Classics Books

TROUBLE'S TUMBLE "Say, Jan, this isn't any fun!" "What do you want to play then, Ted?" Janet Martin looked at her brother, who was dressed in one of his father's coats and hats while across his nose was a pair of spectacles much too large for him. Janet, wearing one of her mother's skirts, was sitting in a chair holding a doll. "Well, I'm tired of playing... more...

DEDICATION   Take thou this gift from out the grave of Time.  The urns of Greece lie shattered, and the cup  That for Athenian lips the Muses filled,  And flowery crowns that on Athenian hair  Hid the cicala, freedom's golden sign,  Dust in the dust have fallen. Calmly sad,  The marble dead upon Athenian tombs  Speak from their eyes "Farewell": and well have fared  They... more...

SHOWING, BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION, HOW RED EAGLE HAPPENED TO BE A MAN OF CONSEQUENCE IN HISTORY. It is a long journey from the region round about the great lakes, where Tecumseh lived, to the shores of the Alabama and the Tombigbee rivers, even in these days of railroads and steamboats; and it was a much longer journey when Tecumseh was a terror to the border and an enemy whom the United States had good... more...

CHAPTER I. TWO BLACK EYES AND THEIR WORK. he early express train from Montreal to Portland, Maine, was crowded. Mr. Richard Gilbert, lawyer, of New York, entering five minutes before starting time, found just one seat unoccupied near the door. A crusty old farmer held the upper half, and moved grumpily toward the window, under protest, as Mr. Gilbert took the place. The month was March, the morning... more...

CHAPTER I THE JOURNEY The Duchess of Banford and her two children were driving toward their villa, when, owing to the roughness of the road, the front wheel of their coach was suddenly broken. Considerably frightened, mother and children quickly alighted. The approaching darkness, coupled with the loneliness of the place, added to the difficulty; for the prospect of spending the night in the woods was... more...

INTRODUCTION Most of the letters in this volume were written by Theodore Roosevelt to his children during a period of more than twenty years. A few others are included that he wrote to friends or relatives about the children. He began to write to them in their early childhood, and continued to do so regularly till they reached maturity. Whenever he was separated from them, in the Spanish War, or on a... more...

I For years I had been preoccupied with thoughts of love—and by love I mean a noble and sensuous passion, absorbing the energies of the soul, fulfilling destiny, and reducing all that has gone before it to the level of a mere prelude. And that afternoon in autumn, the eve of my twenty-first birthday, I was more deeply than ever immersed in amorous dreams. I, in my modern costume, sat down between two... more...

CHAPTER I A RETURNED TRAVELLER. NEMESIS IN LIVERMORE'S RENTS, 1808. EXTRAVAGANCE, AND NO CASH. A PAWNED WATCH, AND A RESIDUUM OF FOURPENCE An exceptionally well-built man in a blue serge suit walked into a bank in the City, and, handing his card across the counter, asked if credit had been wired for him from New York. The clerk to whom he spoke would inquire. As he leaned on the counter, waiting... more...

CHAPTER I “ Ostable!” screamed the brakeman,opening the car door and yelling his loudest, so as to be heard above the rattle of the train and the shriek of the wind; “Ostable!” The brakeman’s cap was soaked through, his hair was plastered down on his forehead, and, in the yellow light from the car lamps, his wet nose glistened as if varnished. Over his shoulders the shiny ropes of rain... more...

CHAPTER I THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLOITATION OF GUINEA The Portuguese began exploring the west coast of Africa shortly before Christopher Columbus was born; and no sooner did they encounter negroes than they began to seize and carry them in captivity to Lisbon. The court chronicler Azurara set himself in 1452, at the command of Prince Henry, to record the valiant exploits of the negro-catchers. Reflecting... more...