Fiction Books

CHAPTER I—THE PARSONAGE All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.  Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge.  I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to... more...

ELECTRICITY. Some of the phenomena of electricity are manifested upon so large a scale as to be thrust upon the attention of everybody. Thus lightning, which accompanies so many showers in warm weather in almost every latitude, has always excited in some individuals a superstitious awe, as being an exhibition of supernatural agency; and probably every one feels more or less dread of it during a... more...

CHAPTER I When I was a child I lived in a small sea-coast town, with wide, flat sands. The only beautiful thing in the place—a town of no distinction—were the sunsets over this vast, level expanse. I remember them at intervals, as one recalls things seen passing in a train through a solitary landscape. I seem to see myself, a child with a child's imagination, standing on those wet sands,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE NOSE OF A SPY "Squire." said Mr. Hopewell, "you know Sam well enough, I hope, to make all due allowances for the exuberance of his fancy. The sketch he has just given you of London society, like the novels of the present day, though founded on fact, is very unlike the reality. There may be assemblages of persons in this great city, and no doubt there are, quite as insipid and... more...

CHAPTER I The Challenge of the Mound It was a curious, somehow weird-looking thing, that mound. About a yard in height and three and a half in diameter, it squatted in the grassy grove next the clump of trees like an enormous, inverted soup plate. Here and there tufts of grass waved on it, of a richer, deeper color, testifying to the unwholesome fertility of the crumbling outer stuff that had flaked... more...

CHAPTER I. Subiaco lies beyond Tivoli, southeast from Rome, at the upper end of a wild gorge in the Samnite mountains. It is an archbishopric, and gives a title to a cardinal, which alone would make it a town of importance. It shares with Monte Cassino the honour of having been chosen by Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, his sister, as the site of a monastery and a convent; and in a cell in the... more...

CHAPTER I. "We met ere yet the world had comeTo wither up the springs of youth,Amid the holy joys of home,And in the first warm blush of youth.We parted as they never part,Whose tears are doomed to be forgot;Oh, by what agony of heart.Forget me not!—forget me not!" —Anonymous. At nine o'clock the next morning Traverse went to the library to keep his tryst with Colonel Le Noir. Seated... more...

CHAPTER I MOSTLY TONY Among the voluble, excited, commencement-bound crowd that boarded the Northampton train at Springfield two male passengers were conspicuous for their silence as they sat absorbed in their respective newspapers which each had hurriedly purchased in transit from train to train. A striking enough contrast otherwise, however, the two presented. The man next the aisle was well past... more...

THE CITY AND THE WORLD   FATHER DENFILI, old and blind, telling his beads in the corner of the cloister garden, sighed. Father Tomasso, who had brought him from his confessional in the great church to the bench where day after day he kept his sightless vigil over the pond of the goldfish, turned back at the sound, then, seeing the peace of Father Denfili's face, thought he must have fancied the... more...

Venice "Si, Signore!" The gondola stirred gently, as with a long, quiet breath, and a moment later it had pushed its way out from among the thronging craft at the steps of the railway quay, and was gliding with its own leisurely motion across the sunlit expanse of the broad Canal. As the prow of the slender black bark entered a narrow side-canal and pursued its way between frowning walls and... more...