Classics Books

I Jean Servien was born in a back-shop in the Rue Notre-Dame des Champs. His father was a bookbinder and worked for the Religious Houses. Jean was a little weakling child, and his mother nursed him at her breast as she sewed the books, sheet by sheet, with the curved needle of the trade. One day as she was crossing the shop, humming a song, in the words of which she found expression for the vague,... more...

DANTE.[1] On the banks of a little river so shrunken by the suns of summer that it seems fast passing into a tradition, but swollen by the autumnal rains with an Italian suddenness of passion till the massy bridge shudders under the impatient heap of waters behind it, stands a city which, in its period of bloom not so large as Boston, may well rank next to Athens in the history which teaches come... more...

CHAPTER I. THE LIBERTY TREE. It was on the evening of February 21, 1770, in the city of Boston, that a party of boys, ranging in age from ten to eighteen years, were assembled at what was known as "Liberty Hall," which was not a building, but simply the open space sheltered by the wide-spreading branches of the "Liberty Tree." Although General Gage's troops occupied the city, and... more...

PREFACE In Homer and the Epic, ten or twelve years ago, I examined the literary objections to Homeric unity. These objections are chiefly based on alleged discrepancies in the narrative, of which no one poet, it is supposed, could have been guilty. The critics repose, I venture to think, mainly on a fallacy. We may style it the fallacy of "the analytical reader." The poet is expected to satisfy... more...

Marion Zimmer Bradley has written some of the finest science fiction in print. She has been away from our pages too long. So this story is in the nature of a triumphant return. It could well be her best to date.By the time I got myself all the way awake I thought I was alone. I was lying on a leather couch in a bare white room with huge windows, alternate glass-brick and clear glass. Beyond the clear... more...

Medical and Legal. “But it seems so shocking, sir.” “Yes, madam,” said the doctor, “very sad indeed. You had better get that prescription made up at once.” “And him drenched with physic!” cried Mrs Dunn; “when it doesn’t do him a bit of good.” “Not very complimentary to me, Mrs Dunn,” said the doctor smiling. “Which I didn’t mean any harm, sir; but wouldn’t it be better... more...

THE HOMESTEAD AND THE RACE The coast line of the south of Norway is very irregular. This is the work of the mountains and rivers. The former end in hillocks and headlands, off which often lie islands; the latter have dug out valleys and end in fjords or smaller inlets. In one of these inlets, known as "Kroken" (the nook), lies the homestead. The original name of the place was Krokskogen. In the... more...

aking his way from square to square of the big rope hairnet that served as guidelines on the outer surface of the big wheel, Mike Blackhawk completed his inspection of the gold-plated plastic hull, with its alternate dark and shiny squares. He had scanned every foot of the curved surface in this first inspection, familiarizing himself completely with that which other men had constructed from his... more...

PROLOGUE. A Castle in Normandy. Interior of the Hall. Roofs of a City seen thro' Windows. HENRY and BECKET at chess. HENRY.So then our good Archbishop TheobaldLies dying. BECKET.I am grieved to know as much. HENRY.But we must have a mightier man than heFor his successor. BECKET.                   Have you thought of one? HENRY.A cleric lately poison'd his own mother,And... more...

LECTURE I THE TYPES OF PHILOSOPHIC THINKING As these lectures are meant to be public, and so few, I have assumed all very special problems to be excluded, and some topic of general interest required. Fortunately, our age seems to be growing philosophical again—still in the ashes live the wonted fires. Oxford, long the seed-bed, for the english world, of the idealism inspired by Kant and Hegel, has... more...