Classics Books

SLEEPYHEAD As I lay awake in the white moonlight,I heard a faint singing in the wood,      "Out of bed,      Sleepyhead,    Put your white foot, now;      Here are we      Beneath the tree    Singing round the root now." I looked out of window, in the white moonlight,The leaves were like snow in the wood—      "Come away,      Child, and... more...

THEY TOLD ME They told me Pan was dead, but I  Oft marvelled who it was that sangDown the green valleys languidly  Where the grey elder-thickets hang. Sometimes I thought it was a bird  My soul had charged with sorcery;Sometimes it seemed my own heart heard  Inland the sorrow of the sea. But even where the primrose sets  The seal of her pale loveliness,I found amid the violets  Tears of an... more...

I. Of the celebrated Mrs. Disraeli her husband is reported to have said, "She is an excellent creature, but she never can remember which came first, the Greeks or the Romans." In my walk through life I have constantly found myself among excellent creatures of this sort. The world is full of vague people, and in the average man, and still more in the average woman, the chronological sense seems... more...

The Oren were one and their strength was legion. They had it all figured out, in their own parasitical, cold-blooded way. But they'd neglected one she-cat of a girl.... He crossed the rickety bridge at sundown and saw the squat, fat fellow whipping the girl with a board. His mind leaped to a conclusion: an Orenian prowler, convincing his victim to hold still. He clubbed the fat fellow with a rock... more...

"What I should like to know," Professor Bernardi said, gazing pensively after the lizard-man as he bore the shrieking form of Miss Anspacher off in his scaly arms, "is whether he is planning to eat her or make love to her. Because, in the latter instance, I'm not sure we should interfere. It may be her only chance." "Carl!" his wife cried indignantly. "That's a... more...

CHAPTER I The Colonel's House in Bedford Place The dinner was at the colonel's—an old-fashioned, partly furnished, two-story house nearly a century old which crouches down behind a larger and more modern dwelling fronting on Bedford Place within a stone's throw of the tall clock tower of Jefferson Market. The street entrance to this curious abode is marked by a swinging wooden gate... more...

CHAPTER I HAROLD QUARITCH MEDITATES There are things and there are faces which, when felt or seen for the first time, stamp themselves upon the mind like a sun image on a sensitized plate and there remain unalterably fixed. To take the instance of a face—we may never see it again, or it may become the companion of our life, but there the picture is just as we /first/ knew it, the same smile or frown,... more...

CHAPTER I. Where the road to the west from Birralong dips down to the valley of Boulder Creek, a selection stretches out on the left-hand side, well cleared and fenced, and with the selector's homestead standing back a couple of hundred yards from the main road. Slip-rails in the fence, serving as a gateway, open on to the half-worn track which runs from the roadway to the house; and on either... more...

CHAPTER I A SON OF THE WEST Out of the brooding darkness was born the first timid blush of the morn. It sprang to life along the serried edge of the Medicine Bow, a broadening band of blood-red light. For one instant it seemed that some titan breath had blown at the source, darkening the red to purple; and then, with startling suddenness, the whole wide range flamed up. The full red rim of the sun... more...

THE window of Randolph Reed's office was almost completely covered by magnificent gold block lettering. This to any one who had time and ability to read it—and the former was more common in the community than the latter—conveyed the information that Reed dealt in every kind of real estate, from country palaces to city flats. The last item was put in more for the sake of symmetry than accuracy,... more...