Classics Books

CHAPTER I THE SIERRA NEVADA Go where you may within the bounds of California, mountains are ever in sight, charming and glorifying every landscape. Yet so simple and massive is the topography of the State in general views, that the main central portion displays only one valley, and two chains of mountains which seem almost perfectly regular in trend and height: the Coast Range on the west side, the... more...

THE INNER LIFE THE AGENCY OF EVIL. From the Supernaturalism of New England, in the Democratic Review for 1843. IN this life of ours, so full of mystery, so hung about with wonders, so written over with dark riddles, where even the lights held by prophets and inspired ones only serve to disclose the solemn portals of a future state of being, leaving all beyond in shadow, perhaps the darkest and most... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In his Manual of Psychology Dr Stout reminds us that "Human language is especially constructed to describe the mental states of human beings, and this means that it is especially constructed so as to mislead us when we attempt to describe the working of minds that differ in a great degree from the human." The use of the word "territory" in connection with the... more...

CHAPTER I (The first few pages of the account of his travels by Mr Lemuel Gulliver, junior, have unfortunately been damaged by fire and are for the most part illegible. They contain reference to a sea-fog and to a shipwreck. He appears to have escaped by swimming, and his record of the number of days he spent in the water and the distance covered verges upon the incredible. His statement that he lived... more...

CHAPTER I. The landscape has high, bold mountains, above which are just passing the remnants of a storm. The valley is narrow and continually winding. Coursing through it is a turbulent stream, on one side of which there is a road. At some distance up the slopes farms are spread; the buildings are mostly low and unpainted, yet numerous; heaps of mown hay and fields of half ripe grain are dotted about.... more...

I It was a country of wide pastures, of moors covered with heath, of rock-born streams and rivulets, of forest and hill and dale, sparsely inhabited, with the sea to the eastward of it, unseen, and the mountains everywhere visible always, and endlessly changing in aspect. Herdsmen and shepherds wandered over it, and along its almost disused roads pedlars and pack mules passed at times but rarely.... more...

PART I LATE SPRINGThe mottled moth at eventideBeats glimmering wings against the pane;The slow, sweet lily opens wide,White in the dusk like some dim stain;The garden dreams on every sideAnd breathes faint scents of rain.Among the flowering stocks they stand:A crimson rose is in his hand. 1 Outside her garden. He waits musing.Herein the dearness of her is;The thirty perfect days of JuneMade one, in... more...

CHAPTER I BLIND SAMSON It was perfect weather along the San Francisco water-front, and Rainey reacted to the brisk touch of the trade-wind upon his cheek, the breeze tempering the sun, bringing with it a tang of the open sea and a hint of Oriental spices from the wharves. He whistled as he went, watching a lumber coaster outward bound. The dull thump of a heavy cane upon the timbered walk and the... more...

CHAPTER I PREHISTORIC AND EARLY HISTORIC TIMES A glance at the map will show that the Scandinavian Peninsula, that immense stretch of land running from the Arctic Ocean to the North Sea, and from the Baltic to the Atlantic, covering an area of nearly three hundred thousand square miles, is, next to Russia, the largest territorial division of Europe. Surrounded by sea on all sides but one, which gives... more...

IRENE "I suppose I am old-fashioned"—there was a murmur of polite dissent from all the ladies present, except the one addressed—"Oh, I take it as a compliment nowadays, I assure you; but when I was a girl a young lady would have no more thought of flying than of"—she paused almost on a note of pained surprise at finding the familiar comparison of a lifetime cut... more...