Classics Books

Why Not? At three o’clock this afternoon Evelyn Wastneys died. I am Evelyn Wastneys, and I died, standing at the door of an old country home in Ireland, with my hands full of ridiculous little silver shoes and horseshoes, and a Paris hat on my head, and a trembling treble voice whispering in my ear:— “Good-bye, Evelyn darling—darling! Thank you—thank you for all you have been to me! Oh,... more...

I. In the best room of a farm-house on the skirts of a village in the hills of Northern Massachusetts, there sat one morning in August three people who were not strangers to the house, but who had apparently assembled in the parlor as the place most in accord with an unaccustomed finery in their dress. One was an elderly woman with a plain, honest face, as kindly in expression as she could be perfectly... more...

PROLOGUE In the October of 1642 there came to Cambridge a man from over-seas. He was travelling backward, after the interval of a generation, through the stages of his youth. From his landing at the port whence he had sailed so many years before in chase of fortune he came to London, where he had bustled and thundered as a stage-player. Here he found a new drama playing in a theatre that took a capital... more...

THE LADIES’ KNITTING AND NETTING BOOK. SECOND SERIES. Gentlemen’s Knitted Gloves. Four needles No. 15, and fine German lambs’-wool. Cast on 88 stitches, 28 on each of 2 needles, and 32 on the 3rd, knit round, knitting and ribbing 4 stitches alternately; when you have done about one inch, continue with plain knitting until your glove is long enough to begin increasing for the thumb, which is done... more...

I The Diurnal of Mrs. Elizabeth Pepys 2d May.—Sam'l now in great honour at the Navy Office, whereat my heart do rejoice, and the less for the havings, which do daily increase, than that I would willingly see him worshipfully received, the which indeede his hard work do plentifully deserve, he sparing himselfe in nothing for the advancing of his busyness. And I do reason with myselfe that though... more...

CHAPTER I. In Tyniec,[1] in the inn under "Dreadful Urus," which belonged to the abbey, a few people were sitting, listening to the talk of a military man who had come from afar, and was telling them of the adventures which he had experienced during the war and his journey. He had a large beard but he was not yet old, and he was almost gigantic but thin, with broad shoulders; he wore his hair... more...

The following article has been compiled from the different works of Thomas Carlyle, and embodies all he has written, or at least published, about Napoleon Bonaparte. We offer it in the absence of a more elaborate work on this subject, which we hope one day to see from the pen of this gifted and earnest writer. It is a glimpse of the insight of the clearest-headed Seer of our age, into the noisiest... more...

Whatever the poets may say, it is incontrovertible that the great majority of men look upon the beauties and glories of Nature that surround them with almost entire indifference. We shall not inquire whether this is the result of a natural incapacity to perceive and admire the beautiful and sublime, or whether it is that their impressions are so deadened by familiarity as to be passed by unnoticed.... more...

THE PLAGUE AT CONSTANTINOPLE. BY AN EYE-WITNESS. In 1837 I was a resident in Galata, one of the faubourgs of Constantinople, sufficiently near the scenes of death caused by the ravages of the plague to be thoroughly acquainted with them, and yet to be separated from the Turkish part of the population of that immense city. It is not material to the present sketch to dwell upon the subject of my previous... more...

SICILIAN SCENERY AND ANTIQUITIES. BY THOMAS COLE. A few months only have elapsed since I travelled over the classic land of Sicily; and the impressions left on my mind by its picturesqueness, fertility, and the grandeur of its architectural remains, are more vivid, and fraught with more sublime associations, than any I received during my late sojourn in Europe. The pleasure of travelling, it seems to... more...