Classics Books

CHAPTER I. WARNED IN A DREAM. Seven-and-twenty years ago, and a bleak evening in March. There are gas-lamps flaring down in Ratcliff Highway, and the sound of squeaking fiddles and trampling feet in many public-houses tell of festivity provided for Jack-along-shore. The emporiums of slop-sellers are illuminated for the better display of tarpaulin coats and hats, so stiff of build that they look like so... more...

A VISIT, &c. I embarked at Portsmouth, on board the British Queen steam packet, commanded by Captain Franklin, on the 10th of the 3d Month, (March,) 1841. During the first two or three days, the weather was unusually fine for the season of the year, and gave us the prospect of a quick and prosperous voyage. The passengers, about seventy in number, were of various nations, including English, French,... more...

I There was a card party at the rooms of Naroumoff, of the Horse Guards. The long winter night passed away imperceptibly, and it was five o'clock in the morning before the company sat down to supper. Those who had won ate with a good appetite; the others sat staring absently at their empty plates. When the champagne appeared, however, the conversation became more animated, and all took a part in... more...

Chapter I When history has granted him the justice of perspective, we shall know the American Pioneer as one of the most picturesque of her many figures. Resourceful, self-reliant, bold; adapting himself with fluidity to diverse circumstances and conditions; meeting with equal cheerfulness of confidence and completeness of capability both unknown dangers and the perils by which he has been educated;... more...

THE TURQUOISE CUP The Cardinal Archbishop sat on his shaded balcony, his well-kept hands clasped upon his breast, his feet stretched out so straight before him that the pigeon, perched on the rail of the balcony, might have seen fully six inches of scarlet silk stocking. The cardinal was a small man, but very neatly made. His hair was as white as spun glass. Perhaps he was sixty; perhaps he was... more...

THE CLOSE OF THE WAR   Never before hast thou shone  So beautifully upon the Thebans;  O, eye of golden day: —Antigone of Sophocles. One bright morning in April, 1865, Hawthorne's son and the writer were coming forth together from the further door-way of Stoughton Hall at Harvard College, when, as the last reverberations of the prayer-bell were sounding, a classmate called to us across the... more...

CHAPTER I DESTRUCTION MARKS THE GERMAN RETREAT—THE FRENCH CAPTURE SOISSONS, FISMES, AND IMPORTANT POSITIONS—THE BRITISH WIN GREAT VICTORIES NEAR ALBERT The continued advance of the Allies in the first days of August, 1918, along the front from Soissons to Rheims was a decisive blow to the German hopes of gaining Paris; the capital was no longer threatened. The hard-pressed foe was now forced... more...

CHAPTER I STARTING FOR THE FIELD War broke out between the United States and Spain on April 21, 1898. A week or ten days later I was asked by the editors of the "Outlook" of New York to go to Cuba with Miss Clara Barton, on the Red Cross steamer State of Texas, and report the war and the work of the Red Cross for that periodical. After a hasty conference with the editorial and business staffs... more...

Part One The Land of the Blue Flower was not called by that name until the tall, strong, beautiful King Amor came down from his castle on the mountain crag and began to reign. Before that time it was called King Mordreth's Land, and as the first King Mordreth had been a fierce and cruel king this seemed a gloomy name. A few weeks before Amor was born, his weak, selfish boy-father—whose name was... more...

In passing through this vale of tears,   That various scenes display;Ambition oft her standard rears,   And mortals lead astray. The anxious merchant counts his gain   From vessels on the sea;They’re lost upon the watery main,   And all his prospects flee. Dejection seize his harrass’d mind,   While struggling with dispair;Dame Fortune smiles and proves more kind,   His spirits for to... more...