Classics Books

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AN ELEGY High on his Patmos of the Southern SeasOur northern dreamer sleeps,Strange stars above him, and above his graveStrange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave,While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile,The great Pacific, with its faery deeps,Smiles all day long its silken secret smile. Son of a race nomadic, finding stillIts home in regions furthest from its... more...

I. Real and Ideal—these are the handy terms, admiring or disapproving, which criticism claps with random facility on to every imaginable school. This artist or group of artists goes in for the real—the upright, noble, trumpery, filthy real; that other artist or group of artists seeks after the ideal—the ideal which may mean sublimity or platitude. We summon every living artist to state whether he... more...

CHAPTER I For forty-eight hours the snow-storm had been raging unabated over New York. After a wild and windy Thursday night the world had awakened to a mysterious whirl of white on Friday morning, and to a dark, strange day of steady snowing. Now, on Saturday, dirty snow was banked and heaped in great blocks everywhere, and still the clean, new flakes fluttered and twirled softly down, powdering and... more...

FOREWORD I take up pen for this foreword with the fear of one who knows that he cannot do justice to his subject, and the trembling of one who would not, for a good deal, set down words unpleasing to the eye of him who wrote Green Mansions, The Purple Land, and all those other books which have meant so much to me. For of all living authors—now that Tolstoi has gone I could least dispense with W. H.... more...

JOHN MARR AND OTHER SAILORS Since as in night's deck-watch ye show,Why, lads, so silent here to me,Your watchmate of times long ago?Once, for all the darkling sea,You your voices raised how clearly,Striking in when tempest sung;Hoisting up the storm-sail cheerly, Life is storm—let storm! you rung.Taking things as fated merely,Childlike though the world ye spanned;Nor holding unto life too... more...

INTRODUCTION. The Ion is the shortest, or nearly the shortest, of all the writings which bear the name of Plato, and is not authenticated by any early external testimony. The grace and beauty of this little work supply the only, and perhaps a sufficient, proof of its genuineness. The plan is simple; the dramatic interest consists entirely in the contrast between the irony of Socrates and the... more...

THE POETRY OF MADISON CAWEIN When a poet begins writing, and we begin liking his work, we own willingly enough that we have not, and cannot have, got the compass of his talent. We must wait till he has written more, and we have learned to like him more, and even then we should hesitate his definition, from all that he has done, if we did not very commonly qualify ourselves from the latest thing he has... more...

THE RALESTONES COME HOME "Once upon a time two brave princes and a beautiful princess set out to make their fortunes—" began the dark-haired, dark-eyed boy by the roadster. "Royalty is out of fashion," corrected Ricky Ralestone somewhat indifferently. "Can't you do better than that?" She gave her small, pert hat an exasperated tweak which brought the unoffending... more...

CHAPTER I If Nature is infallible, there should be some philosophic or eugenic professor arise and explain why she made such a grievous error in the personal appearance, vocal qualities, and general gestures of the learned judge, astute politician and hopeful statesman, Hon. J. Woodworth-Granger and Mr. James Gollop, perigrinating drummer for a chocolate house. Either the Honorable Judge should have... more...

PREFACE The Admirable Bashville is a product of the British law of copyright. As that law stands at present, the first person who patches up a stage version of a novel, however worthless and absurd that version may be, and has it read by himself and a few confederates to another confederate who has paid for admission in a hall licensed for theatrical performances, secures the stage rights of that... more...