Classics Books

THE RED CITY A NOVEL OF THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF WASHINGTON About five in the afternoon on the 23d of May, 1792, the brig Morning Star of Bristol, John Maynard, master, with a topgallant breeze after her, ran into Delaware Bay in mid-channel between Cape May and Cape Henlopen. Here was the only sunshine they had seen in three weeks. The captain, liking the warmth on his broad back, glanced up... more...

CHAPTER I. No! as I said at the end of the last chapter but one, before I was led away by the circumstances of that time to give the world the benefit of my magnetic reminiscences—valeat quantum!—I was not yet bitten, despite Colley Grattan's urgings, with any temptation to attempt fiction, and "passion, me boy!" But I am surprised on turning over my old diaries to find how much I was... more...

THOMAS PAINE, in his Will, speaks of this work as The American Crisis, remembering perhaps that a number of political pamphlets had appeared in London, 1775-1776, under general title of "The Crisis." By the blunder of an early English publisher of Paine's writings, one essay in the London "Crisis" was attributed to Paine, and the error has continued to cause confusion. This... more...

Act I. Scene I.—A tavern and a street in front of it. Settles on porch. Sailors smoking and drinking. Enter Captain Butts, singing.Butts.The Margery D. was a trim little ship, The men they could man, and the skipper could skip; She sailed from her haven one fine summer day, And she foundered at sea in the following way,— To-wit: All.A-rinkety, clinkety, clink, clank, clank, The liquor they bathed... more...

CHAPTER I "I'm going up to the village," I told Dorinda, taking my cap from the hook behind the dining-room door. "What for?" asked Dorinda, pushing me to one side and reaching for the dust-cloth, which also was behind the door. "Oh, just for the walk," I answered, carelessly. "Um-hm," observed Dorinda. "Um-hm" is, I believe, good Scotch for "Yes." I... more...

PROLOGUE There was no mistake this time: he had struck gold at last! It had lain there before him a moment ago—a misshapen piece of brown-stained quartz, interspersed with dull yellow metal; yielding enough to have allowed the points of his pick to penetrate its honeycombed recesses, yet heavy enough to drop from the point of his pick as he endeavored to lift it from the red earth. He was seeing all... more...

INTRODUCTION. In 1814, while Napoleon was banished in the island of Elba, the Empress Marie Louise and her grandmother, Marie Caroline, Queen of Naples, happened to meet at Vienna. The one, who had been deprived of the French crown, was seeking to be put in possession of her new realm, the Duchy of Parma; the other, who had fled from Sicily to escape the yoke of her pretended protectors, the English,... more...

I NOTE.—It would be impossible to depict the Sark of to-day without using the names native to the Island. All such names here employed, however, are used without any reference whatever to any actual persons who may happen to bear similar names in Sark. The characters are to be taken as types. The incidents are in many cases fact. If you want murders, mysteries, or mud—pass on! This is a simple,... 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...

ECONOMY IN DISTRIBUTION.   We had lately occasion to proceed by an omnibus from a country town to a station on a railway, by which we were to return to the city where we have our customary abode. On arriving at the station, we learned that we should have to wait an hour for an up train, the omnibus being timed in relation to a down one, which was about to pass. Had this arrangement been the only one... more...