Classics Books

CHAPTER ONE. OATMEAL AND THE SHORTER CATECHISM. The first and most-serious-but-one ordeal in the life of Robert Chalmers Fordyce—so Robert Chalmers himself informed me years afterwards—was the examination for the Bursary which he gained at Edinburgh University. A bursary is what an English undergraduate would call a "Schol." (Imagine a Scottish student talking about a "Burse"!)... more...

Amiens, Jan. 23, 1795. Nothing proves more that the French republican government was originally founded on principles of despotism and injustice, than the weakness and anarchy which seem to accompany every deviation from these principles. It is strong to destroy and weak to protect: because, deriving its support from the power of the bad and the submission of the timid, it is deserted or opposed by the... more...

APOCOLOCYNTOSIS, OR LUDUS DE MORTE CLAUDII:THE PUMPKINIFICATION OF CLAUDIUS. I wish to place on record the proceedings in heaven October 13 last, of the new year which begins this auspicious age. It shall be done without malice or favour. This is the truth. Ask if you like how I know it? To begin with, I am not bound to please you with my answer. Who will compel me? I know the same day made me free,... more...

THE BLUE LIGHT "Mother, make Ted stop!" "I'm not doing anything at all, Mother!" "Yes he is, too! Please call him in. He's hurting my doll." "Oh, Janet Martin, I am not!" "You are so, Theodore Baradale Martin; and you've just got to stop!" Janet, or Jan, as she was more often called, stood in front of her brother with flashing eyes and red cheeks.... more...

CHAPTER I. DAYS OF CHILDHOOD. "One moment of bliss is not too dearly bought with death," says our great German poet, and he may be right; but a moment of bliss purchased with a long lifetime full of trial and suffering is far too costly. And when did it come for her, this "moment of bliss?" When could Hortense Beauharnais, in speaking of herself, declare, "I am happy? Now, let... more...

ACT I It is Ascension Day in a village of the West. In the low panelled hall-sittingroom of the BURLACOMBE'S farmhouse on the village green, MICHAEL STRANGWAY, a clerical collar round his throat and a dark Norfolk jacket on his back, is playing the flute before a very large framed photograph of a woman, which is the only picture on the walls. His age is about thirty-five his figure thin and very... more...

T is a natural, nor can it be deemed an illaudable curiosity to be desirous of being informed of whatever relates to those who have eminently distinguished themselves for sagacity, parts, learning, or what else may have exalted their characters, and thereby entitled them to a degree of respect superior to the rest of their cotemporaries. The transmission of such particulars, has ever been thought no... more...

THE SHORT STORIES OF M. LUDOVIC HALÉVY To most American readers of fiction I fancy that M. Ludovic Halévy is known chiefly, if not solely, as the author of that most charming of modern French novels, The Abbé Constantin. Some of these readers may have disliked this or that novel of M. Zola's because of its bad moral, and this or that novel of M. Ohnet's because of its bad taste, and all of... more...

CHAPTER ONECATHERINE’S INSPIRATION “Alma Mater, Dexter darling, do re mi–O dear! It’s much harder to write than I supposed. I wonder why! When your heart is full of love, why should it be hard to express it?” Catherine Smith, sitting on the top step of the porch of her home, Three Gables, bent her red-gold head over the pad of paper on her knee and wrote painfully, her forehead puckered... more...

The Evolution of English Lexicography BY JAMES A.H. MURRAY M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., PH.D. When the ‘Act to facilitate the provision of Allotments for the Labouring Classes’ was before the House of Commons in 1887, a well-known member for a northern constituency asked the Minister who had charge of the measure for a definition of the term allotment, which occurred so often in the Bill. The Minister... more...