Classics Books

CHAPTER ONE. OATMEAL AND THE SHORTER CATECHISM. The first and most-serious-but-one ordeal in the life of Robert Chalmers Fordyce—so Robert Chalmers himself informed me years afterwards—was the examination for the Bursary which he gained at Edinburgh University. A bursary is what an English undergraduate would call a "Schol." (Imagine a Scottish student talking about a "Burse"!)... more...

CHAPTER I The palings of the grandstand inclosure creaked in protest under the pressure. The shadows of forward-surging men wavered far out across the track. A smother of ondriving dust broke, hurricane-like, around the last turn, sweeping before it into the straightaway a struggling mass of horse-flesh and a confusion of stable-colors. Back to the right, the grandstand came to its feet, bellowing in a... more...

Sethos entered the park. Brown autumn leaves crumpled sharply beneath his feet, the green grass sank. The sun was nearly gone, and the last of the children passed him, chattering as they faded into the twilight. Only one other person remained in the park, and she was waiting for Sethos. "Ela," he said. "Have you been here long?" She touched his cheek with hers in greeting. "Not at... more...

PREFACE The prevailing taste of the public for anecdote has been censured and ridiculed by critics who aspire to the character of superior wisdom; but if we consider it in a proper point of view, this taste is an incontestable proof of the good sense and profoundly philosophic temper of the present times. Of the numbers who study, or at least who read history, how few derive any advantage from their... more...

MARIA EDGEWORTH Rosamond, a little girl about seven years of age, was walking with her mother in the streets of London. As she passed along she looked in at the windows of several shops, and saw a great variety of different sorts of things, of which she did not know the use or even the names. She wished to stop to look at them, but there was a great number of people in the streets, and a great many... more...

Amiens, January, 1793. Vanity, I believe, my dear brother, is not so innoxious a quality as we are desirous of supposing. As it is the most general of all human failings, so is it regarded with the most indulgence: a latent consciousness averts the censure of the weak; and the wise, who flatter themselves with being exempt from it, plead in its favour, by ranking it as a foible too light for serious... more...

CHAPTER I. Departure from Havre—Regrets—A Barrier of Rocks—Rio Janeiro—Departure from Rio—Six Weeks at Sea—Cape Horn—Storms—Death of a Sailor—Catching a Shark—Land! Land!—The Gold Country. In the year 1852, on a fine spring morning, I arrived in Havre with my eldest sister, who was going, on commercial matters, to California. We spent several days in Havre; and on the 30th of May,... more...

OXFORD The night before I left home for Oxford I had a talk with my father. He was not of the sentimental kind, but I knew that he had a rare fondness for my brother, my sister Nina and myself, and I have never had a moment when I did not return his affection. He had always been bothered by my lack of seriousness, and he doubted whether I should really get the best out of 'Varsity life. After... more...

Fog that you might cut with a knife all the way from London to Newbury. This fog does not wet things. It is rather a smoke than a fog. There are no two things in this world; and, were it not for fear of Six-Acts (the “wholesome restraint” of which I continually feel) I might be tempted to carry my comparison further; but, certainly, there are no two things in this world so dissimilar as an English... more...

CHAPTER I. UNA CALLINGHAM'S FIRST RECOLLECTION It may sound odd to say so, but the very earliest fact that impressed itself on my memory was a scene that took place—so I was told—when I was eighteen years old, in my father's house, The Grange, at Woodbury. My babyhood, my childhood, my girlhood, my school-days were all utterly blotted out by that one strange shock of horror. My past life... more...