Classics Books

CHAPTER X. On the evening of the third day after the arrival of the Gothic escort sent by Totila, Valerius had terminated his arrangements and fixed the next morning for his departure from the villa. He was sitting with Valeria and Julius at the evening meal, and speaking of the prospect of preserving peace, which was no doubt undervalued by the young hero, Totila, who was filled with the ardour of... more...

THE MIRACLE MAN THE "ROOST" He was a misshapen thing, bulking a black blotch in the night at the entrance of the dark alleyway—like some lurking creature in its lair. He neither stood, nor kneeled, nor sat—no single word would describe his posture—he combined all three in a sort of repulsive, formless heap. The Flopper moved. He came out from the alleyway onto the pavement, into the lurid... more...

THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS. The volume in which "The Bay of Seven Islands" was published was dedicated to the late Edwin Percy Whipple, to whom more than to any other person I was indebted for public recognition as one worthy of a place in American literature, at a time when it required a great degree of courage to urge such a claim for a pro-scribed abolitionist. Although younger than I, he had... more...

PREFACE Either by chance or by the peculiar working of our constitution, the Queen Consorts of England have as a rule been nationally important only in proportion to the influence exerted by the political tendencies which prompted their respective marriages. England has had no Catharine or Marie de Medici, no Elizabeth Farnese, no Catharine of Russia, no Caroline of Naples, no Maria Luisa of Spain,... more...

PREFACE The aim and purport of this edition of the Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is to provide the general reader with an authoritative list of the poems and dramas hitherto published, and at the same time to furnish the student with an exhaustive summary of various readings derived from published and unpublished sources, viz. (1) the successive editions issued by the author, (2) holograph... more...

Scholars Say He is the Only American Myth. Paul Bunyan is the hero of lumbercamp whoppers that have been handed down for generations. These stories, never heard outside the haunts of the lumberjack until recent years, are now being collected by learned educators and literary authorities who declare that Paul Bunyan is "the only American myth." The best authorities never recounted Paul... more...

CHAPTER I. Policy of the Court of Morocco.—Its strength.—Diplomatic Intercourse with England.—Distrust of Europeans.—Commercial Relations. Morocco is the China of North Africa. The grand political maxim of the Shereefian Court is, the exclusion of strangers; to look upon all strangers with distrust and suspicion; and should they, at any time, attempt... more...

CHAPTER I.BUILDING DEADFALLS. During the centuries that trapping has been carried on, not only in America, but thruout the entire world, various kinds of traps and snares have been in use and taken by all classes of trappers and in all sections the home-made traps are of great numbers. The number of furs caught each year is large. The above was said by a trapper some years ago who has spent upwards of... more...

CHAPTER I BETWEEN THE LINES I had drifted slowly across the river, clinging with one arm thrown over a log, expecting each moment the musket of some startled picket would spit red through the dark, and scarcely daring to guide my unwieldy support by the slightest movement of hand in the water. The splash of motion might mean death in an instant, for keen eyes, sharpened by long night vigils, were on... more...

Honore de Balzac is known to the world in general as a novel-writer, a producer of romances, in which begin the reign of realism in French fiction. His Comedie Humaine is a description of French society, as it existed from the time of the Revolution to that of the Restoration. In this series of stories we find the author engaged in analyzing the manners, motives and external life of the French man and... more...