Classics Books

CONCLUDING PAPER. Early on a brilliant morning, with baggage repacked, and the lessening amount of provisions more firmly strapped on the shoulders of the Indians, the explorers left their pleasant site on the banks of the Maniri. The repose allowed to the bulk of the party during the absence of their Bolivian companions had been wholesome and refreshing. The success of the bark-hunters in their search... more...

At the first station where the train stopped, a young German bowed himself into the compartment with the Marches, and so visibly resisted an impulse to smoke that March begged him to light his cigarette. In the talk which this friendly overture led to between them he explained that he was a railway architect, employed by the government on that line of road, and was travelling officially. March spoke of... more...

I. "I extraordinary navigation, certainly," said Miss Bruce. "Oh, mem, if you please, isn't it better than the hother?" answered Meadows, respectfully. Meadows was Miss Bruce's maid; one could have told that she was English (even if one had not heard her speak) from her fresh, rosy complexion, her smooth hair put plainly and primly back from her forehead, her stiff-backed... more...

HARRIET NEWELL, THE PROTO-MARTYR. Several centuries ago, the idea of driving out of Jerusalem its infidel inhabitants was suggested to a mad ecclesiastic. A shorn and dehumanized monk of Picardy, who had performed many a journey to that fallen city, who had been mocked and derided there as a follower of the Nazarene, whose heart burned beneath the wrongs and indignities which had been so freely heaped... more...

"OUR BEST SOCIETY." If gilt were only gold, or sugar-candy common sense, what a fine thing our society would be! If to lavish money upon objets de vertu, to wear the most costly dresses, and always to have them cut in the height of the fashion; to build houses thirty feet broad, as if they were palaces; to furnish them with all the luxurious devices of Parisian genius; to give superb banquets;... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCING MYSELF "Nineteen to-day, is he!" said my uncle Jervas, viewing me languidly through his quizzing-glass. "How confoundedly the years flit! Nineteen—and on me soul, our poor youth looks as if he hadn't a single gentlemanly vice to bless himself with!" "Not one, Jervas, my boy," quoth my uncle George, shaking his comely head at me. "Not one, begad,... more...

THE TRAIN ARRIVES IT was twenty minutes past three by the clock of the Lourdes railway station, the dial of which was illumined by a reflector. Under the slanting roof sheltering the platform, a hundred yards or so in length, some shadowy forms went to and fro, resignedly waiting. Only a red signal light peeped out of the black countryside, far away. Two of the promenaders suddenly halted. The taller... more...

CHAPTER I FROM THE OLD WORLD TO THE NEW The defence of the city of La Rochelle by the Huguenots, when for more than a year they defied the whole power of France under the leadership of Cardinal Richelieu, must ever remain one of the most heroic and soul-stirring chapters in history. For the sake of their faith these noble people endured the pangs of hunger, the perils of battle, and the blight of... more...

PREFACE. The aim I have had in view in writing this book has been to give a history of the origin of Unitarianism in the United States, how it has organized itself, and what it has accomplished. It seemed desirable to deal more fully than has been done hitherto with the obscure beginnings of the Unitarian movement in New England; but limits of space have made it impossible to treat this phase of the... more...

CHAPTER I. A truism must do duty as my first sentence. There are long lives, and there are eventful lives: there are also short lives, and uneventful ones. Keats’s life was both short and uneventful. To the differing classes of lives different modes of treatment may properly be applied by the biographer. In the case of a writer whose life was both long and eventful, I might feel disposed to carry the... more...