Fiction Books

CHAPTER I "Please continue, Peggy. You were telling me who were there and what they wore. Oh, dear! I am so sorry mother would not give me leave to go. Was it all too gay?" "It was wonderful!" was the deliberate reply. "We might have danced till now had not Washington planned that sudden attack. We had to leave then,—that was early this morning,—and I spent the day abed." It... more...

MESSER MARCO POLO The message came to me, at the second check of the hunt, that a countryman and a clansman needed me. The ground was heavy, the day raw, and it was a drag, too fast for fun and too tame for sport. So I blessed the countryman and the clansman, and turned my back on the field. But when they told me his name, I all but fell from the saddle. "But that man's dead!" But he... more...

BOTH GIRLS WERE SO STUNNINGLY PRETTY, AND WORE SUCH ODD, BEWITCHING COSTUMES ON THEIR TANDEM, THAT THE PEOPLE WHO STOPPED TO WATCH THE BEAUTIES AS THEY WHIRLED BY NICKNAMED THEM "THE HEAVENLY TWINS." As Jay Gardiner drove down the village street behind his handsome pair of prancing bays, holding the ribbons skillfully over them, all the village maidens promenading up the village street or... more...

MATERIAL FOR A PUBLIC LIBRARY CAMPAIGN One of the most effective means of conducting a library campaign, especially in its early stage, is through the press. Not only will the reading and thinking part of the people thereby be reached, but any library editorial appearing in a newspaper, will, because of the public notice given it, receive greater consideration than if printed elsewhere. Library... more...

A POOR MAN'S TALE OF A PATENT I AM not used to writing for print. What working-man, that never labours less (some Mondays, and Christmas Time and Easter Time excepted) than twelve or fourteen hours a day, is? But I have been asked to put down, plain, what I have got to say; and so I take pen-and-ink, and do it to the best of my power, hoping defects will find excuse. I was born nigh London, but... more...

An Introduction For many years we, the teachers of the United States assembled in village, city, State, and national conventions, have recited our creed and chanted it in all keys.Our creedWe believe that man is a trinity, three in one—head, heart, and hand, one soul made manifest; we believe that this union is vital and indissoluble, since "what God hath joined together" may not be rent... more...

CAPTAIN SHARKEY: HOW THE GOVERNOR OF SAINT KITT'S CAME HOME When the great wars of the Spanish Succession had been brought to an end by the Treaty of Utrecht, the vast number of privateers which had been fitted out by the contending parties found their occupation gone. Some took to the more peaceful but less lucrative ways of ordinary commerce, others were absorbed into the fishing-fleets, and a... more...

CHAPTER ONE D'ARTAGNAN, PORTHOS … AND MONTE CRISTO It was half-past four; M. Desmalions, the Prefect of Police, was not yet back at the office. His private secretary laid on the desk a bundle of letters and reports which he had annotated for his chief, rang the bell and said to the messenger who entered by the main door: "Monsieur le Préfet has sent for a number of people to see him at five... more...

THE CRAFT OF FICTION To grasp the shadowy and fantasmal form of a book, to hold it fast, to turn it over and survey it at leisure—that is the effort of a critic of books, and it is perpetually defeated. Nothing, no power, will keep a book steady and motionless before us, so that we may have time to examine its shape and design. As quickly as we read, it melts and shifts in the memory; even at the... more...

CHAPTER I. "IT MAY BE THAT SHE IS WORKING STILL." It was raining drearily, and but few people were abroad—that is, few, comparatively speaking, though the streets seemed full of hurrying, dripping mortals. In the large dry-goods store business was by no means so brisk as on sunny days, and one of the younger clerks, whose station was near a window looking out upon the thoroughfare, had time... more...