Classics Books

CHAPTER I YERBA BUENA It was 1845. Three quarters of a century had passed since young Francisco Garvez, as he rode beside Portola's chief of Scouts, glimpsed the mystic vision of a city rising from the sandy shores of San Francisco Bay. Garvez, so tradition held, had taken for his spouse an Indian maiden educated by the mission padres of far San Diego. For his service as soldado of old Spain he... more...

Rastignac had no Skin. He was, nevertheless, happier than he had been since the age of five. He was as happy as a man can be who lives deep under the ground. Underground organizations are often under the ground. They are formed into cells. Cell Number One usually contains the leader of the underground. Jean-Jacques Rastignac, chief of the Legal Underground of the Kingdom of L'Bawpfey, was... more...

CHAPTER I PRACTICAL POLITICS   That bids him flout the law he makes;  That bids him make the law he flouts. —Kipling. In buoyant spirit the Hon. Charles Norton rode up the bridle path leading through the Langdon plantation to the old antebellum homestead which, on a shaded knoll, overlooked the winding waters of the Pearl River. No finer prospect was to be had in all Mississippi than greeted the... more...

PREFACE. If asked why I took in hand a task of such difficulty and delicacy as that of writing a History of the Church in our Dominion, I can really find no more truthful answer than that of the schoolboy, "Please, Sir, I couldn't help it." From boyhood's days in the old country, when a copy of the Life of Marsden fell into my hands, I felt drawn to the subject; the reading of... more...

CHAPTER I WESTVILLE PREPARES TO CELEBRATE The room was thick with dust and draped with ancient cobwebs. In one corner dismally reposed a literary junk heap—old magazines, broken-backed works of reference, novels once unanimously read but now unanimously forgotten. The desk was a helter-skelter of papers. One of the two chairs had its burst cane seat mended by an atlas of the world; and wherever any... more...

Chapter I THE MAGNET ATTRACTING: A WIFE AMID FORCES When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister's address in Van Buren Street, and four dollar in money. It was in August, 1889.... more...

dwin Dollard's nervous stubby fingers spilled three precious drops of his fifth Scotch highball, as he veered his head away from the horrors on the telescreen. He was in time to observe Garth enter by the paneled tunnel door. "Two more hours—and the ship will be ready," Garth announced. "The men still know nothing." His thin lips cracked into a forced smile. "I slipped them... more...

The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death. Women are made to be loved, not to be understood. It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. Moren than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read. Women, as someone says, love with their ears, just as men love with their eyes, if they ever love at all. It is better to be... more...

THE POLITICAL OBJECT AND EFFECT OF THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN It must continually be insisted upon in military history, that general actions, however decisive, are but the functions of campaigns; and that campaigns, in their turn, are but the functions of the political energies of the governments whose armies are engaged. The object of a campaign is invariably a political object, and all its military effort... more...

HONOR The French expression, a "man of the theater," is best exemplified in the person of the German dramatist Hermann Sudermann. The term is intended to convey the idea of a playwright who is interesting and effective, one who is, in short, master of his trade. The author of "Die Ehre," which is here presented for the first time to English readers, was for many years a man of the... more...