Classics Books

CHAPTER ONE When he stepped off the straight and narrow path of his peculiar honesty, it was with an inward assertion of unflinching resolve to fall back again into the monotonous but safe stride of virtue as soon as his little excursion into the wayside quagmires had produced the desired effect. It was going to be a short episode—a sentence in brackets, so to speak—in the flowing tale of his life:... more...

LIFE OF ALEXANDER POPE Alexander Pope was born in Lombard Street, London, on the 21st of May 1688—the year of the Revolution. His father was a linen-merchant, in thriving circumstances, and said to have noble blood in his veins. His mother was Edith or Editha Turner, daughter of William Turner, Esq., of York. Mr Carruthers, in his excellent Life of the Poet, mentions that there was an Alexander Pope,... more...

CHAPTER FIRST. Isab.—Alas! what poor ability's in meTo do him good?Lucio.—Assay the power you have.Measure for Measure. When Mrs. Saddletree entered the apartment in which her guests had shrouded their misery, she found the window darkened. The feebleness which followed his long swoon had rendered it necessary to lay the old man in bed. The curtains were drawn around him, and Jeanie sate... more...

PROLOGUE     Thursday 8:40 a.m.   G-load is now eight point five. Pilot must acknowledge for power-up sequence to continue. The cockpit computer was speaking in a simulated female voice, Russian with the Moscow accent heard on the evening TV newscast Vremya. The Soviet technicians all called her Petra, after that program's famous co-anchor. Yuri Andreevich Androv didn't need to be told the... more...

HOW WE FARED IN THE SUEZ DESERT. T he welcome cry of "Suez! Suez!" resounded throughout the steamship Bentinck one November morning. The passage up the Red Sea had been rough, and every one was glad to exchange the rolling and pitching of the vessel for land travelling. The railway between Cairo and Suez was not yet finished, and travellers crossed the desert in vans, each of which held six... more...

PART 1. A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,And the young winds fed it with silver dew,And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.And closed them beneath the kisses of Night. And the Spring arose on the garden fair, _5Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breastRose from the dreams of its wintry rest. But none ever trembled and panted with blissIn the... more...

Chapter I. TOBY'S INTRODUCTION TO THE CIRCUS. "Couldn't you give more'n six pea-nuts for a cent?" was a question asked by a very small boy, with big, staring eyes, of a candy vender at a circus booth. And as he spoke he looked wistfully at the quantity of nuts piled high up on the basket, and then at the six, each of which now looked so small as he held them in his hand.... more...

CHAPTER I. THE EARLY HISTORY OF LADY LOVEL.  Women have often been hardly used by men, but perhaps no harder usage, no fiercer cruelty was ever experienced by a woman than that which fell to the lot of Josephine Murray from the hands of Earl Lovel, to whom she was married in the parish church of Applethwaite,—a parish without a village, lying among the mountains of Cumberland,—on the 1st of June,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE NAMELESS BAY In the noon of a September day in the year of our dear Lord 1395, a merchant vessel nodded sleepily upon the gentle swells of warm water flowing in upon the Syrian coast. A modern seafarer, looking from the deck of one of the Messagerie steamers now plying the same line of trade, would regard her curiously, thankful to the calm which held her while he slaked his wonder, yet... more...

PREFACE. An endeavour has been made in this handbook, as far as space and scantiness of material would permit, to trace the history of the development of wooden ships from the earliest times down to our own. Unfortunately, the task has been exceedingly difficult; for the annals of shipbuilding have been very badly kept down to a quite recent period, and the statements made by old writers concerning... more...