Classics Books

CHAPTER I. NORA. "Why, then, Miss Nora—" "Yes, Hannah?" "You didn't see the masther going this way, miss?" "What do you mean, Hannah? Father is never at home at this hour." "I thought maybe—" said Hannah. She spoke in a dubious voice, backing a little away. Hannah was a small, squat woman, of a truly Irish type. Her nose was celestial, her mouth wide,... more...

PREFACE "Sanine" is a thoroughly uncomfortable book, but it has a fierce energy which has carried it in a very short space of time into almost every country in Europe and at last into this country, where books, like everything else, are expected to be comfortable. It has roused fury both in Russia and in Germany, but, being rather a furious effort itself, it has thriven on that, and reached an... more...

PREFACE. The following pages have been written by my request with a view to making the Soldiers of The Salvation Army somewhat familiar with the life-story of one of the most remarkable men this world has ever seen. While many and varied will be the opinions respecting the methods employed by Francis of Assisi, and while some will doubtless strongly dissent from these methods, yet I think no serious... more...

The Prologue. Your silence and attention, worthy friends,That your free spirits may with more pleasing senseRelish the life of this our active scene:To which intent, to calm this murmuring breath,We ring this round with our invoking spells;If that your listning ears be yet prepardTo entertain the subject of our play,Lend us your patience.Tis Peter Fabell, a renowned Scholler,Whose fame hath still been... more...

I am unwilling to send out this Harrison, the friend of some twenty years’ standing, without a few words of introduction to those readers who don’t know it. The book is full of interest, not only to every Shakspere student, but to every reader of English history, every man who has the least care for his forefathers’ lives. Though it does contain sheets of padding now and then, yet the writer’s... more...

Like a flash of light the gleaming sword swept down. A fraction of a second later a portion of it no longer gleamed: it was crimson! And Queen Dionaea's head bounced down the stairway into her garden of live oaks. A few seconds of thought remained to it before it would be very dead; but her thought was confused by shock—her eyes rolled uncontrollably while she tried to remember some cantrap or... more...

CHAPTER I The Second Son Lady Rosemary Granton! Strange how pleasant memories arise, how disagreeable nightmares loom up before the mental vision at the sound of a name! Lady Rosemary Granton! As far back as I could remember, that name had sounded familiar in my ears. As I grew from babyhood to boyhood, from boyhood to youth, it was drummed into me by my father that Lady Rosemary Granton, some day,... more...

Chapter One. The Sheep-Stealers. The sun flamed down from a cloudless sky upon the green and gold of the wide valley, hot and sensuous in the early afternoon. The joyous piping of sheeny spreeuws mingled with the crowing of cock koorhans concealed amid the grass, or noisily taking to flight to fuss up half a dozen others in the process. Mingled, too, with all this, came the swirl of the red, turgid... more...

PREFACE Among the difficulties which beset the path of the conscientious translator, a sense of his own unworthiness must ever take precedence; but another, scarcely less disconcerting, is the likelihood of misunderstanding some allusion which was perfectly familiar to the author and his public, but which, by reason of its purely local significance, is obscure and subject to the misinterpretation and... more...

"Did it go well?" the aide asked. The admiral, affectionately known as the Old Man, did not reply until he'd closed the door, crossed the room, and dropped into the chair at his desk. Then he said: "Go well? It did not go at all. Every blasted one of them, from the President on down, can think of nothing but the way the Combine over-ran Venus. When I mention P-boats, they shout that... more...