Fiction Books

CHAPTER I The wolfer lay in his cabin and listened to the first few night sounds of the foothills. The clear piping notes of migrating plover floated softly down to him, punctuated by the rasping cry of a nighthawk. A coyote raised his voice, a perfect tenor note that swept up to a wild soprano, then fell again in a whirl of howls which carried amazing shifts of inflection, tearing up and down the... more...

Jason dinAlt looked unhappily at the two stretchers as they were carried by. "Are they at it again?" he asked. Brucco nodded, the scowl permanently ingrained now on his hawklike face. "We have only one thing to be thankful for. That is—so far at least—they haven't used any weapons on each other." Jason looked down unbelievingly at the shredded clothing, crushed flesh and broken... more...

The Courtship of Allaphair Preaching at the open-air meeting-house was just over and the citizens of Happy Valley were pouring out of the benched enclosure within living walls of rhododendron. Men, women, children, babes in arms mounted horse or mule or strolled in family groups homeward up or down the dusty road. Youths and maids paired off, dallying behind. Emerged last one rich, dark, buxom girl... more...

Chapter One. H.M.S. “Seafowl.” “Dicky, dear boy, it’s my impression that we shall see no blackbird’s cage to-day.” “And it’s my impression, Frank Murray, that if you call me Dicky again I shall punch your head.” “Poor fellow! Liver, decidedly,” said the first speaker, in a mock sympathetic tone. “Look here, old chap, if I were you, I’d go and ask Jones to give me a blue pill,... more...

THE CULT OF ALTRUISM In this age of sacred egoisms and oppressed nationalities the drama—or melodrama—of international politics has been enriched by a variety of distressed heroines, in the shape of small nations, whose salvation has inspired professions of altruism slightly incompatible with the previous records of the rescuers as revealed to the impartial observer. The shortage of paper and... more...

CHAPTER I. "I won't give you any farther trouble, I can find what I want myself." The sexton's wife looked at the gentleman in some little surprise, and then glanced at the bunch of huge keys which hung in the door she had just opened for the stranger. "That's right; you need not be uneasy, I shall not stay long, and here is something for your trouble." He pressed a piece... more...

CHAPTER I THE MARQUIS ARRIVES AT THE INN By the end of the second decade of the last century Monday Port had passed the height of prosperity as one of the principal depots for the West Indian trade. The shipping was rapidly being transferred to New York and Boston, and the old families of the Port, having made their fortunes, in rum and tobacco as often as not, were either moving away to follow the... more...

CHAPTER I ANCIENT INDIA The Vedas. Buddhist Literature. Great Epic Poems, then veryDiverse, much Shorter Poems. Dramatic Literature. Moral Literature. THE VEDAS.—The ancient Indians, who spoke Sanscrit, possess a literature which goes back, perhaps, to the fifteenth century before Christ. At first, like all other races, they possessed a sacred literature intimately bound up with their religion. The... more...

"You ought to buy it," said my host; "it's just the place for a solitary-minded devil like you. And it would be rather worth while to own the most romantic house in Brittany. The present people are dead broke, and it's going for a song—you ought to buy it." It was not with the least idea of living up to the character my friend Lanrivain ascribed to me (as a matter of fact,... more...

ACT I SCENE: The interior of a farmer's cottage; the kitchen. The entrance is at the back right. To the left is the fire-place, an open hearth, with a fire of peat. There is a room door to the right, a pace below the entrance; and another room door below the fire-place. Between the room door and the entrance there is a row of wooden pegs, on which men's coats hang. Below this door is a... more...