Classics Books

I. Edward Tyson, the author of the Essay with which this book is concerned, was, on the authority of Monk's Roll of the Royal College of Physicians, born, according to some accounts, at Bristol, according to others, at Clevedon, co. Somerset, but was descended from a family which had long settled in Cumberland. He was educated at Magdalene Hall, Oxford, as a member of which he proceeded Bachelor... more...

CHAPTER I. "It is not a question of what we should like to do, Randy; it is a question of what we must do." "I know it, Earl. One thing is certain: the way matters stand we can't pay the quarter's rent for this timber land to-morrow unless we borrow the money, and where we are going for it I haven't the least idea." "Nor I. It's a pity the Jackson Lumber Company... more...

CHAPTER I A BOLT FOR FREEDOM Most of the really important things in life—such as love and death—happen unexpectedly. I know that my escape from Dartmoor did. We had just left the quarries—eighteen of us, all dressed in that depressing costume which King George provides for his less elusive subjects—and we were shambling sullenly back along the gloomy road which leads through the plantation to... more...

CHAPTER I. IN THE QUIET HOUSE. In the Ober Engadin, on the highway up to Maloja, stands the lonely village of Sils; and back towards the mountains, across the fields, nestles a little cluster of huts known as Sils Maria. Here, in an open field, two cottages stand, facing each other. Noticeable in both are the old wooden house-doors, and the tiny windows quite imbedded in the thick walls. A bit of a... more...

It seemed to be the same tree that kept getting in my way. I tried to go around it but it moved with me and I ran right into it. I found myself sprawled on my back and my nose was bleeding where I had hit it against the tree. Then I got up and ran again. I had to keep running. I didn't know why; I just had to. There was a puddle of water and I splashed through it and then slipped and fell into a... more...

Chapter ION THE ROADIn the eventful year, 1815, I was exactly three-and-twenty, and had just succeeded to a very large sum in consols and other securities. The first fall of Napoleon had thrown the continent open to English excursionists, anxious, let us suppose, to improve their minds by foreign travel; and I—the slight check of the "hundred days" removed, by the genius of Wellington, on the... more...

Embarcation.—Fellow-passengers.—A Gale at Sea.—Arrival at Sisal.—Ornithological Specimens.—Merida.—Fête of San Cristoval.—The Lottery.—A Scene of Confusion.—Principle of the Game.—Passion for Gambling.—A deformed Indian. The reader of my "Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan," may remember that the researches of Mr. Catherwood and myself in the... more...

1 "My rig's a little old, but that don't mean she's slow—Batman—that don't mean she's slow." Joe Burke was singing, driving south. His rig was a blue Ford pickup with a battered cap on the back. Batman, all six inches of him, was propped upright on the dash. Joe followed signs to the Weston Priory, climbing through woods and out onto an open plateau. A cluster of... more...

TUNING THE LYRE. In the long ago when the earth was in process of formation, it must have been that those forces of nature most expert in the fashioning of the beautiful were ordered to come together as collaborators and give to the world Almaville! Journeying toward the designated spot, they halted on the outskirts of the site of the contemplated city, and tossed up a series of engirdling hills, whose... more...

Laurence leaned his arms upon the broad wooden hand-rail of the bulwarks. The water hissed away from the side. Immediately below it was laced by shifting patterns of white foam, and stained pale green, violet, and amber, by the light shining out through the rounds of the port-poles. Further away it showed blue black, but for a glistening on the hither side of the vast ridge and furrow. The smoke from... more...