Classics Books

CHAPTER I. CHARACTERS. Mrs. Stanhope, a well-bred woman, accomplished in that branch of knowledge which is called the art of rising in the world, had, with but a small fortune, contrived to live in the highest company. She prided herself upon having established half a dozen nieces most happily, that is to say, upon having married them to men of fortunes far superior to their own. One niece still... more...

CHAPTER I. "I think, more than anything else, I came to be under blue sky." "Are you fond of sky?" said the young girl who was sitting near the speaker, her eyes on the shimmering water of the lagoon which stretched north and south before the house. "I can't lay claim to tastes especially celestial, I fear," answered the visitor, "but I confess to a liking for an... more...

"After us, the deluge!" said Louis XV of France. He died in 1774, and the remaining quarter of the eighteenth century witnessed social changes the most radical, the most widespread which had convulsed civilization since the fall of Rome. "As soon as our peasants seek education," said Catharine II of Russia to one of her ministers, "neither you nor I will retain our places."... more...

LESSON I. FIVE-FINGERED JACK. What fun it is down by the sea at low tide! Scrambling among the slippery rocks, we quickly fill a bucket with curious things. Some are dead, others very much alive; but all have a story to tell us--the story of the life they lead on the bed of the sea, or among the sands and rocks of the shore. Look, here is a Starfish! It is lying on the sand, left high and dry by the... more...

CHAPTER I. The Valley. In one of father La Fontaine's books, may be found a description of a lovely valley, the residence of a beautiful and modest maiden, and of the heroine of this Arcadia he writes: "There stands our heroine, as lovely as the valley, her home, and as virtuous and good as her mother, who has devoted a lifetime to the education of her daughter." But with the history of... more...

CHAPTER I. “Hier [1771] fand sich eine zusammenhängende Ofenreihe, wo Steinkohlen abgeschwefelt und zum Gebrauch bei Eisenwerken tauglich gemacht werden sollten; allein zu gleicher Zeit wollte man Oel und Harz auch zu Gute machen, ja sogar den Russ nicht missen, und so unterlag den vielfachen Absichten alles zusammen.”—Goethe, Wahrheit und Dichtung, Book X. To get at the origin of the familiar... more...

CHAPTER I Which is Not a Chapter at All It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history. Perhaps I should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I shouldn't. He has gotten me out of a difficulty—or into one; I am far from certain which. Ordinarily—I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling romances, which is, or was, my trade—I swear I never have called it a... more...

THE LANDING. If any one had been watching the bay that August night (which, fortunately for us, there was not), they would have seen up till an hour after midnight as lonely and peaceful a scene as if it had been some inlet in Greenland. The war might have been waging on another planet. The segment of a waning moon was just rising, but the sky was covered with clouds, except right overhead where a bevy... more...

Gottfried Keller, the greatest German narrative writer of recent times, was born in a suburb of Zurich on 19th July, 1819. The life of this remarkable man suggests comparisons with novels of development, such as Goethe taught him to write: from the romantic confusion of youthful dilettantism he brought himself, by strict self-discipline, to take his place in everyday social life. Left, together with... more...

CHAPTER I Their Large Hours It was three o'clock in the morning when the guests danced Sir Roger de Coverley at Mrs. William Day's New Year's party. They would as soon have thought of having supper without trifle, tipsy-cake, and syllabub, in those days, as of finishing the evening without Sir Roger. Dancing had begun at seven-thirty. The lady at the piano was drooping with weariness.... more...