Classics Books

CHAPTER I. DEFENSE OF FREEDOM BY GREEK VALOR. 1. The great events in history are those where, upon special occasions, a man or a people have made a stand against tyranny, and have preserved or advanced freedom for the people. Sometimes tyranny has taken the form of the oppression of the many by the few in the same nation, and sometimes it has been the oppression of a weak nation by a stronger one. The... more...

PREFACE This monograph on the Battle of Franklin was read first at a meeting of the Minnesota Commandery of the Loyal Legion, December 9, 1902. Written after an exhaustive investigation begun many years before, the straightforward truth was told without fear or favor. The disgraceful and costly blunder with which the Battle of Franklin opened should have been investigated by a court of inquiry. The... more...

CHAPTER I. MY UNCLE PETER.—CONTINUED. "It was resolved that on the same evening, Chrissy should tell my uncle her story. We went out for a walk together; and though she was not afraid to go, the least thing startled her. A voice behind her would make her turn pale and look hurriedly round. Then she would smile again, even before the colour had had time to come back to her cheeks, and... more...

"I wish you a happy New Year, sir." It was the servant, green of livery, the yellow waistcoat slashed with black, bearing the coffee and fruit. "Put it there, please," Roland answered. And then, in recognition of the salutation, he added, "Thanks: the same to you." "H'm," he mused, as the man withdrew, "I ought to have tipped him, I suppose." He leaned from... more...

CHAPTER I THE EARLY LITERATURE One Sunday morning, about the year 1661, a group of Indians was gathered around a noble-looking man, listening to a story he was reading. It was summer and the day was beautiful, and the little Indian children who sat listening were so interested that not even the thought of their favorite haunts by brookside or meadow could tempt them from the spot. The story was about... more...

PART FIRST. THE BONFIRE OF ST. JOHN. Early in the century, on a summer evening, Jean Lozier stood on the bluff looking at Kaskaskia. He loved it with the homesick longing of one who is born for towns and condemned to the fields. Moses looking into the promised land had such visions and ideals as this old lad cherished. Jean was old in feeling, though not yet out of his teens. The training-masters of... more...

Friend, for the sake of loves we hold in common,The love of books, of paintings, rhyme and fiction;And for the sake of that divine affliction,The love of art, passing the love of woman;—By which all life's made nobler, superhuman,Lifting the soul above, and, without frictionOf Time, that puts failure in his prediction,—Works to some end through hearts that dreams illumine:To you I pour this Cup... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Our neighbours on the other side of the English Channel have been accused of calling us a “nation of shopkeepers.” No doubt the definition is not bad; and, so long as the goods supplied bear the hall-mark of British integrity, there is nothing to be ashamed of in the appellation; still, with all due deference, I think we might more appropriately be called a nation of... more...

CHAPTER I. THE SETTING FORTH. A voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in the year 1799 was not the every-day affair that it has come to be at the present time. There were no "ocean greyhounds" then. The passage was a long and trying one in the clumsy craft of those days, and people looked upon it as a more serious affair than they now do on a tour round the world. In the year 1799 few people thought... more...

IN the Knockerbeck Hotel there are various parlors; Pompeian rooms lined in marble and pillared in chaste fluted columns; Louis Quinze corners, gold-leafed and pink-brocaded, principally furnished with a spindly-legged Vernis-Martin cabinet and a large French clock in the form of a celestial sphere surmounted by a gold cupid. There are high-ceilinged rendezvous rooms, with six arm and two straight... more...