Classics Books

HENRY DAVID THOREAU was the last male descendant of a French ancestor who came to this country from the Isle of Guernsey. His character exhibited occasional traits drawn from this blood in singular combination with a very strong Saxon genius. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 12th of July, 1817. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1837, but without any literary distinction. An iconoclast... more...

I.On the cold and dark Atlantic,The night was growing lateSteamed the maiden ship TitanicCrowded with human freightShe was valued at Ten Million,The grandest ever roamed the seas,Fitted complete to swim the oceanWhen the rolling billows freeze.She bade farewell to EnglandAll dressed in robes of whiteGoing out to plow the briny deep,And was on her western flight;She was now so swiftly glidingIn L Fifty... more...

nswerer was built to last as long as was necessary—which was quite long, as some races judge time, and not long at all, according to others. But to Answerer, it was just long enough. As to size, Answerer was large to some and small to others. He could be viewed as complex, although some believed that he was really very simple. Answerer knew that he was as he should be. Above and beyond all else, he... more...

Chapter 1: Sixties' stories: Free Goa's first elections By Ben AntaoBesides his stint referred to in this chapter, Benedito Martinho Herculano Antao (b, 1935) worked for the Indian Express in Bombay (1965-66). He then won a journalism award from the World Press Institute, moved to the US for a year's study, work and travel. Later, he spent 10 weeks at the Denver Post (1967), worked for a... more...

ACT I _The Wood-cutter's Cottage The stage represents the interior of a wood-cutter's cottage, simple and rustic in appearance, but in no way poverty-stricken. A recessed fireplace containing the dying embers of a wood-fire. Kitchen utensils, a cupboard, a bread-pan, a grandfather's clock, a spinning-wheel, a water-tap, etc. On a table, a lighted lamp. At the foot of the cupboard, on... more...

A few pages by way of "Forespeache." The plain unvarnished tale of the travel in Midian, undertaken by the second Expedition, which, like the first, owes all to the liberality and the foresight of his Highness Ismail I., Khediv of Egypt, forms the subject of these volumes. During the four months between December 19, 1877, and April 20, 1878, the officers employed covered some 2500 miles by sea... more...

INTRODUCTION. The Metamorphoses of Ovid are a compendium of the Mythological narratives of ancient Greece and Rome, so ingeniously framed, as to embrace a large amount of information upon almost every subject connected with the learning, traditions, manners, and customs of antiquity, and have afforded a fertile field of investigation to the learned of the civilized world. To present to the public a... more...

CHAPTER 1 The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for... more...

Chapter One. The Secret of Verloren Vlei. It was not until my second season’s hunting with Koenraad du Plessis that I heard of Verloren Vlei, a place I am never likely to forget. Du Plessis was a Transvaal Boer, descended, as his name implies, from that good Huguenot stock which, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, made its way to the Cape to replenish the Dutch settlers. The French language... more...

CHAPTER I. THE PROLOGUE. “And these are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt.” Many books of the Old Testament begin with the conjunction And. This fact, it has been often pointed out, is a silent indication of truth, that each author was not recording certain isolated incidents, but parts of one great drama, events which joined hands with the past and future, looking before... more...