Classics Books

CHAPTER I. “I can hear the sullen, savage roar of the breakers, if I do not see them, and my pretty painted bark—expectation—is bearing down helplessly upon them. Perhaps the unwelcome will not come to-day. What then? I presume I should not care; and yet, I am curious to see him,—anxious to know what sort of person will henceforth rule the house, and go in and out here as master. Of course the... more...

My Dear Elena, We had a conversation once, walking on your terrace, with the wind-rippled olives above and the quietly nodding cypress tufts below—about such writings as you chose to compare with carved cherry-stones. We disagreed, for it seemed to me that the world needed cherry-stone necklaces as much as anything else; and that the only pity was that most of its inhabitants could not afford such... more...

I VANISHING ROADS   Though actually the work of man's hands—or, more properly speaking, the work of his travelling feet,—roads have long since come to seem so much a part of Nature that we have grown to think of them as a feature of the landscape no less natural than rocks and trees. Nature has adopted them among her own works, and the road that mounts the hill to meet the sky-line, or winds... more...

CHAPTER I A FRIEND IN NEED A light breeze, scented with the smell of the firs, was blowing down the inlet, and the tiny ripples it chased across the water splashed musically against the bows of the canoe. They met her end-on, sparkling in the warm sunset light, gurgled about her sides, and trailed away astern in two divergent lines as the paddles flashed and fell. There was a thud as the blades struck... more...

CHAPTER I. THE WEST SEA SAILING. Long after King Estein had joined his fathers on the little holm beyond Hernersfiord, and Helgi, Earl of Askland, had become but a warlike memory, the skalds of Sogn still sang this tale of Vandrad the Viking. It contained much wonderful magic, and some astonishingly hard strokes, as they told it; but reading between their lines, the magic bears a strong resemblance to... more...

CHAPTER I A FLAT DUTCH TURNIP BEGINS ITS CAREER My name is Jacobus Teunis Vandemark. I usually sign J.T. Vandemark; and up to a few years ago I thought as much as could be that my first name was Jacob; but my granddaughter Gertrude, who is strong on family histories, looked up my baptismal record in an old Dutch Reformed church in Ulster County, New York, came home and began teasing me to change to... more...

HER FIRST APPEARANCE   It was at the end of the first act of the first night of "The Sultana," and every member of the Lester Comic Opera Company, from Lester himself down to the wardrobe woman's son, who would have had to work if his mother lost her place, was sick with anxiety. There is perhaps only one other place as feverish as it is behind the scenes on the first night of a comic... more...

They lie all around me, countless in their number,Each martyr with his palm.No torture now can rack them: safe they slumber,Hushed in eternal calm!I read the rude inscriptions, written weeping,At night with hurried tears.Yet what a tale they tell! their secret keepingThrough all these thousand years."In Pace." Yes, at peace. By sword, or fire,Or cross, or lictor's rod—Virgin, or matron;... more...

LECTURE I. NICHOLAS THE PISAN. 1. On this day, of this month, the 20th of October, six hundred and twenty-three years ago, the merchants and tradesmen of Florence met before the church of Santa Croce; marched through the city to the palace of their Podesta; deposed their Podesta; set over themselves, in his place, a knight belonging to an inferior city; called him "Captain of the People;"... more...

I The lamp had not been wiped, and the room smelt slightly of paraffin. The old window-curtains, whose harsh green age had not softened, were drawn. The mahogany sideboard, the threadbare carpet, the small horsehair sofa, the gilt mirror, standing on a white marble chimney-piece, said clearly, 'Furnished apartments in a house built about a hundred years ago.' There were piles of newspapers,... more...