Classics Books

Scholars Say He is the Only American Myth. Paul Bunyan is the hero of lumbercamp whoppers that have been handed down for generations. These stories, never heard outside the haunts of the lumberjack until recent years, are now being collected by learned educators and literary authorities who declare that Paul Bunyan is "the only American myth." The best authorities never recounted Paul... more...

PAUL Bunyan is the hero of lumbercamp whoppers that have been handed down for generations. These stories, never heard outside the haunts of the lumberjack until recent years, are now being collected by learned educators and literary authorities who declare that Paul Bunyan is "the only American myth." The best authorities never recounted Paul Bunyan's exploits in narrative form. They made... more...

LOUIS ADELBERT VON CHAMISSO In 1813 Europe was busy watching the career of the Corsican Giant--which was nearing its end. Having reached the summit of power, and put his foot on the neck of Europe, Napoleon was suddenly hurled down from his dizzy height. And yet in the midst of stirring events and the din of arms, people found time to pay attention to important literary productions. A curious book,... more...

THE MARTIAN "BARTY JOSSELIN IS NO MORE...." When so great a man dies, it is generally found that a tangled growth of more or less contentious literature has already gathered round his name during his lifetime. He has been so written about, so talked about, so riddled with praise or blame, that, to those who have never seen him in the flesh, he has become almost a tradition, a myth—and one... more...

I AT BREAK OF DAY "Stay here beside her, major. I shall not he needed for an hour yet.Meanwhile I'll go downstairs and snatch a bit of sleep, or talk to oldJane." The night was hot and sultry. Though the windows of the chamber were wide open, and the muslin curtains looped back, not a breath of air was stirring. Only the shrill chirp of the cicada and the muffled croaking of the frogs in... more...

John Tatham, barrister-at-law, received one summer morning as he sat at breakfast the following letter. It was written in what was once known distinctively as a lady's hand, in pointed characters, very fine and delicate, and was to this effect:—   "Dear John, Have you heard from Elinor of her new prospects and intentions? I suppose she must have written to you on the subject. Do you know... more...

It was one of those exquisite days that come in every winter, in which it seems no longer the dead body, but the lovely ghost of summer. Such a day bears to its sister of the happier time something of the relation the marble statue bears to the living form; the sense it awakes of beauty is more abstract, more ethereal; it lifts the soul into a higher region than will summer day of lordliest splendour.... more...

CHAPTER I THE battle was over, and the victor remained on the field—sitting alone with the hurly-burly of his thoughts. His triumph was so sweeping and comprehensive as to be somewhat shapeless to the view. He had a sense of fascinated pain when he tried to define to himself what its limits would probably be. Vistas of unchecked, expanding conquest stretched away in every direction. He held at his... more...

THE NEWCOMER Ridgley School, with its white buildings set comfortably among the maples and the oaks that crown the flat top of the hill a mile to the west of the village of Hamilton, attracts and holds the attention of all eyes that fall upon it. Partly perhaps because the dormitories and the recreation halls fit into the landscape and do not jut boldly and crudely above the trees—as so many... more...

CHAPTER I. The huge London church was crowded in every part, and men had been standing in the aisles from the first moment that the service began. The preacher who had attracted so huge a crowd at two-thirty on a weekday afternoon, was one of the very youngest of the "coming men" of the English church. Tall, thin, with a magnificent head crowned by a mane of hair that was fast becoming... more...