Classics Books

Whenthe long grey lines came flooding upon Paris in the plain,We stood and drank of the last free air we never could taste again:They had led us back from the lost battle, to halt we knew not whereAnd stilled us; and our gaping guns were dumb with our despair.The grey tribes flowed for ever from the infinite lifeless landsAnd a Norman to a Breton spoke, his chin upon his hands.“There was an end to... more...

CHAPTER I. "For that mercy," said Gorman, "you may thank with brief thanksgiving whatever gods there be." We were discussing, for perhaps the twentieth time, the case of poor Ascher. Gorman had reminded me, as he often does, that I am incapable of understanding Ascher or entering into his feelings, because I am a man of no country and therefore know nothing of the emotion of patriotism.... more...

CHAPTER I. IN MID PACIFIC. "Man overboard!" It rang in Felix Thurstan's ears like the sound of a bell. He gazed about him in dismay, wondering what had happened. The first intimation he received of the accident was that sudden sharp cry from the bo'sun's mate. Almost before he had fully taken it in, in all its meaning, another voice, farther aft, took up the cry once more in an... more...

CAN reading be taught? is a question often asked, and partly for the reason, it may be, that so many readers who have gone through courses of vocal training in schools of elocution, or under private teachers, so frequently offend people of taste and culture by an extravagance of expression, by mimetic gesture, and by offensive mannerisms of various kinds. But a reasonable inference cannot be drawn from... more...

The Closed Door Opens In his aimless wanderings around Boston that night Wilson passed the girl twice, and each time, though he caught only a glimpse of her lithe form bent against the whipping rain, the merest sketch of her somber features, he was distinctly conscious of the impress of her personality. As she was absorbed by the voracious horde which shuffled interminably and inexplicably up and down... more...

The love of travel was a family instinct, and was born with me. My maternal grandfather went to Central Africa—at least, he left us intending to do so, but never came back again. I had a great uncle who voyaged three times round the world, and one sailor uncle who, half a century ago, spent a winter at the North Pole along with Parry and Franklin. Then I had a cousin who was very ambitious of... more...

CHAPTER I. SNOW had been falling for more than three hours, the large flakes dropping silently through the still air until the earth was covered with an even carpet many inches in depth. It was past midnight. The air, which had been so still, was growing restless and beginning to whirl the snow into eddies and drive it about in an angry kind of way, whistling around sharp corners and rattling every... more...

CHAPTER I. MRS. DAY BEGINS THE STORY. I am old, else, I think, I should not have the courage to tell the story I am going to tell. All those concerned in it about whose feelings I am careful, are gone where, thank God, there are no secrets! If they know what I am doing, I know they do not mind. If they were alive to read as I record, they might perhaps now and again look a little paler and wish the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE PARLOR. In the dusk of the old-fashioned best room of a farm-house, in the faint glow of the buried sun through the sods of his July grave, sat two elderly persons, dimly visible, breathing the odor which roses unseen sent through the twilight and open window. One of the two was scarcely conscious of the odor, for she did not believe in roses; she believed mainly in mahogany, linen, and... more...

CHAPTER I. In a dark, dirty, foul-smelling room back of a small ship-chandler's store on West Street, four sailormen were seated at a table, drinking, quarreling, cursing. The bottle from which they had imbibed too freely contained a villainous compound that ensured their host a handsome profit, set their brains afire, and degraded them to the level of the beast. Not that their condition in life... more...