Classics Books

M. LOUIS BLANC M. Louis Blanc, a democratic journalist, with all, and perhaps more than the usual talents of the Parisian journalist—with all, and more than the usual faults of one—has undertaken to write the history of his country, during and since the revolution of 1830. What can we expect to be the result of such an undertaking? What can we expect from a man who sits down to a task of this... more...

CHAPTER 1 "Until this moment I have never fully realised how great an ass a man can be. When I think that this morning I scurried through what might have been a decent breakfast, left my comfortable diggings, and was cooped up in a train for seven hours, that I am now driving in a pelting rain through, so far as I can see for the mist, what appears to be a howling wilderness, I ask myself if I am... more...

CHAPTER I      "From Wimbleton to Wombleton is fifteen miles,      From Wombleton to Wimbleton is fifteen miles,      From Wombleton to Wimbleton,      From Wimbleton to Wombleton,      From Wombleton—to Wimbleton—is fif—teen miles!" The cheery singing ended abruptly with the collapse of the singer upon a particularly inviting... more...

CHAPTER I.SEWELL NEWHOUSE. Mr. Sewell Newhouse, the inventor of the Newhouse Trap grew up surrounded by the Iroquois Indians of the Oneida Tribe; that tribe which alone of all the Red men cast in their lot with the Americans in our great struggle for liberty. MR. SEWELL NEWHOUSE. At an early age he learned the gunsmith's trade. In those days guns were all made by hand, and in small shops. Mr.... more...

CHAPTER I "WHILE THE HEART BEATS YOUNG" The scorching heat of a midsummer day beat mercilessly upon the earth. Travelers on the dusty roads, toilers in the fields, and others exposed to the rays of the sun, thought yearningly of cooling winds and running streams. They would have looked with envy upon the scene being enacted in one of the small streams of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. There a... more...

WINDFALLS. ROSE AND ROOF-TREE.  O wayward rose, why dost thou wreathe so high, Wasting thyself in sweet-breath'd ecstasy? "The pulses of the wind my life uplift, And through my sprays I feel the sunlight sift; "And all my fibres, in a quick consent Entwined, aspire to fill their heavenward bent. "I feel the shaking of the far-off sea, And all things growing blend their life with... more...

CHAPTER I. Stranger in a strange Land.—A Citadel of Trunks.—Besieged.—Retreat in good Order.—A most tremendous Uproar.—Kicks! Thumps!—Smash of Chain!—Crash of Tables!—A general Row!—The Cry for Help!—The Voice of David!—The Revelation of the Darkness!—The fiery Eyes!—The Unseen!—The Revelation of the Mystery.—A general Fight. Mr. Moses V. Sprole had passed the greater part... more...

CHAPTER ILIGHT-PRODUCING ORGANISMS The fact that animals can produce light must have been recognized from the earliest times in countries where fireflies and glowworms abound, but it is only since the perfection of the microscope that the phosphorescence of the sea, the light of damp wood and of dead fish and flesh has been proved to be due to living organisms. Aristotle mentions the light of dead fish... more...

CHAPTER I.           "O that sweet gleam of sunshine on the lake!"          WILSON'S City of the Plague If, reader, you have ever looked through a solar microscope at the monsters in a drop of water, perhaps you have wondered to yourself how things so terrible have been hitherto unknown to you—you have felt a loathing at the limpid element you hitherto deemed so... more...

CHAPTER I. When Edward Temple was about eight or nine years old he was afflicted with a disorder of the eyes. It was so severe, and his sight was naturally so delicate, that the surgeon felt some apprehensions lest the boy should become totally blind. He therefore gave strict directions to keep him in a darkened chamber, with a bandage over his eyes. Not a ray of the blessed light of heaven could be... more...