Classics Books

Three times during dinner he had asked himself what, after all, was he there for? And at the end of it, as she rose, her eyes held him for the first time that evening, as if they said that he would see. She had put him as far from her as possible, at the foot of her table between two of the four preposterous celebrities whom she had asked him, George Tanqueray, to meet. Everything, except her eyes, had... more...

INTRODUCTION Between those last precise accounts of military engagements which antiquity has left us in small number, and what may be called the modern history of war, there lies a period of many centuries—quite 1400 years—during which the details of an action and even the main features of a campaign are never given us by contemporary recorders. Through all that vast stretch of time we are... more...

CHAPTER I. "Where does Bernardet live?" "At the passage to the right—Yes, that house which you see with the grating and the garden behind it." The man to whom a passer-by had given this information hurried away in the direction pointed out; although gasping for breath, he tried to run, in order to more quickly reach the little house at the end of the passage of the Elysée des Beaux... more...

CHAPTER I. A CRIME THAT SHOCKED THE CIVILIZED WORLD—THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER—A SUDDEN SUMMONS—THE INSTINCTS OF HUMANITY TRIUMPH OVER PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS—LAST MOMENTS AT HOME—PARTING WORDS WITH A FRIEND—DR. CRONIN'S EVENTFUL LIFE—HOW HE WORKED HIS WAY UPWARD ON THE LADDER OF HONOR AND FAME. Little introduction to this volume is needed. It is the story—told in plain unvarnished... more...

DEAR PROFESSOR WHIRLWIND, Your name in the original German is too much for me; and this is the nearest I propose to get to it: but under the majestic image of pure wind marching in a movement wholly circular I seem to see, as in a vision, something of your mind. But the grand isolation of your thoughts leads you to express them in such words as are gratifying to yourself, and have an inconspicuous or... more...

The royal yacht had anchored amid a thunder of cannon, and the king had gone ashore. The city was bright with bunting; a thousand whistles blew. Up through the festooned streets His Majesty was escorted between long rows of blue-coated officers, behind which the eager crowds were massed for mile upon mile. Thin wire cables were stretched along the curbs, to hold the people back, but these threatened to... more...

THE CRIMSON SWEATER'S FIRST APPEARANCE "Hello, Lobster!" The boy in the crimson sweater raised a pair of blue eyes to the speaker's face and a little frown crept into the sun-burned forehead; but there was no answer. "Where'd you get that sweater?" The older boy, a tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested youth of nineteen, with a dark, not altogether pleasant face, paused on... more...

PREFACE This book contains the substance, and for the most part the words, of a course of public lectures delivered during the first three months of 1919. The original division into lectures has been dropped, the matter being more conveniently redivided into chapters. The audience to whom the lectures were delivered was composed of members of the general public, and not only of students. For the most... more...

THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. 'There is a vulgar view of politics which sinks them into a mere struggle of interests and parties, and there is a foppish kind of history which aims only at literary display, which produces delightful books hovering between poetry and prose. These perversions, according to me, come from an unnatural divorce between two subjects which belong to one another. Politics are... more...

As one enters Rome from the Via Ostiensis by the Porta San Paolo, the first object that meets the eye is a marble pyramid which stands close at hand on the left. There are many Egyptian obelisks in Rome—tall, snakelike spires of red sandstone, mottled with strange writings, which remind us of the pillars of flame which led the children of Israel through the desert away from the land of the Pharaohs;... more...