Classics Books

CHAPTER I. "That child," said my aunt Mercy, looking at me with indigo-colored eyes, "is possessed." When my aunt said this I was climbing a chest of drawers, by its knobs, in order to reach the book-shelves above it, where my favorite work, "The Northern Regions," was kept, together with "Baxter's Saints' Rest," and other volumes of that sort, belonging to my... more...

CHAPTER I For reasons which will be given later, I sit down here, in Verona, to write the history of my extravagant adventure. I shall formulate and expand the rough notes in my diary which lies open before me, and I shall begin with a happy afternoon in May, six months ago. May 20th. London:—To-day is the seventh anniversary of my release from captivity. I will note it every year in my diary with a... more...

The simplest formula for the new conception of morality, which is beginning to be opposed to moral dogma still esteemed by all society, but especially by women, might be summed up in these words: Love is moral even without legal marriage, but marriage is immoral without love. The customary objection to this tenet is that those who propose it forget all other ethical duties and legitimate feelings in... more...

here are exceptions to almost every rule and Xenon was one of them. The rule in this particular case was the old cataloguers' adage that cataloguing duty was never pleasant, often dangerous and always hard. Xenon is the fourth planet of one of the stars investigated some seven or eight years ago by the battleship Terra on her swing around the edge of the Black Hole. Unequipped for exploration, the... more...

CHAPTER I.   If you take the turn to the left, after you pass the lyke-gate at Combehurst Church, you will come to the wooden bridge over the brook; keep along the field-path which mounts higher and higher, and, in half a mile or so, you will be in a breezy upland field, almost large enough to be called a down, where sheep pasture on the short, fine, elastic turf. You look down on Combehurst and its... more...

CHAPTER I. THE GUN CLUB. During the Federal war in the United States a new and very influential club was established in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. It is well known with what energy the military instinct was developed amongst that nation of shipowners, shopkeepers, and mechanics. Mere tradesmen jumped their counters to become extempore captains, colonels, and generals without having passed the... more...

Ourtale is a true one, from which may be taughtA maxim for youth, with utility fraught;—If terrors assail you, examine the cause, And all will be well;—for, byNature’skind laws,Nor Goblins nor Spectres on earth have a station,—These phantoms are all of ideal creation. Monkey, that comical tricks would be at,His frolics one morning began with theCat;He chatter’d, as much as to sayHow d’ ye... more...

CHAPTER I "I am," said Reggie Mann, "quite beside myself to meet this LucyDupree." "Who told you about her?" asked Allan Montague. "Ollie's been telling everybody about her," said Reggie. "It sounds really wonderful. But I fear he must have exaggerated." "People seem to develop a tendency to exaggeration," said Montague, "when they talk about... more...

CHAPTER I. THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE "Peace and plenty, peace and plenty"—that was the phrase M. Jean Jacques Barbille, miller and moneymaster, applied to his home-scene, when he was at the height of his career. Both winter and summer the place had a look of content and comfort, even a kind of opulence. There is nothing like a grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter... more...

CHAPTERONE           He watched from the quarterdeck as the chain fed through the whitecaps of the bay, its staccato clatter muffled, hollow in the midday heat. Then he sensed the anchor grab and felt an uneasy tremor pass along the hull as the links snapped taut against the tide. The cannon were already run in and cooling, but vagrant threads of smoke still traced skyward through the scuttles... more...