Classics Books

There is no country where there are so many people asking what is "proper to do," or, indeed, where there are so many genuinely anxious to do the proper thing, as in the vast conglomerate which we call the United States of America. The newness of our country is perpetually renewed by the sudden making of fortunes, and by the absence of a hereditary, reigning set. There is no aristocracy here... more...

I. Of English blood, of Tuscan birth, What country should we give her? Instead of any on the earth, The civic Heavens receive her. II. And here among the English tombs In Tuscan ground we lay her, While the blue Tuscan sky endomes Our English words of prayer. III. A little child!—how long she lived, By months, not years, is reckoned: Born in one July, she survived Alone to see a second. IV.... more...

CHAPTER I THE BREAKING OF THE ROAD It was the Road which caused the trouble. It usually is the road. That and a reigning prince who was declared by his uncle secretly to have sold his country to the British, and a half-crazed priest from out beyond the borders of Afghanistan, who sat on a slab of stone by the river-bank and preached a djehad. But above all it was the road—Linforth's road. It... more...

CHAPTER I.   "With fearless pride I say  That she is healthful, fleet, and strong  And down the rocks will leap along,  Like rivulets in May." WORDSWORTH. Along a beautiful Devonshire lane, with banks of rock overhung by tall bowery hedges, rode a lively and merry pair, now laughing and talking, now summoning by call or whistle the spaniel that ran by their side, or careered through the... more...

PART I THE POLITICAL OBJECTIVE The proper understanding of a battle and of its historical significance is only possible in connection with the campaign of which it forms a part; and the campaign can only be understood when we know the political object which it was designed to serve. A battle is no more than an incident in a campaign. However decisive in its immediate result upon the field, its value to... more...

THE career of Olive Fremstad has entailed continuous struggle: a struggle in the beginning with poverty, a struggle with a refractory voice, and a struggle with her own overpowering and dominating temperament. Ambition has steered her course. After she had made a notable name for herself through her interpretations of contralto rôles, she determined to sing soprano parts, and did so, largely by an... more...

But besides this, it was well known that the current grammarians, and the critical philologists, had long ceased to write alike upon the English, or indeed upon any other, language. For this reason the sphere of the work became enlarged; so that, on many occasions, general principles had to be enounced, fresh terms to be defined, and old classifications to be remodelled. This introduced extraneous... more...

There are two worlds in the minds of men: the one is artificial, selfish, and personal, the other is real and universal; the one is limited, material, essentially of the earth, the other supposes a kind of larger cosmopolitanism, and has no geographical limits at all; it is as wide as humanity itself, and only bounded by the capacity for experience, insight, and sympathy in the mind and heart of man. A... more...

CHAPTER I THE COMING OF THE LODGER Bang! Even Bindle was startled by the emphasis with which Mrs. Bindle placed upon the supper-table a large pie-dish containing a savoury-smelling stew. "Anythink wrong?" he enquired solicitously, gazing at Mrs. Bindle over the top of the evening paper. "Wrong!" she cried. "Is there anything right?" "Well, there's beer, an' Beatty,... more...

THE GIANT OF BERNAND ORM UNGERSWAYNE It was the lofty Jutt of Bern   O’er all the walls he grew;He was mad and ne’er at rest,   To tame him no one knew. He was mad and ne’er at rest,   No lord could hold him in;If he had long in Denmark stayed   Much damage there had been. It was the lofty Jutt of Bern   Bound to his side his glaive,And away to the monarch’s house he rode   With the... more...