Classics Books

CHAPTER I One of the advantages of being an unrequired person of twenty-six, with an income sufficient for necessities, is the right of choice as to a home locality. I am that sort of person, and, having exercised said right, I am now living in Scarborough Square. To my friends and relatives it is amazing, inexplicable, and beyond understanding that I should wish to live here. I do not try to make them... more...

CHAPTER I.NEWGATE WITHOUT. Newgate was the first prison to which Charles Dickens gave any literary attention. An account of a visit to it appears among the early “Sketches by Boz.” It is also the only one of the London jails of which he has left us graphic descriptions, or briefer, spirited sketches, which preserves to-day so much of its original character as to be identifiable in detail by the... more...

Annals of the War. In preparing the following paper, it has been my desire only to record what its title suggests—personal reminiscences. Leaving to other and abler pens the task of writing an accurate history of the scenes and events to which reference is now about to be made, I shall confine myself simply to the task of setting down such things as came under my personal observation, or within... more...

ANIMA HOMINIS I When I come home after meeting men who are strange to me, and sometimes even after talking to women, I go over all I have said in gloom and disappointment. Perhaps I have overstated everything from a desire to vex or startle, from hostility that is but fear; or all my natural thoughts have been drowned by an undisciplined sympathy. My fellow-diners have hardly seemed of mixed humanity,... more...

TESTIMONIALS. A true story plainly told, of immense historical value and fascinating interest from beginning to end. Dr. Geo. W. Crofts,    Beatrice, Nebraska. I have read every word of "In the Early Days," written by Mr. Gilbert L. Cole, with great interest and profit. The language is well chosen, the word-pictures are vivid, and the subject-matter is of historic value. The story is... more...

I THE WAR ON THE WORD It will hardly be denied that there is one lingering doubt in many, who recognise unavoidable self-defence in the instant parry of the English sword, and who have no great love for the sweeping sabre of Sadowa and Sedan. That doubt is the doubt whether Russia, as compared with Prussia, is sufficiently decent and democratic to be the ally of liberal and civilised powers. I take... more...

FUNERAL ORATION. 1. If I thought it were possible, O fellow-citizens who are assembled at this burial-place, to set forth in words the valor of those who lie here, I should blame the men who invited me to speak about them at a few days' notice. But as all time would not be sufficient for (the combined efforts) of all men to prepare an address adequate to their deeds, the city seems to me, in... more...

CHAPTER I MERRY TIMES PROMISED Little Rose Atherton sat on the lower step of the three broad ones that led down from the piazza, and she wondered if there were, in all the world, a lovelier spot than Avondale. "And we live in the finest part of Avondale," she said, continuing her thoughts aloud. "Tho' wherever Uncle John is, seems better than anywhere else." She had spent the... more...

The fiery disk of the sun was just lifting above the shoulder of hills that held the city of Stenton when the Greenstream stage rolled briskly from its depot, a dingy frame tavern, and commenced the long journey to its high destination. The tavern was on the outskirts of town; beyond, a broad, level plain reached to a shimmering blue silhouette of mountains printed on a silvery sky; and the stage... more...

CHAPTER I FORBIDDEN WATERS Richard Gregory stirred restlessly in his sleep vaguely aware of an unfamiliar sound, a faint tapping, insistent, disturbing. He wakened sharply and sat bolt upright, conscious of the fact that he was fully dressed. Then he remembered. "All right, Bill," he called softly. "Coming." It took but a minute to shove his automatic into his pocket and secure his... more...