Classics Books

EMERSON The village of Concord, Massachusetts, lies an hour's ride from Boston, upon the Great Northern Railway. It is one of those quiet New England towns, whose few white houses, grouped upon the plain, make but a slight impression upon the mind of the busy traveller hurrying to or from the city. As the conductor shouts "Concord!" the busy traveller has scarcely time to recall... more...

CHAPTER I. The neighbors and our family began to laugh at me about as far back as I can remember, and I think that the first serious remark my father ever addressed to me was, "Bill, you are too lazy to amount to anything in this life, so I reckon we'll have to make a school teacher of you." I don't know why he should have called me lazy; I suppose it must have been on account of my... more...

CHAPTER I It was the last of May in the north of England, in the year 1209. A very different England from what any boy of to-day has seen. A chilly east wind was blowing. The trees of the vast forests were all in leaf but the ash trees, and they were unfolding their buds. And along a bridle-path a few miles southwest of York a lad of fourteen was riding, while behind him followed a handsome deerhound.... more...

As I may, without vanity, presume that the name and official description prefixed to this Proem will secure it, from the sedate and reflecting part of mankind, to whom only I would be understood to address myself, such attention as is due to the sedulous instructor of youth, and the careful performer of my Sabbath duties, I will forbear to hold up a candle to the daylight, or to point out to the... more...

  didn't even hear her come in. What with the Sioux rising against the white settlement at the fork of the Platte, the attack being set for dawn, and Chief Spotted Horse's impassioned speech to his braves, I wouldn't have heard anything under a ninety-seven-decibel war whoop. Soft lips brushed the back of my neck and she said something. "That's fine," I said. "Sam!"... more...

THE LITTLE PRINCESS. Many dark-eyed children played among the rushesBy the waters of the inland, plain-like marshes,Made them water babies of the tall brown cattails,Cradled in the baskets of the plaited willows.Of them all was none more gleeful, none more artlessThan the little Matoax,[FN#1] dearest of the daughtersOf the mighty Werowance,[FN#2] Powhatan the warriorRuler of the tribes, from whom was... more...

CHAPTER I From Denver to Spokane, from El Paso to Fort Benton, men talk of Casey Ryan and smile when they speak his name. Old men with the flat tone of coming senility in their voices will suck at their pipes and cackle reminiscently while they tell you of Casey's tumultuous youth—when he drove the six fastest horses in Colorado on the stage out from Cripple Creek, and whooped past would-be... more...

CHAPTER I. Lay your course south-east half east from the Campanella. If the weather is what it should be in late summer you will have a fresh breeze on the starboard quarter from ten in the morning till four or five o'clock in the afternoon. Sail straight across the wide gulf of Salerno, and when you are over give the Licosa Point a wide berth, for the water is shallow and there are reefs along... more...

For a minute Mrs. Falchion stood looking at the door through which the girl had passed, then she caught close the curtains of the window, and threw herself upon the sofa with a sobbing laugh. "To her—I played the game of mercy to her!" she cried. "And she has his love, the love which I rejected once, and which I want now—to my shame! A hateful and terrible love. I, who ought to say to... more...

1. ON THE PURPOSE OF THIS VOLUME If some magical transformation could be produced in men's ways of looking at themselves and their fellows, no inconsiderable part of the evils which now afflict society would vanish away or remedy themselves automatically. If the majority of influential persons held the opinions and occupied the point of view that a few rather uninfluential people now do, there... more...