Classics Books

INTRODUCTION One of the most remarkable facts about Ibsen is the orderly development of his genius. He himself repeatedly maintained that his dramas were not mere isolated accidents. In the foreword to the readers in the popular edition of 1898 he urges the public to read his dramas in the same order in which he had written them, deplores the fact that his earlier works are less known and less... more...

THE HIRED CAR Derby Day fell that year on the first Wednesday in June. By a whim of the British climate, the weather was fine; in fact, no rain had fallen on southern England since the previous Sunday. Wise after the event, the newspapers published cheerful “forecasts,” and certain daring “experts” discussed the probabilities of a heat wave. So London, on that bright Wednesday morning, was agog... more...

I It was, probably, Lee Randon realized, the last time he would play golf that year. He concluded this standing on a shorn hill about which the country was spread in sere diminishing tones to the grey horizon. Below, a stream held a cold glimmer in a meadow of brown, frost-killed grass; and the wind, the bitter flaws where Lee stood, was thinly scattered with soft crystals of snow. He was alone, no one... more...

CUCHULAIN AND HIS CYCLE The Church when it was most powerful taught learned and unlearned to climb, as it were, to the great moral realities through hierarchies of Cherubim and Seraphim, through clouds of Saints and Angels who had all their precise duties and privileges. The story-tellers of Ireland, perhaps of every primitive country, imagined as fine a fellowship, only it was to the æsthetic... more...

THERE was once an aged king who had an only son. One day he called the prince to him and said: “My dear son, you know that ripe fruit falls in order to make room for other fruit. This my old head is like ripe fruit and soon the sun will no longer shine upon it. Now before I die I should like to see you happily married. Get you a wife, my son.” “I would, my father, that I could please you in... more...

CHAPTER IREADY FOR BUSINESS When the “Big Boss” at Secret Service Headquarters in Washington sent Jack Ralston and his pal, Gabe Perkiser, to Florida with orders to comb the entire Gulf Coast from the Ten Thousand Islands as far north as Pensacola and break up the defiant league of smugglers, great and small, that had for so long been playing a game of hide-and-seek with the Coast Guard revenue... more...

THE CYNIC'SRULES OF CONDUCT o to the Aunt, thou sluggard, and offer her ten off on your legacy for spot cash. he difference between a bad break and a faux pas indicates the kind of society you are in. hen alone in Paris behave as if all the world were your mother-in-law. emember, too, that perhaps you are not the sort of husband that Father used to make. ou may refer to her cheeks as roses, but... more...

CHAPTER I A WASP IN THE SCHOOLROOM One bright May morning, Madge, Betty, and John were a little more inattentive than usual over their lessons. Miss Thompson was very patient. She knew that warm spring days were full of distracting interests. The first wasp of the season managed to get into the schoolroom and buzz ostentatiously on the window-pane in the middle of a history lesson. There was a long... more...

CHAPTER I HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S SERVICE "There was a mysterious affair last night, signore." "Oh!" I exclaimed. "Anything that interests us?" "Yes, signore," replied the tall, thin Italian Consular-clerk, speaking with a strong accent. "An English steam yacht ran aground on the Meloria about ten miles out, and was discovered by a fishing-boat who brought the... more...

I "Undine Spragg—how can you?" her mother wailed, raising a prematurely-wrinkled hand heavy with rings to defend the note which a languid "bell-boy" had just brought in. But her defence was as feeble as her protest, and she continued to smile on her visitor while Miss Spragg, with a turn of her quick young fingers, possessed herself of the missive and withdrew to the window to read... more...