Excerpt: "Without apology this book goes forth. If it is productive of some good, it will have fulfilled its mission. In presenting this work it is with a feeling of restitution. If I have digressed from, or stormed the barricaded citadel of formal literature, I have done so without hesitation, simply complying with an obeisance to civility toward my fellow men. I have pictured life as a man of the world is sometimes forced to see it, and not altogether...

Excerpt: "A study of type founding and of the development of presses and other printers' machinery in America presents many interesting considerations. If the attempt were made to give in detail the story of American type founding and the accomplishments of the notable American type founders, and at the same time to chronicle the improvements and inventions which American genius has contributed to the machines and processes used in printing and the...

Excerpt: "In this volume will be found a selection of the most interesting uncivilized tribes that inhabit, or once inhabited, America and the vast number of islands which lie between that country and the eastern coast of Asia, including among them the great groups of Australia and New Zealand. A short notice is given of the long-perished Lake-dwellers of Switzerland, and the partial civilization of India, China, Japan and Siam is also represented."...

Excerpt: "Tobacco has been one of the most important gifts from the New World to the Old. In spite of the attempts of various authors to prove its Old World origin there can be no doubt that it was introduced into both Europe and Africa from America. Most species of Nicotiana are native to the New World, and there are only a few species which are undoubtedly extra-American. The custom of smoking is also characteristic of America. It was thoroughly...

Excerpt: "The object of the writer in presenting this narrative to the public, is twofold. His intention is, in the first place, to furnish a correct history of an organization administering justice without the sanction of constitutional law; and secondly, to prove not only the necessity for their action, but the equity of their proceedings. Having an intimate acquaintance with parties cognizant of the facts related, and feeling certain of the literal...

Excerpt: "The air was mellow with the warmth of the young spring sun. Locusts whirred in rhapsody. Bluebirds throbbed their love songs joyously. The drone of insects, the shimmer of hear, were in the atmosphere. One could almost see green things grow. To confine youth within four walls on such a day was an outrage against human nature. A lean, wiry boy, hatchet-faced, stared with dreamy eyes out of the window of his prison. By raising himself in his...

Excerpt: ""The Aimwell Stories" are designed to portray some of the leading phases of juvenile character, and to point out their tendencies to future good and evil. This they undertake to do, by describing the quiet, natural scenes and incidents of every-day life, in city and country, at home and abroad, at school and upon the play-ground, rather than by resorting to romantic adventures and startling effects. While their main object is to persuade...

Excerpt: "In this series of detached essays I have tried to gather and group the most salient and essential facts relating to the character, position, and intellectual attainments of women in the great ages of the world. It is not an easy matter to trace with any exactness the lives of women of classic times, as they were largely ignored by men who chronicled events. If the historians gave them any place at all, it was an insignificant one, concerning...

Excerpt: "The snows had begun to disappear from the far-famed valleys of Berkshire; the mountain-tops and slopes were still white; in the softening air was the promise of the return of birds and flowers; Nature was relenting from her winter harshness, but man was less kindly than Nature. On Beauna Vista, one of the hillocks rising slightly above the level of the Housatonic Valley, the day's work was done, and John Wycliff, a farm-labourer, was awaiting...

Excerpt: ""We were a jolly pair, we two, and ladies at that; and we had decided to go, amid the protestations of the towns-people and the remarks of Madam Grundy that it was not proper, and that there were so many tramps it was not prudent for two ladies to take a trip with their horse and carriage along the North Shore. Nevertheless, we take our lives in our hands, and 'do the trip' in a large comfortable, roomy buggy," etc. A letter in the Boston...