Here’s Some Stories I Like, Classics Edition

I’ve been in love with Project Gutenberg for most of my adult life.  Since 1971, they’ve been putting copyright-free books into computers (many of them classics) for anyone to read. It’s gotten me through my fair share of boring jobs.

So today, as a thank you, it’s all Gutenberg, all the time.

“…a specter used to appear, an ancient man sinking with emaciation and squalor, with a long beard and bristly hair, wearing shackles on his legs and fetters on his hands, and shaking them.” — “Letter to Sura” by Pliny the Elder.

“She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn’t listen, at sitting in other people’s lives just for a minute while they talked round her.” — “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield.

“In the centre of the quaint old Virginia grave-yard stood two monuments side by side—two plain granite shafts exactly alike. On one was inscribed the name Robert Vaughan Fairfax and the year 1864. On the other was the simple and perplexing inscription, “Cahoots.” Nothing more.” — “Cahoots” by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

“What was to be done? A father’s heart is not made of stone.” — “St. John’s Eve” by Nikolai Gogol.