Classics Books

INTRODUCTION The Editor begs the reader to believe that he under took the compilation of this volume with diffidence and trepidation, lest by any defect of judgment he might do aught to diminish the reputation which John Clare has always enjoyed with the lovers of pastoral poetry. He trusts that the shortcomings of an unskilful workman will be forgotten in admiration of the gems for which he has been... more...

INTRODUCTION. Progress of African Discovery, before Park's first Expedition.—Park's Early Life. The first information we have respecting the interior of Africa is derived from Herodotus, who, during his residence in Egypt, endeavoured to collect as much intelligence as possible respecting the general aspect of the country. He describes it as far less fertile than the cultivated parts of... more...

THE IMMEDIATE JEWEL BY MARGARET DELAND    "Good name, in man and woman, dear my lord,    Is the immediate jewel of their souls."                                —Othello. I When James Graham, carpenter, enlisted, it was with the assurance that if he lost his life his grateful country would provide for his widow. He did lose it, and Mrs. Graham received, in... more...

Chapter One     New York, New York. A blissful spring morning beckoned, cloudless and blue and pure. I was driving my high-mileage Toyota down Seventh Avenue, headed for the location shoot that was supposed to wind up principal photography for my first feature film, Baby Love. It was about the pain and joy of adoption. I guess directing your first feature is something like giving birth to your first... more...

THE INGERSOLL LECTURESHIP Extract from the will of Miss CarolineHaskell Ingersoll, who died inKeene, County of Cheshire,New Hampshire, Jan.26, 1893. First. In carrying out the wishes of my late beloved father, George Goldthwait Ingersoll, as declared by him in his last will and testament, I give and bequeath to Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., where my late father was graduated, and which he... more...

CHAPTER I. THE INTRODUCTION. Breathless and excited, George Weston came running down a street in Islington. He knocked at the door of No. 16, and in his impatience, until it was opened, commenced a tattoo with his knuckles upon the panels. "Oh, mother, mother, I have got such splendid news!" he cried, as he hurried down stairs into the room where Mrs. Weston, with her apron on and sleeves... more...

CHAPTER I. A JOURNEY TO THE WOODS.   'Tis well for us poor denizens of earth  That God conceals the future from our gaze;  Or Hope, the blessed watcher on Life's tower,  Would fold her wings, and on the dreary waste  Close the bright eye that through the murky clouds  Of blank Despair still sees the glorious sun. It was a bright, frosty morning when I bade adieu to the farm, the... more...

A cloudy day: do you know what that is in a town of iron-works? The sky sank down before dawn, muddy, flat, immovable. The air is thick, clammy with the breath of crowded human beings. It stifles me. I open the window, and, looking out, can scarcely see through the rain the grocer's shop opposite, where a crowd of drunken Irishmen are puffing Lynchburg tobacco in their pipes. I can detect the... more...

INTRODUCTION. Two of the dramas contained in this volume are the most celebrated of all Calderon's writings. The first, "La Vida es Sueno", has been translated into many languages and performed with success on almost every stage in Europe but that of England. So late as the winter of 1866-7, in a Russian version, it drew crowded houses to the great theatre of Moscow; while a few years... more...

CHAPTER I. A truism must do duty as my first sentence. There are long lives, and there are eventful lives: there are also short lives, and uneventful ones. Keats’s life was both short and uneventful. To the differing classes of lives different modes of treatment may properly be applied by the biographer. In the case of a writer whose life was both long and eventful, I might feel disposed to carry the... more...