Classics Books

CHAPTER I HARD YOUNG HEARTS Behind the Venetian blinds of a respectable middle-class, fifty-pound-a-year, "semi-detached," "family" house, in a respectable middle-class road of the little north-county town of Sidon, midway between the trees of wealth upon the hill, and the business quarters that ended in squalor on the bank of the broad and busy river,--a house boasting a few shabby... more...

IJIMMY SKUNK IS PUZZLEDOld Mother West Wind had just come down from the Purple Hills and turned loose her children, the Merry Little Breezes, from the big bag in which she had been carrying them. They were very lively and very merry as they danced and raced across the Green Meadows in all directions, for it was good to be back there once more. Old Mother West Wind almost sighed as she watched them for... more...

Chapter I—The Crisis They sat squarely gazing into each other's eyes. Bat Marker had only one mood to express. It was a mood that suggested determination to fight to a finish, to fight with the last ounce of strength, the last gasp of breath. He was sitting at the desk, opposite his friend and employer, Leslie Standing, and his small grey eyes were shining coldly under his shaggy, black brows.... more...

The Downfall of Wolsey Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!This is the state of man: to-day he puts forthThe tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossomsAnd bears his blushing honors thick upon him;The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surelyHis greatness is a ripening, nips his root,And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,Like little wanton... more...

I have been all my life a sort of amphibious animal, having, like many an old Roman, learned to swim long before I had learned to read. The bounding backs of the billows were my only rocking-horse when I was a child, and dearly I loved to ride them when a fresh breeze was blowing. I rarely tired in the water, where I often amused myself for hours together. I grew up with such a liking for the exercise,... more...

PROLOGUE. A Castle in Normandy. Interior of the Hall. Roofs of a City seen thro' Windows. HENRY and BECKET at chess. HENRY.So then our good Archbishop TheobaldLies dying. BECKET.I am grieved to know as much. HENRY.But we must have a mightier man than heFor his successor. BECKET.                   Have you thought of one? HENRY.A cleric lately poison'd his own mother,And... more...

OLD PORTRAITS AND MODERN SKETCHES Inscribed as follows, when first collected in book-form:—To Dr. G. BAILEY, of the National Era, Washington, D. C., thesesketches, many of which originally appeared in the columns of thepaper under his editorial supervision, are, in their present form,offered as a token of the esteem and confidence which years ofpolitical and literary communion have justified and... more...

aking his way from square to square of the big rope hairnet that served as guidelines on the outer surface of the big wheel, Mike Blackhawk completed his inspection of the gold-plated plastic hull, with its alternate dark and shiny squares. He had scanned every foot of the curved surface in this first inspection, familiarizing himself completely with that which other men had constructed from his... more...

INTRODUCTION. It has been claimed for James Barron Hope that he was "Virginia's Laureate." He did not deal in "abstractions, or generalized arguments," or vague mysticisms. He fired the imagination purely, he awoke lofty thoughts and presented, through his noble odes that which is the soul of "every true poem, a living succession of concrete images and pictures." James... more...

CHAPTER I. LE CHEF FALLS IN LOVE WITH THE HALF-BREED MAIDEN. The sun was hanging low in the clear blue over the prairie, as two riders hurried their ponies along a blind trail toward a distant range of purple hills that lay like sleepy watchers along the banks of the Red River. The beasts must have ridden far, for their flanks were white with foam, and their riders were splashed with froth and mud,... more...