Fiction Books

INTRODUCTORY It was a night of bright moonlight that made for pitchy shadows under wall or tree. Patsy Kenny was looking for the goat, she having broken her tether. He had been driven forth by his fierce old grandfather with threats of the most awful nature if he should return without the goat. The tears were not yet dry on Patsy's small face. He had kneaded them in with his knuckles, but the... more...

CHAPTER I. SPILLED OUT. Sylvie Argenter was driving about in her mother's little basket-phæton. There was a story about this little basket-phæton, a story, and a bit of domestic diplomacy. The story would branch away, back and forward; which I cannot, right here in this first page, let it do. It would tell—taking the little carriage for a text and key—ever so much about aims and ways and... more...

HENRI RENÉ ALBERT GUY DE MAUPASSANT The Necklace She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a mistake of destiny, born in a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded, by any rich and distinguished man; and she let herself be married to a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction. She dressed plainly... more...

Zalen Lindsay stood on the rostrum in the huge new United Worlds auditorium on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain and looked out at an ocean of eye-glasses. Individually they ranged in hue from the rose-tinted spectacles of the Americans to the dark brown of the Soviet bloc. Their shapes and adornments were legion: round, harlequin, diamond, rhomboid, octagonal, square, oval; rimless, gem-studded,... more...

Daptine is the secret of it. Adaptine, they called it first; then it got shortened to daptine. It let us adapt. They explained it all to us when we were ten years old; I guess they thought we were too young to understand before then, although we knew a lot of it already. They told us just after we landed on Mars. "You're home, children," the Head Teacher told us after we had gone into the... more...

CHAPTER I We get under way. Polynesia's busiest corner. Our ship's company. A patriotic celebration rudely interrupted. In the grip of the elements. Necessary repairs. A night vigil. Land ho! "Is she tight?" asked Captain Ezra Triplett. (We were speaking of my yawl, the Kawa). "As tight as a corset," was my reply. "Good. I'll go." In this short interview I... more...

CHAPTER I. "For that mercy," said Gorman, "you may thank with brief thanksgiving whatever gods there be." We were discussing, for perhaps the twentieth time, the case of poor Ascher. Gorman had reminded me, as he often does, that I am incapable of understanding Ascher or entering into his feelings, because I am a man of no country and therefore know nothing of the emotion of patriotism.... more...

1. I meditate in my heart on that K.rish.na on whose left side is seated Râdhâ, on whose breast reclines Šrî (Lakshmî), and who enjoyed sport (with them) in V.rindâvana. 2. I, Sahajânanda.h Svâmî (afterwards called Svâmî-Nârâya.na), living at V.rittâlaya, write this Letter of instructions (or Book of directions) to all my followers scattered throughout various countries. 3. Let the two... more...

HOW THE STORIES CAME TO BE Out of the moons of long ago, these stories have come. Then every tribe of the Iroquois had its story-teller. When the Old Man of the North came out of his lodge, and the forests and rivers of the Red Children grew white with his breath, these story-tellers wandered from wigwam to wigwam. Seated on warm skins by the fire, the story-teller would exclaim, "Hanio!" This... more...

The Closed Door Opens In his aimless wanderings around Boston that night Wilson passed the girl twice, and each time, though he caught only a glimpse of her lithe form bent against the whipping rain, the merest sketch of her somber features, he was distinctly conscious of the impress of her personality. As she was absorbed by the voracious horde which shuffled interminably and inexplicably up and down... more...