Classics Books

CHAPTER I FIVE MILES OUT The four Lanes—Max, Sally, Alec and Robert—climbed the five flights of stairs to their small flat with the agility of youth and the impetus of high but subdued excitement. Uncle Timothy Rudd, following more slowly, reached the outer door of the little suite of rooms in time to hear what seemed to be the first outburst. "Well, what do you think now?" "Forty-two... more...

PREFACE MOST of these stories were written on the veldt; at odd times, in out- of-the-way prospecting camps, in the wilds of the Kalahari Desert, or of that equally little-known borderland between Klein Namaqualand, and Gordonia, Cape Colony, and what was at that time known as German South- West Africa. Four of them appeared a few years back in The State an illustrated magazine now unhappily defunct;... more...

CHAPTER FIRST. Isab.—Alas! what poor ability's in meTo do him good?Lucio.—Assay the power you have.Measure for Measure. When Mrs. Saddletree entered the apartment in which her guests had shrouded their misery, she found the window darkened. The feebleness which followed his long swoon had rendered it necessary to lay the old man in bed. The curtains were drawn around him, and Jeanie sate... more...

CHAPTER I. "Who amongst this merry party will become sufficiently sober to assist me in a work of charity?" was Mrs. Hamilton's address, one afternoon, as she entered her daughter's room, where Emmeline, her young friends Lady Florence and Lady Emily Lyle, and even the usually quiet Ellen, were employing themselves in drawing, embroidery, and such light amusements as diligently as the... more...

HOW WE FARED IN THE SUEZ DESERT. T he welcome cry of "Suez! Suez!" resounded throughout the steamship Bentinck one November morning. The passage up the Red Sea had been rough, and every one was glad to exchange the rolling and pitching of the vessel for land travelling. The railway between Cairo and Suez was not yet finished, and travellers crossed the desert in vans, each of which held six... more...

AN IRISH STORY-TELLER   am often doubted when I say that the Irish peasantry still believe in fairies. People think I am merely trying to bring back a little of the old dead beautiful world of romance into this century of great engines and spinning-jinnies. Surely the hum of wheels and clatter of printing presses, to let alone the lecturers with their black coats and tumblers of water, have driven... more...

CHAPTER I. THE EARLY HISTORY OF LADY LOVEL.  Women have often been hardly used by men, but perhaps no harder usage, no fiercer cruelty was ever experienced by a woman than that which fell to the lot of Josephine Murray from the hands of Earl Lovel, to whom she was married in the parish church of Applethwaite,—a parish without a village, lying among the mountains of Cumberland,—on the 1st of June,... more...

THE STRENGTHOF GIDEON THE STRENGTH OF GIDEON Old Mam' Henry, and her word may be taken, said that it was "De powerfulles' sehmont she ever had hyeahd in all huh bo'n days." That was saying a good deal, for the old woman had lived many years on the Stone place and had heard many sermons from preachers, white and black. She was a judge, too. It really must have been a powerful... more...

The character of this female suggests a train of thought which will form as natural an Introduction to her story, as most of the Prefaces to Gay's Fables, or the tales of Prior; besides that, the general soundness of the moral may excuse any want of present applicability. We will not look for a living resemblance of Mrs. Hutchinson, though the search might not be altogether fruitless. But there... more...

When the author resolved upon a journey to the Antipodes he was in London, just returned from Norway, Sweden, and Russia, and contemplated reaching the far-away countries of Australia and New Zealand by going due east through the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and then crossing the Indian Ocean. But this is not the nearest route to Oceania. The English monthly mail for that part of the... more...