Fiction Books

Chapter I Introduction Mysticism is a term so irresponsibly applied in English that it has become the first duty of those who use it to explain what they mean by it. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1911), after defining a mystic as "one who believes in spiritual apprehension of truths beyond the understanding," adds, "whence mysticism (n.) (often contempt)." Whatever may be the precise... more...

CHAPTER I Mrs. Bennet, her travelling companion from San Francisco, having proved to be talkative and uninteresting, Elsie Marley was more than content to find herself alone after the change had been made and her train pulled out of Chicago. It was characteristic of the girl that she did not even look out of the window to see the last of Mrs. Bennet, who, having waited on the platform until the train... more...

AN OLD MATE OF YOUR FATHER'S You remember when we hurried home from the old bush school how we were sometimes startled by a bearded apparition, who smiled kindly down on us, and whom our mother introduced, as we raked off our hats, as "An old mate of your father's on the diggings, Johnny." And he would pat our heads and say we were fine boys, or girls—as the case may have been—and... more...

CHAPTER I THE GUN MAN’S HERITAGE Lost Valley lay like a sparkling jewel, fashioned in perfection, cast in the breast of the illimitable mountain country––and forever after forgotten of God. A tiny world, arrogantly unconscious of any other, it lived its own life, went its own ways, had its own conceptions of law––and they were based upon primeval instincts. Cattle by the thousand head ran on... more...

The intention of these notes is to make available to those interested in the agriculture of Cyprus some of the information scattered in various reports, leaflets and correspondence not readily accessible to the general public. It has long been a matter of regret to the writer that the valuable stores of information collected with so much care and ability by the late Mr. Panayiotis Gennadius, formerly... more...

CHAPTER I THE BLACK DOUGLAS RIDES HOME Merry fell the eve of Whitsunday of the year 1439, in the fairest and heartsomest spot in all the Scottish southland. The twined May-pole had not yet been taken down from the house of Brawny Kim, master armourer and foster father to William, sixth Earl of Douglas and Lord of Galloway. Malise Kim, who by the common voice was well named "The Brawny," sat in... more...

CHAPTER I "NAH! Renestine, cannot you come with the skirt and let me lay it in your trunk? You are dreaming, dreaming all the time. My child, these things must be ready by midnight tonight." The girl was thirteen years old and her mother was getting her possessions together to send her to America to join a sister who had already gone there and was married and now sent to have her little sister... more...

CHAPTER IBACK OF THE TRENCHES "Tom, what do you suppose that strange man who looked like a French peasant, yet wasn't one, could have been up to late yesterday afternoon?" "You mean the fellow discovered near the hangars at the aviation camp, Jack?" "Yes. He seemed to go out of sight like a wreath of smoke does. Why, if the ground had opened and swallowed him up, once the hue... more...

Iceland is a little country far north in the cold sea. Men found it and went there to live more than a thousand years ago. During the warm season they used to fish and make fish-oil and hunt sea-birds and gather feathers and tend their sheep and make hay. But the winters were long and dark and cold. Men and women and children stayed in the house and carded and spun and wove and knit. A whole family sat... more...

CHAPTER I THROUGH THE FOOTHILLS WITH A FLOCK OF SHEEP In the great Central Valley of California there are only two seasons—spring and summer. The spring begins with the first rainstorm, which usually falls in November. In a few months the wonderful flowery vegetation is in full bloom, and by the end of May it is dead and dry and crisp, as if every plant had been roasted in an oven. Then the lolling,... more...