Classics Books

CHAPTER I. Carefully locking the door of his little gable bedroom, Alec Stoker put down the cup of hot water he carried, and peered into the mirror above his wash-stand. Then, although he had come up-stairs fully determined to attempt his first shave, he stood irresolute, stroking the almost imperceptible down on his boyish lip and chin. "It does make me look older, that's a fact," he... more...

"What Think Ye, Masters, of These Things?" (A Poem read on Oklahoma Day, September 6, 1904, at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.)O, ye who frame the sovereign law,And heal the hurts of ocean islesTill hid are savage tooth and clawAnd Peace above the battle smiles,—If Justice reigns and Mercy clings,What think ye, Masters, of these things?The Father of the Waters greetsImperial sisters proud... more...

I AN IDYL OF THE IDYL In Which a Young Man Arrives at His Last Ditch and a Young Girl Jumps Over It Utterly unequipped for anything except to ornament his environment, the crash in Steel stunned him. Dazed but polite, he remained a passive observer of the sale which followed and which apparently realized sufficient to satisfy every creditor, but not enough for an income to continue a harmlessly idle... more...

"There's the island, Parker!" Retch called. Bill Parker shifted the controls of the 'copter and the big craft swung in the direction Retch was pointing. Squinting his eyes against the sun glare rising from the Pacific, Parker clearly saw the island. It was miles away as yet but it swam like a mirage suspended just above the surface of the sea. The island was not large—Parker guessed... more...

I. MR. BLACKLOCK When Napoleon was about to crown himself—so I have somewhere read—they submitted to him the royal genealogy they had faked up for him. He crumpled the parchment and flung it in the face of the chief herald, or whoever it was. "My line," said he, "dates from Montenotte." And so I say, my line dates from the campaign that completed and established my fame—from... more...

CHAPTER I For forty-eight hours the snow-storm had been raging unabated over New York. After a wild and windy Thursday night the world had awakened to a mysterious whirl of white on Friday morning, and to a dark, strange day of steady snowing. Now, on Saturday, dirty snow was banked and heaped in great blocks everywhere, and still the clean, new flakes fluttered and twirled softly down, powdering and... more...

JOHN MARR AND OTHER SAILORS Since as in night's deck-watch ye show,Why, lads, so silent here to me,Your watchmate of times long ago?Once, for all the darkling sea,You your voices raised how clearly,Striking in when tempest sung;Hoisting up the storm-sail cheerly, Life is storm—let storm! you rung.Taking things as fated merely,Childlike though the world ye spanned;Nor holding unto life too... more...

INTRODUCTION. The Ion is the shortest, or nearly the shortest, of all the writings which bear the name of Plato, and is not authenticated by any early external testimony. The grace and beauty of this little work supply the only, and perhaps a sufficient, proof of its genuineness. The plan is simple; the dramatic interest consists entirely in the contrast between the irony of Socrates and the... more...

THE POETRY OF MADISON CAWEIN When a poet begins writing, and we begin liking his work, we own willingly enough that we have not, and cannot have, got the compass of his talent. We must wait till he has written more, and we have learned to like him more, and even then we should hesitate his definition, from all that he has done, if we did not very commonly qualify ourselves from the latest thing he has... more...

PREFACE The Admirable Bashville is a product of the British law of copyright. As that law stands at present, the first person who patches up a stage version of a novel, however worthless and absurd that version may be, and has it read by himself and a few confederates to another confederate who has paid for admission in a hall licensed for theatrical performances, secures the stage rights of that... more...