Classics Books

THE JEWS AND THE ROMANS The life and works of Flavius Josephus are bound up with the struggle of the Jews against the Romans, and in order to appreciate them it is necessary to summarize the relations of the two peoples that led up to that struggle. It is related in the Midrash that the city of Rome was founded on the day Solomon married an Egyptian princess. The Rabbis doubtless meant by this legend... more...

CHAPTER I A GLANCE AT THE BACKGROUND It is a gray day in autumn. I am sitting at my desk, wondering how to begin the first chapter of this book about poetry. Outside the window a woman is contentedly kneeling on the upturned brown earth of her tulip-bed, patting lovingly with her trowel as she covers the bulbs for next spring's blossoming. Does she know Katharine Tynan's verses about... more...

HEPSEY BURKE The noisy, loose-jointed train pulled out of the station, leaving behind it a solitary young man, enveloped in smoke and cinders. In the middle of the platform stood a little building with a curb roof, pointed at both ends like a Noah’s Ark; and the visitor felt that if he could only manage to lift up one side of the roof he would find the animals “two by two,” together with the... more...

INTRODUCTION A person standing on the North Rim of the Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado sees a vast green plain sloping away to the south. The plain drops 2000 feet in ten miles. On a clear evening, before the sun reaches the horizon, the rays of the sun are reflected from great sandstone cliffs forming the walls of deep canyons that appear as crooked yellow lines in the distance. Canyon after... more...

ON THE STREETS OF ANTWERP. “Good-bye, Elmer, and you, too, Rooster!” “It’s too bad we have to hurry home, and break up the Big Five Motorcycle Boys’ combination, just when we’ve been having such royal good times over in the country of the Great War!” “But there was nothing else to do, Elmer, when you got that cable message telling you to take the first steamer home, as your mother was... more...

If it were not for the people, the journey by steamer from Belgrade to Pesth would be rather unromantic. When the Servian capital is reached in ascending the great stream from Galatz and Rustchuk, the picturesque cliffs, the mighty forests, the moss-grown ruins overhanging the rushing waters, are all left behind. Belgrade is not very imposing. It lies along a low line of hills bordering the Sava and... more...

CHAPTER I. A SKETCH OF PAPAL ATTEMPTS IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND DURING THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. THE STATE OF RELIGION AND THE COUNTRY ON JAMES’S ACCESSION. As an introduction to the subject, of which this volume professes more especially to treat, I purpose to give a sketch of the proceedings of the emissaries of Rome in this country, during the long reign of Queen Elizabeth. Queen Mary died 1558, when... more...

This subject, like many of the periods of the Civil War, has been often described, and is familiar to the passing generation, but has, I believe, never before been placed upon your records, nor by an eye witness. Therefore, I venture to present it here. The Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, in which I had the honor to be a First Lieutenant and Adjutant, left Boston in the Autumn... more...

CHAPTER I THE FORTUNE TELLER On a day in May, not so long ago, Joan Vernon, coming out into the sunshine from her lodging in the Place de la Sorbonne, smiled a morning greeting to the statue of Auguste Comte, founder of Positivism. It would have puzzled her to explain what Positivism meant, or why it should be merely positive and not stoutly comparative or grandly superlative. As a teacher, therefore,... more...

THE PICTURE ALPHABET ERIE, PA.OLIVER SPAFFORD. ALPHABETBCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ& a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z fi ff fl ffi ffl 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Antelope aBBull bCCat cDDog dEEagle eFFox fGGoat gHHawk hIIbex iJElk jKKite kLLynx lMMonkey mNNylghau nOOwl oPPig pQQuail qRRaccoon rSSnipe sTTortoise tUUrus VVulture vWWalrus wXThere is no word in the English language beginning... more...