Fiction Books

BOOK I How blest my lot, in these sweet fields assign'd Where Peace and Leisure soothe the tuneful mind. SCOTT, of Amwell, Moral Eclogues (1773) Happiness Cricketers on village greens, haymakers in the evening sunshine, small boats that sail before the wind—all these create in me the illusion of Happiness, as if a land of cloudless pleasure, a piece of the old Golden World, were hidden, not (as... more...

Heretofore our knowledge of the osteology of Heliscomys Cope has been extremely limited; this genus previously was known by its teeth, fragmental maxillaries, incomplete palatine bone and mandible, and part of one forelimb. In the summer of 1946 the writer, as a member of the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History field party, discovered the anterior part of a skull of Heliscomys in the middle... more...

SPINNING TOPS. At a Leeds Board School last week, the master said to his class, "There is to be a meeting of the British Association in Leeds. What is it all about? Who are the members of the British Association? What do they do?" There was a long pause. At length it was broken by an intelligent shy boy: "Please, sir, I know—they spin tops!" Now I am sorry to say that this answer was... more...

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress. He did not trouble himself in the least about his soldiers; nor did he care to go either to the theatre or the chase, except for the opportunities then afforded him for displaying his new clothes. He had a different suit for each hour of the day; and as... more...

1 That sketch up there with the boy's cap? Yes; that's the same woman. I wonder whether you could guess who she was. A singular being, is she not? The most marvellous creature, quite, that I have ever met: a wonderful elegance, exotic, far-fetched, poignant; an artificial perverse sort of grace and research in every outline and movement and arrangement of head and neck, and hands and fingers.... more...

hurgub," said the tape recorder. "Just like I told you before, Dr. Blair, it's krandoor, so don't expect to vrillipax, because they just won't stand for any. They'd sooner framish." "Framish?" Jonathan heard his own voice played back by the recorder, tinny and slightly nasal. "What is that, Mr. Easton?" "You know. Like when you guttip. Carooms get... more...

Dr. Ludwig Thoma, perhaps better known to his Bavarian countrymen as Peter Schlemiehl, was born in Oberammergau on January 21, 1867. After graduating from a gymnasium in Munich, he studied at the School of Forestry at Aschauffenburg. He did not finish his course there, but entered the University at Munich and received his degree as Doctor Juris in 1893. A year later Dr. Thoma began to practice law; but... more...

CHAPTER I. The best bed-chamber, with its hangings of crimson moreen, was opened and aired—a performance which always caused my eight little brothers and sisters to place themselves in convenient positions for being stumbled over, to the great annoyance of industrious damsels, who, armed with broom and duster, endeavored to render their reign as arbitrary as it was short. For some time past, the... more...

WISDOM IN THE WOODS. I had seen and heard little of Hartman since our college days. There he was counted a youth of eminent promise: after that I knew that he had traveled, written something or other, and practised law—or professed it, and not too eagerly: then he had disappeared. Last May I stumbled on him in a secluded region where I had gone to fish and rest, after a year of too close attention to... more...

The magic little word "Reno" makes a smile creep over the face of anyone who hears it mentioned, as a rule in recognition of the one thing for which it is known. I have smiled myself with the rest of the world in the past; in the future my smile will have a different meaning. I have lived in Reno. I have felt the pulse of its secret soul, and have learned to understand its deeper meaning, and... more...