Classics Books

CHAPTER I OUT OF THE STORM Taxicab No. 92,381 skidded crazily on the icy pavement of Atlantic Avenue. Spike Walters, its driver, cursed roundly as he applied the brakes and with difficulty obtained control of the little closed car. Depressing the clutch pedal, he negotiated the frozen thoroughfare and parked his car in the lee of the enormous Union Station, which bulked forbiddingly in the December... more...

INTRODUCTIONThe small yellow tree frogs, Hyla microcephala and its relatives, are among the most frequently heard and commonly collected frogs in the lowlands of southern Mexico and Central America. The similarities in size, proportions, and coloration of the different species have resulted not so much in a multiplicity of specific names, but in differences of opinion on the application of existing... more...

The early morning streetcar, swaying and rattling along its tracks, did as much to divert my attention from the book I was reading as the contents of the book itself. I did not like Plato. Comfortable though the seat was, I was as uncomfortable as any collegiate could be whose mind would rather dwell upon tomorrow's football game than the immediate task in hand—the morning session with Professor... more...

Michelangelo's Shoulder It dawned hot in Georgia. Don rubbed his head and blinked. He got out of bed and paused before a makeshift easel where a drawing, taped to a board, showed a woman sitting on a park bench. She was large, dressed in layers of multi-colored cotton. She reminded him of the Renoir woman in her plush living room, the dog sprawled at her feet, but she was smarter. The line across... more...

CHAPTER I If you go to Southampton and search the register of the Walloon Church there, you will find that in the summer of '57, "Madame Vefue de Montgomery with all her family and servants wereadmitted to the Communion"—"Tous ceux ce furent Recus la a Cene du'57, comme passans, sans avoir Rendu Raison de la foj, mes sur latesmognage de Mons. Forest, Ministre de Madame, quj... 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...

MiceI seethe broken bodies of women and men,Temples of God ruined; I see the clawsOf sinister Fate, from the reach of whose feline pawsNever are safe the bodies of women and men.Almighty Cat, it sits on the Throne of the World,With paw outstretched, grinning at us, the mice,Who play our trivial games of virtue and vice,And pray—to That which sits on the Throne of the World!From our beginning till all... more...

THE FIELD OF LABOUR British Columbia, now forming part of "The Dominion of Canada," includes within its limits several islands, of which Vancouver's is the principal, and that part of the continent of North America, west of the Rocky Mountains and east of Alaska, which is included between the 49 deg. and the 60 deg. parallels of north latitude. English connection with this part of the... more...

The brown or Norway rat (Mus norvegicus) is the worst mammal pest in the United States, the losses from its depredations amounting to many millions of dollars yearly—to more, indeed, than the losses from all other injurious mammals combined. In addition to its destructive habits, this rat is now known to be an active agent in disseminating infectious diseases, a fact which renders measures for its... more...

The public—that is, the reading world made up of those who love the products of authorship—always takes an interest in the methods of work adopted by literary men, and is fond of gaining information about authorship in the act, and of getting a glimpse of its favorite, the author, at work in that "sanctum sanctorum"—the study. The modes in which men write are so various that it would take... more...