Fiction Books

THE Pacific is inconstant and uncertain like the soul of man. Sometimes it is grey like the English Channel off Beachy Head, with a heavy swell, and sometimes it is rough, capped with white crests, and boisterous. It is not so often that it is calm and blue. Then, indeed, the blue is arrogant. The sun shines fiercely from an unclouded sky. The trade wind gets into your blood and you are filled with an... more...

Ares expedition turned away from the little telescope in the bow of the rocket. "Two weeks more, at the most," he remarked. "Mars only retrogrades for seventy days in all, relative to the earth, and we've got to be homeward bound during that period, or wait a year and a half for old Mother Earth to go around the sun and catch up with us again. How'd you like to spend a winter... more...

Part I The tradesmen of Bridgepoint learned to dread the sound of "MissMathilda", for with that name the good Anna always conquered. The strictest of the one price stores found that they could givethings for a little less, when the good Anna had fully said that "MissMathilda" could not pay so much and that she could buy it cheaper "byLindheims." Lindheims was Anna's... more...

Cadet George Hanlon stood stiffly at attention. But as the long, long minutes dragged on and on, he found his hands, his spine and his forehead cold with the sweat of fear. He tried manfully to keep his eyes fixed steadily on that emotionless face before him, but found it almost impossible to do so. Tension grew and grew and grew in the room until it seemed the very walls must bulge, or the windows... more...

CHAPTER I Diamond Makes the Acquaintance of North Wind There was once a little boy named Diamond and he slept in a low room over a coach house. In fact, his room was just a loft where they kept hay and straw and oats for the horses. Little Diamond's father was a coachman and he had named his boy after a favorite horse. Diamond's father had built him a bed in the loft with boards all around... more...

1. ON THE PURPOSE OF THIS VOLUME If some magical transformation could be produced in men's ways of looking at themselves and their fellows, no inconsiderable part of the evils which now afflict society would vanish away or remedy themselves automatically. If the majority of influential persons held the opinions and occupied the point of view that a few rather uninfluential people now do, there... more...

THE PIANOFORTE There must be practically on the part of every one who attends a pianoforte recital some degree of curiosity regarding the instrument itself. Therefore, it seems to me pertinent to institute at the very outset an inquiry into what the pianoforte is and how it became what it is—the most practical, most expressive and most universal of musical instruments, the instrument of the... more...

THE ORDER OF THE BOOKS In the English Bible the books of the Old Testament are arranged, not in the order in which they appear in the Hebrew Bible, but in that assigned to them by the Greek translation. In this translation the various books are grouped according to their contents—first the historical books, then the poetic, and lastly the prophetic. This order has its advantages, but it obscures many... more...

CHAPTER I. INFINITE LIFE AND POWER. Man possesses, did he but know it, illimitable Power. [1] This Power is of the Spirit, therefore, it is unconquerable. It is not the power of the ordinary life, or finite will, or human mind. It transcends these, because, being spiritual, it is of a higher order than either physical or even mental. This Power lies dormant, and is hidden within man until he is... more...

Irschcha, 2569 CE Chaos take those Imperial schools anyway! It was all their fault, Thark growled to himself, increasing his pace as the sleek lines of his ship came into view. Not even the prospect of flying the Prowler lightened his mood this time. The Chaos-loving schools had done too much! They were fine for the unTalented, like humans and now Traiti, but they had probably precipitated a disaster... more...