General Books

OF COMPANIONS AND FLATTERERS An old acquaintance who met me this morning seemed overjoyed to see me, and told me I looked as well as he had known me do these forty years; but, continued he, not quite the man you were when we visited together at Lady Brightly's. Oh! Isaac, those days are over. Do you think there are any such fine creatures now living as we then conversed with? He went on with a... more...

Last spring I found a pumpkin seed,  And thought that I would goAnd plant it in a secret place,  That no one else would know,And watch all summer long to see  It grow, and grow, and grow,And maybe raise a pumpkin for  A Jack-a-lantern show. I stuck a stick beside the seed,  And thought that I should shoutOne morning when I stooped and saw  The greenest little sprout!I used to carry water... more...

INTRODUCTION Ever since civilized man has had a literature he has apparently sought to make selections from it and thus put his favorite passages together in a compact and convenient form. Certain it is, at least, that to the Greeks, masters in all great arts, we owe this habit. They made such collections and named them, after their pleasant imaginative fashion, a gathering of flowers, or what we,... more...

THE GHOST. BY WILLIAM D. O'CONNOR. t the West End of Boston is a quarter of some fifty streets, more or less, commonly known as Beacon Hill. It is a rich and respectable quarter, sacred to the abodes of Our First Citizens. The very houses have become sentient of its prevailing character of riches and respectability; and, when the twilight deepens on the place, or at high noon, if your vision is... more...

HENRY CUYLER BUNNER (1855-1896) The position which Henry Cuyler Bunner has come to occupy in the literary annals of our time strengthens as the days pass. If the stream of his genius flowed in gentle rivulets, it traveled as far and spread its fruitful influence as wide as many a statelier river. He was above all things a poet. In his prose as in his verse he has revealed the essential qualities of a... more...

THE TYRANNY OF THE AMERICAN MAJORITY I hold it to be an impious and execrable maxim that, politically speaking, the people has a right to do whatever it pleases; and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. Am I then in contradiction with myself? A general law, which bears the name of justice, has been made and sanctioned not only by a majority of this or that... more...

THE ABBÉ DE BRANTÔME (PIERRE DE BOURDEILLE) (1527-1614)   very historian of the Valois period is indebted to Brantôme for preserving the atmosphere and detail of the brilliant life in which he moved as a dashing courtier, a military adventurer, and a gallant gentleman of high degree. He was not a professional scribe, nor a student; but he took notes unconsciously, and in the evening of his life... more...

GEORGE BANCROFT (Continued from Volume III) WOLFE ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAMFrom 'History of the United States'But, in the meantime, Wolfe applied himself intently to reconnoitering the north shore above Quebec. Nature had given him good eyes, as well as a warmth of temper to follow first impressions. He himself discovered the cove which now bears his name, where the bending promontories almost... more...

AESOP Many centuries ago, more than six hundred years before Christ was born, there lived in Greece a man by the name of Aesop. We do not know very much about him, and no one can tell exactly what he wrote, or even that he ever wrote anything. We know he was a slave and much wiser than his masters, but whether he was a fine, shapely man or a hunchback and a cripple we cannot be sure, for different... more...

Perhaps the reader may not feel in these papers that inner solidarity which the writer is conscious of; and it is in this doubt that the writer wishes to offer a word of explanation. He owns, as he must, that they have every appearance of a group of desultory sketches and essays, without palpable relation to one another, or superficial allegiance to any central motive. Yet he ventures to hope that the... more...