Classics Books

WISDOM IN THE WOODS. I had seen and heard little of Hartman since our college days. There he was counted a youth of eminent promise: after that I knew that he had traveled, written something or other, and practised law—or professed it, and not too eagerly: then he had disappeared. Last May I stumbled on him in a secluded region where I had gone to fish and rest, after a year of too close attention to... more...

CHAPTER I WHAT CAN HAVE BECOME OF HIM?Wewere all at tea in the nursery. All except him. The door burst open and James put his head in.'If you please, Mrs. Brough,' he began,—'Mrs. Brough' is the servants' name for nurse. Mamma calls her 'Brough' sometimes, but we always call her 'nurse,' of course,—'If you please, Mrs. Brough, is Master Peterkin... more...

PREFACE. The purpose held in view by those who place the study of Milton in high school English courses is twofold: first, that youth may seasonably become acquainted with a portion of our great classic poetry; and, secondly, that they may in this poetry encounter and learn to conquer difficulties more serious than those they have met in the literature they have hitherto read. It is for the teacher to... more...

Chapter I Miriam sat in her lowly cabin, painfully rocking her body to and fro; for a great sorrow had fallen upon her life. She had been the mother of three children, two had died in their infancy, and now her last, her loved and only child was gone, but not like the rest, who had passed away almost as soon as their little feet had touched the threshold of existence. She had been entangled in the... more...

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.What was he doing, the great god Pan,Down in the reeds by the river?Spreading ruin and scattering ban,Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,And breaking the golden lilies afloatWith the dragon-fly on the river.He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,From the deep cool bed of the river:The limpid water turbidly ran,And the broken lilies a-dying lay,And the dragon-fly had fled... more...

CHAPTER I Above Youlestone village, overlooking the valley and the river, and the square-towered church, stood Barracombe House, backed by Barracombe Woods, and owned by Sir Timothy Crewys, of Barracombe. From the terrace before his windows Sir Timothy could take a bird's-eye view of his own property, up the river and down the river; while he also had the felicity of beholding the estate of his... more...

They had fled almost to the sheer ambient face of the crater wall when the Falakian girl touched Farrell's arm and pointed back through the scented, pearly mists. "Someone," she said. Her voice stumbled over the almost forgotten Terran word, but its sound was music. "No matter," Farrell answered. "They're too late now." He pushed on, happily certain in his warm... more...

INTRODUCTION. From the remote period; when the Roman province was contracted by the ramparts of Severus, until the union of the kingdoms, the borders of Scotland formed the stage, upon which were presented the most memorable conflicts of two gallant nations. The inhabitants, at the commencement of this aera, formed the first wave of the torrent which assaulted, and finally overwhelmed, the barriers of... more...

LESLY'S MARCH. "But, O my country! how shall memory trace"Thy glories, lost in either Charles's days,"When through thy fields destructive rapine spread,"Nor sparing infants' tears, nor hoary head!"In those dread days, the unprotected swain"Mourn'd, in the mountains, o'er his wasted plain;"Nor longer vocal, with the shepherd's lay,"Were... more...

INTRODUCTION Alphonse Daudet was born at Nîmes on May 13, 1840.  The Daudets were of lowly origin.  Alphonse’s grandfather, a simple peasant, had in 1789 settled at Nîmes as a weaver.  His business prospered so much that he died leaving a small fortune; Vincent Daudet, his fourth son, and a young man of great ambition, was determined to rise out of the class in which he was born and acquire for... more...