Classics Books

THE COMING OF "JAP HERRON" On the afternoon of the second Thursday in March, 1916, I responded to an invitation to the regular meeting of a small psychical research society. There was to be a lecture on cosmic relations, and the hostess for the afternoon, whom I had met twice socially, thought I might be interested, my name having appeared in connection with a recently detailed series of... more...

CHAPTER IWILLIAM GOES TO THE PICTURES It all began with William’s aunt, who was in a good temper that morning, and gave him a shilling for posting a letter for her and carrying her parcels from the grocer’s. “Buy some sweets or go to the Pictures,” she said carelessly, as she gave it to him. William walked slowly down the road, gazing thoughtfully at the coin. After deep... more...

Prologue. “You were astonished when I refused your piece of gold, Nkose. But were you to offer me your waggon loaded up with just such shining gold pieces, even that would not coax this broad spear out of my possession.” (Nkose: literally “chief”—a title of civility which the innate courtesy of the Zulu moves him to bestow upon the stranger. In this connection it corresponds to “sir.”)... more...

I One Sunday in March they had been marooned at the club, Steingall the painter and Quinny the illustrator, and, having lunched late, had bored themselves separately to their limits over the periodicals until, preferring to bore each other, they had gravitated together in easy arm-chairs before the big Renaissance fireplace. Steingall, sunk in his collar, from behind the black-rimmed spectacles, which,... more...

THE MAN OF SONGS. "Thou wanderest in the land of dreams,  O man of many songs!To thee what is, but looks and seems;  No realm to thee belongs!" "Seest thou those mountains, faint and far,  O spirit caged and tame?""Blue clouds like distant hills they are,  And like is not the same." "Nay, nay; I know each mountain well,  Each cliff, and peak, and dome!In that... more...

CHAPTER I. Rocks-naked, hard, red-brown rocks all round; not a bush, not a blade, not a clinging moss such as elsewhere nature has lightly flung on the rocky surface of the heights, as if a breath of her creative life had softly touched the barren stone. Nothing but smooth granite, and above it a sky as bare of cloud as the rocks are of shrubs and herbs. And yet in every cave of the mountain wall there... more...

CHAPTER I CALICO PATCHWORK The gorgeous sunshine of a perfect June morning invited to the great outdoors. Exquisite perfume from myriad blossoms tempted lovers of nature to get away from cramped, man-made buildings, out under the blue roof of heaven, and revel in the lavish splendor of the day. This call of the Junetide came loudly and insistently to a little girl as she sat in the sitting-room of a... more...

INTRODUCTION Paul Henri Thiery, Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789), was the center of the radical wing of the philosophes. He was friend, host, and patron to a wide circle that included Diderot, D'Alembert, Helvetius, and Hume. Holbach wrote, translated, edited, and issued a stream of books and pamphlets, often under other names, that has made him the despair of bibliographers but has connected his... more...

The sun shone clear and hot, and the guests in the garden were glad to rest in the shaded places of promenade along the brooksides and under the beeches and soaring pines of the avenues. Far up the extended hollow there was a basin first to receive the water from the conduit supposed to tap the aqueduct leading down from the forest of Belgrade. The noise of the little cataract there was strong enough... more...

CHAPTER I. EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES. I was born in a retired but pleasant part of New England, as New England was half a century ago, and as, in many places, despite of its canals, steamboats, railroads, and electromagnetic telegraphs, it still is. Hence I am entitled to the honor of being, in the most emphatic sense, a native of the land of "steady habits." The people with whom I passed my early... more...