Classics Books

CHAPTER I THE CASTAWAYS The second night north of the Zambezi, as well as the first, the little tramp rescue steamer had run out many miles into the offing and laid-to during the hours of darkness. The vicinity of the coral reefs that fringe the southeast coast of Africa is decidedly undesirable on moonless nights. When the Right Honorable the Earl of Avondale came out of his close, hot stateroom into... more...

INTRODUCTORY. It is almost a commonplace of the political moralists that every failure on the part of England to satisfy the moderate and constitutional demands of the Irish people for reform has been followed invariably by a deplorable outbreak of “extremist” activities in Ireland. Unfortunately for the moral, that constitutional demands should therefore be promptly and fully conceded, the... more...

Ourtale is a true one, from which may be taughtA maxim for youth, with utility fraught;—If terrors assail you, examine the cause, And all will be well;—for, byNature’skind laws,Nor Goblins nor Spectres on earth have a station,—These phantoms are all of ideal creation. Monkey, that comical tricks would be at,His frolics one morning began with theCat;He chatter’d, as much as to sayHow d’ ye... more...

INTRODUCTION. It is with a solemnized feeling that I enter on these Reminiscences. Except one, I have survived all the associates of my earlier days. The young, with a long life in perspective, (if any life can be called long, in so brief an existence) are unable to realize the impressions of a man, nearer eighty than seventy, when the shadows of evening are gathering around, and, in a retrospective... more...

I The third week in July found a very merry gathering at the Chateau de Villiers. (Villiers is our summer home situated near Marne River, sixty miles or an hour by train to Paris.) Nothing, I think, could have been farther from thoughts than the idea of war. Our May Wilson Preston, the artist; Mrs. Chase, the editor of a well-known woman's magazine; Hugues Delorme, the French artist; and numerous... more...

The University of Kansas Museum of Natural History received from J. R. Alcorn and Albert A. Alcorn a sizable collection of mammals taken in the summer of 1951 in Alaska. In addition to visiting localities at which they had collected in 1947 and 1948 (see Baker, Univ. Kansas Publ., Mus. Nat. Hist., 5:87-117, 1951) the Alcorns obtained specimens from localities not previously visited in the vicinity of... more...

TO MY READERS NAY, blame me not; I might have sparedYour patience many a trivial verse,Yet these my earlier welcome shared,So, let the better shield the worse. And some might say, "Those ruder songsHad freshness which the new have lost;To spring the opening leaf belongs,The chestnut-burs await the frost." When those I wrote, my locks were brown,When these I write—ah, well a-day!The autumn... more...

I.—INTRODUCTIONS. To introduce persons who are mutually unknown is to undertake a serious responsibility, and to certify to each the respectability of the other. Never undertake this responsibility without in the first place asking yourself whether the persons are likely to be agreeable to each other; nor, in the second place, without ascertaining whether it will be acceptable to both parties to... more...

Love came somewhat late to Dr. Sylvester Murt. In fact, it took the epidemic of 1961 to break down his resistance. A great many people fell in love that year—just about every other person you talked to—so no one thought much about Dr. Murt's particular distress, except a fellow victim who was directly involved in this case. High Dawn Hospital, where 38-year-old Dr. Murt was resident... more...

CHAPTER I A MISHAP AND ITS CONSEQUENCES "Will you please let me have two cream cakes?" The young woman behind the counter of the small bakery glanced kindly at the maker of this request, a little girl in a rather neat-looking dress, with a dark, earnest face and a pair of big, solemn brown eyes. "They're nice and fresh to-day," she remarked pleasantly; "they came out of the... more...