AS GOOD AS GONE. "You won't be any more use to us after this," said Gertrude positively. A quick flush coloured Denys's cheek. "Oh, Gertrude! why not?" "Engaged girls never are the least use to their families," reiterated Gertrude. "All they think about is the postman and their bottom drawer. The family goes to the wall, its interests are no longer of interest, its... more...

INTRODUCTION The combined qualities of the realist and the idealist which Dickens possessed to a remarkable degree, together with his naturally jovial attitude toward life in general, seem to have given him a remarkably happy feeling toward Christmas, though the privations and hardships of his boyhood could have allowed him but little real experience with this day of days. Dickens gave his first formal... more...

Standing at the armor-glass front of the observation deck and watching the mountains rise and grow on the horizon, Conn Maxwell gripped the metal hand-rail with painful intensity, as though trying to hold back the airship by force. Thirty minutes--twenty-six and a fraction of the Terran minutes he had become accustomed to--until he'd have to face it. Then, realizing that he never, in his own... more...

WHAT IS A FOREST? First, What is forestry? Forestry is the knowledge of the forest. In particular, it is the art of handling the forest so that it will render whatever service is required of it without being impoverished or destroyed. For example, a forest may be handled so as to produce saw logs, telegraph poles, barrel hoops, firewood, tan bark, or turpentine. The main purpose of its treatment may be... more...

INTRODUCTION Upton Sinclair is one of the not too many writers who have consecrated their lives to the agitation for social justice, and who have also enrolled their art in the service of a set purpose. A great and non-temporizing enthusiast, he never flinched from making sacrifices. Now and then he attained great material successes as a writer, but invariably he invested and lost his earnings in... more...

Chapter One. The First Room. “I take them for rheumatic gout,” said a slight, dark-haired woman to her neighbour, as she leant back in a low lounging-chair, and sipped some water an attendant had just brought her. “You would not suppose I suffered from such a complaint, would you?”—and she held up a small arched foot, with a scarcely perceptible swelling in the larger joint. She laughed... more...

CHAPTER I THOTH, THE AUTHOR OF EGYPTIAN LITERATURE.WRITING MATERIALS, ETC. The Literature of ancient Egypt is the product of a period of about four thousand years, and it was written in three kinds of writing, which are called hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic. In the first of these the characters were pictures of objects, in the second the forms of the characters were made as simple as possible so... more...

CHAPTER 1. NORTH FROM NEW HOLLAND FOR WATER. THE AUTHOR'S DEPARTURE FROM THE COAST OF NEW HOLLAND, WITH THE REASONS OF IT. I had spent about 5 weeks in ranging off and on the coast of New Holland, a length of about 300 leagues: and had put in at 3 several places to see what there might be thereabouts worth discovering; and at the same time to recruit my stock of fresh water and provisions for the... more...

Grace before Meat"Let me cook the dinners of a nation, and I shall not care who makes its laws." Women, if they did but know it, might well thus paraphrase a famous saying. Proper dinners mean so much—good blood, good health, good judgment, good conduct. The fact makes tragic a truth too little regarded; namely, that while bad cooking can ruin the very best of raw foodstuffs, all the arts of... more...

CHAPTER ONE "Ideas," she said. "Oh, as for ideas—" "Well?" I hazarded, "as for ideas—?" We went through the old gateway and I cast a glance over my shoulder. The noon sun was shining over the masonry, over the little saints' effigies, over the little fretted canopies, the grime and the white streaks of bird-dropping. "There," I said, pointing toward it,... more...