Classics Books

CHAPTER I THE HORSE THIEF It was a warm summer morning in the town of Farewell. Save a dozen horses tied to the hitching-rail in front of various saloons and the Blue Pigeon Store and Bill Lainey, the fat landlord of the hotel, who sat snoring in a reinforced telegraph chair on the sidewalk in the shade of his wooden awning, Main Street was a howling wilderness. Dust overlay everything. It had not... more...

CHAPTER I Peter Burnett stood on the top-most of the broad white steps leading to the "Shadyville Seminary for Young Ladies." He had just closed the door of that sacred institution behind him, and with a sigh of relief which was incompatible with the honors of his professorship. But Peter had never duly valued his position of instructor to Shadyville's feminine youth, though his reverence... more...

THE NEW SCHOLAR While the larger boys in the village school of Greenbank were having a game of “three old cat” before school-time, there appeared on the playground a strange boy, carrying two books, a slate, and an atlas under his arm. He was evidently from the country, for he wore a suit of brown jeans, or woollen homespun, made up in the natural color of the “black” sheep, as we call it. He... more...

“Hugh, my lad! Hugh, run and tell Madge we have come back,” cried Uncle Donald, as he and I entered the house on our return, one summer’s evening, from a hunting excursion in search of deer or any other game we could come across, accompanied by three of our dogs, Whiskey, Pilot, and Muskymote. As he spoke, he unstrapped from his shoulders a heavy load of caribou meat. I, having a similar... more...

INTRODUCTION. There are three early humorous tracts in verse upon the subject of marriage, all printed by Wynkyn de Worde: only one of them has a date, 1535, but we can have little difficulty in assigning the two others to about the same period. They have the following titles. 1. “A complaynt of them that be to soone maryed.” 2. “Here begynneth the complaynte of them that ben to late maryed.”... more...

THE SHEEP-BROTHER Once there was a widow and she had a daughter. The widow married a widower who had by his first wife two children, a boy and a girl. The wife was always coaxing her husband: "Take the children, do, and lead them up into the mountains." Her husband could not refuse her, and, lo! one day he put some bread in his basket, took the children, and set off for the mountain. They went... more...

SECTION I 1. A Councillor of Legation in difficulties. In 1868 the French journalist Léonce Dupont, the owner of the Parisian newspaper La Nation, became bankrupt. It was discovered that this paper was really founded by the councillor of the Russian legation in Paris, Tchitchérine, who had supplied the funds necessary to start it, for the purpose of influencing public opinion in Russian interests.... more...

CHAPTER I. AT BEDFORD SCHOOL. My father was a solicitor at Hitchin, and much esteemed in the county of Hertford. He was also agent for many of the county families, with whom he was in friendly intercourse. My mother was the daughter of the respected Clerk of the Peace for Bedfordshire, a position of good influence, which might be, and is occasionally, of great assistance to a young man commencing his... more...

CHAPTER V 1625-28 Death of James I.--The Princesse Henriette is married by proxy to Charles I. --The Duke of Buckingham arrives in France to conduct his young sovereign to her new country--An arrogant suitor--Departure of the English Queen--Indisposition of Marie de Medicis--Arrival of Henriette in London--Growing power of Richelieu--Suspicions of the Queen-mother --Influence of the Jesuit Bérulle... more...

CHAPTER I THE ANGLO-SAXON HERBALS “Everything possible to be believ’d is an image of truth.”—William Blake. There is a certain pathos attached to the fragments from any great wreck, and in studying the few Saxon manuscripts, treating of herbs, which have survived to our day, we find their primary fascination not so much in their beauty and interest as in the visions they conjure up of those... more...