Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 16

He wrote at once a patriotic letter to his father-in-law, wherein he said, "I foresee the doom of slavery." He accompanied the company to Springfield, where his military experie...

Their first essay was a drama. It was rejected; whereupon, nothing daunted, they wrote a novel. It was entitled '18--,' and it is interesting to observe that here, at the very o...

In those very ancient laws of Solon which were inscribed at Athens on wooden tables, and which, from veneration to him, the Athenians, to render eternal, had sanctioned with pun...

When he received the first letter of disagreeable tenor from his starosta some years before, he was already contemplating a plan for a number of changes and improvements in the...

Old Puttenham also bears this testimony:--"But of them all [the English poets] particularly this is myne opinion, that Chaucer, with Gower, Lidgate, and Harding, for their antiq...

Turning to Goldsmith the man, what the "draggle-tail Muses" paid him we find him spending on dress and rooms and jovial magnificence, on relatives or countrymen or the unknown p...

As the epic impulse faded, and before Greek genius for tragedy rose, the same race and dialect which had given epic narrative the proud, full verse that filled like a sail to ze...

In the winter of 1838-9 I was attending school at Ripley, only ten miles distant from Georgetown, but spent the Christmas holidays at home. During this vacation my father receiv...

I had the honor of seeing M. Roncali twelve years ago at Paris, and he allows me to hope that I shall have the good fortune to see him again. This is infinitely flattering to me...

Goldoni himself acknowledges, perhaps not too sincerely, in his Parisian memoirs, the superiority, the mastership, of Moliere. In truth, the great Frenchman stands, with Aristop...

But the clouds of barbarism were gradually dispelled, and the peaceful authority of Martin the Fifth and his successors restored the ornaments of the city as well as the order o...

A little later he again inquired the time, and crossing his hands on his breast, in a faint voice he called Malivoire and tried to speak to him. But Malivoire could not catch th...

In Parliament he espoused the popular cause. His memorable displays of oratory followed fast and plentifully. On April 19th, 1780, he attacked the right of England to legislate...

The emperour had made III. vessells, and the first was of clean [pure] golde and full of precious stones outwarde, and within full of dead bones; and it had a superscription in...

A valuable merchandise of small bulk is capable of defraying the expense of land carriage; and the caravans traversed the whole latitude of Asia in two hundred and forty-three d...

If we ask,--for this, after all, is the capital question of criticism,--What has Goethe done to make us better? the answer is: He has made each of us aspire and endeavor to be n...

The hired horse that we rode was to be put up that night at an inn by the way, within about five miles from my house; and as I was willing to prepare my family for my daughter's...

When the sacrifice was brought, Assar was dressed in festive robes on the word of the King, and a place was given him among the King's friends, and orders were sent out througho...

Hence arose, it seems reasonable to believe, that charge of partisanship against Macaulay as a historian, on which much has been and probably much more will be said. He may not...

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school....

About no recent poet has so much been said and sung as about Heinrich Heine. The youngest writer, who for the first time tries his pen, does not neglect to sketch with uncertain...

Below the hills a marshy plain Infects what I so long have been retrieving; This stagnant pool likewise to drain Were now my latest and my best achieving. To many millions let m...

Another class of objections which has been brought against him is that he is weak upon the philosophical side, and deals with history mainly as a mere chronicle of events, and n...

The pessimist has generally a bad name, but there is a good deal to be said for him. To take a recent illustration, the man who took pessimistic views of the silver movement was...

"Without any prominent passion, his love for Ophelia was a still presentiment of sweet wants. His zeal in knightly accomplishments was not entirely his own; it needed to be quic...

And this not merely because curiosity is excited concerning the opinion of the greatest living Englishman (for notwithstanding his political vacillations, his views on inward an...

The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a single spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine. But as some decent mixture of prodigy and fable h...

The volume with which he scored his first success, and which must remain a classic, is 'Evenings at a Farm-House near Dikanka.' As the second volume, 'Mirgorod,' and his volume...

Years thus fleeted away! Although our houses were only Twenty paces apart, yet I thy threshold ne'er crossed. Now by the fearful flood are we parted! Thou liest to Heaven, Billo...

Richard Watson Gilder is the son of a clergyman, the Rev. William H. Gilder, who published two literary reviews in Philadelphia. He was born in Bordentown, New Jersey, February...

The same fortune which so invariably followed the standard of Constantine seemed to secure the hopes and comforts of his domestic life. Those among his predecessors who had enjo...

Afanasy Ivan'itch very rarely occupied himself with the farming; although he sometimes went out to see the mowers and reapers, and gazed with great intensity at their work. All...

III. The value of any object that supplies the wants or pleasures of mankind is compounded of its substance and its form, of the materials and the manufacture. Its price must de...

All the following selections from 'Faust' are from Taylor's translation. Copyright 1870, by Bayard Taylor, and reprinted here by permission of and special agreement with Mrs. Ta...

Many of his finest expressions are in part derived from classic or other poets; but he showed undeniable genius in his adaptation, transformation, or new creation from these sug...

I should deceive the expectation of the reader if I passed in silence the fate of the Alexandrian library as it is described by the learned Abulpharagius. The spirit of Amrou wa...

LIVED PAGE AULUS GELLIUS Second Century A.D. 6253 From 'Attic Nights': Origin, and Plan of the Book; The Vestal Virgins; The Secrets of the Senate; Plutarch and his Slave; Discu...

Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful...

2. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest paragraph break. Also the footnotes have been moved to the end of the paragraph/poem in which they are re...