CHAPTER IWHAT WE ARGUE ABOUT, AND WHY 1. What Argument is. When we argue we write or speak with an active purpose of making other people take our view of a case; that is the only essential difference between argument and other modes of writing. Between exposition and argument there is no certain line. In Professor Lamont's excellent little book, "Specimens of Exposition," there are two... more...

CHAPTER IBOBBY MAKES SOME IMPORTANT PREPARATIONS FOR A COMMERCIAL LIFE “I am profoundly convinced that my son is a fool,” read the will of old John Burnit. “I am, however, also convinced that I allowed him to become so by too much absorption in my own affairs and too little in his, and, therefore, his being a fool is hereditary; consequently, I feel it my duty, first, to give him a fair trial at... more...

PROLOGUE. A sturdy northeast wind was rattling the doors and windows of a deserted farmhouse in Western Michigan. The building was not old, measured by years, but it had never been painted or repaired, and its wooden face, prematurely lined with weather stains, looked as if it had borne the wear and tear of centuries. The windows, like lidless eyes, stared vacantly at the flat stubble fields and the... more...

CHAPTER I. The kettle sat on the hob, and Mona sat on the floor, both as idle as idle could be. "I will just wait till the kettle begins to sing," thought Mona; and became absorbed in her book again. After a while the kettle, at any rate, seemed to repent of its laziness, for it began to hum softly, and then to hum loudly, and then to sing, but Mona was completely lost in the story she was... more...

I INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER The modern Science of the History of Religion has attained conclusions which already possess an air of being firmly established. These conclusions may be briefly stated thus: Man derived the conception of 'spirit' or 'soul' from his reflections on the phenomena of sleep, dreams, death, shadow, and from the experiences of trance and hallucination. Worshipping... more...

CHAPTER I. "Come, you fellows, that's enough joking. This defection of yours, melancholy Eynhardt, combines obstinacy with wisdom, like Balaam's ass! Well! may you rest in peace. And now let us be off." The glasses, filled with clear Affenthaler, rang merrily together, the smiling landlord took up his money, and the company rose noisily from the wooden bench, overturning it with a... more...

CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. From a look at a globe or a map of the Eastern hemisphere, we shall perceive between Asia and Australia a number of large and small islands forming a connected group distinct from those great masses of land, and having little connection with either of them. Situated upon the Equator, and bathed by the tepid water of the great tropical oceans, this region enjoys a climate... more...

CHAPTER XXI. THE MOLUCCAS—TERNATE. ON the morning of the 8th of January, 1858, I arrived at Ternate, the fourth of a row of fine conical volcanic islands which shirt the west coast of the large and almost unknown island of Gilolo. The largest and most perfectly conical mountain is Tidore, which is over four thousand Feet high—Ternate being very nearly the same height, but with a more rounded and... more...

A SOCIETY SCANDAL Tall and burly, with features and skin hardened by exposure to the sun and winds of many climates, he looked like a man ready to face all hardships, equal to any emergency. Already one seemed to see the clothes and habits of civilization falling away from him, the former to be replaced by the stern, unlovely outfit of the war correspondent who plays the game. They crowded round him in... more...

Few detailed studies of the mammal associations of the forests of the United States have been made. But if we are ever to know, for our different species of mammals, the natural environments under which their evolution and differentiation occurred, we must study and describe their habitats and habitat limitations before all the native areas in the country have been altered by the activities of mankind.... more...