Classics Books

CHAPTER I. Fortune's Favourite GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK, DUKE OF ST. JAMES, completed his twenty-first year, an event which created almost as great a sensation among the aristocracy of England as the Norman Conquest. A minority of twenty years had converted a family always amongst the wealthiest of Great Britain into one of the richest in Europe. The Duke of St. James possessed estates in the... more...

CHAPTER I. In the days of the Cæsars the country surrounding Rome vied in splendour and luxury with the capital itself. Throughout the whole region appeared the villas of Roman patricians, abodes of aristocratic comfort, where every artist, from the sculptor to the—cook, had done his utmost to render them attractive and beautiful. These noble patricians, many of whom had incomes of eight or nine... more...

GET NEXT! JOHN HENRY ON RACE TIPSTERS One day last week I was beating the ballast up Broadway when Pete, the Piker, declared himself in and began to chatter about cinches at the track. "Get the saw, Pete, and cut it," I said; "it's many a long day since I've been a Patsy for the ponies. Once they stung me so hard that for months my bank account looked like a porous plaster, so I... more...

CHAPTER I Every year, from June to September, thousands of people "go to Alaska." This means that they take passage at Seattle on the most luxurious steamers that run up the famed "inside passage" to Juneau, Sitka, Wrangell, and Skaguay. Formerly this voyage included a visit to Muir Glacier; but because of the ruin wrought by a recent earthquake, this once beautiful and marvellous thing... more...

THE cave had been their hiding-place as children; it was a secret refuge now against hunger or darkness when they were hunting in the woods. The primitive meal was finished; ashes were raked over the red coals; the slice of bacon and the little bag of meal were hung high against the rock wall; and the two stepped from the cavern into a thicket of rhododendrons. Parting the bushes toward the dim light,... more...

The first specimens of Myotis velifer from California were taken in 1909 by C. L. Camp at Needles, San Bernardino County (Grinnell, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 12:266, March 20, 1914), and subsequently this bat was recorded from farther south in the lower Colorado River Valley at the Riverside Mountains, Riverside County (Stager, Jour. Mamm., 20:226, May 14, 1939). West of the Rocky Mountains the... more...

GEORGE BORROW. It is a singular coincidence, perhaps, that during one and the same summer we should be celebrating centenaries of Samuel Pepys and George Borrow.  Pepys died in the early summer of 1703; Borrow was born in July, 1803.  Unlike each other in almost every respect, they are dui palor, as Borrow would say, in one very material point.  The reputation of each of them has risen to such a... more...

THE GOD FROM THE MACHINE Hit a man an' help a woman, an' ye can't be far wrong anyways.— Maxims of Private Mulvaney. The Inexpressibles gave a ball. They borrowed a seven-pounder from the Gunners, and wreathed it with laurels, and made the dancing-floor plate-glass, and provided a supper, the like of which had never been eaten before, and set two sentries at the door of the room to... more...

FATHER'S WAY.MY father was no pessimist; he loved the things of earth,—Its cheerfulness and sunshine, its music and its mirth.He never sighed or moped around whenever things went wrong,—I warrant me he'd mocked at fate with some defiant song;But, being he warn't much on tune, when times looked sort o' blue,He'd whistle softly to himself this only tune he... more...

CHAPTER I. THE SERMON. Four girls were together in a pleasant cottage room with a large window, over which fluttered some dry sticks, which would in due time bear clematis and Virginia creeper leaves. Three of them were Miss Lee's apprentices, and this room had been built out at the back of the baker's shop for them. The place was the property of the Lee family themselves, and nobody in... more...