Classics Books

CHAPTER I. THE SMASH-UP There are a number of things that are pleasanter than being sick in a New York boarding-house when one's nearest dearest is a married sister up in far-away Michigan. Some one must have been very kind, for there were doctors, and a blue-and-white striped nurse, and bottles and things. There was even a vase of perky carnations—scarlet ones. I discovered that they had a... more...

In venturing to follow up my translation of the Odes of Horace by a version of the Satires and Epistles, I feel that I am in no way entitled to refer to the former as a justification of my boldness in undertaking the latter. Both classes of works are doubtless explicable as products of the same original genius: but they differ so widely in many of their characteristics, that success in rendering the... more...

CHAPTER I COLONIAL LITERATURE RELATION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE.—The literature produced in that part of America known as the United States did not begin as an independent literature. The early colonists were Englishmen who brought with them their own language, books, and modes of thought. England had a world-famous literature before her sons established a permanent settlement across the Atlantic.... more...

he red tennis robot scooted desperately across the court, its four wide-set wheels squealing. For a moment, Robert's hard-hit passing shot seemed to have scored. Then, at the last instant, the robot whipped around its single racket-equipped arm. Robert sprawled headlong in a futile lunge at the return. "Game and set to Red Three," announced the referee box from its high station above the... more...

or fifty years they lay under glass in the Dickerson museum and they were labeled "The Medici Boots." They were fashioned of creamy leather, pliable as a young girl's hands. They were threaded with silver, appliqued with sapphire silks and scarlet, and set on the tip of each was a pale and lovely amethyst. Such were the Medici boots. Old Silas Dickerson, globe-trotter and collector, had... more...

A Prayer The supreme prayer of my heart is not to be learned, rich, famous, powerful, or "good," but simply to be radiant. I desire to radiate health, cheerfulness, calm courage and good will. I wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural, clean in mind and clean in body, unaffected—ready to say "I do not know," if it... more...

NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY, &c. Geneva, July, 1819. You, my dear friend, who are well acquainted from my infancy with my clambering disposition, which, within these few months, has carried me to the top of both Vesuvius and Ætna, will not be much surprised to learn, that I have attempted, with success, to mount to the summit of Mont Blanc; an aerial journey which the sight of this mountain has... more...

THE FIRST CHAPTER IIT happens that I twice saw Susan's mother, one of those soiled rags of humanity used by careless husbands for wiping their boots; but Susan does not remember her. John Stuart Mill studied Greek at three, and there is a Russian author who recalls being weaned as the first of his many bitter experiences. Either Susan's mental life did not waken so early or the record has... more...

PART I SEEING LIFE A young dog, inexperienced, sadly lacking in even primary education, ambles and frisks along the footpath of Fulham Road, near the mysterious gates of a Marist convent. He is a large puppy, on the way to be a dog of much dignity, but at present he has little to recommend him but that gawky elegance, and that bounding gratitude for the gift of life, which distinguish the normal puppy.... more...

MEMOIRS OF HENRY HUNT. Hunting, shooting, and fishing by day, and mixing in the thoughtless, gay, and giddy throng by night, soon, however, dispelled any unpleasant impression which this circumstance had made upon my mind. I every day became acquainted with new and more fashionable society than I had before associated with, and as my son was about to be christened, we were determined to give a... more...