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 IIN A LONDON SCHOOLROOM ‘It’s no good,’ sighed Barbara, looking disconsolately round the room; ‘we shall never get straight in time. Don’t you think we had better leave it, and let Auntie Anna see us as we really are? She will only be disappointed afterwards, if we begin by being tidy; and I don’t like disappointing people, do you?’ There was a shout of laughter when she finished... more...

CHAPTER I THE GENESIS OF PRAGMATISMThere is a curious impression to-day in the world of thought that Pragmatism is the most audacious of philosophic novelties, the most anarchical transvaluation of all respectable traditions. Sometimes it is pictured as an insurgence of emotion against logic, sometimes as an assault of theology upon the integrity of Pure Reason. One day it is described as the reckless... more...

CHAPTER I. THE LOST CHILD. That portion of North-western Ohio, situated to the South-east of the Black Swamp, was but sparsely settled at the close of the first quarter of the present century. The hardy pioneers who had left their New England homes to open up the Western wilds, here and there built their modest dwellings and tilled the few acres won from the dense forest and luxuriant prairie. The... more...

CHAPTER I THE DRYAD DOOR It was a horrible day at sea, horrible even on board the new and splendid Monarchic. All the prettiest people had disappeared from the huge dining-saloon. They had turned green, and then faded away, one by one or in hurried groups; and now the very thought of music at meals made them sick, in ragtime. Peter Rolls was never sick in any time or in any weather, which was his one... more...

REVERIES OVER CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH   y first memories are fragmentary and isolated and contemporaneous, as though one remembered vaguely some early day of the Seven Days. It seems as if time had not yet been created, for all are connected with emotion and place and without sequence. I remember sitting upon somebody’s knee, looking out of a window at a wall covered with cracked and falling plaster,... more...

CONSTANTINE.One of the most interesting and amusing episodes in our many Mediterranean and North African wanderings was a visit to the Sahara. Although we penetrated but a short distance into the Great Desert, we were there introduced to aspects of Nature and to phases of life wholly new and strange to us. We had been spending the winter in Algiers, and were unwilling to return to Europe without seeing... more...

W. C. Bryant's Discourse on the Life, Genius, and Writings of James Fenimore Cooper, Delivered at Metropolitan Hall, N.Y., February 25, 1852. It is now somewhat more than a year, since the friends of James Fenimore Cooper, in this city; were planning to give a public dinner to his honor. It was intended as an expression both of the regard they bore him personally, and of the pride they took in the... more...

CHAPTER I AIMLESS STEPS "Another month's work will knock Morton into 'pi,'" was a remark that caught my ear as I fumed from the composing-room back to my private office. I had just irately blamed a printer for a blunder of my own, and the words I overheard reminded me of the unpleasant truth that I had recently made a great many senseless blunders, over which I chafed in... more...

POINT OF VIEW. This book was not designed as a biography, but is rather a portrait. And, to speak more carefully still, it is not so much this, as my conception of what a portrait of Hawthorne should be. For I cannot write with the authority of one who had known him and had been formally intrusted with the task of describing his life. On the other hand, I do not enter upon this attempt as a mere... more...