Classics Books

Chapter I. TOBY'S INTRODUCTION TO THE CIRCUS. "Couldn't you give more'n six pea-nuts for a cent?" was a question asked by a very small boy, with big, staring eyes, of a candy vender at a circus booth. And as he spoke he looked wistfully at the quantity of nuts piled high up on the basket, and then at the six, each of which now looked so small as he held them in his hand.... more...

CHAPTER I. THE EARLY HISTORY OF LADY LOVEL.  Women have often been hardly used by men, but perhaps no harder usage, no fiercer cruelty was ever experienced by a woman than that which fell to the lot of Josephine Murray from the hands of Earl Lovel, to whom she was married in the parish church of Applethwaite,—a parish without a village, lying among the mountains of Cumberland,—on the 1st of June,... more...

I. PREFACE TO READERS IN GENERAL You are the children of Old Mother England, on both sides of the Atlantic; you form the majority of buyers and borrowers of novels; and you judge of works of fiction by certain inbred preferences, which but slightly influence the other great public of readers on the continent of Europe. The two qualities in fiction which hold the highest rank in your estimation are:... more...

GRANT IN COMMAND—ROSECRANS RELIEVED Importance of unity in command—Inevitable difficulties in a double organization—Burnside's problem different from that of Rosecrans—Cooperation necessarily imperfect—Growth of Grant's reputation—Solid grounds of it—Special orders sent him—Voyage to Cairo—Meets Stanton at Louisville—Division of the Mississippi created—It included... more...

THE SOLDIER OF THE VALLEY I I was a soldier. I was a hero. You notice my tenses are past. I am a simple school-teacher now, a prisoner in Black Log. There are no bars to my keep, only the wall of mountains that make the valley; and look at them on a clear day, when sunshine and shadow play over their green slopes, when the clouds all white and gold swing lazily in the blue above them, and they speak of... more...

CHAPTER I. THE NAMELESS BAY In the noon of a September day in the year of our dear Lord 1395, a merchant vessel nodded sleepily upon the gentle swells of warm water flowing in upon the Syrian coast. A modern seafarer, looking from the deck of one of the Messagerie steamers now plying the same line of trade, would regard her curiously, thankful to the calm which held her while he slaked his wonder, yet... more...

Barbara Thorne sat leaning her head on her hand, looking at a photograph that lay on the table beneath her eyes. She had not intended to look for that when she pulled out a dusty drawer full of old letters, papers, and account-books to arrange and set in order. But when in the course of her rummaging and tidying she found that picture in her hand, she paused in her task. The neglected drawer stood... more...

"YIM" Dar ban a little faller,  Ay tenk his name ban Yim,And nearly every morning  Ay used to seeing him.He used to stand in gatevay,  And call me Svede, and ayAnt lak to hear dis nickname:  Ay ban a Norsk, yu say. But he ban little faller,  Ay tenk 'bout sax years old,And so ay used to lak him—  He ban too small to scold.Ay used to say, "Val, Yimmie,  Ay ant ban Svede,... more...

Jackson kept his promise to write to Westover, but he was better than his word to his mother, and wrote to her every week that winter. "I seem just to live from letter to letter. It's ridic'lous," she said to Cynthia once when the girl brought the mail in from the barn, where the men folks kept it till they had put away their horses after driving over from Lovewell with it. The trains... more...

Hunting.Certes it is a noble sportAnd men have quitted selle and swum for't,But I am of a meeker sortAnd I prefer Surtees in comfort.Reach down my "Handley Cross" again.My run, where never danger lurks, isWith Jorrocks and his deathless trainPigg, Binjimin and Arterxerxes! January. Most men harry the world for fun—Each man seeks it a different wayBut "of all daft devils under the... more...