Classics Books

Someone in the crowd tittered when the big ungainly creature reached the head of the line. "Name?" The creature swayed back and forth foolishly, supporting the bulk of his weight first on one extremity and then on the other. His face which had a slight rosy tint anyway got redder. "Come, come. Planet? Name?" The registrar was only a machine, but the registrar could assume an air of... more...

They loaded the over-age spaceship at night because Triton's one spaceport was too busy with the oreships from Neptune during the day to handle it. "Symphonies!" Pitchblend Hardesty groaned. Pitchblend Hardesty was the stevedore foreman and he had supervised upwards of a thousand loadings on Triton's crowded blastways, everything from the standard mining equipment to the innards of a... more...

CHAPTER I Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Dolly looked around forlornly enough. Of course, she wanted to go to college, but for the first time she realized how dreadful it was, to be away from all the home-folks. In all those great buildings, with their hundreds of students, there was not a soul that Dolly knew. Outside the door she could hear the old girls talking and chattering together. But she... more...

the terrors of a certain night when the wind was howling and the rain was beating down in torrents over the arid plains of the Lüneburger Haide; between them they had blown or blotted out the flickering lights of a heavy, lumbering travelling carriage such as one used to hire in the so-called good old times. The horses were plunging in the mire, the postillion was swearing, and a very small boy was... more...

CHAPTER I. Caravan of Khalkha-Tartars—Son of the King of Koukou-Noor—Sandara the Bearded—Two thousand Oxen are stolen from the Houng-Mao-Eul, or Long Hairs—Fearful Tumult at Tang-Keou-Eul—Description and character of the Long Hairs—Feasts of the First Day of the Year—Departure for the Lamasery of Kounboum—Arrival at Night—Old Akayé—The Kitat-Lama—The Stammerer—Pilgrims at... more...

CHAPTER I A NEW ENGLAND MOTHER AND HER FAMILY A theory is advanced by some students of character that in what concerns the formation of the individual nature, the shaping and determination of it in the plastic stage, and especially in respect to the moral elements on which the stability and purpose of a man's life depend, a man is indebted to his mother, for good or for ill. The question is too... more...

PRELUDE. Mr. Wayne, glancing out of the window, saw some one passing down the front steps. Suddenly a look of recognition came into his face, and he turned to his wife with the exclamation, “I declare, Mary, our daughter Helen is almost a woman, isn’t she?” “Yes,” replied Mrs. Wayne, coming to his side and watching the slender figure going down the street. Her face bore a look of motherly... more...

The major commanding looked up from the morning report and surveyed the post adjutant with something of perturbation, if not annoyance, in his grim, gray eyes. For the fourth time that week had Lieutenant Field requested permission to be absent for several hours. The major knew just why the junior wished to go and where. The major knew just why he wished him not to go, but saw fit to name almost any... more...

STIRPICULTURE. Natural selection, which is the central doctrine of Darwinism, has been explained as the "survival of the fittest." On this process has depended the progress observable throughout organic nature to which the term evolution is applied; for, although there has been from time to time degradation, that is, a retrogression, this has had relation only to particular forms, organic life... more...

PART I At the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there is a particularly comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels, for the entertainment of tourists is the business of the place, which, as many travelers will remember, is seated upon the edge of a remarkably blue lake—a lake that it behooves every tourist to visit. The shore of the lake presents an unbroken array of establishments of this... more...