Classics Books

I. IN THE UNSEEN. She had been talking of dying only the evening before, with a friend, and had described her own sensations after a long illness when she had been at the point of death. "I suppose," she said, "that I was as nearly gone as any one ever was to come back again. There was no pain in it, only a sense of sinking down, down—through the bed as if nothing could hold me... more...

CHAPTER I THE EUROPEAN DISCOVERY OF AMERICA Leif Ericson. 1. Leif Ericson discovers America, 1000.--In our early childhood many of us learned to repeat the lines:--Columbus sailed the ocean blueIn fourteen hundred, ninety-two.Leif discovers America, 1000. Higginson, 25-30; American History Leaflets, No. 3. We thought that he was the first European to visit America. But nearly five hundred years before... more...

I It was all over. Kate Barrington had her degree and her graduating honors; the banquets and breakfasts, the little intimate farewell gatherings, and the stirring convocation were through with. So now she was going home. With such reluctance had the Chicago spring drawn to a close that, even in June, the campus looked poorly equipped for summer, and it was a pleasure, as she told her friend Lena... more...

CHAPTER I. "My dear," said William Brenton to his wife, "do you think I shall be missed if I go upstairs for a while? I am not feeling at all well." [Illustration: "Do you think I shall be missed?"] "Oh, I'm so sorry, Will," replied Alice, looking concerned; "I will tell them you are indisposed." "No, don't do that," was the answer; "they... more...

Lieutenant Laskell surfaced his one-man submarine fifty miles off the Florida coast where he had been patrolling in search of enemy subs. Darkness had fallen. He tuned his short wave set to the Miami station just in time to hear the eight o'clock news. The grim announcement that he had expected was quick to come: "In accordance with the provisions of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, Congress today... more...

THE MARTYR SEX.   Ever since that unfortunate affair in which the mother of mankind was so prominently concerned, the female sex might say, with Shylock, 'Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.' They are, in fact, an incarnation of the Passive Voice—no mistake about it. 'Ah, gentle dames, it gars me greet,' as Burns pathetically says, to think on all the hardships and... more...

CHAPTER I THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC JUAN GALLARDO breakfasted early, as he did whenever there was to be a bull-fight. A slice of roast meat was his only dish. Wine he did not even touch; the bottle remained unopened before him. He must keep himself calm. He drank two cups of thick, black coffee, and lighted an enormous cigar, sitting with his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, looking with... more...

I. ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. (AN ADDRESS TO THE MEMBERS OF THE MIDLAND INSTITUTE, OCTOBER 9TH, 1871.) To me, and, as I trust, to the great majority of those whom I address, the great attempt to educate the people of England which has just been set afoot, is one of the most satisfactory and hopeful events in our modern history. But it is impossible, even if it were desirable, to shut our eyes to the... more...

I LONDON A GENERAL SKETCH [Footnote: From articles written for the Toronto "Week."Afterward (1888) issued by The Macmillan Company in the volume entitled"The Trip to England."] BY GOLDWIN SMITH The huge city perhaps never imprest the imagination more than when approaching it by night on the top of a coach you saw its numberless lights flaring, as Tennyson says, "like a dreary... more...

Nothing more generally or more recurrently solicits us, in the light of literature, I think, than the interest of our learning how the poet, the true poet, and above all the particular one with whom we may for the moment be concerned, has come into his estate, asserted and preserved his identity, worked out his question of sticking to that and to nothing else; and has so been able to reach us and touch... more...