Classics Books

I I was on a French steamer bound from Havre to New York, when I had a peculiar experience in the way of a shipwreck. On a dark and foggy night, when we were about three days out, our vessel collided with a derelict--a great, heavy, helpless mass, as dull and colorless as the darkness in which she was enveloped. We struck her almost head on, and her stump of a bowsprit was driven into our port bow with... more...

CHAPTER I. "PIONEERS, O PIONEERS" If you had stood on the borders of Askatoon, a prairie town, on the pathway to the Rockies one late August day not many years ago, you would have heard a fresh young human voice singing into the morning, as its possessor looked, from a coat she was brushing, out over the "field of the cloth of gold," which your eye has already been invited to see. With... more...

FOOD. (chunnah). In the north of India the chief food on which horses are fed is gram, the seed of one of the pea tribe of plants. It is a crop that ripens in the beginning of the summer, when it is harvested, and the grain thrashed out by driving cattle over it in a circle. The dry stalks, that are broken up into small pieces, are used for feeding cattle on, and are known as “missa bhoosa,” in... more...

I am sure that you have heard of us, and of all we have done and seen from Edgeworthstown as far as Berne: from thence we went to Thun: there we took char-à-bancs, little low carriages, like half an Irish jaunting car, with four wheels, and a square tarpaulin awning over our heads. Jolting along on these vehicles, which would go over a house, I am sure, without being overturned or without being... more...

INTRODUCTION In this country inherited fortunes, or ancestral honors, have little effect on a man's reputation; but inherited disposition and early surroundings have much effect on his character. My father's ancestors were from New England. His father, Phineas Butler, came from Saybrook, Connecticut, where the Congregational Churches framed the Saybrook platform. His mother's people, the... more...

THE TWO TWILIGHTS THE THANKLESS MUSE The muses ring my bell and run away.I spy you, rogues, behind the evergreen:You, wild Thalia, romper in the hay;And you, Terpsichore, you long-legged quean.When I was young you used to come and stay,But, now that I grow older, 'tis well seenWhat tricks ye put upon me. Well-a-day!How many a summer evening have ye beenSitting about my door-step, fain to singAnd... more...

PROLOGUE Barbara Garratry was thirty and Irish. To the casual observer the world was a bright coloured ball for her tossing. When she was a tiny mite her father had dubbed her "Bob, Son of Battle," because of certain obvious, warlike traits of character, and "Bob" Garratry she had been ever since. She had literally fought her way to the top, handicapped by poverty, very little... more...

THE ROSE IN THE MIRE The first time I was blessed with a sight of the señorita was on the day of my arrival in the Federal City,—in fact, it was upon my arrival. An inquiry in the neighborhood of the President's House for my sole acquaintance in the city, Senator Adair of Kentucky, had resulted in my being directed to Conrad's boarding house on the Capitol Hill. In the Fall of 1805 Indian... more...

CHAPTER I. SHELLS AND THEIR INMATES. Before the study of shellfish, or molluscs, was conducted on the scientific principles of the present day, shells were classified as univalves, bivalves, and multivalves. The univalves were shells in one piece, such as the whelk; the bivalves those in two pieces, such as the mussel or oyster; and the multivalves those in more than two pieces, such as barnacles or... more...

CHAPTER I. It was extremely tiresome! It was vexatious; it was altogether annoying! Most people under similar circumstances would have used stronger expressions, would have bemoaned themselves loudly, or at least inwardly, with all the pathos of self-pity. To be nearly at the end of one’s journey, almost within sight and sound of home fires and home welcomes, and then to be snowed up, walled,... more...