Classics Books

CHAPTER I AN EMBODIMENT OF MAY "Beyond that revolving light lies my home. And yet why should I use such a term when the best I can say is that a continent is my home? Home suggests a loved familiar nook in the great world. There is no such niche for me, nor can I recall any place around which my memory lingers with especial pleasure." In a gloomy and somewhat bitter mood, Alford Graham thus... more...

POOR DEAR MAMMA The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky, The deer to the wholesome wold, And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid, As it was in the days of old. Gypsy Song. SCENE.—Interior of Miss MINNIE THREEGAN'S Bedroom at Simla. Miss THREEGAN, in window-seat, turning over a drawerful of things. Miss EMMA DEERCOURT, bosom—friend, who has come to spend the day, sitting on the bed,... more...

REPRINTS OF EARLY BIBLES. In 1833 the authorities of the Clarendon Press put forth a quarto reprint, word for word, page for page, and letter for letter, of the first large black-letter folio edition of 1611, of the present authorised or Royal version of the Bible. So accurate was it, that even manifest errors of the press were retained. It was published that the reader might judge whether the original... more...

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A LESSON OF PATIENCE. I WAS very unhappy, from a variety of causes, definable and undefinable. My chambermaid had been cross for a week, and, by talking to my cook, had made her dissatisfied with her place. The mother of five little children, I felt that I had a weight of care and responsibility greater than I could support. I was unequal to the task. My spirits fell under its bare contemplation. Then... more...

Not So Much I evaded capture todaywith only a handful of dustto escape that Old Sandman Death. Certainly, those maroon berries,so large & luscious,crowded on their fat stemshad something to do with itas did the ground fogleaving its burrow as so many boll-weevilstheir crowded nests. And there might be something to the factthe moonlight satfat & confidant in the night skyas surelyas my head... more...

COUNCIL OF DOGS.Why aCouncilofDogswas convened on the Plain,ThePresident Sheep Dogthus rose to explain.—"This meeting I call, to complain of misusageFrom the poets, who now a days have a strange usageOf leading up Insects and Birds to Parnassus,While, without rhyme or reason, unnotic'd they pass us.—Declare then those talents by which we may claimSome pretensions, I hope, to poetical... more...

The Crucifix Across the Mountains The imperial road to Italy goes from Munich across the Tyrol, through Innsbruck and Bozen to Verona, over the mountains. Here the great processions passed as the emperors went South, or came home again from rosy Italy to their own Germany. And how much has that old imperial vanity clung to the German soul? Did not the German kings inherit the empire of bygone Rome? It... more...

CHAPTER I Every day the factory whistle bellowed forth its shrill, roaring, trembling noises into the smoke-begrimed and greasy atmosphere of the workingmen's suburb; and obedient to the summons of the power of steam, people poured out of little gray houses into the street. With somber faces they hastened forward like frightened roaches, their muscles stiff from insufficient sleep. In the chill... more...

I. As Don Ippolito passed down the long narrow calle or footway leading from the Campo San Stefano to the Grand Canal in Venice, he peered anxiously about him: now turning for a backward look up the calle, where there was no living thing in sight but a cat on a garden gate; now running a quick eye along the palace walls that rose vast on either hand and notched the slender strip of blue sky visible... more...