Classics Books

Frau Feldner, Valerie's old lady's-maid, told Elsa that her lady was in a sound sleep, as was always the case with her after a violent attack of headache, and out of which she would hardly awake before evening. Elsa, who had herself suffered from the extraordinary sultriness of the day, and from the uncomfortable conversation at dinner, and was also put out and agitated by the scene with the... more...

Breakfasts at High Noon. A VERY SWELL REPAST FOR A SWAGGER SET. By the operation of one of those laws of occult force, the power of which we feel while we are totally ignorant of its rules, we fix upon the noonday as the time for some of our chief social functions. As a matter of fact we are at our best at this time of the day, both physically and mentally; and we naturally choose it for our special... more...

I. A MORNING CALL A French clock on the mantel-piece, framed of brass and crystal, which betrayed its inner structure as the transparent sides of some insects betray their vital processes, struck ten with the mellow and lingering clangor of a distant cathedral bell. A gentleman, who was seated in front of the fire reading a newspaper, looked up at the clock to see what hour it was, to save himself the... more...

Philip had whispered to Reinhold that he would look him up presently; Reinhold trembled for the result of a meeting between father and son, which could not have occurred at a more unfortunate moment; but it could not be helped, and he determined to employ the interval in saying a few words of comfort, after the scene that had just taken place, to the old clerk whom he had spoken to several times during... more...

I.OPTIMISM Innumerable writers at the end of the nineteenth century have reviewed the changes which in the last fifty years have come over the civilised world. The record indeed is admitted on all hands to be marvellous. Steam, electricity, machinery, and all the practical inventions of applied science have added enormously to the material wealth, comfort, and luxury of mankind. Intellectually, the... more...

Chapter I. On a certain summer day, a few years ago, the little village of Briggsville, in Pennsylvania, was thrown into a state of excitement, the like of which was never known since the fearful night, a hundred years before, when a band of red men descended like a cyclone upon the little hamlet with its block-house, and left barely a dozen settlers alive to tell the story of the visitation to their... more...

CHAPTER I. THE YOUNG RIVALS. The main schoolroom in the Millville Academy was brilliantly lighted, and the various desks were occupied by boys and girls of different ages from ten to eighteen, all busily writing under the general direction of Professor George W. Granville, Instructor in Plain and Ornamental Penmanship. Professor Granville, as he styled himself, was a traveling teacher, and generally... more...

THE FIRST DINNER This is the story of a year, beginning on New Year's eve. In the main it is the story of four—two artists and two writers—and of a paper which these four started. Three of them—the artists and one of the writers—toiled and dwelt together in rooms near Union Square, and earned a good deal of money sometimes, when matters went well. The fourth—the other writer—did... more...

DUST In the dull hot dusk of a summer's day a green touring-car, swinging out of the East Drive, pulled up smartly, trembling, at the edge of the Fifty-ninth Street car-tracks, then more sedately, under the dispassionate but watchful eye of a mounted member of the Traffic Squad, lurched across the Plaza and merged itself in the press of vehicles south-bound on the Avenue. Its tonneau held four... more...

CHAPTER IWILLIAM GOES TO THE PICTURES It all began with William’s aunt, who was in a good temper that morning, and gave him a shilling for posting a letter for her and carrying her parcels from the grocer’s. “Buy some sweets or go to the Pictures,” she said carelessly, as she gave it to him. William walked slowly down the road, gazing thoughtfully at the coin. After deep... more...