Classics Books

CHAPTER IAN EVENT IN MR. SKELLORN'S LIFE I The Lessways household, consisting of Hilda and her widowed mother, was temporarily without a servant. Hilda hated domestic work, and because she hated it she often did it passionately and thoroughly. That afternoon, as she emerged from the kitchen, her dark, defiant face was full of grim satisfaction in the fact that she had left a kitchen polished and... more...

PREFACE Each man born into the world is born like Shelton in this book—to go a journey, and for the most part he is born on the high road. At first he sits there in the dust, with his little chubby hands reaching at nothing, and his little solemn eyes staring into space. As soon as he can toddle, he moves, by the queer instinct we call the love of life, straight along this road, looking neither to... more...

Ladies and Gentlemen:—It so happened that the first speech—the very first public speech I ever made—took occasion to defend the memory of Thomas Paine. I did it because I had read a little something of the history of my country. I did it because I felt indebted to him for the liberty I then enjoyed—and whatever religion may be true, ingratitude is the blackest of crimes. And whether there is... more...

I A CAMERA CRIME "Camera!" Kennedy and I had been hastily summoned from his laboratory in the city by District-Attorney Mackay, and now stood in the luxurious, ornate library in the country home of Emery Phelps, the banker, at Tarrytown. "Camera!—you know the call when the director is ready to shoot a scene of a picture?—well—at the moment it was given and the first and second camera... more...

PROEM In a shaft on the Gravel Pits, a man had been buried alive. At work in a deep wet hole, he had recklessly omitted to slab the walls of a drive; uprights and tailors yielded under the lateral pressure, and the rotten earth collapsed, bringing down the roof in its train. The digger fell forward on his face, his ribs jammed across his pick, his arms pinned to his sides, nose and mouth pressed into... more...

CHAPTER I. WAITING AND WATCHING. The sea lay calm and still under a cloudless sky. The tide was out, and there was only a faint murmur like the whisper of gentle voices, as the little waves told to the sands that they were coming back soon, for the tide had turned. It was yet early morning, and the old town of Great Yarmouth was asleep. The fishing boats had been out all night, and were lying like so... more...

A STORY OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR FOUNDED ON FACT. The chips flew merrily under Jack Lockett's axe to the tune of his whistling, for he was chopping the night's supply of firewood, and the dark was shutting down apace on the cold January day. He had already made the horse and the cows snug in the barn, and his young appetite was sharp set for the supper which would be ready with the finish of... more...

I. SACO WATER FAR, far up, in the bosom of New Hampshire's granite hills, the Saco has its birth. As the mountain rill gathers strength it takes "Through Bartlett's vales its tuneful way,Or hides in Conway's fragrant brakes,Retreating from the glare of day." Now it leaves the mountains and flows through "green Fryeburg's woods and farms." In the course of its... more...

I. LOVE AND SENTIMENT ~Love Laughs.~ "Love laughs at locksmiths," laughs ho! ho!Still Thisbe steals to meet a beau,  Naught recks of bolt and bar and night,  And father's frown and word despite.As in the days of long ago,In southern heat and northern snowStill twangs the archer's potent bow,  And as his flying arrows smite,    Love laughs. Trinity Tablet. ~Where Cupid... more...

“Where I come in.” “White dogs!” “Ha! Calves of Matyana, the least of the Great One’s cattle.” “Pups of Tyingoza, the white man’s dog! Au!” “Sweepings of the Abe Sutu!” “Amakafula!” (Kafirs.) Such were but few of the opprobrious phrases, rolled forth alternately, in the clear sonorous Zulu, from alternate sides of the river, which flowed laughing and bubbling on in the... more...