Classics Books

In his address to the Diocesan Convention of 1881, Bishop Williams suggested the appointment of a committee to provide for the appropriate commemoration of the centenary of the election of the first Bishop of Connecticut in the last week of March, 1783. On motion of the Rev. Dr. Beardsley, this suggestion was referred to a committee of three clergymen and two laymen, with the Bishop as chairman. The... more...

Thanks to the precautions taken by Procopius, the trick had succeeded completely. At the moment in which the flag of the Goths fell and their King was taken prisoner, they were everywhere surprised and overpowered. In the courts of the palace, in the streets and canals of the city and in the camp, they were surrounded by far superior numbers. A palisade of lances met their sight on all sides. Almost... more...

HOW BUNNY BROUGHT GOOD LUCK. IT was Midsummer's Day, that delightful point toward which the whole year climbs, and from which it slips off like an ebbing wave in the direction of the distant winter. No wonder that superstitious people in old times gave this day to the fairies, for it is the most beautiful day of all. The world seems full of bird-songs, sunshine, and flower-smells then; storm and... more...

TO MARY FIELD FRENCH A dying mother gave to you  Her child a many years ago;How in your gracious love he grew,  You know, dear, patient heart, you know. The mother's child you fostered then  Salutes you now and bids you takeThese little children of his pen  And love them for the author's sake. To you I dedicate this book,  And, as you read it line by line,Upon its faults as kindly... more...

CHAPTER I.—THE BATTLE OF THE BRIDGE. The time occupied by the events detailed in the three preceding chapters, had been passed by Antonio in a state of self-exile from his master's studio. Conscious of having disobeyed the earnest injunctions of Contarini, the weakness of his character withheld him alike from confessing his fault, and from encountering the penetrating gaze of the old painter.... more...

CHAPTER I. Archibald Dundass was a rich Jamaica planter, whose estates were situated in one of the most delightful regions in that garden of the West India isles. His wife, an English lady, of great personal attractions and highly connected, died when Helen, their only child, had just entered her thirteenth year, an age when, perhaps, a mother's counsel and tender guidance is most required. When... more...

WHO IS EDMUND GRAY? Mr. Edward Dering, in a rare interval of work, occupied himself with looking into his bank book. Those humble persons whom the City, estimating the moral and spiritual worth of a man by his income, calls 'small,' frequently and anxiously examine their bank books, add up the columns, and check the entries. Mr. Dering, who was not a small man, but a big man, or rather, from... more...

The Educated Negro and His Mission. Human thought is like a pendulum. It sways from belief to belief, from theory to theory, from plan to plan, and the length of its vibrations is governed by a multitude of contending forces operating from both within and without. Two of these influences, in the present age, are all potential. One is the ardent desire to find the best ways and means by which the human... more...

I. IN THE UNSEEN. She had been talking of dying only the evening before, with a friend, and had described her own sensations after a long illness when she had been at the point of death. "I suppose," she said, "that I was as nearly gone as any one ever was to come back again. There was no pain in it, only a sense of sinking down, down—through the bed as if nothing could hold me... more...

THE BULL-RUN ROUT A little paper written years ago by a lately deceased brother of mine describing the rout of the battle of Bull Run as he saw it with the eyes of a boy and a boy's love of the marvellous seems to me to possess some value historically for the intimate, unconscious picturing, along with it, of the state of the public mind on the eve of the so-called "great uprising." It... more...