Classics Books

An Encore ACCORDING to Old Chester, to be romantic was just one shade less reprehensible than to put on airs. Captain Alfred Price, in all his seventy years, had never been guilty of putting on airs, but certainly he had something to answer for in the way of romance. However, in the days when we children used to see him pounding up the street from the post-office, reading, as he walked, a newspaper... more...

I She stood on the platform watching the receding train. A few bushes hid the curve of the line; the white vapour rose above them, evaporating in the pale evening. A moment more and the last carriage would pass out of sight. The white gates swung forward slowly and closed over the line. An oblong box painted reddish brown and tied with a rough rope lay on the seat beside her. The movement of her back... more...

CHAPTER I. CAPTAIN ARUNDEL'S REVENGE. Edward Arundel went back to his lonely home with a settled purpose in his mind. He would leave Lincolnshire,—and immediately. He had no motive for remaining. It may be, indeed, that he had a strong motive for going away from the neighbourhood of Lawford Grange. There was a lurking danger in the close vicinage of that pleasant, old-fashioned country mansion,... more...

Twenty-one years ago there was privately printed in Nashville, Tennessee, a little book by J.C. Lester and D.L. Wilson, that purported to be an account, from inside information, of the great secret order of Reconstruction days, known to the public as Ku Klux Klan. It attracted little notice then; and since that time it has not been given the attention it deserved as a historical document. At the time... more...

Whether Buddhism be viewed in its extent and diffusion, or in the complex nature of its doctrines, it claims the serious attention of every inquiring mind. In our own days it is, under different forms, the creed prevailing in Nepaul, Thibet, Mongolia, Corea, China, the Japanese Archipelago, Anam, Cambodia, Siam, the Shan States, Burmah, Arracan, and Ceylon. Its sway extends over nearly one-fourth of... more...

CHAPTER I THE WARDEN'S LODGINGS The Founders and the Benefactors of Oxford, Princes, wealthy priests, patriotic gentlemen, noble ladies with a taste for learning; any of these as they travelled along the high road, leaving behind them pastures, woods and river, and halted at the gates of the grey sacred city, had they been in melancholy mood, might have pictured to themselves all possible... more...

CHAPTER I MARY WALLINGFORD At the beginning of the Civil War there was a fine old residence on Meeting Street in Charleston, South Carolina, inhabited by a family almost as old as the State. Its inheritor and owner, Orville Burgoyne, was a widower. He had been much saddened in temperament since the death of the wife, and had withdrawn as far as possible from public affairs. His library and the past had... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY A short title to a book has its advantages. It has also its disadvantages. It is almost inevitable that it should, on the one hand, seem to include much more than is intended, and, on the other hand, fail to convey the purpose of the author. "Geology" would be a tolerably large subject. "Astronomy" would be vastly larger. But "Spiritualism" is an infinite... more...

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. "Septimius Felton" was the outgrowth of a project, formed by Hawthorne during his residence in England, of writing a romance, the scene of which should be laid in that country; but this project was afterwards abandoned, giving place to a new conception in which the visionary search for means to secure an earthly immortality was to form the principal interest. The new... more...

YES, THE WEARY EARTH SHALL BRIGHTEN. Yes, the weary earth shall brighten—  Brighten in the perfect day,And the fields that now but whiten,  Golden glow beneath the ray!Slowly swelling in her bosom,  Long the precious seed has lain,—Soon shall come the perfect blossom,  Soon, the rich, abundant grain! Long has been the night of weeping,  But the morning dawns at length,And, the misty... more...