Classics Books

IT Prana Beach would be a part of the solid west coast if it wasn't for a half circle of the deadliest, double-damned, orchid-haunted black morass, with a solid wall of insects that bite, rising out of it. But the beach is good dry sand, and the wind keeps the bugs back in the swamp. Between the beach and the swamp is a strip of loam and jungle, where some niggers live and a god. I landed on Prana... more...

No undue liberties with history have been attempted in this romance. Few characters in the story are purely imaginary. Doubtless the fastidious reader will distinguish these intruders at a glance, and very properly ignore them. For they, and what they never were, and what they never did, merely sugar-coat a dose disguised, and gild the solid pill of fact with tinselled fiction. But from the flames of... more...

SCENE.—Outskirts of Peking. L. View of town gate, above which are reared long poles, bearing turbaned and shorn heads, symmetrically disposed so as to form a kind of architectural ornament. R. Small suburban dwellings, from one of which issues PRINCE KALAF, dressed in a fantastic Tartar warrior's costume. KALAF. The Gods be thanked, at last by patient seeking,I've found a lodging in this... more...

"Nothin' don't nuver come ter pass hyarabouts!" The boy perched disconsolately on the rotting fence threw forth his lament aloud to the laurelled silences of the mountain sides and the emptiness of space. "Every doggone day's jest identical with all ther balance—save only thet hit's wuss!" He sat with his back turned on the only signs of human life within the... more...

IF YOUR BABY MUST TRAVEL IN WARTIME Have you been on a train lately? The railroads have a hard job to do these days, one they are doing well. But before you decide on a trip with a baby, you should realize what a wartime train is like. So let's look into one. This train is crowded. At every stop more people get on—more and still more. Soldiers and sailors on furloughs, men on business trips,... more...

ALL SOULS’ NIGHT ’Tis All Souls’ Night and the great Christ Church bell, And many a lesser bell, sound through the room, For it is now midnight; And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come, For it is a ghost’s right, His element is so fine Being sharpened by his death, To drink from the wine-breath While our gross palates drink from the whole wine. I need... more...

CHAPTER I. Passion for Travelling—Author's peculiar situation—Motives for going Abroad—Resources for the Blind—Embark in the Eden, Capt. Owen, for Sierra Leone—Lord High Admiral at Plymouth—Cape Finisteire—Arrival at Madeira—Town of Funchal—Wines of Madeira—Cultiwition of the Grape—Table of Exports—Seizure of Gin—Fruits and Vegetables—Climate —Coffee, Tea, and Sugar... more...

CHAPTER I "Mercy gracious!" "Well!" The last utterance was Miss Theodosia Baxter's. She was a woman of few words at all times where few sufficed. One sufficed now. The child on her front porch, with a still childlier child on the small area of her knees, was not a creature of few words, but now extreme surprise limited speech. She was stricken with brevity,—stricken is the... more...

PREFACE. In this book Dr. Schaffle seeks to carry out still further the idea which he developed in his last book (The Impossibility of Social Democracy) of the essential difference between a socialistic policy and what he calls a Positive Social Policy, proceeding constructively upon the basis of the existing social order. He emphatically vindicates the Emperor William’s policy, as shown in the... more...

CHAPTER I. "REJECTED! rejected!" I crushed the letter spasmodically in my hand as I walked mechanically up and down the length of the dining-room, a rage of anger filling my brain and the blood thundering in my ears. "Rejected! and that not for the first time. Another year and a half's work flung away—simply flung away, and I am no nearer recognition than ever. Incredible it seems... more...