Fiction Books

CHAPTER I 'Ain't this ripping?' said I to my wife. 'Yes, delightful,' she said. It really was rather nice. It had been quite hot in the plains, and was pleasantly cool up here. My wife and family had preceded me and had been settled for some weeks in the house which we had taken in the hills for the hot weather, and now I had just arrived on two months' leave. We were... more...

January 1 THERE are two guarantees of a wise rule of conduct: the thought before action, and self-command afterward.—ST. IGNATIUS. 2 When we receive with an entire and perfect resignation the afflictions which God sends us they become for us favors and benefits; because conformity to the will of God is a gain far superior to all temporal advantages.—ST. VINCENT DE PAUL. 3 All perfection consists in... more...

I have been rather amused by the protests which have come to me regarding the "disparaging" comments I have made, in previous tales of the Special Patrol Service, regarding women. The rather surprising thing about it is that the larger proportion of these have come from men. Young men, of course. Now, as a matter of fact, a careful search has failed to reveal to me any very uncomplimentary... more...

PUSHING OFF "Oh, Cora! Isn't this perfectly splendid!" exclaimed Bess Robinson. "Delightful!" chimed in her twin sister, Belle. "I'm glad you like it," said Cora Kimball, the camp hostess. "I felt that you would, but one can never be sure—especially of Belle. Jack said she would fall a prey to that clump of white birches over there, and would want to paint... more...

CHAPTER I. "That child," said my aunt Mercy, looking at me with indigo-colored eyes, "is possessed." When my aunt said this I was climbing a chest of drawers, by its knobs, in order to reach the book-shelves above it, where my favorite work, "The Northern Regions," was kept, together with "Baxter's Saints' Rest," and other volumes of that sort, belonging to my... more...

INTRODUCTION Between those last precise accounts of military engagements which antiquity has left us in small number, and what may be called the modern history of war, there lies a period of many centuries—quite 1400 years—during which the details of an action and even the main features of a campaign are never given us by contemporary recorders. Through all that vast stretch of time we are... more...

INTRODUCTION The present work completes a series of fictitious narratives, intended to illustrate the manners of Scotland at three different periods. Waverley embraced the age of our fathers, Guy Mannering that of our own youth, and the Antiquary refers to the last ten years of the eighteenth century. I have, in the two last narratives especially, sought my principal personages in the class of society... more...

A NEW ATLANTIS. The New Year's debts are paid, the May-day moving is over and settled, and still a remnant of money is found sticking to the bottom of the old marmalade pot. Where shall we go? There is nothing like the sea. Shall it be Newport? But Newport is no longer the ocean pure and deep, in the rich severity of its sangre azul. We want to admire the waves, and they drag us off to inspect the... more...

CHAPTER I The New Murders I was standing fairly close to the President of the Anglo-Saxon Republic when the first of the new murders was committed. The President fell almost at my feet. I was quite certain then that the Venus man at my elbow was the murderer. I don't know why, call it intuition if you will. The Venus man did not make a move; he merely stood beside me in the press of the throng,... more...

CHAPTER I AT THE STAGE DOOR Courtlandt sat perfectly straight; his ample shoulders did not touch the back of his chair; and his arms were folded tightly across his chest. The characteristic of his attitude was tenseness. The nostrils were well defined, as in one who sets the upper jaw hard upon the nether. His brown eyes—their gaze directed toward the stage whence came the voice of the prima... more...