Hearts and Hands by O. Henry
Hearts and Hands A short story by O. Henry At Denver there was an influx of passengers into the coaches on the eastbound B & M express. In one coach there sat a very...
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Casey at the Bat by Ernest Thayer
Casey at the Bat A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888 by Ernest Thayer The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville Nine that day; the score stood four to two, with...
A Plea for Indoor Golf by P. G. Wodehouse
A PLEA FOR INDOOR GOLF Indoor golf is that which is played in the home. Whether you live in a palace or a hovel, an indoor golf-course, be it only of nine holes, is...
To Winter by William Blake
To Winter by William Blake (1757 – 1827) O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors: The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs Nor bend thy pillars...
P. G. Wodehouse Biography
P. G. Wodehouse Biography Sir Pelham Grenville (P. G.) Wodehouse (1881 – 1975) was a British humorist whose life spanned nearly a century. Best known for his novels featuring Bertie and Jeeves, Wodehouse (pronounced Woodhouse) also wrote short stories,...
Advent Poems by Christina Georgina Rossetti
Christina Rossetti’s classic Christmas carol, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” offers a vivid poetic look at the Incarnation. In a similar way, her less-known Advent poems describe the season of waiting and watching. Advent (1851) ‘Come,’ Thou dost say...
The Wild Swans at Coole by William Butler Yeats
The Wild Swans at Coole by William Butler Yeats Written between 1916 and early 1917, “The Wild Swans at Coole” is a lyric poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Literary scholar Daniel Tobin suggests...
A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard
This 1899 essay by Elbert Hubbard is one of my favorites. Hubbard’s keen sense of humor and skillful use of hyperbole and metaphor help him make a sharp point about the value of individual initiative...
Sonnet VII by John Milton
Sonnet VII: How soon hath Time, the Subtle Thief of Youth ON HIS BEING ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF 23. by John Milton How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol’n on...
The Slavery of Free Verse by G. K. Chesterton
The Slavery of Free Verse by G. K. Chesterton THE truth most needed today is that the end is never the right end. The beginning is the right end at which to begin. The...
The Pumpkin by John Greenleaf Whittier
The Pumpkin by John Greenleaf Whittier Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun, The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run, And the rock and the tree and the...
Setting the Scene in Bleak House
Charles Dickens was a master of description, both in scene setting and character creation. One of my favorite passages is the opening six paragraphs of Bleak House. I can hardly read it without wanting to...
Letter from Abraham Lincoln to Mrs. Bixby
The Bixby letter has long been considered one of the finest examples of letter writing. This letter from Abraham Lincoln to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widowed mother thought to have lost five sons in...
Battle Hymn of the Republic
In the early days of the American Civil War, American writer Julia Ward Howe penned the lyrics now known as the The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The stirring words were set to the equally lively music of...
Mark Antony’s Funeral Oration for Julius Caesar Text
Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene II by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) ANTONY Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after...
To a Locomotive in Winter by Walt Whitman
To a Locomotive in Winter by Walt Whitman Thee for my recitative! Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining, Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing and...
Father Vaillant: A Description
In the classic tradition, appearance was used to signify character. A hero or heroine was not only virtuous, but also handsome or beautiful, but a villain tended to be shifty-eyed, sneering, scowling, or otherwise less attractive. Why do you think Cather described Father Vaillant as she did?
