Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 04

One may gossip in a glen on Sabbaths, though not in a town, without losing his character, and I used to await the return of my neighbor, the farmer of Waster Lunny, and of Birse...

The suspense was terrible. Sam'l and Sanders had both known all along that Bell would take the first of the two who asked her. Even those who thought her proud admitted that she...

While the Prince was smiling over his thoughts, and giving himself up to all these agreeable anticipations, he was striding up and down his cabinet, at the door of which General...

As a literary artist, he belongs in the foremost rank. He has that sense of the typical in incident, of the universal in feeling, and of the suggestive in language, which mark t...

To give you some idea of my extraordinary deafness, I must tell you that in the theatre I am obliged to lean close up against the orchestra in order to understand the actors, an...

"On Monday I sat for my picture, and walked a considerable way with little inconvenience. In the afternoon and evening I felt myself light and easy, and began to plan schemes of...

A wrecker who had gone to watch the shore, saw, as the sun went down, a full-rigged vessel standing off and on. Coppinger came to the beach, put off in a boat to the vessel, and...

Between 1857 and 1870, Baring-Gould had published nine volumes, the best known of these being 'Curious Myths of the Middle Ages.' From 1870 to 1890 his name appeared as author o...

The second step in advance was the ladies' bower, a room or suite of rooms set apart for the ladies of the house and their women. For the first time, as soon as this room was ad...

The fact is that a church needs poor men and wicked men as much as it does pure men and virtuous men and pious men. What man needs is familiarity with universal human nature. He...

Citeaux became famous from the coming of these new recruits. There was, in those tough old days, a soldierly admiration for faithfulness to discipline; and when Bernard was prof...

"It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I could have wished, to have had for her associates and mine free-thinkers, leaders and disciples of novel philosophies a...

His address was most easy and agreeable; his step firm and graceful; his air neither grave nor familiar. He was as cheerful as he was spirited, frank and communicative in the so...

"I spoke never a word to them, Cauth, nor they to me;--I couldn't--an' I won't, for a duke's ransom: I only saw them stannin' together, in the dark that's coming on, behind the...

The crowd is his domain, as the air is that of the bird and the water that of the fish. His passion and his profession is "to wed the crowd." For the perfect _flâneur_, for the...

"I rose to go, and one or two others did the same; Neal sat still. 'Ah!' said Bentham, as he drew a black silk night-cap over his spare gray hair, 'you think that's a hint to go...

I have heard men, in family prayer, confess their wickedness, and pray that God would forgive them the sins that they got from Adam; but I do not know that I ever heard a father...

For the writer is known by his style as the wearer by his clothes. Even if it be no native product of the author's mind, but a conscious imitation of carefully studied models,--...

Such as it is,--with its failings and its vices, even a full century after the fame of Procope,--the café, which we cannot drive out of our memories, has been the asylum and the...

I much admire the spirit of the ancient philosophers, in that they never attempted, as our moralists often do, to lower the tone of philosophy, and make it consistent with all t...

While no translation exists of this remarkable work, nor indeed can be made to reproduce the power and melody of the original, yet a very good idea of its spirit may be had from...

Now it might seem on the face of things that the arrival of those two active and stalwart civil servants would have been welcomed as happening just in the nick of time; yet it a...

"Do I look superb, sentimental, or only pretty?" asked his lordship. The example was contagious, and most of the caps were appropriated. No one laughed more than their mistress,...

A peerage was offered to him in 1868. He refused it for himself, but asked Queen Victoria to grant the honor to his wife, who became the Countess of Beaconsfield. But in 1876 he...

Next, Hiram's prying eyes saw Mr. Turfmould, the sexton and undertaker, who seemed to be in a pensive meditation upon all the dead that he had ever buried. He looked upon men in...

The days grow short; but though the falling sun To the glad swain proclaims his day's work done, Night's pleasing shades his various tasks prolong, And yield new subjects to my...

There he sits; his figure and his rigid bearing Let us know most clearly what is his ideal:-- Confidence in self, in his lofty standing; Thereto add conceit in his own great val...

So much at least of Stendhal's life must be known in order to understand his writings; all of which, not excepting the novels, belong to what Ferdinand Brunetière stigmatizes as...

The diction of Barclay's version is exceptionally fine. Jamieson calls it "a rich and unique exhibition of early art," and says:--"Page after page, even in the antique spelling...

He was born at Bayonne in France, June 19th, 1801. At nine years of age he was left an orphan, but he was cared for by his grandfather and aunt. He received his schooling at the...

To understand Béranger's songs and to excuse them somewhat, we must remember that the French always delighted in witty songs and tales, and pardoned the immorality of the works...

The basis of all Bestiaries is the Greek Physiologus, the origin of which can be traced back to the second century before Christ. It was undoubtedly largely influenced by the zo...

The Caliph and Nouronihar beheld each other with amazement, at finding themselves in a place which, though roofed with a vaulted ceiling, was so spacious and lofty that at first...

_Evadne_--I have done nothing good to win belief, My life hath been so faithless. All the creatures Made for Heaven's honors have their ends, and good ones, All but the cozening...

It cost Clélia an effort to write the last sentence but one of the above note. It was in everybody's mouth in court circles that Mme. Sanseverina was manifesting a great deal of...

No box of state, good friends, would I engage, For mine own use, where spectres tread the stage: What poor wan man with haggard eyes is this? Soon must he die--ah, let him taste...

Berlioz's actual biography is a long tale of storm and stress. Not only was he slow in gaining appreciation while he lived; full comprehension of his power was not granted him t...

_Count_--They are all the easier to dispel. I can see that it would be useless to ask you for the key, but it's easy enough to break in the door. Here, somebody!

Fortunately for him, Gustavus III., who was himself a poet, became at this time king of Sweden. He was an adherent of the French school of poetry, and Bellman's muse could hardl...

Not long after his two attempts at the serious drama, he had tried to turn to account his musical faculty by writing both the book and the score of a comic opera, which had, how...

The Saint made a pause As uncertain, because He knew Nick is pretty well "up" in the laws, And they _might_ be on _his_ side--and then, he'd such claws! On the whole, it was bet...

CLORIN--Hail, holy earth, whose cold arms do embrace The truest man that ever fed his flocks By the fat plains of fruitful Thessaly. Thus I salute thy grave, thus do I pay My ea...

Often they are broader yet, and intended for the club rather than the family. Indeed, the tales as a whole are club tales, with an audience of club-men always in mind; not, be i...

THÉODORE DE BANVILLE 1823--1891 Le Café ('The Soul of Paris') The Mysterious Hosts of the Forests ('The Caryatids': Lang's Translation) Aux Enfants Perdus: Lang's Translation Ba...

Baudelaire, Gautier writes, was born in the Rue Hautefeuille, in one of those old houses with a pepper-pot turret at the corner which have disappeared from the city under the ad...

Passing from the plays, we are next attracted by a number of splendid poems, on whose base the structure of Mr. Browning's fame perhaps rests most surely,--his dramatic pieces;...