Classics Books

Miriam I It is an illogical consequence of one human being’s ill-treatment that we should fly immediately to another, but that is the way with us. It seemed to Mr. Polly that only a human touch could assuage the smart of his humiliation. Moreover it had for some undefined reason to be a feminine touch, and the number of women in his world was limited. He thought of the Larkins family—the Larkins... more...

Chapter I Major Amberson had "made a fortune" in 1873, when other people were losing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then. Magnificence, like the size of a fortune, is always comparative, as even Magnificent Lorenzo may now perceive, if he has happened to haunt New York in 1916; and the Ambersons were magnificent in their day and place. Their splendour lasted throughout... more...

INTRODUCTION. From the inauguration of the movement for woman's emancipation the Bible has been used to hold her in the "divinely ordained sphere," prescribed in the Old and New Testaments. The canon and civil law; church and state; priests and legislators; all political parties and religious denominations have alike taught that woman was made after man, of man, and for man, an inferior... more...

Nada Burnham, who "bound all to her" and, while her father cut his way through the hordes of the Ingobo Regiment, perished of the hardships of war at Buluwayo on 19th May, 1896, I dedicate these tales—and more particularly the last, that of a Faith which triumphed over savagery and death. H. Rider Haggard. Ditchingham.AUTHOR'S NOTEOf the three stories that comprise this volume[*], one,... more...

The fact that newspaper reporters commonly call their articles "stories" points to a certain analogy between the novel and the newspaper. Even when prose fiction aims to be a fine art, it readily takes on a journalistic character; it is usually designed for immediate effect--at the concomitant risk of producing no other--and it easily passes from hand to hand or from country to country. In our... more...

THE CASE FOR THE EPHEMERAL I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this book. It is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current or rather flying subjects; and they must be published pretty much as they stand. They were written, as a rule, at the last moment; they were handed in the moment before... more...

CHAPTER I. JOHN HENRY GETS A PARTNER. "Seven weeks and then the wedding bells will get busy for you, eh,Bunch?" I chuckled. "Surest thing you know," my old pal Jefferson replied, somewhat dolefully. "I must dig up a few old shoes and have a plate of cold rice pudding on the doorstep," I went on. "It's going to afford me a bunch of keen delight to soak you in the midriff... more...

PHILIP HADDEN AND KING CETYWAYO At the date of our introduction to him, Philip Hadden was a transport-rider and trader in "the Zulu." Still on the right side of forty, in appearance he was singularly handsome; tall, dark, upright, with keen eyes, short-pointed beard, curling hair and clear-cut features. His life had been varied, and there were passages in it which he did not narrate even to his... more...

The Educated Negro and His Mission. Human thought is like a pendulum. It sways from belief to belief, from theory to theory, from plan to plan, and the length of its vibrations is governed by a multitude of contending forces operating from both within and without. Two of these influences, in the present age, are all potential. One is the ardent desire to find the best ways and means by which the human... more...

THE PROBABLE FUTURE OF MANKIND § 1 The present outlook of human affairs is one that admits of broad generalizations and that seems to require broad generalizations. We are in one of those phases of experience which become cardinal in history. A series of immense and tragic events have shattered the self-complacency and challenged the will and intelligence of mankind. That easy general forward movement... more...