Classics Books

POEMS By John Hay Note to Revised Edition The Publishers of this volume, desiring to print it in an improved form, have asked me to write something by way of preface or supplement to the new edition. After some deliberation I have found myself unable to comply with this request. These pages were written in the first half of the year 1870, a time of intense interest and importance, to Spain. I left... more...

CHAPTER I I, Cornelio Grandi, who tell you these things, have a story of my own, of which some of you are not ignorant. You know, for one thing, that I was not always poor, nor always a professor of philosophy, nor a scribbler of pedantic articles for a living. Many of you can remember why I was driven to sell my patrimony, the dear castello in the Sabines, with the good corn-land and the vineyards in... more...

PROLOGUE In the October of 1642 there came to Cambridge a man from over-seas. He was travelling backward, after the interval of a generation, through the stages of his youth. From his landing at the port whence he had sailed so many years before in chase of fortune he came to London, where he had bustled and thundered as a stage-player. Here he found a new drama playing in a theatre that took a capital... more...

PREFACE. The changing of the old order in country manors and mansions may be slow or sudden, may have many issues romantic or otherwise, its romantic issues being not necessarily restricted to a change back to the original order; though this admissible instance appears to have been the only romance formerly recognized by novelists as possible in the case. Whether the following production be a picture... more...

INTRODUCTION. Throughout this book, and the next, you will find passages taken from the writings of the best English authors. But the passages are not all equal, nor are they all such as we would call "the best," and the more you read and are able to judge them for yourselves, the better you will be able to see what is the difference between the best and those that are not so good. By the best... more...

CHAPTER I TREE-PLANTING Land hunger is so general that it may be regarded as a natural craving. Artificial modes of life, it is true, can destroy it, but it is apt to reassert itself in later generations. To tens of thousands of bread-winners in cities a country home is the dream of the future, the crown and reward of their life-toil. Increasing numbers are taking what would seem to be the wiser... more...

Early in the sixteenth century, reports of the progress of discovery in America began to make their way to France, and, as a natural result, to arouse emulation. For no one had the stirring tales a greater charm than for the reigning Sovereign, Francis I., whose spirit of rivalry, thirst of glory, and love of adventure, they were especially calculated to stimulate. It would have been as repugnant to... more...

CHAPTER I FAREWELL PARTY The party was about to break up. It had not been very successful. Lieutenant O'Malley had devoured only one blueberry pie. This meant he was feeling far from par. He sat sprawled in a big chair that once had belonged to a Moslem prince, his skinny legs elevated to the top of the mess table. "Sure, an' you fellows are skunks, beatin' it off to do a soft... more...

The work which we now place within the reach of every reader of the English tongue is one of the finest productions of its distinguished author. The first edition appeared in 1874. At that time the conviction of man's natural evolution was even less advanced in Germany than in England, and the work raised a storm of controversy. Theologians—forgetting the commonest facts of our individual... more...

ACT I., SCENE I. The Exchange. Enter YOUNG MASTER ARTHUR and YOUNG MASTER LUSAM. Y. ART. I tell you true, sir; but to every manI would not be so lavish of my speech:Only to you, my dear and private friend,Although my wife in every eye be heldOf beauty and of grace sufficient,Of honest birth and good behaviour,Able to win the strongest thoughts to her,Yet, in my mind, I hold her the most hatedAnd... more...