Classics Books

CHAPTER I.NEWGATE WITHOUT. Newgate was the first prison to which Charles Dickens gave any literary attention. An account of a visit to it appears among the early “Sketches by Boz.” It is also the only one of the London jails of which he has left us graphic descriptions, or briefer, spirited sketches, which preserves to-day so much of its original character as to be identifiable in detail by the... more...

CHAPTER I ANCIENT INDIA The Vedas. Buddhist Literature. Great Epic Poems, then veryDiverse, much Shorter Poems. Dramatic Literature. Moral Literature. THE VEDAS.—The ancient Indians, who spoke Sanscrit, possess a literature which goes back, perhaps, to the fifteenth century before Christ. At first, like all other races, they possessed a sacred literature intimately bound up with their religion. The... more...

CHAPTER I BEFORE SOCRATES Philosophical Interpreters of the Universe, of the Creation and Constitution of the World. PHILOSOPHY.—The aim of philosophy is to seek the explanation of all things: the quest is for the first causes of everything, and also how all things are, and finally why, with what design, with a view to what, things are. That is why, taking "principle" in all the senses of the... more...

I "IN THE BEGINNING—GOD" Religion is the relation between man and his Maker—the most important relationship into which man enters. Most of the relationships of life are voluntary; we enter into them or not as we please. Such, for illustration, are those between business partners, between stockholders in a corporation, between friends and between husband and wife. Some relationships, on the... more...

CHAPTER I THE MARQUIS ARRIVES AT THE INN By the end of the second decade of the last century Monday Port had passed the height of prosperity as one of the principal depots for the West Indian trade. The shipping was rapidly being transferred to New York and Boston, and the old families of the Port, having made their fortunes, in rum and tobacco as often as not, were either moving away to follow the... more...

THE INNER SHRINE I Though she had counted the strokes of every hour since midnight, Mrs. Eveleth had no thought of going to bed. When she was not sitting bolt upright, indifferent to comfort, in one of the stiff-backed, gilded chairs, she was limping, with the aid of her cane, up and down the long suite of salons, listening for the sound of wheels. She knew that George and Diane would be surprised to... more...

IN MIDSUMMER DAYS In Midsummer days when in the countries of the North the earth is a bride, when the ground is full of gladness, when the brooks are still running, the flowers in the meadows still untouched by the scythe, and all the birds singing, a dove flew out of the wood and sat down before the cottage in which the ninety-year-old granny lay in her bed. The old woman had been bedridden for twenty... more...

THE INNER LIFE THE AGENCY OF EVIL. From the Supernaturalism of New England, in the Democratic Review for 1843. IN this life of ours, so full of mystery, so hung about with wonders, so written over with dark riddles, where even the lights held by prophets and inspired ones only serve to disclose the solemn portals of a future state of being, leaving all beyond in shadow, perhaps the darkest and most... more...

CHAPTER I. WITHIN THREE WEEKS   If everyone were allowed beforehand to choose and select for himself the most pleasant method of performing this earthly pilgrimage, there would be, I have always thought, an immediate run upon that way of getting to the Delectable Mountains which is known as the Craft and Mystery of Second-hand Bookselling. If, further, one were allowed to select and arrange the minor... more...

I Having begun my book with the statement that Morocco still lacks a guide-book, I should have wished to take a first step toward remedying that deficiency. But the conditions in which I travelled, though full of unexpected and picturesque opportunities, were not suited to leisurely study of the places visited. The time was limited by the approach of the rainy season, which puts an end to motoring over... more...