Classics Books

I was shocked this morning when I saw in my newspaper a paragraph announcing his sudden death. I do not say that the shock was very disagreeable. One reads a newspaper for the sake of news. Had I never met James Pethel, belike I should never have heard of him: and my knowledge of his death, coincident with my knowledge that he had existed, would have meant nothing at all to me. If you learn suddenly... more...

THE MYSTERIOUS RENDEZVOUS. Sometimes in the course of his experience, a detective, while engaged in ferreting out the mystery of one crime, runs inadvertently upon the clue to another. But rarely has this been done in a manner more unexpected or with attendant circumstances of greater interest than in the instance I am now about to relate. For some time the penetration of certain Washington officials... more...

My dear Maurice, It was in Normandy, you will remember, and in the heat of the year, when the birds were silent in the trees and the apples nearly ripe, with the sun above us already of a stronger kind, and a somnolence within and without, that it was determined among us (the jolly company!) that I should write upon Nothing, and upon all that is cognate to Nothing, a task not yet attempted since the... more...

"Keep her above three hundred meters on the approach." Ramirez's hard voice cut through the roar of the 2,200-hp Isotov turboshafts. Down below, the cold, dusk-shrouded Aegean churned with a late autumn storm. "Any lower and there'll be surface effect." "I'm well aware of that," the Iranian pilot muttered, a sullen response barely audible above the... more...

PREFACE This book contains the substance, and for the most part the words, of a course of public lectures delivered during the first three months of 1919. The original division into lectures has been dropped, the matter being more conveniently redivided into chapters. The audience to whom the lectures were delivered was composed of members of the general public, and not only of students. For the most... more...

CHAPTER I PROSPER LE GAI RIDES OUT My story will take you into times and spaces alike rude and uncivil. Blood will be spilt, virgins suffer distresses; the horn will sound through woodland glades; dogs, wolves, deer, and men, Beauty and the Beasts, will tumble each other, seeking life or death with their proper tools. There should be mad work, not devoid of entertainment. When you read the word... more...

PART I—BOOK I THE MASTERPIECE On marriage and at what age young men and virgins are capable of it: and why so much desire it. Also, how long men and women are capable of it. There are very few, except some professional debauchees, who will not readily agree that "Marriage is honourable to all," being ordained by Heaven in Paradise; and without which no man or woman can be in a capacity,... more...

THE CHILD-WORLD A Child-World, yet a wondrous world no less,To those who knew its boundless happiness.A simple old frame house—eight rooms in all—Set just one side the center of a smallBut very hopeful Indiana town,—The upper-story looking squarely downUpon the main street, and the main highwayFrom East to West,—historic in its day,Known as The National Road—old-timers, allWho linger yet,... more...

The first time this little guy comes in I'm new on the job. He looks around as if he's scared a prohibition agent will pop out of the walls and bite him. Then he gets up his nerve and sidles to the bar. His voice is as thin as the rest of him. "Glass of beer." I draw. He drinks and pays and goes out. That keeps on, Monday through Friday at five-ten p.m., year in and year out. He slips... more...

MOUNTAIN PICTURES. I. FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSETOnce more, O Mountains of the North, unveilYour brows, and lay your cloudy mantles byAnd once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail,Uplift against the blue walls of the skyYour mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weaveIts golden net-work in your belting woods,Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,And on your kingly brows at morn and eveSet... more...