Classics Books

CHAPTER I GENERAL OBSERVATIONS There is a false implication in the saying that "a poor workman blames his tools." It is not true that a good workman can do good work with bad tools. On the contrary, the good workman sees to it that he has good tools, and makes it a part of his good workmanship that they are in good condition. In painting there is nothing that will cause you more trouble than... more...

Preface Irish Fairy Lore has well been called by Mr. Alfred Nutt, one of the leading authorities on the subject, “As fair and bounteous a harvest of myth and romance as ever flourished among any race,” and Dr. Joyce, the well-known Irish scholar and historian, states: “that it is very probable that the belief in the existence of fairies came in with the earliest colonists that entered Ireland,... more...

Ronar was reformed, if that was the right word, but he could see that they didn't trust him. Uneasiness spoke in their awkward hurried motions when they came near him; fear looked out of their eyes. He had to reassure himself that all this would pass. In time they'd learn to regard him as one of themselves and cease to recall what he had once been. For the time being, however, they still... more...

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A TOUCH OF SUN I The five-o'clock whistle droned through the heat. Its deep, consequential chest-note belonged by right to the oldest and best paying member of the Asgard group, a famous mining property of northern California. The Asgard Company owned a square league of prehistoric titles on the western slope of the foot-hills,—land enough for the preservation of a natural park within its own... more...

In the spring of 1950, a field party from the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History including J. R. Alcorn, W. J. Schaldach, Jr., George Newton, and the author collected mammals in the Mexican state of Coahuila. A few days were spent in the Sierra del Carmen. One morning when examining sets for pocket gophers in these mountains, Alcorn found a mole caught in one of the traps. Subsequent... more...

PREFACE. Mr. Buckingham, noticing the "Nautical Reminiscences" in the New England Magazine, says, no author ever stopped at the second book; and he very gravely proceeds to recommend that my number three should savor more of the style of Goldsmith or Washington Irving. I should have no objection whatever to writing like either of these distinguished authors, if I could; but as the case is, I... more...

He kept his word. We heard his horn and instantly got up. It was dark and cold and wretched. As I fumbled around for the matches, knocking things down with my quaking hands, I wished the sun would rise in the middle of the day, when it was warm and bright and cheerful, and one wasn't sleepy. We proceeded to dress by the gloom of a couple sickly candles, but we could hardly button anything, our... more...

CHAPTER I.   Luce. Is the wind there?           That makes for me.  Isab. Come, I forget a business.                 Wit without Money. LORD VARGRAVE'S travelling-carriage was at his door, and he himself was putting on his greatcoat in his library, when Lord Saxingham entered. "What! you are going into the country?" "Yes; I wrote you word,—to see Lisle... more...

THE NEW HYPERION. FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. [The author's vignettes neatly copied by Gusatave Doré.] The behavior of a great Hope is like the setting of the sun. It splashes out from under a horizontal cloud, so diabolically incandescent that you see a dozen false suns blotting the heavens with purple in every direction. You bury your eyes in a handkerchief, with your back... more...