Classics Books

CHAPTER I AN EMBODIMENT OF MAY "Beyond that revolving light lies my home. And yet why should I use such a term when the best I can say is that a continent is my home? Home suggests a loved familiar nook in the great world. There is no such niche for me, nor can I recall any place around which my memory lingers with especial pleasure." In a gloomy and somewhat bitter mood, Alford Graham thus... more...

CHAPTER I.ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE To the spirit which broods over the stupendous solitudes of the northern Rockies, the soul of man, with all its complex impulses, is but so much plastic material which it shapes to its own inscrutable ends. For the man whose lot is cast in the heart of these wilds, the drama of life usually moves with a tremendous simplicity toward the sudden and sombre tragedy of the last... more...

A SANDWICH AT RINI’S “You know, Lou, I’ve been doing a lot of wondering here of late,” remarked Penny Parker to her chum, Louise Sidell. The girls were riding in Penny’s mud-splattered blue coupe, otherwise known as the Leaping Lena. At the moment Lena was bouncing more than usual for the pavement was bumpy in this section of Riverview. “Wondering what?” inquired Louise, absently brushing... more...

CHAPTER I Horace Jewdwine had made the most remarkable of his many remarkable discoveries. At least he thought he had. He could not be quite sure, which was his excuse for referring it to his cousin Lucia, whose instinct (he would not call it judgement) in these matters was infallible—strangely infallible for so young a girl. What, he wondered, would she say to Savage Keith Rickman? On Saturday, when... more...

Chapter One The marriage of Albert Bradley and Anne Polk Barrett was as close as anything comes, in these prosaic days, to a high adventure. Nancy's Uncle Thomas, a quiet, gentle old Southerner who wore tan linen suits when he came to New York, which was not often, and Bert's mother, a tiny Boston woman who had lived in a diminutive Brookline apartment since her three sons had struck out into... more...

AT MY FIRESIDE ALONE, beneath the darkened sky,With saddened heart and unstrung lyre,I heap the spoils of years gone by,And leave them with a long-drawn sigh,Like drift-wood brands that glimmering lie,Before the ashes hide the fire. Let not these slow declining daysThe rosy light of dawn outlast;Still round my lonely hearth it plays,And gilds the east with borrowed rays,While memory's mirrored... more...

INTRODUCTION. Of all the works of Plato the Symposium is the most perfect in form, and may be truly thought to contain more than any commentator has ever dreamed of; or, as Goethe said of one of his own writings, more than the author himself knew. For in philosophy as in prophecy glimpses of the future may often be conveyed in words which could hardly have been understood or interpreted at the time... more...

Reader, if thou hast never visited the Fern Isles, but intendest to visit them, thou hast a pleasure in reserve—a positive, downright, profitable pleasure—profitable as regards the health of the body, for a trip upon the sea makes the blood feel ten years younger, and dance in the veins as merrily as the waves around us; and profitable also to the mind, by filling it with fresh objects for wonder... more...

INTRODUCTION. After an interval of some months or years, and at Phlius, a town of Peloponnesus, the tale of the last hours of Socrates is narrated to Echecrates and other Phliasians by Phaedo the 'beloved disciple.' The Dialogue necessarily takes the form of a narrative, because Socrates has to be described acting as well as speaking. The minutest particulars of the event are interesting to... more...

Madam Fulton and her granddaughter Electra were sitting at the breakfast-table. It was a warm yet inspiriting day in early spring, and, if the feel and look of it were not enough, the garden under the dining-room windows told the season's hour like a floral clock. The earliest blossoms had been pushed onward by the mounting spirit of the year, and now the firstlings of May were budding. The great... more...