Non-Classifiable Books

CHAPTER I Apart from tradition, very few ascertained facts are known to us as to Giorgione's life. The date of his birth is conjectural, there being but Vasari's unsupported testimony that he died in his thirty-fourth year. Now we know from unimpeachable sources that his death happened in October-November 1510, so that, assuming Vasari's statement to be correct, Giorgione will have been... more...

Chapter I The History of Syphilis Syphilis has a remarkable history, about which it is worth while to say a few words. Many people think of the disease as at least as old as the Bible, and as having been one of the conditions included under the old idea of leprosy. Our growing knowledge of medical history, however, and the finding of new records of the disease, have shown this view to be in all... more...

INTRODUCTION A conundrum is a riddle in the form of a question, the answer to which involves a pun. Originally the term was applied to any quaint expression. It is thus, in its modern form, a union of the elaborated riddle and the impromptu pun. With the earliest development of intelligence came the discovery of likeness and difference in things, and the search for analogy was carried out along both... more...

CHAPTER I: ANCESTRY, BIRTH, EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT: 1513(?)-1546 “November 24, 1572. “John Knox, minister, deceased, who had, as was alleged, the most part of the blame of all the sorrows of Scotland since the slaughter of the late Cardinal.” It is thus that the decent burgess who, in 1572, kept The Diurnal of such daily events as he deemed important, cautiously records the death of the great... more...

I. INTRODUCTION —The city room is the place where a reporter presents himself for work the first day. It is impossible to give an exact description of this room, because no two editorial offices are ever alike. If the reporter has allied himself with a country weekly, he may find the city room and the business office in one, with the owner of the paper and himself as the sole dependence for village... more...

CHAPTER XIV THE "LUSITANIA"—AND AFTER The news of the Lusitania was received at the American Embassy at four o'clock on the afternoon of May 7, 1915. At that time preparations were under way for a dinner in honour of Colonel and Mrs. House; the first Lusitania announcement declared that only the ship itself had been destroyed and that all the passengers and members of the crew had been... more...

EVOLUTION. All subjects pertaining to our knowledge of the soul are too subtle to be weighed and proved by external intellect alone. Our lives are ruled by such a hotch-potch of inherited beliefs and tendencies, that it is almost impossible for us to use any discrimination concerning them; or to arraign ourselves before the tribunal of our own better judgment in such manner as to enable us to separate... more...

THE POLITICAL MEANING OF MALPLAQUET That political significance which we must seek in all military history, and without which that history cannot be accurate even upon its technical side, may be stated for the battle of Malplaquet in the following terms. Louis XIV. succeeding to a cautious and constructive period in the national life of France, this in its turn succeeding to the long impotence of the... more...

BUDDHA About five hundred years before the birth of Christ a mighty king reigned in India over the land of the Sakyas, from which the snowy tops of the Himalaya Mountains could be seen. His name was Suddhodana and he had two wives called Maya and Pajapati; but for a long time they bore him no children, and the King despaired of having an heir to his throne. Then Queen Maya bore a son and after he was... more...

CHAPTER I THE RIVER OF AN UNWRITTEN EPIC IT was Carlyle—was it not?—who said that all great works produce an unpleasant impression on first acquaintance. It is so with the Missouri River. Carlyle was not, I think, speaking of rivers; but he was speaking of masterpieces—and so am I. It makes little difference to me whether or not an epic goes at a hexameter gallop through the ages, or whether it... more...