Classics Books

CHAPTER I A RUNAWAY RACE Upon neighbouring stones, earth-fast, like two islands of an archipelago, in an ocean of heather, sat a boy and a girl, the girl knitting, or, as she would have called it, weaving a stocking, and the boy, his eyes fixed on her face, talking with an animation that amounted almost to excitement. He had great fluency, and could have talked just as fast in good English as in the... more...

Mel felt as if he were floating on clouds in the deepest, most intense dark he had ever experienced. He tried opening his eyes but nothing happened, only a sharp pain. Little bits of memory flashed back and he tried to figure out what could have happened, where he was. The last thing he could remember was the little lab hidden back in the mountains in an old mine tunnel. Remote, but only an hour's... more...

I The Land of Lonesomeness Now we had been five days in the boats, and in all this time made no discovering of land. Then upon the morning of the sixth day came there a cry from the bo'sun, who had the command of the lifeboat, that there was something which might be land afar upon our larboard bow; but it was very low lying, and none could tell whether it was land or but a morning cloud. Yet,... more...

CHAPTER I Though there was nothing visibly graceful about Michael Comber, he apparently had the art of giving gracefully. He had already told his cousin Francis, who sat on the arm of the sofa by his table, that there was no earthly excuse for his having run into debt; but now when the moment came for giving, he wrote the cheque quickly and eagerly, as if thoroughly enjoying it, and passed it over to... more...

CHAPTER I. In spite of Jean-Jacques and his school, men are not everywhere born free, any more than they are everywhere in chains, unless these be of their own individual making. Especially in countries where excessive liberty or excessive tyranny favours the growth of that class most usually designated as adventurers, it is true that man, by his own dominant will, or by a still more potent servility,... more...

MR. SETH ATKINS The stars, like incandescent lights fed by a fast weakening dynamo, grew pale, faded, and, one by one, went out. The slate-colored sea, with its tumbling waves, changed color, becoming a light gray, then a faint blue, and, as the red sun rolled up over the edge of the eastern horizon, a brilliant sapphire, trimmed with a silver white on the shoals and along the beach at the foot of the... more...

CHAPTER I DEFINITIONS Arena.—The space included by the boundaries of the croquet ground, within which a ball driven out of it is entitled to be placed. Blow.—The stroke of the mallet. A blow opposed to a push. Booby.—A ball that fails to run the first bridge. Bridged Ball.—A ball that has run the first bridge. Central Bridges.—Those in a line between the stakes. Chiefs.—The leaders of the... more...

FULTON’S“STEAM BATTERY”:BLOCKSHIP and CATAMARAN Robert Fulton’s “Steam Battery,” a catamaran-type blockship, was built during the War of 1812. Until recently, not enough material has been available to permit a reasonably accurate reconstruction of what is generally acknowledged to be the first steam man-of-war. With the discovery, in the Danish Royal Archives at Copenhagen, of plans of this... more...

ld Miss Barbara Noble twitched aside the edge of the white scrim curtain to get a better look at the young man coming down the street. He might be the one. The young man bent a little under the weight of the battered black suitcase as he crossed Maple and started up Prospect on Miss Noble's side. She could see him set the case down on the wide porch of the Raney house and wipe his forehead with a... more...

A DAY WITH BYRON.   ne February afternoon in the year 1822, about two o'clock,—for this is the hour at which his day begins,—"the most notorious personality of his century" arouses himself, in the Palazzo Lanfranchi at Pisa. George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron, languidly arises and dresses, with the assistance of his devoted valet Fletcher. Invariably he awakes in very low spirits, "in... more...