Classics Books

PREFACE Early in the last century the hardy wood-choppers began to come west, out of Vermont. They founded their homes in the Adirondack wildernesses and cleared their rough acres with the axe and the charcoal pit. After years of toil in a rigorous climate they left their sons little besides a stumpy farm and a coon-skin overcoat. Far from the centres of life their amusements, their humours, their... more...

Out of Paradise f I must tell more tales of Raffles, I can but go back to our earliest days together, and fill in the blanks left by discretion in existing annals. In so doing I may indeed fill some small part of an infinitely greater blank, across which you may conceive me to have stretched my canvas for the first frank portrait of my friend. The whole truth cannot harm him now. I shall paint in every... more...

CANTO I. The Trystyng.One winter night, at half-past nine,Cold, tired, and cross, and muddy,I had come home, too late to dine,And supper, with cigars and wine,Was waiting in the study. There was a strangeness in the room,And Something white and wavyWas standing near me in the gloom— Itook it for the carpet-broomLeft by that careless slavey.   But presently the Thing beganTo shiver and to sneeze:On... more...

MILTON'S TERCENTENARY It is right that this anniversary should be kept in all English-speaking lands. Milton is as far away from us in time as Dante was from him; destructive criticism has been busy with his great poem; formidable rivals of his fame have arisen—Dryden and Pope, Wordsworth and Byron, Tennyson and Browning, not to speak of lesser names—poets whom we read perhaps oftener... more...

Introduction. i. St. Paul's great Epistle to the Romans was written, as may be quite confidently asserted, from Corinth, during the second visit to Greece recorded in the Acts[], i.e. in the beginning of the year commonly reckoned 58, but perhaps more correctly 56 A.D.—the year following the writing of the Epistles to the Corinthians. The reasons for this confident statement, and indeed for all... more...

INTRODUCTION In one sense this book stands by itself. It is like nothing else I have written, and if one should seek to give it the name of a class, it might be called an historical fantasy. It followed The Trail of the Sword and preceded The Seats of the Mighty, and appeared in the summer of 1895. The critics gave it a reception which was extremely gratifying, because, as it seemed to me, they... more...

PART I Suzanne Church almost never had to bother with the blue blazer these days. Back at the height of the dot-boom, she’d put on her business journalist drag—blazer, blue sailcloth shirt, khaki trousers, loafers—just about every day, putting in her obligatory appearances at splashy press-conferences for high-flying IPOs and mergers. These days, it was mostly work at home or one day a... more...

SECTION I. PRINCIPLES OF ART. 1. Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection; but why we receive pleasure from some forms and colours, and not from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood. 2. The temper by which right taste is... more...

BROKEN “The expected has happened, I see,” said Macloud, laying aside the paper he had been reading, and raising his hand for a servant. “I thought it was the unexpected that happens,” Hungerford drawled, languidly. “What do you mean?” “Royster & Axtell have been thrown into bankruptcy. Liabilities of twenty million, assets problematical.” “You don’t say!” ejaculated... more...

CHAPTER I CARTWRIGHT MEDDLES Dinner was over, and Cartwright occupied a chair on the lawn in front of the Canadian summer hotel. Automatic sprinklers threw sparkling showers across the rough, parched grass, the lake shimmered, smooth as oil, in the sunset, and a sweet, resinous smell drifted from the pines that rolled down to the water's edge. The straight trunks stood out against a background of... more...