Classics Books

CHAPTER I. "Any news to-night?" asked Admiral Buzza, leading a trump. "Hush, my love," interposed his wife timidly, with a glance at the Vicar. She liked to sit at her husband's left, and laid her small cards before him as so many tributes to his greatness. "I will not hush, Emily. I repeat, is there any news to-night?" Miss Limpenny, his hostess and vis-a-vis, finding the... more...

CHAPTER I An old man sat in the shadows of the summer night. From a veranda chair he looked at the stars. He wore a white beard, and his eyes, grown small with age, watered continually as if he were weeping. Half-hidden under his beard his emaciated lips kept the monotonous grimace of a smile on his face. He sat in the dark, a patient, trembling figure waiting for bedtime. His feet, though he rested... more...

'IN THE NAME OF THE BODLEIAN'   With what feelings, I wonder, ought one to approach in a famous University an already venerable foundation, devoted by the last will and indented deed of a pious benefactor to the collection and housing of books and the promotion of learning? The Bodleian at this moment harbours within its walls well-nigh half a million of printed volumes, some scores of... more...

HEINRICH HEINE. (BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.) Harry Heine, as he was originally named, was born in Düsseldorf on the Rhine, December 13th, 1799. His father was a well-to-do Jewish merchant; and his mother, the daughter of the famous physician and Aulic Counlor Von Geldern, was, according to her son, a "femme distinguée." His early childhood fell in the days of the occupation of Düsseldorf by the... more...

Chapter One THE MILLIONAIRE AND THE WAITER 'YES, sir?' Jules, the celebrated head waiter of the Grand Babylon, was bending formally towards the alert, middle-aged man who had just entered the smoking-room and dropped into a basket-chair in the corner by the conservatory. It was 7.45 on a particularly sultry June night, and dinner was about to be served at the Grand Babylon. Men of all sizes,... more...

I had been out of Germany for thirty-five years, drawn hither and thither by various glittering of will-of-the-wisps. When I returned to my native country, I was as poor in pocket as when I left, and much poorer in illusions. The Berlin insurance company which I had represented with such mediocre success in Switzerland, Austria and Belgium agreed to let me sell for them at home, and by a curious... more...

PREFACE. Since the method of treating snakebite-poisoning by hypodermic injections of strychnine, discovered by the writer and published but a few years ago, has already been adopted by the medical profession throughout the Australian colonies, and practised even by laymen in cases of urgency with much success, it has been repeatedly suggested to him that the subject calls for further elucidation at... more...

HIERO, or "THE TYRANT" A Discourse on Despotic RuleIOnce upon a time Simonides the poet paid a visit to Hiero the "tyrant," (1) and when both obtained the leisure requisite, Simonides began this conversation: (1) Or, "came to the court of the despotic monarch Hiero." For the"dramatis personae" see Dr. Holden's Introduction to the "Hieron"of Xenophon. Would... more...

The volume of which the following pages are a translation, has been adopted by the University Commission at Paris among their prize books, and has reached an eighth edition. Perhaps these facts speak sufficiently in its favor; but as translator, and to some extent editor, I wish to add my testimony to the great charm as well as merit of the little work. I sat down to it, I must own, with no special... more...

CHAPTER I. A BOZRAH BORNIN'. A tallow candle shed its sickly and flickering light in the front room of an ancient farm house, as Jack Sheppard announced his arrival on earth at four o'clock on a Friday morning. He arrived in a snowstorm, and it was a very select gathering of some of old Bozrah's prominent citizens who greeted his entry into the world. There was old Doctor Pettingill,... more...