Classics Books

I had been out of Germany for thirty-five years, drawn hither and thither by various glittering of will-of-the-wisps. When I returned to my native country, I was as poor in pocket as when I left, and much poorer in illusions. The Berlin insurance company which I had represented with such mediocre success in Switzerland, Austria and Belgium agreed to let me sell for them at home, and by a curious... more...

CHAPTER I It was sunrise on the Colorado desert. As the advance guard of dawn emerged from behind the serrated peaks to the east and paused on their snow-encrusted summits before charging down the slopes into the open desert to rout the lingering shadows of the night, a coyote came out of his den in the tumbled malpais at the foot of the range, pointed his nose skyward and voiced his matutinal salute... more...

IN WHICH I ARRIVE IN NEW YORK The rain was falling in great gray blobs upon the skylight of the little room in which I opened my eyes on that February morning whence dates the chronological beginning of this autobiography. The jangle of a bell had awakened me, and its harsh, discordant echoes were still trembling upon the chill gloom of the daybreak. Lying there, I wondered whether I had really heard a... more...

CHAPTER I THE VOICE OF THE WILDERNESS "It's always the way, Wallace! When a fellow starts on the long trail, he's never willing to quit. It'll be the same with you if you go with me to Labrador. When you come home, you'll hear the voice of the wilderness calling you to return, and it will lure you back again." It seems but yesterday that Hubbard uttered those prophetic words... more...

CHAPTER I. Charming Billy Has a Visitor. The wind, rising again as the sun went down, mourned lonesomely at the northwest corner of the cabin, as if it felt the desolateness of the barren, icy hills and the black hollows between, and of the angry red sky with its purple shadows lowering over the unhappy land—and would make fickle friendship with some human thing. Charming Billy, hearing the crooning... more...

Chapter I"If to her share some female errors fall,Look on her face—and you'll forget them all." [Footnote 1: Ao-Tea-Roa, the Maori name of New Zealand.] Though one of the parts of the earth best fitted for man, New Zealand was probably about the last of such lands occupied by the human race. The first European to find it was a Dutch sea-captain who was looking for something else, and who... more...

THE OLD-FASHIONED LOOMThe old log house where Margaret lived, whose roof had mossy grown,Reposed amid its clump of trees, a queen upon her throne.The landscape round smiled proudly and the flowers shed sweet perfume,When Margaret plied the shuttle of the rude old-fashioned loom.The world has grown fastidious—demands things ever new—But we could once see beauties in the rainbow's every hue;The... more...

THE SKY CUBE The doctor, who was easily the most musical of the four men, sang in a cheerful baritone: "The owl and the pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful, pea-green boat." The geologist, who had held down the lower end of a quartet in his university days, growled an accompaniment under his breath as he blithely peeled the potatoes. Occasionally a high-pitched note or two came from the... more...

THE EXODUS In the Calle Las Gabias—one of those by-streets of Lisbon below St.Catherine—there occurred one New Year a little event in theSynagogue there worth a mention in this history of Richard, Lord ofthe Sea. It was Kol Nidrè, eve of the Day of Atonement, and the little Beth- El, sweltering in a dingy air, was transacting the long-drawn liturgy, when, behind the curtain where the women sat, an... more...

THE ideal is the essence of poetry. In the virginal innocence of the world, poetry was a term that meant discourse of the gods. A world grown grey has learned to regard the gods as diseases of language. Conceived, it may be, in fevers of fancy, perhaps, originally, they were but deified words. Yet, it is as children of beauty and of dream that they remain. "Mortal has made the immortal," the... more...