Fiction Books

I THE STORY OF THE SESTINA “Armatz de fust e de fer e d’acier, Mos ostal seran bosc, fregz, e semdier, E mas cansos sestinas e descortz, E mantenrai los frevols contra ’ls fortz.”THE FIRST NOVEL.—ALIANORA OF PROVENCE, COMING IN DISGUISE AND IN ADVERSITY TO A CERTAIN CLERK, IS BY HIM CONDUCTED ACROSS A HOSTILE COUNTRY; AND IN THAT TROUBLED JOURNEY ARE MADE MANIFEST TO EACH THE SNARES WHICH HAD... more...

SCENE I It was an August evening, still and cloudy after a day unusually chilly for the time of year. Now, about sunset, the temperature was warmer than it had been in the morning, and the departing sun was forcing its way through the clouds, breaking up their level masses into delicate lattice-work of golds and greys. The last radiant light was on the wheat-fields under the hill, and on the long chalk... more...

I WOMEN’S WORDS PART FLESH AND BLOOD ONCE upon a time there were two brothers, who lived in the same house. And the big brother listened to his wife’s words, and because of them fell out with the little one. Summer had begun, and the time for sowing the high-growing millet had come. The little brother had no grain, and asked the big one to loan him some, and the big one ordered his wife to give it... more...

Chapter I This is the tale of Bradley after he left Fort Dinosaur upon the west coast of the great lake that is in the center of the island. Upon the fourth day of September, 1916, he set out with four companions, Sinclair, Brady, James, and Tippet, to search along the base of the barrier cliffs for a point at which they might be scaled. Through the heavy Caspakian air, beneath the swollen sun, the... more...

HOW SIR TOM BECAME A GREAT PERSONAGE. Sir Thomas Randolph had lived a somewhat stormy life during the earliest half of his career. He had gone through what the French called a jeunesse orageuse; nothing very bad had ever been laid to his charge; but he had been adventurous, unsettled, a roamer about the world even after the period at which youthful extravagances cease. Nobody ever knew when or where he... more...

Although the ratio of 3 to 1 in which contrasted characters reappear in the second or F generation is sometimes referred to as Mendel's Law of Heredity, the really significant discovery of Mendel was not the 3 to 1 ratio, but the segregation of the characters (or rather, of the germinal representatives of the characters) which is the underlying cause of the appearance of the ratio. Mendel saw that... more...

Such was the simple and unpretending advertisement that announced the Lives of the English Poets; a work that gave to the British nation a new style of biography. Johnson's decided taste for this species of writing, and his familiarity with the works of those whose lives he has recorded, peculiarly fitted him for the task; but it has been denounced by some as dogmatical, and even morose; minute... more...

INTRODUCTION BY H.G. WELLS "'But do I see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of happy infancy? And may I—may I?' "This May I, meant might he shake hands?" —DICKENS, Great Expectations. I do not know why I should be so overpoweringly reminded of the immortal, if at times impossible, Uncle Pumblechook, when I sit down to write a short preface to Mr.... more...

CHAPTER I THE BLAKE FAMILY ARE DISCUSSED 'There is nothing, sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.'—Dr. Johnson. Everyone in Rutherford knew that Mrs. Ross was ruled by her eldest daughter; it was an acknowledged fact, obvious not only to a keen-witted person... more...

The Tobacco of Harisaboqued A legend of the volcano of Canlaon on the island of Negros. It is told generally in Western Negros and Eastern Cebu. The volcano is still active, and smoke and steam rise from its crater. Long before the strange men came over the water from Spain, there lived in Negros, on the mountain of Canlaon, an old man who had great power over all the things in the earth. He was called... more...