Classics Books

ANTICIPATIONI will wash my brain in the splendid breeze,I will lay my cheek to the northern sun,I will drink the breath of the mossy trees,And the clouds shall meet me one by one.I will fling the scholar's pen aside,And grasp once more the bronco's rein,And I will ride and ride and ride,Till the rain is snow, and the seed is grain.The way is long and cold and lone—But I go.It leads where... more...

CHAPTER I THE FIRST DAY Michael felt glad to think he would start the adventure of Oxford from Paddington. The simplicity of that railway station might faintly mitigate alarms which no amount of previous deliberation could entirely disperse. He remembered how once he had lightly seen off a Cambridge friend from Liverpool Street and, looking back at the suburban tumult of the Great Eastern Railway, he... more...

THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT I Those who have not seen the glory of the Emperor Napoleon, during the years 1810, 1811, and 1812, can never conceive what a pitch of power one man may reach. When he passed through Champagne, or Lorraine, or Alsace, people gathering the harvest or the vintage would leave everything to run and see him; women, children, and old men would come a distance of eight or ten leagues... more...

Although as brash as any other ace newspaper reporter for a high school weekly—and there is no one brasher—Garth was scared. His head crest lifted spasmodically and the rudimentary webbing between his fingers twitched. To answer a dare, Garth was about to attempt something that had never been dared before: a newspaper interview with The Visitor. There had been questions enough asked and answered... more...

THE ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS OF VICE FOR some inscrutable reason which she has as yet given no hint of revealing, Nature is wondrously wasteful in the matter of generation. She creates a thousand where she intends to make use of one. Imbued with the maternal instinct, the female cod casts millions of eggs upon the waters, expecting them to return after many days as troops of interesting offspring. Instead,... more...

INTRODUCTION For what has Virro painted, built, and planted? Only to show, how many Tastes he wanted. What brought Sir Visto's ill got wealth to waste? Some Daemon whisper'd, "Visto! have a Taste." (Pope, Epistle to Burlington) The idea of "taste" and the ideal of the "man of taste" have fallen considerably in critical esteem since the eighteenth century. When F. R.... more...

CHAPTER I OLD STYLE 1. LOCAL COLOR A study of the American novel of the twentieth century must first of all take stock of certain types of fiction which continue to persist, with varying degrees of vitality and significance, from the last quarter of the century preceding. There is, to begin with, the type associated with the now moribund cult of local color, which originally had Bret Harte for its... more...

Just two weeks before the S. S. Herringbone of the Interstellar Exploration, Examination (and Exploitation) Service was due to start her return journey to Earth, one of her scouts disconcertingly reported the discovery of intelligent life in the Virago System. "Thirteen planets," Captain Iversen snarled, wishing there were someone on whom he could place the blame for this mischance, "and we... more...

Crowded Out. I am nobody. I am living in a London lodging-house. My room is up three pair of stairs. I have come to London to sell or to part with in some manner an opera, a comedy, a volume of verse, songs, sketches, stories. I compose as well as write. I am ambitious. For the sake of another, one other, I am ambitious. For myself it does not matter. If nobody will discover me I must discover myself.... more...

Lives of the Irish Bishops, published by Ware, in 1665, and rewritten by Harris in the beginning of the last century, have been long regarded as authentic history; and the statements of these learned writers have been generally accepted without hesitation, being supposed to rest on ancient and indubious documents. It is thus, to take a quite recent example, that the Rev. W. Maziere Brady, D.D., in the... more...