Classics Books

A great man's house is filled chiefly with menials and creatures of ceremony; and great libraries contain, for the most part, books as dry and lifeless as the dust that gathers on them: but from amidst these dead leaves an immortal mind here and there looks forth with light and love. From the point of view of the bank president, Emerson tells us, books are merely so much rubbish. But in his eyes... more...

NUMBER FIVE. We who are Tiverton born, though false ambition may have ridden us to market, or the world's voice incited us to kindred clamoring, have a way of shutting our eyes, now and then, to present changes, and seeing things as they were once, as they are still, in a certain sleepy yet altogether individual corner of country life. And especially do we delight in one bit of fine mental... more...

I THE MEANING OF INFANCY What is the Meaning of Infancy? What is the meaning of the fact that man is born into the world more helpless than any other creature, and needs for a much longer season than any other living thing the tender care and wise counsel of his elders? It is one of the most familiar of facts that man alone among animals, exhibits a capacity for progress. That man is widely different... more...

BOOK I. Every summer, for several years past, it has been my custom to arrange in some pleasant place, either in England or on the continent, a gathering of old college friends. In this way I have been enabled not only to maintain some happy intimacies, but (what to a man of my occupation is not unimportant) to refresh and extend, by an interchange of ideas with men of various callings, an experience... more...

McAllister's Christmas I McAllister was out of sorts. All the afternoon he had sat in the club window and watched the Christmas shoppers hurrying by with their bundles. He thanked God he had no brats to buy moo-cows and bow-wows for. The very nonchalance of these victims of a fate that had given them families irritated him. McAllister was a clubman, pure and simple; that is to say though neither... more...

August, 1790. The bard, who paints from rural plains,  Must oft himself the void supplyOf damsels pure and artless swains,  Of innocence and industry: For sad experience shows the heart  Of human beings much the same;Or polish'd by insidious art,  Or rude as from the clod it came. And he who roams the village round,  Or strays amid the harvest sere,Will hear, as now, too many a... more...

And so I am to write a story—but of what, and where? Shall it be radiant with the sky of Italy? or eloquent with the beau ideal of Greece? Shall it breathe odor and languor from the orient, or chivalry from the occident? or gayety from France? or vigor from England? No, no; these are all too old—too romance-like—too obviously picturesque for me. No; let me turn to my own land—my own New... more...

THE WIDOW'S TAVERN The morning of that day—it was a Tuesday of the Lenten season—could not have dawned more promisingly. The sea, off the Cabañal, was in flat calm, as smooth as a polished mirror. Not the slightest ripple broke the shimmering triangular wake that the sun sent shoreward over the lifeless surface of the water. The fishing fleet had headed, bright and early, for the grounds off... more...

The translation of Goethe's "Prose Maxims" now offered to the public is the first attempt that has yet been made to present the greater part of these incomparable sayings in English. In the complete collection they are over a thousand in number, and not more perhaps than a hundred and fifty have already found their way into our language, whether as contributions to magazines here and in... more...

Miguel reached Pasajes late Friday afternoon. On alighting from the train he found Ursula's boat moored to the shore. "Good afternoon, Don Miguel," said the boat-woman, showing genuine joy in her face, where the fires of alcohol were flaming more than ever brilliantly; "I was beginning to think that I should not see you again." "Indeed!" "How should I know?... Men are... more...