Classics Books

MR. SETH ATKINS The stars, like incandescent lights fed by a fast weakening dynamo, grew pale, faded, and, one by one, went out. The slate-colored sea, with its tumbling waves, changed color, becoming a light gray, then a faint blue, and, as the red sun rolled up over the edge of the eastern horizon, a brilliant sapphire, trimmed with a silver white on the shoals and along the beach at the foot of the... more...

CHAPTER I DEFINITIONS Arena.—The space included by the boundaries of the croquet ground, within which a ball driven out of it is entitled to be placed. Blow.—The stroke of the mallet. A blow opposed to a push. Booby.—A ball that fails to run the first bridge. Bridged Ball.—A ball that has run the first bridge. Central Bridges.—Those in a line between the stakes. Chiefs.—The leaders of the... more...

ld Miss Barbara Noble twitched aside the edge of the white scrim curtain to get a better look at the young man coming down the street. He might be the one. The young man bent a little under the weight of the battered black suitcase as he crossed Maple and started up Prospect on Miss Noble's side. She could see him set the case down on the wide porch of the Raney house and wipe his forehead with a... more...

ADVERTISEMENT. The American publishers of M. De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," have been frequently solicited to furnish the work in a form adapted to seminaries of learning, and at a price which would secure its more general circulation, and enable trustees of School District Libraries, and other libraries, to place it among their collections. Desirous to attain these objects, they... more...

Sir: I have observed that as a man advances in life, he is subject to a kind of plethora of the mind, doubtless occasioned by the vast accumulation of wisdom and experience upon the brain. Hence he is apt to become narrative and admonitory, that is to say, fond of telling long stories, and of doling out advice, to the small profit and great annoyance of his friends. As I have a great horror of becoming... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BALL. Belonging to one of the first families in France, still young, and with a face that would have been agreeable had it not been for the almost ridiculous and disproportionate length of his nose, M. de Lucenay joined to a restless love of constant motion the habit of talking and laughing fearfully loud upon subjects quite at variance with good taste or polished manners, and throwing... more...

CHAPTER I The Metropolitan Dry Goods and Variety Store at Trumet Centre was open for business. Sam Bartlett, the boy whose duty it was to take down the shutters, sweep out, dust, and wait upon early-bird customers, had performed the first three of these tasks and gone home for breakfast. The reason he had not performed the fourth—the waiting upon customers—was simple enough; there had been no... more...

I MAKING GOOD WITH MOTHER When men began to build cities vertically instead of horizontally there passed from our highways a picturesque figure, and from our language an expressive figure of speech. That oily-tongued, persuasive, soft-stepping stranger in the rusty Prince Albert and the black string tie who had been wont to haunt our back steps and front offices with his carefully wrapped bundle,... more...

T is most certain that all Nations, even the most barbarous, have in all Ages made use of Medicines, to ease their Pains, to regain or preserve Health, the greatest among earthly Felicities; in the Absence whereof, we cannot relish any of those numerous Enjoyments, which the bountiful Creator hath plentifully bestow’d on us; so that the most sublime ancient Philosophers who excluded all other... more...

THE REVOLT AGAINST MARRIAGE There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage. If the mischief stopped at talking and thinking it would be bad enough; but it goes further, into disastrous anarchical action. Because our marriage law is inhuman and unreasonable to the point of downright abomination, the bolder and more rebellious spirits form illicit unions,... more...