United States or North Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"And then," he droned, "I looked up the 'Dictionary of National Biography, and some encyclopedias. I went back to the middle desk and asked what was the best modern book on late nineteenth-century literature. They told me Mr. T. K. Nupton's book was considered the best. I looked it up in the catalogue and filled in a form for it. It was brought to me.
With the wave of a cheque, the complicity of the former first-lady had been assured, and assured moreover without a qualm on her part. Ma Tamby did not know what it is to have a qualm which she could not have spelled if she had known. She was differently and superiorly educated. In the university that life is, she had acquired encyclopedias of recondite learning.
Let the reader remember the nature of the literary lectures of that day when dictionaries, reference books, and encyclopedias were not yet to be found in every library, and school texts were not yet provided with concise Allen and Greenough notes. The teacher alone could afford the voluminous "cribs" of Didymus.
She never wasted conjecture on the age, the looks, the manner of being of this possible hero. Her mind intoxicated itself with the thought of his wealth. She went one day to the Public Library to read the articles on Rothschild and Astor in the encyclopedias. She even tried to read the editorial articles on gold and silver in the Ohio papers. She delighted in the New York society journals.
The accounts of the encyclopedias are meager, a date of birth and of death, a few facts of residence, the titles of his hundred and fifty books, and little more. Some neglect him entirely; skipping lightly from Timbrel to Timbuctoo. Indeed, Timbuctoo turned up so often that even against my intention I came to a knowledge of the place.
Except for Dean Swift's recitals of the Lilliputians which is pure fiction and the limited paragraphs in the encyclopedias on dwarfs which is the wrong name for the subject in literature the midget is the forgotten man.
All this and a great deal more did the inquisitive youngsters gather, until they became veritable motion picture encyclopedias. Of course, chief among the men whom they questioned was Mr. Dickle.
In all these cases, therefore, I came back to the same conclusion: the sceptic was quite right to go by the facts, only he had not looked at the facts. The sceptic is too credulous; he believes in newspapers or even in encyclopedias. Again the three questions left me with three very antagonistic questions.
Their attitude toward it was revolutionized. They plied Gard with questions. What was living like there? It must be most desirable. Gard came across convenient hand books of knowledge, inconvenient encyclopedias and atlases, lying here and there in the house, with pages opened freely at the United States.
Hardy undoubtedly owns a collection of books, and has upon his shelves dictionaries and encyclopedias, together with a decent representation of those works which people call 'standard. But it is of importance to remember this: That while he may be a well-read man, as the phrase goes, he is not and never has been of that class which Emerson describes with pale sarcasm as 'meek young men in libraries. It is clear that Hardy has not 'weakened his eyesight over books, and it is equally clear that he has 'sharpened his eyesight on men and women. Let us consider a few of his virtues.
Word Of The Day