Classics Books

CHAPTER I. ELMA'S STRANGER. It was late when Elma reached the station. Her pony had jibbed on the way downhill, and the train was just on the point of moving off as she hurried upon the platform. Old Matthews, the stout and chubby-cheeked station-master, seized her most unceremoniously by the left arm, and bundled her into a carriage. He had known her from a child, so he could venture upon such... more...

GOD'S FAITHFULNESS 'Know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him.'—DEUT. vii. 9. 'Faithful,' like most Hebrew words, has a picture in it. It means something that can be (1) leant on, or (2) builded on. This leads to a double signification—(1) trustworthy, and that because (2) rigidly observant of... more...

INTRODUCTION I am sitting in the doorway of a house of the Stone Age—neolithic, paleolithic, troglodytic man—with a roofless city of the dead lying in the valley below and the eagles circling with lonely cries along the yawning caverns of the cliff face above. My feet rest on the topmost step of a stone stairway worn hip-deep in the rocks of eternity by the moccasined tread of foot-prints that run... more...

CHAPTER I The old by-road went rambling down into a dell of deep green shadow. It was a reprobate of a road,—a vagrant of the land,— having long ago wandered out of straight and even courses and taken to meandering aimlessly into many ruts and furrows under arching trees, which in wet weather poured their weight of dripping rain upon it and made it little more than a mud pool. Between straggling... more...

I. THE JILTING OF JANE. As I sit writing in my study, I can hear our Jane bumping her way downstairs with a brush and dust-pan. She used in the old days to sing hymn tunes, or the British national song for the time being, to these instruments, but latterly she has been silent and even careful over her work. Time was when I prayed with fervour for such silence, and my wife with sighs for such care, but... more...

THE HERO I Colonel Parsons sat by the window in the dining-room to catch the last glimmer of the fading day, looking through his Standard to make sure that he had overlooked no part of it. Finally, with a little sigh, he folded it up, and taking off his spectacles, put them in their case. "Have you finished the paper?" asked his wife "Yes, I think I've read it all. There's nothing... more...

Some years ago, some person or other, [in fact I believe it was myself,] published a paper from the German of Kant, on a very interesting question, viz., the age of our own little Earth. Those who have never seen that paper, a class of unfortunate people whom I suspect to form rather the majority in our present perverse generation, will be likely to misconceive its object. Kant's purpose was, not... more...

CHAPTER I. Early Impressions—First Observations of Monkeys—First Efforts to Learn their Speech—Barriers—The Phonograph Used—A Visit to Jokes—My Efforts to Speak to Him—The Sound of Alarm inspires Terror. From childhood, I have believed that all kinds of animals have some mode of speech by which they could talk among their own kind, and have often wondered why man had never tried to learn... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE BEGINNING Had I a plantation of this Isle, my lord— * * * * * I' the Commonwealth I would by contrariesExecute all things; for no kind of trafficWould I admit . . . riches, povertyAnd use of service, none. SHAKESPEARE How quaint seems the demand for details of life on this Isle of Scent and Silence! Lolling in shade and quietude, was I guilty of indiscretion when I babbled of my... more...

ELLEN OF VILLENSKOV. There lies a wold in Vester Haf,   There builds a boor his hold;And thither he carries hawk and hound,   He’ll stay through winter’s cold. He takes with him both hound and cock,   He means there long to stay;The wild deer in the wood that are   For his arrival pay. He hews the oak and poplar tall,   He fells the good beech tree;Then fill’d was the laidly Trold with... more...