Classics Books

PREFACE This book contains the substance, and for the most part the words, of a course of public lectures delivered during the first three months of 1919. The original division into lectures has been dropped, the matter being more conveniently redivided into chapters. The audience to whom the lectures were delivered was composed of members of the general public, and not only of students. For the most... more...

I MANTUA DIVES AVIS Among biographical commonplaces one frequently finds the generalization that it is the provincial who acquires the perspective requisite for a true estimate of a nation, and that it is the country-boy reared in lonely communion with himself who attains the deepest knowledge of human nature. If there be some degree of truth in this reflection, Publius Vergilius Maro, the... more...

AUTHOR'S NOTE. This little volume will soon assume the proportions of an invaluable reference book as the Divorcee is gradually becoming extinct in South Dakota. Species may thrive in a given latitude and longitude for ages. Suddenly the atmospheric, climatic, or diatetic conditions become so altered as to preclude the further development of the species—yes even the further survival of the... more...

Near where St. Abb stretches, in massive strength, into the sea, still terrible, even in ruins, may be seen the remains of Fast Castle, one of the most interesting in its history—as it is the most fearfully romantic in its situation—of all the mouldering strongholds which are still to be traced among the Borders, like monuments of war, crumbling into nothingness beneath the silent but destroying... more...

Chapter I Vacation Plans Charley Russell sat before a table in the workshop in his father's back yard. In front of him were the shining instruments of his wireless outfit--his coupler, his condenser, his helix, his spark-gap, and the other parts, practically all of which he had made with his own hands. Ordinarily he would have looked at them fondly, but now he gave them hardly a thought. He was... more...

I "Stephen K. Lepper, Pork-Packing Prince, from Chicago, U. S. A., by White Star Line, for Liverpool." Such was the announcement with which the Chicago Central Advertiser made beautiful its list of arrivals and departures. It was not exactly a definition of him. To be sure, if you had caught sight of him anywhere down the sumptuous vista of the first-class sleeping-saloon of the New York and... more...

n other eras he might have been described as swacked, stewed, stoned, smashed, crocked, cockeyed, soused, shellacked, polluted, potted, tanked, lit, stinko, pie-eyed, three sheets in the wind, or simply drunk. In his own time, Major Joseph Mauser, Category Military, Mid-Middle Caste, was drenched. Or at least rapidly getting there. He wasn't happy about it. It wasn't that kind of a binge. He... more...

CHAPTER I In introducing the subject of the future of road-making in America, it may first be observed that there is to be a future in road-building on this continent. We have today probably the poorest roads of any civilized nation; although, considering the extent of our roads, which cover perhaps a million and a half miles, we of course have the best roads of any nation of similar age. As we have... more...

CHAPTER IA HUNTING PARTY IN THE YEAR 1666 Before we cross the Kiralyhago, let us cast a parting glance at Hungary. I will unroll before your eyes a scene, partly the result of an adverse fate, partly of a dark mystery, representing joy and also deep sorrow. An incident of a moment becomes the turning-point of a whole century. My soul is saddened by the images thus conjured up; the figures out of the... more...

CHAPTER I.THE GREEN OF THE LEAF."Nothing but leaves—leaves—leaves! The green things don't know enough to do anything better!" Leslie Goldthwaite said this, standing in the bay-window among her plants, which had been green and flourishing, but persistently blossomless, all winter, and now the spring days were come. Cousin Delight looked up; and her white ruffling, that she was daintily... more...