Classics Books

CHAPTER I.           "O that sweet gleam of sunshine on the lake!"          WILSON'S City of the Plague If, reader, you have ever looked through a solar microscope at the monsters in a drop of water, perhaps you have wondered to yourself how things so terrible have been hitherto unknown to you—you have felt a loathing at the limpid element you hitherto deemed so... more...

Two Years Later A young man strode along through one of the principal streets of the town of Woodford, New Hampshire, with his blue eyes clouded and an expression of mingled displeasure and purpose about the firm lines of his mouth. It was an April afternoon and the warm sunshine uncurling the tiny buds on the old elm trees lit to a brighter hue the yellow Forsythia bushes already in bloom in the... more...

His native land! Home! The ship glided slowly up the Narrows; and from its deck Daren Lane saw the noble black outline of the Statue of Liberty limned against the clear gold of sunset. A familiar old pang in his breast—longing and homesickness and agony, together with the physical burn of gassed lungs—seemed to swell into a profound overwhelming emotion. "My own—my native land!" he... more...

INTRODUCTORY It was a night of bright moonlight that made for pitchy shadows under wall or tree. Patsy Kenny was looking for the goat, she having broken her tether. He had been driven forth by his fierce old grandfather with threats of the most awful nature if he should return without the goat. The tears were not yet dry on Patsy's small face. He had kneaded them in with his knuckles, but the... more...

CHAPTER I. When Edward Temple was about eight or nine years old he was afflicted with a disorder of the eyes. It was so severe, and his sight was naturally so delicate, that the surgeon felt some apprehensions lest the boy should become totally blind. He therefore gave strict directions to keep him in a darkened chamber, with a bandage over his eyes. Not a ray of the blessed light of heaven could be... more...

PREFACE Albania, or, as it proclaimed itself in 1946, the People's Republic of Albania, emerged from World War II under the control of the local Communist movement, which later adopted the name Albanian Workers' Party. The most remarkable feature of Albanian life during the 1960s was the rigid alignment with Communist China in that country's ideological struggle with the Soviet Union. In... more...

The Tragedy. The river swirled on through the heat, the sweltering, fever-breathing heat. The long, deep reach made but scant murmur, save where the boughs of a luxuriant vegetation dipped on its surface. Above, on either hand, masses of rolling verdure, tall forest trees, undergrowth in rich profusion, and, high up against the blue sky, battlemented rock walls. Two dark objects relieved the shimmering... more...

ohn Calvin was born in the village of Noyon, in northeastern France, on the 10th of July, 1509. He was intended by his parents for the priesthood, for which he seemed to be peculiarly fitted by his naturally austere disposition, averse to every form of sport or frivolity, and he was given an excellent education with that calling in view; but finally at the command of his father—whose plans for his... more...

CHAPTER I A FLUTTERING PAPER Four girls were walking down an elm-shaded street. Four girls, walking two by two, their arms waist-encircling, their voices mingling in rapid talk, punctuated with rippling laughter—and, now and then, as their happy spirits fairly bubbled and overflowed, breaking into a few waltz steps to the melody of a dreamy song hummed by one of their number. The sun,... more...

"Trilby: a Novel" By George du Maurier. With Illustrations by the Author. Harper & Brothers. When "Trilby" began to appear as a serial in Harper's Monthly, January 1894, Mr. Henry James prophesied that it would prove to be a glorification of "the long leg and the twentieth year." The prophecy was soon verified. At the outset, indeed, it seemed as if the glorification... more...