Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. I thought to write a book entitled: "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow." How much is buried in the wreckage of yesterday—how uninteresting today is and how little is to be done—our burden we shift to the strong, young shoulders of tomorrow; tomorrow of the big heart, who in kindness hides our sorrows and whispers only of hope. I ended by writing,—this—which I have called... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BEACHING OF THE BOAT.   "Thou old gray sea,   Thou broad briny water,   With thy ripple and thy plash,   And thy waves as they lash   The old gray rocks on the shore.   With thy tempests as they roar,   And thy crested billows hoar,   And thy tide evermore                    Fresh and free." —Dr. Blackie. On the shore of a little... more...

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...

CHAPTER I. A BOZRAH BORNIN'. A tallow candle shed its sickly and flickering light in the front room of an ancient farm house, as Jack Sheppard announced his arrival on earth at four o'clock on a Friday morning. He arrived in a snowstorm, and it was a very select gathering of some of old Bozrah's prominent citizens who greeted his entry into the world. There was old Doctor Pettingill,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE CROWLEY FAMILY. Let me introduce the reader to the Crowley family, and when you have become acquainted with them bear well in mind that in this broad land of ours there are thousands upon thousands of families in a condition as deplorable, and some whose mercury line of debauchery has dropped to a point of miserable existence as yet unsounded by this family. The Crowleys are all in... more...

CHAPTER I Winn Staines respected God, the royal family, and his regiment; but even his respect for these three things was in many ways academic: he respected nothing else. His father, Admiral Sir Peter Staines, had never respected anything; he went to church, however, because his wife didn't. They were that kind of family. Lady Staines had had twelve children. Seven of them died as promptly as... more...

Passing a summer, several years since, at Edgartown, on the island of Martha's Vineyard, I became acquainted with a certain carver of tombstones, who had travelled and voyaged thither from the interior of Massachusetts, in search of professional employment. The speculation had turned out so successful, that my friend expected to transmute slate and marble into silver and gold, to the amount of at... more...

I The Story of the Little Red Sleigh It was in 1835, about mid-winter, when Brier Dale was a narrow clearing, and the horizon well up in the sky and to anywhere a day's journey. Down by the shore of the pond, there, Allen built his house. To-day, under thickets of tansy, one may see the rotting logs, and there are hollyhocks and catnip in the old garden. He was from Middlebury, they say, and came... more...

A small, shiny, pink card lay on the round table in Sylvia Bailey's sitting-room at the Hôtel de l'Horloge in Paris. She had become quite accustomed to finding one or more cards—cards from dressmakers, cards from corset-makers, cards from hairdressers—lying on her sitting-room table, but there had never been a card quite like this card. Although it was pink, it looked more like a... more...

CHAPTER I. The Old Man's Sister. The weekly mail had just arrived at the Flying U ranch. Shorty, who had made the trip to Dry Lake on horseback that afternoon, tossed the bundle to the "Old Man" and was halfway to the stable when he was called back peremptorily. "Shorty! O-h-h, Shorty! Hi!" Shorty kicked his steaming horse in the ribs and swung round in the path, bringing up before... more...