Classics Books

At one o’clock the busy seen begin,Quick to the hall they all are posting in;The cautious merchant takes his stand,The farmer shows the product of his land:If wheat the merchant says it’s damp or cold,If Dawling Market, that’s the case I’m told.If it is barley he’ll your mind unhinge,And say good Sir it has a gloomy dinge;Reduce three shillings of the currant price,And with the farmer he’ll... more...

INTRODUCTION Up to the years of the Crimean War Russia was always a strange, uncouth riddle to the European consciousness. It would be an interesting study to trace back through the last three centuries the evidence of the historical documents that our forefathers have left us when they were brought face to face, through missions, embassies, travel, and commerce, with the fantastic life, as it seemed... more...

MABEL MARTIN. A HARVEST IDYL. Susanna Martin, an aged woman of Amesbury, Mass., was tried and executed for the alleged crime of witchcraft. Her home was in what is now known as Pleasant Valley on the Merrimac, a little above the old Ferry way, where, tradition says, an attempt was made to assassinate Sir Edmund Andros on his way to Falmouth (afterward Portland) and Pemaquid, which was frustrated by a... more...

Ourtale is a true one, from which may be taughtA maxim for youth, with utility fraught;—If terrors assail you, examine the cause, And all will be well;—for, byNature’skind laws,Nor Goblins nor Spectres on earth have a station,—These phantoms are all of ideal creation. Monkey, that comical tricks would be at,His frolics one morning began with theCat;He chatter’d, as much as to sayHow d’ ye... more...

"Yes! I'm not mistaken at all! It's the same woman!" whispered the tall, good-looking young Englishman in a well-cut navy suit as he stood with his friend, a man some ten years older than himself, at one of the roulette tables at Monte Carlo, the first on the right on entering the room—that one known to habitual gamblers as "The Suicide's Table." "Are you quite... more...

CHAPTER I HE INVADES COLDRIVER The entrance of Scattergood Baines into Coldriver Valley, and the manner of his first taking root in its soil, are legendary. This much is clear past even disputing in the post office at mail time, or evenings in the grocery—he walked in, perspiring profusely, for he was very fat. It is asserted that he walked the full twenty-four miles from the railroad, subsisting on... more...

ALONE WITH HER WEALTH On a beautiful September afternoon in a handsome room of one of the grand, up-town hotels in New York sat Mrs. Cliff, widow and millionaire. Widow of a village merchant, mistress of an unpretending house in the little town of Plainton, Maine, and, by strange vicissitudes of fortune, the possessor of great wealth, she was on her way from Paris to the scene of that quiet domestic... more...

INTRODUCTION When the historian has described the rise and fall of empires and dynasties, and has recounted with care and exactness the details of the great political movements that have changed the map of continents, there remains the question: What was the cause of these revolutions in human society--what were the real motives that were operative in the hearts and minds of the persons in the great... more...

Chapter I "The consequences of folly seldom end with its originator," said Lord Earle to his son. "Rely upon it, Ronald, if you were to take this most foolish and unadvisable step, you would bring misery upon yourself and every one connected with you. Listen to reason." "There is no reason in prejudice," replied the young man haughtily. "You can not bring forward one valid... more...

CHAPTER I THE BETROTHAL OF OLAF Of my childhood in this Olaf life I can regain but little. There come to me, however, recollections of a house, surrounded by a moat, situated in a great plain near to seas or inland lakes, on which plain stood mounds that I connected with the dead. What the dead were I did not quite understand, but I gathered that they were people who, having once walked about and been... more...