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James Allen may truly be called the Prophet of Meditation. In an age of strife, hurry, religious controversy, heated arguments, ritual and ceremony, he came with his message of Meditation, calling men away from the din and strife of tongues into the peaceful paths of stillness within their own souls, where the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world ever burns steadily and surely for all who will turn their weary eyes from the strife without to the quiet within. Many of the Meditations were written as he came down from the Cairn in the early morning, where he spent those precious hours alone with God while the world slept. Others are gleaned from his many writings, published and unpublished, and are arranged for daily readings at his request, and, we believe, under his spiritual guidance. The book must ever be a stronghold of Spiritual Truth and blessing to all who read it, and especially to those who use it for daily meditation.

These chapters, for the most part, are reprinted from Lafcadio Hearn’s “Interpretations of Literature,” 1915, from his “Life and Literature,” 1916, and from his “Appreciations of Poetry,” 1917. Three chapters appear here for the first time. They are all taken from the student notes of Hearn’s lectures at the University of Tokyo, 1896-1902, sufficiently described in the earlier volumes just mentioned. They are now published in this regrouping in response to a demand for a further selection of the lectures, in a less expensive volume and with emphasis upon those papers which illustrate Hearn’s extraordinary ability to interpret the exotic in life and in books.

Whenever a publisher gets a book by one author he wants an Introduction written to it by another, and Mr. Fisher Unwin is no exception to the rule. Nobody reads Introductions, they serve no useful purpose, and they give no pleasure, but they appeal to the business mind, I think, because as a rule they cost nothing. At any rate, by the pressure of a certain inseparable intimacy between Mr. Reginald Bliss and myself, this Introduction has been extracted from me. I will confess that I have not read his book through, though I have a kind of first-hand knowledge of its contents, and that it seems to me an indiscreet, ill-advised book….

BORIS GODUNOV, afterwards Tsar.
PRINCE SHUISKY, Russian noble.
PRINCE VOROTINSKY, Russian noble.
SHCHELKALOV, Russian Minister of State.
FATHER PIMEN, an old monk and chronicler.
GREGORY OTREPIEV, a young monk, afterwards the Pretender
to the throne of Russia.
THE PATRIARCH, Abbot of the Chudov Monastery.
MISSAIL, wandering friar.
VARLAAM, wandering friar.

The present novel ‘Botchan’ was written by famous Japanese writer Natsume Sōseki. It was first published in the year 1906 and got a lot of appreciation. It was also taught in schools in japan for a long time.

“Sit up to the table, children, breakfast’s ready.”
The speaker was a woman of middle age, not good-looking in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but nevertheless she looked good. She was dressed with extreme plainness, in a cheap calico; but though cheap, the dress was neat. The children she addressed were six in number, varying in age from twelve to four. The oldest, Harry, the hero of the present story, was a broad-shouldered, sturdy boy, with a frank, open face, resolute, though good-natured.

First released in 1910, ‘Boy Scouts Handbook’ of Boy Scouts of America is a descendant of Baden-Powell’s original handbook, Scouting for Boys, which has been the basis for Scout handbooks in many countries, with some variations to the text of the book depending on each country’s codes and customs.

BRAIN TWISTER was fifteen years in the making, of which time three days were spent in the actual writing. When the book was finished, both authors relaxed in the mutual pleasure of nervous breakdowns, from which it is not certain that either has ever recovered.

Brave New World is Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel. Borrowing from The Tempest , Huxley imagines a genetically-engineered future where life is pain-free but meaningless. The book heavily influenced George Orwell’s 1984 and science-fiction in general.

The favourable reception given by the public to the two previous books, “Mexico and Her People of To-day” and “Guatemala and Her People of To-day,” induced the writer to continue his studies of the Latin-American countries and people. To this end an extensive trip was made through several of the republics on that great continent to the south of us, and this work is the first result of that journey.

One warm afternoon in June—the warmest of the season thus far—Professor Valeyon sat, smoking a black clay pipe, upon the broad balcony, which extended all across the back of his house, and overlooked three acres of garden, inclosed by a solid stone-wall. All the doors in the house were open, and most of the windows, so that any one passing in the road might have looked up through the gabled porch and the passage-way, which divided the house, so to speak, into two parts, and seen the professor’s brown-linen legs, and slippers down at the heel, projecting into view beyond the framework of the balcony-door. Indeed—for the professor was an elderly man, and, in many respects, a creature of habit—precisely this same phenomenon could have been observed on any fine afternoon during the summer, even to the exact amount of brown-linen leg visible.

At the request of the publishers the undersigned has prepared this Introduction and two Supplementary Chapters on the Religious and Theological Literature of Great Britain and the United States. To the preacher in his preparation for the pulpit, and also to the general reader and student of religious history, the pursuit of the study of literature is a necessity. The sermon itself is a part of literature, must have its literary finish and proportions, and should give ample proof of a familiarity with the masterpieces of the English tongue.

For many years articles have appeared from time to time in magazines and books regarding the Community at Fruitlands, but it has remained for Miss Sears to gather them together with infinite patience for publication, and this little book is the result, the first connected story of the life and beliefs of that little Community which tried so hard to live according to its ideals in spite of criticism and censure and whose members nearly starved as a result of their devotion. -John S. P. Alcott.

Robert Cairn looked out across the quadrangle. The moon had just arisen, and it softened the beauty of the old college buildings, mellowed the harshness of time, casting shadow pools beneath the cloisteresque arches to the west and setting out the ivy in stronger relief upon the ancient walls. The barred shadow on the lichened stones beyond the elm was cast by the hidden gate; and straight ahead, where, between a quaint chimney-stack and a bartizan, a triangular patch of blue showed like spangled velvet, lay the Thames. It was from there the cooling breeze came.

But Cairn’s gaze was set upon a window almost directly ahead, and west below the chimneys. Within the room to which it belonged a lambent light played.