Classics Books

I. FORECASTING THE FUTURE Prophecy may vary between being an intellectual amusement and a serious occupation; serious not only in its intentions, but in its consequences. For it is the lot of prophets who frighten or disappoint to be stoned. But for some of us moderns, who have been touched with the spirit of science, prophesying is almost a habit of mind. Science is very largely analysis aimed at... more...

I. As Don Ippolito passed down the long narrow calle or footway leading from the Campo San Stefano to the Grand Canal in Venice, he peered anxiously about him: now turning for a backward look up the calle, where there was no living thing in sight but a cat on a garden gate; now running a quick eye along the palace walls that rose vast on either hand and notched the slender strip of blue sky visible... more...

INTRODUCTION The strongest impulse of the human heart is for self-expression. The simplest form of expression is speech. Speech is the instinctive use of a natural instrument, the voice. The failure to deal justly with this simple and natural means of expression is one of the serious failures of our educational system. Whether the student is to wait on another's table or be host at his own;... more...

TRAGEDY FOR NELLIE “Just one more dive,” pleaded Penny, climbing nimbly up the rungs of the bright brass ladder. “Then make it snappy,” commanded Louise Sidell, a dark-haired girl in a blue bathing suit. She sighed and sank down on the edge of the tiled swimming pool. “We have to dress and get out of here sometime, you know. I promised Mother I’d stop at the doll shop.” “Oh, we still... more...

PART ONE In the fierce airless heat of the small square room the child Judith panted as she lay on her bed. Her father and mother slept near her, drowned in the heavy slumber of workers after their day's labour. Some people in the next flat were quarrelling, irritated probably by the appalling heat and their miserable helplessness against it. All the hot emanations of the sun-baked city streets... more...

A fashion plate is a costume portrait indicating a suitable style of clothing that can be made or secured. Fashion illustration began in the late 15th and early 16th centuries with portrait pictures that made a person’s identity known not by his individual features but rather by his dress. This paper, based on a lecture given in the fall of 1963 at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, traces the... more...

ON CHRISTIANITY, AS AN ORGAN OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. [1846.] FORCES, which are illimitable in their compass of effect, are often, for the same reason, obscure and untraceable in the steps of their movement. Growth, for instance, animal or vegetable, what eye can arrest its eternal increments? The hour-hand of a watch, who can detect the separate fluxions of its advance? Judging by the past, and the... more...

his thing really started before the time I had Willy Maloon under observation when he gunned the small runabout well past cruising speed in order to reach the little asteroid as soon as he could. At times like that he showed undue impatience. I was following at a discreet distance behind him, homing in on the rock, too. I had to find out what he was up to. Archie Crosby, the obliging scoundrel, had... more...

CHAPTER I. THE EVE OF THE WAR. It was a pleasant afternoon in the month of July, 1642, when three young people sat together on a shady bank at the edge of a wood some three miles from Oxford. The country was undulating and picturesque, and a little more than a mile in front of them rose the lofty spire of St. Helen's, Abingdon. The party consisted of two lads, who were about fifteen years of age,... more...

CHAPTER I Conversation on the Subject of the Bullet—Construction of a Canoe—Hunting—At the Top of a Kauri—Nothing to attest the Presence of Man—Neb and Herbert's Prize—Turning a Turtle—The Turtle disappears—Cyrus Harding's Explanation. It was now exactly seven months since the balloon voyagers had been thrown on Lincoln Island. During that time, notwithstanding the researches... more...