one American, by his own honest efforts, rose from the most humble beginning to the most high station of honor and worth, has inspired millions and will inspire millions more. The log cabin in which he was born, the ax with which he split the rails, the few books with which he got the rudiments of an education, the light of pine knots by... more...