Classic Books

In speaking of art we often contrast the useful or mechanical arts with the Fine Arts; by these terms we denote the difference between the arts which are used in making such things as are necessary and useful in civilized life, and the arts by which ornamental and beautiful things are made.

WHEN we reflect upon the momentous and happy results which have always followed the introduction of Christianity amongst a people;—how it has ever proved an up-lifting and progressive power; influencing man in the holiest affections and most inward laws of his moral being; extending its benign agency through all the relationships of social life, and acting in various methods as a living principle in the community;—we think that in ascribing to our religious history a deeper significance and importance than appertains to any other department of inquiry, we are only claiming for it a position which may be established by a wide induction of facts.

Indian philosopher and scholar Surendranath Dasgupta’s book ‘A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1’ was first published in the year 1922. This book is an attempt to introduce the readers of philosophy with the richness and relevance of Indian philosophy through its history in great details.

A bright spring day was fading into evening. High overhead in the clear heavens small rosy clouds seemed hardly to move across the sky but to be sinking into its depths of blue.

In a handsome house in one of the outlying streets of the government town of O—— (it was in the year 1842) two women were sitting at an open window; one was about fifty, the other an old lady of seventy.

The name of the former was Marya Dmitrievna Kalitin. Her husband, a shrewd determined man of obstinate bilious temperament, had been dead for ten years. He had been a provincial public prosecutor, noted in his own day as a successful man of business. He had received a fair education and had been to the university; but having been born in narrow circumstances he realized early in life the necessity of pushing his own way in the world and making money.

First published in the year 1895, the present fantasy novel ‘A House-Boat on the Styx’ by John Kendrick Bangs begins with Charon, ferryman of the Styx being startled—and annoyed—by the arrival of a houseboat on the Styx. At first afraid that the boat will put him out of business, he later finds out that he is actually to be appointed the boat’s janitor. What follows are eleven more stories which are set on the house boat.

“On a wintry morning at the close of 1690, the sun shining faint and red through a light fog, there was a great noise of baying dogs, loud voices, and trampling of horses in the courtyard at Wildairs Hall; Sir Jeoffry being about to go forth a-hunting, and being a man with a choleric temper and big, loud voice, and given to oaths and noise even when in good-humour, his riding forth with his friends at any time was attended with boisterous commotion.” -an excerpt

I have found a dream of beauty at which one might look all one’s life and sigh. Not lovable, like the Sandwich Islands, but beautiful in its own way! A strictly North American beauty—snow-splotched mountains, huge pines, red-woods, sugar pines, silver spruce; a crystalline atmosphere, waves of the richest color; and a pine-hung lake which mirrors all beauty on its surface. Lake Tahoe is before me, a sheet of water twenty-two miles long by ten broad, and in some places 1,700 feet deep. It lies at a height of 6,000 feet, and the snow-crowned summits which wall it in are from 8,000 to 11,000 feet in altitude. The air is keen and elastic. There is no sound but the distant and slightly musical ring of the lumberer’s axe.

Whenever thou feelest that thy feet are becoming entangled in the interlaced roots of life, know that thou has strayed from the path to which I beckon thee: for I have placed thee in broad, smooth paths, which are strewn with flowers. I have put a light before thee, which thou canst follow and thus run without stumbling. KRISHNA.

Life of William Shakespeare is a biography of William Shakespeare by the eminent critic Sidney Lee. This book,, was an immediate popular success and was regarded for much of the twentieth century as the most reliable account of Shakespeare’s life then available.

Fourth in the series of special atlases designed for “Everyman’s Library” the present volume deals with the countries of Asia, whose history and geography, and whose possibilities, great and grave, are alike reflected in the maps and charts that follow. When Queen Elizabeth granted to certain merchants of London a charter that gave them a roving commission to trade in the East Indies, she could not foresee the immense developments that were to rise from that adventurous commerce between east and west. The successive maps of India with their frontier changes mark the gradual advance of an old world toward the new one knit by powerful mutual ties to the Isle of Britain; and recently we have seen what it is to be hoped will open a greater era for those regions, marked by a return to the old capital of Delhi, and a resuming of ancient rites which first gained their symbolism in those lands.

A Little Princess’ is a children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was first published as a book in the year 1905. It is an expanded version of the short story ‘Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin’s’. It is one of the most read and critically acclaimed children’s fantasy novel since it’s first publication.

Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady was first published in 1923. It tells the story of Marian Forrester and her husband, Captain Daniel Forrester who live in the Western town of Sweet Water, along the Transcontinental Railroad.

One December evening, in the year 1648, the little town of Farnham showed unusual signs of life. Troopers were dismounting and leading their horses away to their stables, or were lounging at the doors of the houses where they were quartered, and a crowd of curious country folk and villagers gathered to stare at them, and even to put questions to the more affable-looking of the steel-coated soldiers.
The press was greatest round the entrance of a house of the better class that stood back from the street with all the dignity that a flagged forecourt and a couple of high brick gate-pillars could lend it.
There the sentries, who were stationed at the door, had some ado to keep back the curious throng, and many a sturdy country farmer shouldered his way into the house in the wake of his squire to catch a glimpse of his king, the ill-fated King Charles, who was to rest that night at Farnham on his last journey from the prison at Hurst Castle to the scaffold at Whitehall.

First of a Series of Six Stories, When a seed-merchant of cautious disposition and an eye to the main chance receives from an eminent firm of jam-manufacturers an extremely large order for clover-seed, his emotions are mixed. Joy may be said to predominate, but with the joy comes also uncertainty. Are these people, he asks himself, proposing to set up as farmers of a large scale, or do they merely want the seed to give verisimilitude to their otherwise bald and unconvincing raspberry jam? On the solution of this problem depends the important matter of price, for, obviously, you can charge a fraudulent jam disseminator in a manner which an honest farmer would resent.

This Bird Study Manual is intended especially for the use of teachers and pupils in the New York City Schools. It is written primarily to describe the birds contained in the circulating nature study collections which the American Museum of Natural History loans to public schools. However it may be used as a general guide to bird study as well. The various study outlines tell the story of different projects that may be developed in connection with birds. Typical birds are illustrated. As much as is possible in the life history of each bird is given. The bird poems may be used in connection with the study of English. The study of birds may very well be correlated with the studies of many other subjects such as Civics, Geography and other topics.

Captain Flower, an ardent admirer of the fairer sex, takes full advantage of his sea travels around the world, wooing women wherever he goes.

“Filth,” grunted Trent—“ugh! I tell you what it is, my venerable friend—I have seen some dirty cabins in the west of Ireland and some vile holes in East London. I’ve been in some places which I can’t think of even now without feeling sick. I’m not a particular chap, wasn’t brought up to it—no, nor squeamish either, but this is a bit thicker than anything I’ve ever knocked up against. If Francis doesn’t hurry we’ll have to chuck it! We shall never stand it out, Monty!”

The older man, gaunt, blear-eyed, ragged, turned over on his side. His appearance was little short of repulsive. His voice when he spoke was, curiously enough, the voice of a gentleman, thick and a trifle rough though it sounded.

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

“The next Mystery Story is like no other in these volumes. The editor’s defense lies in the plea that Laurence Sterne is not like other writers of English. He is certainly one of the very greatest. Yet nowadays he is generally unknown. His rollicking frankness, his audacious unconventionality, are enough to account for the neglect. Even the easy mannered England of 1760 opened its eyes in horror when “Tristram Shandy” appeared. “A most unclerical clergyman,” the public pronounced the rector of Sutton and prebendary of York.” -Introduction by Laurence Sterne

In front of the open window of a handsome house, in one of the outlying streets of O * * * the capital of a Government, sat two women; one fifty years of age, the other seventy years old, and already aged.

First published in the year 1912, the present book titled ‘A Personal Record’ was written by one of the famous British, colonial fiction writer Joseph Conrad. This book is his autobiographical work.

A young girl, brown-haired, blue-eyed, with a sweet seriousness that was neither joy nor sorrow upon her fair pale face, leaned against the mast on the Mayflower’s deck watching the bustle of the final preparations for setting sail westward. A boy somewhat older than she stood beside her whittling an arrow from a bit of beechwood, whistling through his teeth, his tongue pressed against them, a livelier air than a pilgrim boy from Leyden was supposed to know, and sullenly scorning to betray interest in the excitement ashore and aboard. A little girl clung to the pretty young girl’s skirt; the unlikeness between them, though they were sisters, was explained by their being but half sisters.

Twenty-four years earlier, in South Africa, where he was then living, his satyagraha had forced the government to repeal the law forcing Indians in the Transvaal to register themselves and carry certificates bearing their finger prints to prove that they had the right to live in that country.
In India, he was applying the same tactics of defying the authority of the alien British Government in a peaceful, non-violent way and refusing to co-operate with it.
The British had come to India 330 years earlier, landing at the port of Surat, hardly 50 Kilometers from Dandi, where Gandhiji and his followers stood on April 5, 1930, ready to begin the struggle against them.