Fiction Books

CHAPTER I TOPOGRAPHICAL The modern traveller of to-day arriving at Rome by rail drives to his hotel through the uninteresting streets of a modern town, and thence finds his way to the Forum and the Palatine, where his attention is speedily absorbed by excavations which he finds it difficult to understand. It is as likely as not that he may leave Rome without once finding an opportunity of surveying the... more...

Book The First The Scripture of the Saviour of the World,Lord Buddha—Prince Siddartha styled on earthIn Earth and Heavens and Hells Incomparable,All-honoured, Wisest, Best, most Pitiful;The Teacher of Nirvana and the Law. Then came he to be born again for men. Below the highest sphere four Regents sitWho rule our world, and under them are zonesNearer, but high, where saintliest spirits deadWait... more...

CHAPTER I. A FRONTIER FARM. "Concord, March 1, 1774. "MY DEAR COUSIN: I am leaving next week with my husband for England, where we intend to pass some time visiting his friends. John and I have determined to accept the invitation you gave us last summer for Harold to come and spend a few months with you. His father thinks that a great future will, ere many years, open in the West, and that it... more...

ITALIAN WARS.—PARTITION OF NAPLES.—GONSALVO OVERRUNS CALABRIA. 1498-1502. Louis XII.'s Designs on Italy.—Alarm of the Spanish Court.—Bold Conduct of its Minister at Rome.—Celebrated Partition of Naples.—Gonsalvo Sails against the Turks.—Success and Cruelties of the French.—Gonsalvo Invades Calabria.—He Punishes a Mutiny.—His Munificent Spirit.—He Captures Tarento.—Seizes... more...

Cutter the First. Reader, have you ever been at Plymouth? If you have, your eye must have dwelt with ecstasy upon the beautiful property of the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe: if you have not been at Plymouth, the sooner that you go there the better. At Mount Edgcumbe you will behold the finest timber in existence, towering up to the summits of the hills, and feathering down to the shingle on the beach. And... more...

Had the Wilmot Electric Light people remained content only to make light, had they not, as a by-product, attempted to make money, they need not have left Hayti. When they flooded with radiance the unpaved streets of Port-au-Prince no one, except the police, who complained that the lights kept them awake, made objection; but when for this illumination the Wilmot Company demanded payment, every one up to... more...

One Night fell. The red waters of the swamp grew sinister and sullen. The tall pines lost their slimness and stood in wide blurred blotches all across the way, and a great shadowy bird arose, wheeled and melted, murmuring, into the black-green sky. The boy wearily dropped his heavy bundle and stood still, listening as the voice of crickets split the shadows and made the silence audible. A tear wandered... more...

THE GREATNESS OF THE ROMANS Rome was great in arms, in government, in law. This combination was the talisman of her august fortunes. But the three things, though blended in her, are distinct from each other, and the political analyst is called upon to give a separate account of each. By what agency was this State, out of all the States of Italy, out of all the States of the world, elected to a triple... more...

By the middle of the seventeenth century, almost a hundred thousand English men and women had settled in the New World. We sometimes forget that the largest colony across the Atlantic in those early years was not in Virginia, not in New England, but on the small eastern islands of the Caribbean, called the Caribbees. Early existence in the Caribbeanwas brutal, and at first these immigrants struggled... more...

CHAPTER I. Of Thorstein Egilson and his Kin. There was a man called Thorstein, the son of Egil, the son of Skallagrim, the son of Kveldulf the Hersir of Norway. Asgerd was the mother of Thorstein; she was the daughter of Biorn Hold. Thorstein dwelt at Burg in Burg-firth; he was rich of fee, and a great chief, a wise man, meek and of measure in all wise. He was nought of such wondrous growth and... more...