Classics Books

INTRODUCTION TO DON JUAN Byron was a rapid as well as a voluminous writer. His Tales were thrown off at lightning speed, and even his dramas were thought out and worked through with unhesitating energy and rapid achievement. Nevertheless, the composition of his two great poems was all but coextensive with his poetical life. He began the first canto of Childe Harold in the autumn of 1809, and he did not... more...

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AS SHE SAW IT FROM THE BELFRY 'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembersAll the achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's souls";When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the Rebel story,To you the words are ashes, but to me they're burning coals. I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April... more...

CHAPTER I THE DILIGENCE James Therne is not my real name, for why should I publish it to the world? A year or two ago it was famous—or infamous—enough, but in that time many things have happened. There has been a war, a continental revolution, two scandals of world-wide celebrity, one moral and the other financial, and, to come to events that interest me particularly as a doctor, an epidemic of... more...

PUFF AND PUSH.   It is said that everything is to be had in London. There is truth enough in the observation; indeed, rather too much. The conviction that everything is to be had, whether you are in want of it or not, is forced upon you with a persistence that becomes oppressive; and you find that, owing to everything being so abundantly plentiful, there is one thing which is not to be had, do what... more...

Captain Benjamin Church, born in Plymouth Colony of old Massachusetts, was a rousing Indian fighter. He earned his title when in 1675 the Pokanoket League of nine Indian tribes, under King Phillip the Wampanoag, took up the hatchet against the whites. Then he was called from his farm in Rhode Island Colony, to lead a company into the field. So he bade his family good-by, and set forth. He was at this... more...

THE STORY OF HAZAEL 'So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' burden, and came and stood before him, and said, Thy son Ben-hadad king of Syria hath sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease? 10. And Elisha said unto him, Go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the Lord hath shewed me that he... more...

GENTLE SISTER SOUTH WIND ARRIVES "Good news, good news for every one, above or down below,For Master Winsome Bluebird's come to whistle off the snow!" All the Green Meadows and all the Green Forest had heard the news. Peter Rabbit had seen to that. And just as soon as each of the little meadow and forest folks heard it, he hurried out to listen for himself and make sure that it was true.... more...

PREFACE This monograph on the Battle of Franklin was read first at a meeting of the Minnesota Commandery of the Loyal Legion, December 9, 1902. Written after an exhaustive investigation begun many years before, the straightforward truth was told without fear or favor. The disgraceful and costly blunder with which the Battle of Franklin opened should have been investigated by a court of inquiry. The... more...

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CHAPTER I THE ONONDAGA Tayoga, of the Clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee, advanced with utmost caution through a forest, so thick with undergrowth that it hid all objects twenty yards away. He was not armed with a rifle, but carried instead a heavy bow, while a quiver full of arrows hung over his shoulder. He wore less clothing than when he was in the... more...