Classics Books

1. EFFICIENCY OF LABOUR. Political economists have not overlooked efficiency of labour: they have underestimated its importance in the opinion of Edward Wilson, who has supplied me with the examples and arguments that follow and who has verbally given me leave to publish as much as I like. The English workman, especially in a country town of moderate size, regards capital as unlimited, employment... more...

INTRODUCTION Among the unpublished papers of Thomas and Joseph Warton at Winchester College the most interesting and important item is undoubtedly a continuation of Thomas Warton's History of English Poetry. This continuation completes briefly the analysis of Elizabethan satire and discusses the Elizabethan sonnet. The discussion offers material of interest particularly for the bibliographer and... more...

“Can you use a Sword?” “Yes! What is it?” “Hist, boy! Jump up and dress.” “Oh, it’s you, father!” said the newly aroused sleeper, slipping out of bed—or, rather, off his bed, for the heat of an Eastern China night had made him dispense with bedclothes. He made a frantic dash at his trousers, feeling confused and strange in the darkness, and hardly... more...

CHAPTER I. AMERICA IN THE OLD DAYS. 1. The Story of our Country.—We are sure that every intelligent and patriotic American youth must like to read the story of our country's life. To a boy or girl of good sense no work of fiction can surpass it in interest or power. How delightful to let the imagination summon up the forms and the deeds of the fearless Norse sailors who dared to cross the... more...

PART ONE    O I have seen a fair mermaid,That sang beside a lonely sea,And now her long black hair she'll braid,And be my own good wife to me.    O woe's the day you saw the maid,And woe's the song she sang the sea,In hell her long black hair she'll braid,For ne'er a soul at all has she! Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden. MARGARITA'S SOUL FATE WALKS BROADWAY Roger Bradley was... more...

DEATH OUR IDEA OF DEATH It has been well said: “Death and death alone is what we must consult about life; and not some vague future or survival, in which we shall not be present. It is our own end; and everything happens in the interval between death and now. Do not talk to me of those imaginary prolongations which wield over us the childish spell of number; do not talk to me—to me who am to die... more...

GENERAL DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. How the Teaching of Spelling May be Improved.—The teaching of spelling may be improved in three ways: first, by selecting a better list of words for the pupil to study; second, by placing before the pupils of each grade the words that are most appropriate for them; and third, by introducing economical procedures in learning. The first is the problem of the course of... more...

In those dim recesses of the consciousness where things have their beginning, if ever things have a beginning, I suppose the origin of this novel may be traced to a fact of a fortnight's sojourn on the western shore of lake Champlain in the summer of 1891. Across the water in the State of Vermont I had constantly before my eyes a majestic mountain form which the earlier French pioneers had named... more...

INTRODUCTION The Secret Memoirs of Henry of Navarre's famous queen possess a value which the passage of time seems but to heighten. Emanating as they undoubtedly do from one of the chief actors in a momentous crisis in French history, and in the religious history of Europe as well, their importance as first-hand documents can hardly be overestimated. While the interest which attaches to their... more...

A LOST HERO."THE ENTERPRISE OF THE SUMMERVILLE MERCHANT."THE express from Columbia was due. It was almost nine o'clock on Tuesday night, the 31st of August, 1886. It had been a hot day, sultry toward night, and the loungers at the Summerville station were divided between pitying and envying their neighbors on the excursion train. In such weather, home seems either the most intolerable or... more...