Classics Books

BY THE BABE UNBORN If trees were tall and grasses short,  As in some crazy tale,If here and there a sea were blue  Beyond the breaking pale, If a fixed fire hung in the air  To warm me one day through,If deep green hair grew on great hills,  I know what I should do. In dark I lie: dreaming that there  Are great eyes cold or kind,And twisted streets and silent doors,  And living men behind.... more...

I If it hadn't been for a purple moon that came peering up above the dark jungle just at nightfall, it would have been impossible to tell that Little Shikara was at his watch. He was really just the colour of the shadows—a rather pleasant brown—he was very little indeed, and besides, he was standing very, very still. If he was trembling at all, from anticipation and excitement, it was no more... more...

THE STORY OF THE TWO BULLS In former times, my story tells, There lived one Deacon R., And not the worst man in the world, Nor best was he, by far. His fields were rich, his acres broad, And cattle were his pride; Oxen and sheep, and horses, too, And what you please, beside. His brindle cow, the highest prize Won at the county fair, For taper limbs and rounded form, And short and shining hair. Old... more...

CHAPTER I WHY THE MIDSHIPMEN BALKED "So Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton have been here?" demanded MidshipmanDave Darrin. That handsome young member of the brigade of midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis was now in mufti, or cits,—meaning, in other words, that he was out of his Naval uniform and attired in the conventional clothing of a young American when calling... more...

CHAPTER I The Interloper Girls! Girls everywhere! Girls in the passages, girls in the hall, racing upstairs and scurrying downstairs, diving into dormitories and running into classrooms, overflowing on to the landing and hustling along the corridor—everywhere, girls! There were tall and short, and fat and thin, and all degrees from pretty to plain; girls with fair hair and girls with dark hair,... more...

PREFACE In bringing this book before the public, it is my hope that the friends of the Snow Hill School and all who are interested in Negro Education may become more familiar with the problems and difficulties that confront those who labor for the future of a race. I have had to endure endless hardships during these twenty-five years, in order that thousands of poor negro youths might receive an... more...

THE PREFACE. Nothing is more easy than to discover a thing already found out. This is verified in me and that anonymous gentleman, whom the public prints have lately complimented with a Discovery to Prevent Street Robberies; though, by the by, we have only his vain ipse dixit, and the ostentatious outcry of venal newswriters in his behalf. But to strip him of his borrowed plumes, these are to remind... more...

THE HAPPY JACKS.   'On Saturday, then, at two—humble hours, humble fare; but plenty, and good of its kind; with a talk over old fellows and old times.' Such was the pith of an invitation to dinner, to accept which I started on a pleasant summer Saturday on the top of a Kentish-town omnibus. My host was Happy Jack. Everybody called him 'Happy Jack:' he called himself 'Happy... more...

CHAPTER I Prologue.—Miss Quincey Stops the Way "Stand back, Miss Quincey, if you please." The school was filing out along the main corridor of St. Sidwell's. It came with a tramp and a rustle and a hiss and a tramp, urged to a trot by the excited teachers. The First Division first, half-woman, carrying itself smoothly, with a swish of its long skirts, with a blush, a dreamy intellectual... more...

CHAPTER I. "Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?" "We find the prisoner guilty, my lord." A curious little thrill of emotion—half sigh, half sob—ran through the crowded court. Even the most callous, the most world-hardened, of human beings cannot hear unmoved the verdict which condemns a fellow-creature to a shameful death. The spectators of Andrew Westwood's trial... more...