Reference Books

THE REWARDS OF ETIQUETTE Society is a game which all men play. "Etiquette" is the name given the rules of the game. If you play it well, you win. If you play it ill, you lose. The prize is a certain sort of happiness without which no human being is ever quite satisfied. Because the demand for social happiness is thus fundamental in human nature, the game has to be played quite seriously. If... more...

INTRODUCTION As a rule, books of etiquette are written from the standpoint of the ultra-fashionable circle. They give large space to the details of behavior on occasions of extreme conventionality, and describe minutely the conduct proper on state occasions. But the majority in every town and village are people of moderate means and quiet habits of living, to whom the extreme formalities of the world... more...

INTRODUCTION When William Congreve died in 1729 he left a collection of books which his old friend and publisher, Jacob Tonson, described (in a letter preserved at the Bodleian) as “genteel & well chosen.” Tonson thought so well of the collection that he urged his nephew, then his agent in London, to purchase Congreve’s books. But Congreve had willed them to Henrietta, the young Duchess of... more...

I.  PICTURES, SKETCHES AND DRAWINGSBY OR RELATING TO SAMUEL BUTLER By his will Butler bequeathed his pictures, sketches, and studies to his executors to be destroyed or otherwise disposed of as they might think best, the proceeds (if any) to fall into residue.  They were not sold: some were given to Shrewsbury School; some to the British Museum; one, an unfinished sketch of the back of the house in... more...

A Preface With Some Revised Ideas IT HAS BEEN ten years since I wrote the prefatory "Declaration" to this now enlarged and altered book. Not to my generation alone have many things receded during that decade. To the intelligent young as well as to the intelligent elderly, efforts in the present atmosphere to opiate the public with mere pictures of frontier enterprise have a ghastly unreality.... more...

CELTES, KONRAD (1459-1508), German humanist and Latin poet, the son of a vintner named Pickel (of which Celtes is the Greek translation), was born at Wipfeld near Schweinfurt. He early ran away from home to avoid being set to his father’s trade, and at Heidelberg was lucky enough to find a generous patron in Johann von Dalberg and a teacher in Agricola. After the death of the latter (1485) Celtes led... more...

My dear Dr. Corson, I waited some days after the arrival of your Book and Letter, thinking I might be able to say more of my sense of your goodness: but I can do no more now than a week ago. You "hope I shall not find too much to disapprove of": what I ought to protest against, is "a load to sink a navy—too much honor": how can I put aside your generosity, as if cold justice—however... more...

A mission chair suitable for the dining room can be made from any one of the furniture woods to match the other articles of furniture. The materials can be secured from the planing mill dressed and sandpapered ready to cut the tenons and mortises. The material list can be made up from the dimensions given in the detail drawing. The front legs or posts, as well as the back ones, are made from 1-3/4-in.... more...

(Lat. _conventio_, an assembly or agreement, from _convenire_, to come together), a meeting or assembly; an agreement between parties; a general agreement on which is based some custom, institution, rule of behaviour or taste, or canon of art; hence extended to the abuse of such an agreement, whereby the rules based upon it become lifeless and artificial. The word is of some interest historically and... more...

RENEWAL REGISTRATIONS—LITERATURE, ART, FILM An alphabetical list under title of all works (with the exception of musical compositions) in which the renewal copyright was registered during the period covered by this catalog. Included in the list are cross-references from all essential names associated with the work and from variant forms of these names. A. E. UHE, by Frederick H. Martens. (Little... more...