Classics Books

athematicians are just like people: old, young, fat, thin, male, female. This one was male, thirty-five, with steady brown eyes and a nice smile when he remembered to use it. His name was Norman Venner, and besides being a mathematical whiz generally, he had designed and built an electronic brain, or calculator, which was in some ways smarter than himself—and a lot less diffident. Electronic... more...

THE WOMAN OF LEGENDARY ROME The conditions which governed the life of woman in the earliest days of Roman history are too far removed from the searchlight of historical investigation for us to essay to indicate them with any degree of fulness and accuracy of detail. While it is true that the ancient writers have bequeathed to us records of historic events from the very founding of their nation, the... more...

CHAPTER I. A Tidy City—A Sacred Corpse—Remarkable Features of Puerto—A Calesa—Lady Blanche's Castle—A Typical English Engineer—British Enterprise—"Success to the Cadiz Waterworks!"—Visit to a Bodega—Wine and Women—The Coming Man—A Strike. Puerto de Santa Maria has the name of being the neatest and tidiest city in Spain, and neatness and tidiness are such dear homely... more...

Chapter One A Horse in Need He came into the town as a solid, swiftly moving dust cloud. The wind from behind had kept the dust moving forward at a pace just equal to the gallop of his horse. Not until he had brought his mount to a halt in front of the hotel and swung down to the ground did either he or his horse become distinctly visible. Then it was seen that the animal was in the last stages of... more...

INTRODUCTORY. It is upon this occasion my rare and happy privilege to introduce the reader to something absolutely new. How many English-speaking tourists have found their way to the Roof of France—in other words, the ancient Gévaudan, the romantic department of the Lozère? How many English—or for the matter of that French travellers either—have so much as heard of the Causses, [Footnote: From... more...

CHAPTER I Between the smoke-darkened walls of the mountain cabin still murmured the last echoes of the pistol's bellowing, and it seemed a voice of everlasting duration to the shock-sickened nerves of those within. First it had thundered with the deafening exaggeration of confined space, then its echo had beaten against the clay-chink wall timbers and rolled upward to the rafters. Now, dwindled to... more...

Chapter ION THE ROADIn the eventful year, 1815, I was exactly three-and-twenty, and had just succeeded to a very large sum in consols and other securities. The first fall of Napoleon had thrown the continent open to English excursionists, anxious, let us suppose, to improve their minds by foreign travel; and I—the slight check of the "hundred days" removed, by the genius of Wellington, on the... more...

ROOM NUMBER 3 I "What door is that? You've opened all the others; why do you pass that one by?" "Oh, that! That's only Number 3. A mere closet, gentlemen," responded the landlord in a pleasant voice. "To be sure, we sometimes use it as a sleeping-room when we are hard pushed. Jake, the clerk you saw below, used it last night. But it's not on our regular list. Do you... more...

INTRODUCTION Birth and Education. Of the life of Thomas Lodge comparatively little is definitely known. Yet, though even the year of his birth is uncertain, we are able from the meager facts that have come down to us to see that his life was typically Elizabethan. Like Sidney and like Raleigh, Lodge lived a varied and active life. He was born in either 1557 or 1558 of a rather prominent middle-class... more...

CHAPTER I A TELEGRAM FROM PAUL STODDARD Up, up, my heart! Up, up, my heart,This day was made for thee!For soon the hawthorn spray shall part,And thou a face shalt seeThat comes, O heart, O foolish heart,This way to gladden thee.—H. C. Bunner. Stoddard's telegram was brought to me on the Glenarm pier at four o'clock Tuesday afternoon, the fifth of June. I am thus explicit, for all the... more...