Classics Books

GRANDMOTHER'S CHAIR. Grandmother sits in her easy chairSoftly humming some old-time air;And as she sings, her needles keep paceWith the smiles that flit o'er her wrinkled face;While the fire-light flickers, and fades away,And comes again like the breaking day. From morning till evening she knits and sings,While ever the pendulum tireless swingsThe moments around, with its tick and stroke,Nor... more...

FULTON’S“STEAM BATTERY”:BLOCKSHIP and CATAMARAN Robert Fulton’s “Steam Battery,” a catamaran-type blockship, was built during the War of 1812. Until recently, not enough material has been available to permit a reasonably accurate reconstruction of what is generally acknowledged to be the first steam man-of-war. With the discovery, in the Danish Royal Archives at Copenhagen, of plans of this... more...

Elements of colonial slavery.—By the middle of the seventeenth century, the settlements made in America by the English, Dutch, and Swedes were arranged for the most part in a line of little colonies closely following the Atlantic coast. To the west, wide forests and plains, broken only by the paths of the Indian, stretched on to the Pacific; while long intervals of unpopulated country separated... more...

THE SHUNAMITE.It was a sultry day of summer time.The sun pour'd down upon the ripen'd grainWith quivering heat, and the suspended leavesHung motionless. The cattle on the hillsStood still, and the divided flock were allLaying their nostrils to the cooling roots,And the sky look'd like silver, and it seem'dAs if the air had fainted, and the pulseOf nature had run down, and... more...

INTRODUCTION In 1925 Fairfax County was still predominantly rural in character. Farmers occupied over half of the county's land, living on individual holdings which averaged 62.5 acres. Nearly 85% of these farmers were white and of this group only 15% did not own their own farm. They shared their domain with 3,605 horses, 11,636 head of cattle, 5,408 swine, 171,526 chickens and 178 mules.... more...

I THAT morning, in the little pavilion of Chantebled, on the verge of the woods, where they had now been installed for nearly a month, Mathieu was making all haste in order that he might catch the seven-o'clock train which every day conveyed him from Janville to Paris. It was already half-past six, and there were fully two thousand paces from the pavilion to Janville. Afterwards came a railway... more...

ETIQUETTE AND ITS USES. THERE are a great many people, in other respects perfectly estimable (which makes the complaint against them the more grievous) who maintain that the laws of nature are the only laws of binding force among the units which compose society. They do not assert their doctrine in so many words, but practically they avow it, and they are not slow to express their contempt for the... more...

CHAPTER I. Just where the red track of the Los Gatos road streams on and upward like the sinuous trail of a fiery rocket until it is extinguished in the blue shadows of the Coast Range, there is an embayed terrace near the summit, hedged by dwarf firs. At every bend of the heat-laden road the eye rested upon it wistfully; all along the flank of the mountain, which seemed to pant and quiver in the... more...

CHAPTER I. AN ENCOUNTER. Juarez was sleepy, very sleepy. He had been traveling on a railroad train for several days, and while ordinarily he could adapt himself to circumstances, traveling by car instead of having a soothing influence as it does with some, seemed to keep him awake. He was thoroughly tired out, and was standing, just now, when our story opens, on dark and lonesome dock in San Francisco.... more...

SECTION I. PRINCIPLES OF ART. 1. Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection; but why we receive pleasure from some forms and colours, and not from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood. 2. The temper by which right taste is... more...