Classics Books

ACT I SCENE I The curtain rises on the BARTHWICK'S dining-room, large, modern, and well furnished; the window curtains drawn. Electric light is burning. On the large round dining-table is set out a tray with whisky, a syphon, and a silver cigarette-box. It is past midnight. A fumbling is heard outside the door. It is opened suddenly; JACK BARTHWICK seems to fall into the room. He stands holding by... more...

CHAPTER I Admiral Dewey on His Flagship. A Stormy Day on Manila Bay—Call on Admiral Dewey—The Man in White—He Sticks to His Ship—How He Surprised Spaniards—Every Man Did His Duty on May-Day—How Dewey Looks and Talks—What He Said About War with Germany in Five Minutes—Feeds His Men on "Delicious" Fresh Meat from Australia—Photography Unjust to Him. Steaming across Manila Bay... more...

Sometimes I think that having a bath is the nicest part of the day, especially if you take too long over it, when you ought to be hurrying. Phyllis and I (Phil is my stepsister, though she is the most English creature alive) have no proper bath-room in our flat. What can you expect for forty pounds a year, even at Clapham? But we have a fitted-up arrangement in the box-room, and it has never exploded... more...

NOTICE It has been constantly observed by writers of travels that to gain credence for any of the strange incidents of their journeys, they have been compelled to omit many of the most eventful passages of their lives. "The gentlemen," and still more the ladies, "who live at home at ease" take, indeed, but little account of those adventures which are the daily lot of more precarious... more...

My dear Cornwall Hollis: With the Allied cause crumbling away it is high time we thought of aesthetics. As a triste jest I said that to you the other day, and your reply was a plea to let you write a preface for a new edition of my forgotten Sonnets from the Patagonian. I am at last persuaded, and who but you should do the preface? With Mitteleuropa a fact it should be apparent to any honest, thinking... more...

DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN Upon a certain dreary April afternoon in the year of grace, 1906, the apprehensions of Philip Kirkwood, Esquire, Artist-peintre, were enlivened by the discovery that he was occupying that singularly distressing social position, which may be summed up succinctly in a phrase through long usage grown proverbial: "Alone in London." These three words have come to... more...

In the pages that follow I wish only to develop a hypothesis. Perhaps after having read them, the reader will find the evidence insufficient. I do not hesitate to recognize that the scarcity of special studies bearing upon my subject, at least for the period since the end of the Middle Ages, is of a nature to discourage more than one cautious spirit. But, on the one hand, I am convinced that every... more...

The writer has published so much truth which the world has insisted was fiction, and so much fiction which has been received as truth, that, in the present instance, he is resolved to say nothing on the subject. Each of his readers is at liberty to believe just as much, or as little, of the matter here laid before him, or her, as may suit his, or her notions, prejudices, knowledge of the world, or... more...

A STUDY I We all settled down in a circle and our good friend AlexandrVassilyevitch Ridel (his surname was German but he was Russian to themarrow of his bones) began as follows: I am going to tell you a story, friends, of something that happened tome in the 'thirties ... forty years ago as you see. I will bebrief--and don't you interrupt me. I was living at the time in Petersburg and had only... more...

I.BEGINNINGSThe invention of epic poetry corresponds with a definite and, in the history of the world, often recurring state of society. That is to say, epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the invention itself has been. Most nations have passed through the same sort of chemistry. Before their hot racial... more...