Classics Books

PREFACE. * * * * * It is probable a true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the results of sudden impulses and accident, than of that reason of which we so much boast. However true, or false, this opinion may be in more important matters, it is certainly and strictly correct as relates to the conception and execution of this book. The Pilot was published in... more...

CHAPTER I. THE SMASH-UP There are a number of things that are pleasanter than being sick in a New York boarding-house when one's nearest dearest is a married sister up in far-away Michigan. Some one must have been very kind, for there were doctors, and a blue-and-white striped nurse, and bottles and things. There was even a vase of perky carnations—scarlet ones. I discovered that they had a... more...

I. THE WICKEDNESS OF MAN. Behold how kind and merciful Our heavenly Father was, To bear so long with sinful men, Who had transgressed His laws. The hearts of men wax'd worse and worse, They disobeyed the Lord; They followed their own thoughts, nor walked According to His word. And men were multiplied on earth, They spread both far and wide; And there were giants in those days, Who did God's... more...

ld Doctor Bolus was an old fashioned Doctor, and every morning started out with his cane, to visit his patients, sometimes taking with him his student, a man who had taken to studying medicine at thirty years old, in the hope of being the successor of Doctor Bolus.   We will follow the Doctor’s rounds for one morning. First he called at the Squire’s, whose father was sick. The Doctor examined his... more...

IA BRIEF SURVEY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE In order to get a clear idea of modern Russian literature, a knowledge of its past is indispensable. This knowledge will help us in understanding that which distinguishes it from other European literatures, not only from the viewpoint of the art which it expresses, but also as the historical and sociological mirror of the nation's life in the course of... more...

THE FOURTH OF JULY "THE glorious Fourth" was always a holiday on every Southern plantation, and, of course, Major Waldron's was no exception to the rule. His negroes not only had holiday, but a barbecue, and it was a day of general mirth and festivity. On this particular "Fourth" the barbecue was to be on the banks of the creek formed by the back-waters of the river, and was to be... more...

SIR WILLIAM FOLLETT. The disappearance from the legal hemisphere of so bright a star as the late Sir William Follett, cast a gloom, not yet dissipated, over the legal profession, and all classes of society capable of appreciating great intellectual eminence. He died in his forty-seventh year; filling the great office of her Majesty's Attorney-general; the head and pride of the British Bar; a... more...

INTRODUCTION. No answer is given in the Lysis to the question, 'What is Friendship?' any more than in the Charmides to the question, 'What is Temperance?' There are several resemblances in the two Dialogues: the same youthfulness and sense of beauty pervades both of them; they are alike rich in the description of Greek life. The question is again raised of the relation of knowledge... more...

CHAPTER I KEINETH'S WORLD CHANGES Keineth Randolph's world seemed suddenly to be turning upside down! For the past three days there had been no lessons. Keineth had lessons instead of going to school. She had them sometimes with Madame Henri, or "Tante" as she called her, and sometimes with her father. If the sun was very inviting in the morning, lessons would wait until afternoon;... more...

It is an August morning. It is an old English manor-house. There is a breakfast-room hung with old gilded leather of the times of the Stuarts; it has oak furniture of the same period; it has leaded lattices with stained glass in some of their frames, and the motto of the house in old French, "J'ay bon vouloir," emblazoned there with the crest of a heron resting in a crown. Thence, windows... more...