Literary Collections Books

INTRODUCTION   A young New-Yorker of twelve lately heard an appeal for the Fatherless Children of France, and his heart was touched. He had no money, but he resolved to give his spare time and his utmost energy to support a "kid in France." The French child needed ten cents worth of extra food each day, in order to grow up with strength and courage. The little American godfather earned those... more...

CHAPTER I. As the master of the Indian Spring school emerged from the pine woods into the little clearing before the schoolhouse, he stopped whistling, put his hat less jauntily on his head, threw away some wild flowers he had gathered on his way, and otherwise assumed the severe demeanor of his profession and his mature age—which was at least twenty. Not that he usually felt this an assumption; it... more...

CHAPTER I. LOVE AT A SCHOOL A procession of schoolboys having to meet a procession of schoolgirls on the Sunday's dead march, called a walk, round the park, could hardly go by without dropping to a hum in its chatter, and the shot of incurious half-eyes the petticoated creatures—all so much of a swarm unless you stare at them like lanterns. The boys cast glance because it relieved their... more...

CHAPTER I The summer term ended in a blaze of glory for Frank Mannix. It was a generally accepted opinion in the school that his brilliant catch in the long field—a catch which disposed of the Uppingham captain—had been the decisive factor in winning the most important of matches. And the victory was particularly gratifying, for Haileybury had been defeated for five years previously. There was no... more...

CHAPTER I THE RENAISSANCE (1) There are times in every man's experience when some sudden widening of the boundaries of his knowledge, some vision of hitherto untried and unrealized possibilities, has come and seemed to bring with it new life and the inspiration of fresh and splendid endeavour. It may be some great book read for the first time not as a book, but as a revelation; it may be the first... more...

UNCONSCIOUS COMEDIANS Leon de Lora, our celebrated landscape painter, belongs to one of the noblest families of the Roussillon (Spanish originally) which, although distinguished for the antiquity of its race, has been doomed for a century to the proverbial poverty of hidalgos. Coming, light-footed, to Paris from the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, with the sum of eleven francs in his pocket for all... more...

INTRODUCTION No man since Washington has become to Americans so familiar or so beloved a figure as Abraham Lincoln. He is to them the representative and typical American, the man who best embodies the political ideals of the nation. He is typical in the fact that he sprang from the masses of the people, that he remained through his whole career a man of the people, that his chief desire was to be in... more...

MY DEAR MADAME BLANC, The first copy of this little book was, of course, to have been for Gabrielle Delzant. I am fulfilling her wish, I think, in giving it, instead, to you, who were her oldest friend; as I, alas! had time to be only her latest. She had read nearly all these essays; and, during those weeks of her illness which I spent last autumn in Gascony, she had made me rewrite several among them.... more...

CHAPTER I "I said you'd do something," said Daphne, leaning back easily in her long chair. I stopped swinging my legs and looked at her. "Did you, indeed," I said coldly. My sister nodded dreamily. "Then you lied, darling. In your white throat," I said pleasantly. "By the way, d'you know if the petrol's come?" "I don't even care," said Daphne.... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. The ancient and famous metropolis of the North sits overlooking a windy estuary from the slope and summit of three hills.  No situation could be more commanding for the head city of a kingdom; none better chosen for noble prospects.  From her tall precipice and terraced gardens she looks far and wide on the sea and broad champaigns.  To the east you may catch at sunset the... more...