Classics Books

CHAPTER I. ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM Why Gaston Belward left the wholesome North to journey afar, Jacques Brillon asked often in the brawling streets of New York, and oftener in the fog of London as they made ready to ride to Ridley Court. There was a railway station two miles from the Court, but Belward had had enough of railways. He had brought his own horse Saracen, and Jacques's broncho also,... more...

THE CREATION OF EVE. "And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmeet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my... more...

Pleasant Receptions. “Ax.” “I was asking, or axing, as you call it, my man. I said, Is that Dumford, down there in the valley?” “And I said axe, or arks, as you call it, my man,” was the surly, defiant reply. The last speaker looked up savagely from the block of stone on which he was seated, and the questioner looked down from where he stood on the rough track. There was a quiet,... more...

CHAPTER I. TAXATION AND GOVERNMENT. In that strangely beautiful story, "The Cloister and the Hearth," in which Charles Reade has drawn such a vivid picture of human life at the close of the Middle Ages, there is a good description of the siege of a revolted town by the army of the Duke of Burgundy. Arrows whiz, catapults hurl their ponderous stones, wooden towers are built, secret mines are... more...

CHAPTER I. THE GATES OF THE SEA The part I played in Mrs. Falchion's career was not very noble, but I shall set it forth plainly here, else I could not have the boldness to write of her faults or those of others. Of my own history little need be said in preface. Soon after graduating with honours as a physician, I was offered a professional post in a college of medicine in Canada. It was difficult... more...

The Right to Ignore the State. § 1. As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE APPARITION. "Be patient a few: minutes longer! There's a man beckoning to go with us," said the boatman to his passengers, two women and one man. The man was gray-haired, of slender form, rubicund face, and blue eyes of a kindly, but absent-minded and weary expression; a heavy moustache, wholly covering the upper lip, seemed out of keeping with this inoffensive face. He wore... more...

WAYEESES THE STRONG ONE The Old Wolf's Challenge We were beating up the Straits to the Labrador when a great gale swooped down on us and drove us like a scared wild duck into a cleft in the mountains, where the breakers roared and the seals barked on the black rocks and the reefs bared their teeth on either side, like the long jaws of a wolf, to snap at us as we passed. In our flight we had picked... more...

It is not the fault of our doctors that the medical service of the community, as at present provided for, is a murderous absurdity. That any sane nation, having observed that you could provide for the supply of bread by giving bakers a pecuniary interest in baking for you, should go on to give a surgeon a pecuniary interest in cutting off your leg, is enough to make one despair of political humanity.... more...

INTRODUCTORY POEM"The stories that the fairies told I learnt in English lanes of old, Where honeysuckle, wreathing high, Twined with the wild rose towards the sky, Or where pink-tinged anemones Grew thousand starred beneath the trees. I saw them, too, in London town, But sly and cautious, glancing down, Where in the grass the crocus grow And ladies ride in Rotten Row, St James's... more...