Classics Books

CHAPTER I HER FATHER'S PLAN "How old are you, Patty?" asked her father, abruptly. "Fourteen, papa,—why?" "My conscience! what a great girl you're getting to be. Stand up and let me look at you." Patty Fairfield, with two twists and a spring, brought herself to her feet, and stood awaiting her father's inspection. He saw a slender, graceful girl, a Southern... more...

THE DINNER-BELL.   In one of Webster's magnificent speeches, he remarks that so vast are the possessions of England, that her morning drum-beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one continuous and unbroken strain of its martial airs. There is another musical sound, within the British islands themselves, which does not as yet quite traverse the... more...

'WHAT A LOT OF BOYS!' It was before the days of sailor suits and knickerbockers. Nowadays boys would make great fun of the quaint little men in tight-fitting jackets, and trousers buttoning on above them, that many people still living can remember well, for it is not so very long ago after all. And whatever the difference in their clothes, the boys of then were in themselves very like the... more...

CONCLUDING PAPER.FOREST OF COCKATOOS.People who go to Australia expecting every other man they meet to be a convict, and every convict a ruffian in felon's garb, will assuredly find themselves mistaken. And if contemplating a residence in Sydney or Melbourne they need not anticipate the necessity of living in a tent or a shanty, nor yet of accepting the society of convicts or negroes as the only... more...

A full and authentic edition of Mozart's Letters ought to require no special apology; for, though their essential substance has already been made known by quotations from biographies by Nissen, Jahn, and myself, taken from the originals, still in these three works the letters are necessarily not only very imperfectly given, but in some parts so fragmentary, that the peculiar charm of this... more...

Part One: Angels and Ministers The Queen: God Bless Her! Dramatis Personae QUEEN VICTORIA LORD BEACONSFIELD MR. JOHN BROWN A FOOTMAN The Queen: God Bless Her! A Scene from Home-Life in the Highlands The august Lady is sitting in a garden-tent on the lawn of Balmoral Castle. Her parasol leans beside her. Writing-materials are on the table before her, and a small fan, for it is hot weather; also a dish... more...

WHY AND WHEREFORE An ancient writer—I forget his name—declared that in one of the city-states of Greece there was the rule that when any citizen proposed a new law or the repeal of an old one, he should come to the popular assembly with a rope around his neck, and if his proposition failed of adoption, he was to be immediately hanged. It is said that amendments to the constitution of that state... more...

I The view from the terrace at Saint-Germain-en-Laye is immense and famous. Paris lies spread before you in dusky vastness, domed and fortified, glittering here and there through her light vapours and girdled with her silver Seine. Behind you is a park of stately symmetry, and behind that a forest where you may lounge through turfy avenues and light-chequered glades and quite forget that you are within... more...

CHAPTER I. It was a Saturday morning in December at the Indian Mission School. Two young Sioux girls were going up the stairs—Hannah Straight Tree and Cordelia Running Bird. It was their Saturday for cleaning. The two girls drew a heavy breath in prospect of the difficult task that confronted them. The great unplastered mission building was a chilly place throughout the winter, and the halls and... more...

CHAPTER I HENRY THRESK The beginning of all this difficult business was a little speech which Mrs. Thresk fell into a habit of making to her son. She spoke it the first time on the spur of the moment without thought or intention. But she saw that it hurt. So she used it again—to keep Henry in his proper place. "You have no right to talk, Henry," she would say in the hard practical voice which... more...