Classics Books

I In the sunset of his life a man often finds himself unable to put dates even upon events in which his sympathies were, and perhaps are still, engaged; all things seem to have befallen yesterday, and yet it cannot be less than three years since we were anxious to testify to our belief in the kindness and justice with which you had fulfilled your double duties in the Morning Post towards us and the... more...

PREFACE. Our knowledge of the present and past fauna of Europe is as yet insufficient to indicate with precision the original homes of its component elements, but I hope that the lines of research laid down here, and the method of treatment adopted, will aid zoologists and geologists in collecting materials for a more comprehensive study of the history of our animals. I trust also that a fresh impulse... more...

Chapter I: The Birth of Columbine ALL day long over the gray Islington Street October, casting pearly mists, had turned the sun to silver and made London a city of meditation whose tumbled roofs and parapets and glancing spires appeared hushed and translucent as in a lake's tranquillity. The traffic, muted by the glory of a fine autumn day, marched, it seemed, more slowly and to a sound of heavier... more...

PREFACE. This work has already appeared in Graham's Magazine, under the title of "Rose Budd." The change of name is solely the act of the author, and arises from a conviction that the appellation given in this publication is more appropriate than the one laid aside. The necessity of writing to a name, instead of getting it from the incidents of the book itself, has been the cause of this... more...

CHAPTER I. Nearly a half mile out from the rugged Sabine mountains, standing clear from them, and directly in front of the sinuous little valley which the northernmost headstream of the Trerus made for itself, rises a conspicuous and commanding mountain, two thousand three hundred and eighteen feet above the level of the sea, and something more than half that height above the plain below. This... more...

CHAPTER I. Subiaco lies beyond Tivoli, southeast from Rome, at the upper end of a wild gorge in the Samnite mountains. It is an archbishopric, and gives a title to a cardinal, which alone would make it a town of importance. It shares with Monte Cassino the honour of having been chosen by Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, his sister, as the site of a monastery and a convent; and in a cell in the... more...

TIME AND THE GODS Once when the gods were young and only Their swarthy servant Time was without age, the gods lay sleeping by a broad river upon earth. There in a valley that from all the earth the gods had set apart for Their repose the gods dreamed marble dreams. And with domes and pinnacles the dreams arose and stood up proudly between the river and the sky, all shimmering white to the morning. In... more...

CHAPTER I. HEALTHFUL HOUSE. The carte de visite received that day, June 15, 189—, by the director of the establishment of Healthful House was a very neat one, and simply bore, without escutcheon or coronet, the name: COUNT D’ARTIGAS. Below this name, in a corner of the card, the following address was written in lead pencil: “On board the schooner Ebba, anchored off New-Berne, Pamlico Sound.”... more...

Development of Astronomical Clocks The history of the great theoretical and mechanical achievement which the Borghesi clock represents has been most adequately covered elsewhere. Consideration of the development of equation and astronomical clocks is required here only for the purpose of relating the Borghesi timepiece with the other significant developments in this branch of horology. The invention of... more...

INTRODUCTION. In the Meno, Anytus had parted from Socrates with the significant words: 'That in any city, and particularly in the city of Athens, it is easier to do men harm than to do them good;' and Socrates was anticipating another opportunity of talking with him. In the Euthyphro, Socrates is awaiting his trial for impiety. But before the trial begins, Plato would like to put the world on... more...