Classics Books

In a discussion concerning the elements of an effective speech, Dr. C. H. Patton, of the American Board, gave the following outline: An effective speech must be made up of Facts, Big facts, Human facts, Related facts. These suggestions apply not only to speeches but to any case which is to make an effective appeal to men. What subject is there which so perfectly illustrates the principles stated by Dr.... more...

There was a swift padding of moccasined feet through the hall leading to the Indian agent's office. Ordinarily Walter Lowell would not have looked up from his desk. He recognized the footfalls of Plenty Buffalo, his chief of Indian police, but this time there was an absence of the customary leisureliness in the official's stride. The agent's eyes were questioning Plenty Buffalo before... more...

The author of these memoirs, Mary Robinson, was one of the most prominent and eminently beautiful women of her day. From the description she furnishes of her personal appearance, we gather that her complexion was dark, her eyes large, her features expressive of melancholy; and this verbal sketch corresponds with her portrait, which presents a face at once grave, refined, and charming. Her beauty,... more...

Preface Colonel Duff has, at my request, written the following very interesting and touching account of my dear Mother; and she has done so in the hope that those who read it will be helped to follow in the footsteps of that wonderful servant of God. But how can they do so? Was not Mrs. Booth, you ask, an exceptional woman? Had she not great gifts and very remarkable powers, and was she not trained in... more...

CHAPTER I. Every one who knows Oxford, and a good many besides, must have heard of certain periodical migrations of the younger members of that learned university into distant and retired parts of her Majesty’s dominions, which (on the “lucus a non lucendo” principle) are called and known by the name of Reading Parties. Some half-dozen undergraduates, in peril of the coming examination, form... more...

A MOTHER SEEKS HER SON I The landscape shows many shades of green; deep forests, mostly coniferous, extend from the valley of the Rednitz to that of the Tauber. Yet the villages lie in the midst of great circles of cultivated land, for the tillage of man is immemorial here. Around the many weirs the grass grows higher, so high often that you can see only the beaks of the droves of geese, and were it... more...

CHAPTER I. FATHERLESS. t was an artist's studio, a poor, shabby little place, with a latticed window facing the north. There was nothing in the furnishing or arrangement of the room to suggest successful work, or even artistic taste. A few tarnished gold frames leaned against the gaudily-papered wall, and the only picture stood on the dilapidated easel in the middle of the floor, a small canvas of... more...

CHAPTER I LORENZO—"Il Magnifico." GIULIANO—"Il Pensieroso." "Signori!" "Signori!" Such was the stirring cry which resounded through the lofty Council Chamber of the famous Palazzo Vecchio that dull December day in the year 1469. Never had such a title been accorded to any one in Florence, where every man was as good as, if not better than, his neighbour. Foreign... more...

Everybody was out-of-doors; everybody was in the principal street of the village—not on the sidewalks, but all over the street; everybody was lounging, loafing, chatting, waiting, alert, expectant, interested—for it was train-time. That is to say, it was diligence-time—the half-dozen big diligences would soon be arriving from Geneva, and the village was interested, in many ways, in knowing how... more...

ne day Ned got a pie to eat. It was too hot, so he put it out in the air, on the lid of a big tin pot. And now he ran off to see his dog who had a pup, and his cat who had a kit. The pup lay in a box. Ned had got hay to put in the box for a bed; the pup lay on the hay, and the kit lay on a bit of rug. Ned did pat the pup on his ear, and say: "O you pet! let me hug you." By and by, he did pat... more...