Non-Classifiable Books

CHAPTER I PAUL CAMERON HAS AN INSPIRATION It was the vision of a monthly paper for the Burmingham High School that first turned Paul Cameron's attention toward a printing press. "Dad, how much does a printing press cost?" he inquired one evening as he sat down to dinner. "A what?" "A printing press." Mr. Cameron glanced up quizzically from the roast he was carving.... more...

PREFACE. This volume contains a large selection from Paul Gerhardt's “Spiritual Songs.” Every piece included is given in full, and is rendered into the metre of the original. A few of the following translations have appeared at various times during the last three years in different periodicals. They have been revised for this volume. Several of the hymns have been beautifully translated by... more...

PEARLS OF THOUGHT. A. Ability.—Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.—Schopenhaufer. Words must be fitted to a man's mouth,—'twas well said of the fellow that was to make a speech for my Lord Mayor, when he desired to take measure of his lordship's... more...

INTRODUCTION. In the years 1857 and 1858, the writer, in the capacity of Chemist to the State Agricultural Society of Connecticut, was commissioned to make investigations into the agricultural uses of the deposits of peat or swamp muck which are abundant in this State; and, in 1858, he submitted a Report to Henry A. Dyer, Esq., Corresponding Secretary of the Society, embodying his conclusions. In the... more...

CHAPTER I STYLE IN PEN DRAWING Art, with its finite means, cannot hope to record the infinite variety and complexity of Nature, and so contents itself with a partial statement, addressing this to the imagination for the full and perfect meaning. This inadequation, and the artificial adjustments which it involves, are tolerated by right of what is known as artistic convention; and as each art has its... more...

1. The Country and its River Egypt is a country in the north of Africa. It has sea to the north and sea to the east. On the north it is called the Mediterranean Sea, and on the east the Red Sea. On the west is the great sandy desert called the Sahara, and to the south are great forests and mountains. Egypt itself is the land of the great River Nile. There is very seldom any rain there, and everyone has... more...

CHAPTER 1. It is worse than useless to deplore the irremediable; yet no man, probably, has failed to mourn the fate of mighty poets, whose dawning gave the promise of a glorious day, but who passed from earth while yet the light that shone in them was crescent. That the world should know Marlowe and Giorgione, Raphael and Mozart, only by the products of their early manhood, is indeed a cause for... more...

PREFACE. The expeditions in which it is attempted to explore unknown and distant oceans, are usually those which are most pregnant with adventure and disaster. But land has its perils as well as sea; and the wanderer, thrown into the unknown interior of the Continents of Africa and America, through regions of burning sand and trackless forest, occupied only by rude and merciless barbarians, encounters... more...

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF BIRMINGHAM. It is a fine autumnal morning in the year 1837. I am sitting on the box seat of a stage coach, in the yard of the Bull-and-Mouth, St. Martin's-le-Grand, in the City of London. The splendid gray horses seem anxious to be off, but their heads are held by careful grooms. The metal fittings of the harness glitter in the early sunlight. Jew pedlar-boys offer me razors... more...

Incidents in Book Making—Introductory. Book making is mixed up, more or less, with difficulties. It is sometimes disappointing; often amusing; occasionally lucrative; frequently expensive, and always interesting—at least to the maker. Of course I do not refer to that sort of book making which is connected with the too prevalent and disgraceful practice of gambling, but to the making of literary... more...