Fiction Books

CHAPTER I THE MEN WHO CHANGED SHIPS Between the lighter-load of burning beeves that came bumping down along their line at noon, a salvo of bombs slapped across them at one o’clock from a raiding Bulgar air squadron, a violent Levantine squall which all but broke them loose from their moorings at sundown, and a signal to raise steam for full speed with all dispatch at midnight, it had been a rather... more...

Jenny prepares to go a-journeying. “Jenny, my dear maid, thou wilt never fetch white meal out of a sack of sea-coal.” Jenny tossed her head. It would have been a nice little brown head, if it had not been quite so fond of tossing itself. But Jenny was just sixteen, and laboured under a delusion which besets young folks of that age—namely, that half the brains in the world had got into her head,... more...

A pine forest is nature's expression of solemnity and solitude. Sunlight, rivers, cascades, people, music, laughter, or dancing could not make it gay. With its unceasing reverberations and its eternal shadows, it is as awful and as holy as a cathedral. Thirty good fellows working together by day and drinking together by night can keep up but a moody imitation of jollity. Spend twenty-five of your... more...

  APHRODITEGreat among men, and not unnamed am I,The Cyprian, in God's inmost halls on high.And wheresoe'er from Pontus to the farRed West men dwell, and see the glad day-star,And worship Me, the pious heart I bless,And wreck that life that lives in stubbornness.For that there is, even in a great God's mind,That hungereth for the praise of human kind. So runs my word; and soon the very... more...

I Sabbath Valley lay like a green jewel cupped in the hand of the surrounding mountains with the morning sun serene upon it picking out the clean smooth streets, the white houses with their green blinds, the maples with their clear cut leaves, the cosy brick school house wide winged and friendly, the vine clad stone church, and the little stone bungalow with low spreading roof that was the parsonage.... more...

The following paper is written in a female hand, and was no doubt communicated to my much-regretted friend by the lady whose early history it serves to illustrate, the Countess D——. She is no more—she long since died, a childless and a widowed wife, and, as her letter sadly predicts, none survive to whom the publication of this narrative can prove 'injurious, or even painful.' Strange!... more...

I. ATHENA CHALINITIS.*(Athena in the Heavens.) * "Athena the Restrainer." The name is given to her as having helpedBellerophon to bridle Pegasus, the flying cloud. LECTURE ON THE GREEK MYTHS OF STORM, GIVEN (PARTLY) IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, MARCH 9, 1869. 1. I will not ask your pardon for endeavoring to interest you in the subject of Greek Mythology; but I must ask your permission to... more...

The Call to Duty Glinda, the good Sorceress of Oz, sat in the grand court of her palace, surrounded by her maids of honor—a hundred of the most beautiful girls of the Fairyland of Oz. The palace court was built of rare marbles, exquisitely polished. Fountains tinkled musically here and there; the vast colonnade, open to the south, allowed the maidens, as they raised their heads from their... more...

Chapter 1 O ye who tread the Narrow WayBy Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,Be gentle when 'the heathen' prayTo Buddha at Kamakura! Buddha at Kamakura. He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher—the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold... more...

THE COMRADES' TRYST "A bowl of claret, Father Korn." The raucous voice of big Ernestine rose above the hubbub in the smoke-begrimed tavern. "Some claret, and let it be good," repeated the drab, a big, fair damsel with puckered eyes and features worn by dissipation. Father Korn had heard the first time, but he was in no hurry to comply with the order. He was a bald, whiskered giant,... more...