Books

Guard! What place is this?”

“Mugby Junction, sir.”

“A windy place!”

“Yes, it mostly is, sir.”

“And looks comfortless indeed!”

“Yes, it generally does, sir.”

“Is it a rainy night still?”

“Pours, sir.”

“Open the door. I’ll get out.”

“You’ll have, sir,” said the guard, glistening with drops of wet, and looking at the tearful face of his watch by the light of his lantern as the traveller descended, “three minutes here.”

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

LAST summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companion James Quayle Burden—Jim Burden, as we still call him in the West. He and I are old friends—we grew up together in the same Nebraska town—and we had much to say to each other. While the train flashed through never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay deep over everything. The dust and heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it is like to spend one’s childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said.

My Bondage and My Freedom is an autobiographical slave narrative written by Frederick Douglass and published in 1855. It is the second of three autobiographies written by Douglass, and is mainly an expansion of his first (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass), discussing in greater detail his transition from bondage to liberty.

This book was never published in Russia. Too frank confession to be tolerated in a country where the same thought is tightly controlled, it has circulated since 1882 in numerous manuscripts from the smart society of all Russia. Then, in Geneva, he had two editions, the last day of 1886.

Twice every week a poor, thin man,
Holding his little daughter’s hand,
Walked feebly to a hospital,
Close by the busy London Strand.

One cold rainy day when my father was a little boy, he met an old alley cat on his street. The cat was very drippy and uncomfortable so my father said, “Wouldn’t you like to come home with me?”
This surprised the cat—she had never before met anyone who cared about old alley cats—but she said, “I’d be very much obliged if I could sit by a warm furnace, and perhaps have a saucer of milk.”

First published in the year 1894, the present book ‘My First Book’ is a special collection of fully illustrated short stories written by various classic celebrated European and American writers.

A short mysterious story by the celebrated British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘My Friend The Murderer’ is written with a never ending suspense.

The writer has been so constantly and earnestly appealed to to write his experiences, and so weary recounting them, that he has at last decided to put into print a short account of things as they really happened within his own personal knowledge during his two and a half years’ imprisonment in Germany. He is also encouraged to do so for other and more important reasons. There are so many people throughout our Empire who are unfortunate enough to have intimate friends and relations in captivity in Germany. In the opinion of the writer these people ought to know, from one who has had a bitter experience, to which these pages will testify, the true conditions under which those nearest and dearest to them exist.

There is an mysterious Power that pervades everything. I feel though do see it. It is this unseen Power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses.

It was a white-hot July morning. Long ago the impatient earth had cast aside her thin veil of summer twilight; already she lay, a Danae, in exultant swoon beneath the golden sun. Yet the bridegroom had barely leaped forth to the conquest; his rath kisses were still drinking the pearly freshness from the dawn, while the loud birds filled the resonant heavens with the tumult of their bridal song.
—from this book

Many and many an impulse on my part to run away; and I can recall purposely going to her room and society to try and conquer the temptation that was besetting me, although I did not tell her what I had come to her for. What she meant to the other children I do not know, but, my mother being away so much, and the governess representing solely discipline and control, grandmother became almost as dear to me as my mother. Strange to relate, however, I was never demonstratively affectionate with her, nor she with me, whereas I was very distinctly so with my mother when I was trying to be good.

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was anAmericanindustrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, andsponsorof the development of the assembly line technique ofmassproduction. His introduction of the Model Tautomobilerevolutionized transportation and American industry. Asowner ofthe Ford Motor Company, he became one of the richest andbest-knownpeople in the world. He is credited with “Fordism”: massproductionof inexpensive goods coupled with high wages for workers.Ford hada global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace. Hisintensecommitment to systematically lowering costs resulted inmanytechnical and business innovations, including a franchisesystemthat put dealerships throughout most of North America and inmajorcities on six continents. Ford left most of his vast wealth totheFord Foundation but arranged for his family to control thecompanypermanently. Ford was also widely known for his pacifism during thefirstyears of World War I, but also for being the publisherofanti-Semitic texts such as the book The International Jew.

I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence.

Gandhiji was born a Hindu. But his Hinduism was his own. It had its roots firm in ancient Hinduism, but it grew and developed in the light of his contact with other religions, more especially Christianity, as will be seen from Section Two of this volume. He sought to drink at the spring of all religions, and therefore he felt that he belonged to every religion. And yet, if he had to have a label, the label he preferred and which was his not only by right of birth but also intrinsically, was Hinduism, the religion of his forefathers.

It is now nearly a hundred years since Goldsmith remarked, in his little educational treatise, that “few subjects have been more frequently written upon than the education of youth.” and during the century which has well-nigh elapsed since he said so, there have been so many more additional works given to the world on this fertile topic, that their number has been at least doubled.

My entrance into the House of Commons was not, as some thought, in the nature of a revolution. It was simply evolution. It is interesting how it came about. My husband was the one who started me off on this downward career—from home to the House. If I have helped the cause of women, he is the one to thank—not me. He is a strange and remarkable man. First, it was strange to urge his wife to take up public life, especially as he is a most domesticated creature; but the truth is, he is a born social reformer. He has avoided the pitfalls which so many well-to-do men fall into. He doesn’t think that you can right wrongs with philanthropy. He realises that you must go to the bottom of the causes of wrongs and not simply gild over the top. For eleven years I had helped him with his work at Plymouth. Mine was the personal side. I found out the wrongs and he tried to right them. It was a wonderful and happy combination, and I often wish that it was still going on. However, I am not here to tell you of his work, but it is interesting in so far as it shows you how it came about that I stood for Parliament at all. Unless he had been the kind of man that he was, I don’t believe that the first woman Member of the oldest Parliament in the world would have come from Plymouth—and that would have been a pity.

This is the story of a master, told by his slave. As I sit now, after the flight of so many years, and gaze at the pictures in the fire—the hills and the valleys of my boyhood, so bright, so glowing—I am oppressed with the fear that my rude hand can but ill execute the work that I have undertaken. And yet, I feel the force that truth alone can lend, for although my transcript may be crude, I know that in the years now far away but which are coming toward us, my history will be read by the thoughtful man who seeks to portray the strange social conditions that once existed in our country.

IF the majority of one’s friends live in Kensington and Bloomsbury, and if one is fond of going out to parties in the evening, then one should live somewhere midway between these two extremities of charm and culture. With the acceptance of each fresh invitation, I am led increasingly to appreciate that there is no stronger deterrent to one’s enjoyment of an evening than the knowledge that one has at the end of it to get to Golders Green. However agreeable the company, however profuse the hospitality, there must always come that moment when one is forced to weigh the expense of a taxi against the degree of entertainment likely to be derived from a refusal to be disturbed by the sirens of the last tube.

It is twenty-five minutes past twelve; in thirteen minutes the shutters of Warren Street Station will be down. You rise from your cushioned comfort. You inform your hostess that it is very late, that you are very busy just now, that you have to be up early in the morning, that you really feel that the time has come. But you rarely complete your explanations. “Oh, but no, really; must you?” she says. “Surely you can stay a little longer. I’m expecting ‘so-and-so’ and ‘so-and-so’ any moment now. They promised{8} faithfully they would come. They’ll be frightfully disappointed if they find you have gone.” Your vanity arrays itself before your prudence. You remind yourself that a taxi will only cost ten shillings; you consider with what speed, with the writing of how few extra words you will be able to earn that sum next morning; you remember a copy-book platitude about a ship and a small amount of tar; you vacillate; and whichever way you decide, eventually you will come to regret your choice. If you stay it is more than likely that the owners of the distinguished names that were dangled as a bait in front of you will never come at all; or, if they do, they will arrive exhausted from some previous entertainment, and will sit silent and unapproachable in a corner. There is a strong probability that the last syphon will be discovered to be finished. Certainly by half-past one you will be in no humour to exchange with the taxi-driver those formalities of reluctance and solicitation that are forced on everyone who lives north of the Marlborough Road.

As the title itself suggests, this book is a collected guide to the pantheon of Greek and Roman gods and the myths weaved around them. Split into two parts, the first part of the book consists biographies of the gods, while the second part consists descriptions of famous legends.

Myths and Legends of China’ is a collection of mythical stories of China by E. T. C. Werner, who was a noted British diplomat in Qing Dynasty China and sinologist specialising in superstition, myths and magic. This unique and important collection of stories was first published in the year 1915.

n this volume the author has made the effort to portray Napoleon as he appears to an average man. Archives have not been rummaged, new sources of information have not been discovered; the author merely claims to have used such authorities, old and new, as are accessible to any diligent student. No attempt has been made to give a full and detailed account of Napoleon’s life or work. To do so would have required the labor of a decade, and the result would be almost a library. The author has tried to give to the great Corsican his proper historical position, his true rating as a man and a ruler,—together with a just estimate of his achievements.

Bhakti is defined in the following Sutra. Those who have understood the magnitude of human sufferings in this sense-universe and those who have realised that this world is unreal, impermanent, illusory, perishable, full of troubles, difficulties, miseries, pain, sorrow and tribulation and those who desire to free themselves from the round of births and deaths with its concomitant evils of old age, diseases, etc., should know what Bhakti is, how to develop Bhakti, who is God or Lord or Isvara, the relationship between God and man and the methods to realise God, or to approach Him or to attain God-Consciousness.