Fiction Books

CHAPTER I For some reason the desert scene before Lucy Bostil awoke varying emotions—a sweet gratitude for the fullness of her life there at the Ford, yet a haunting remorse that she could not be wholly content—a vague loneliness of soul—a thrill and a fear for the strangely calling future, glorious, unknown. She longed for something to happen. It might be terrible, so long as it was wonderful.... more...

A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA I I confess that with all my curiosity to meet an Altrurian, I was in no hospitable mood toward the traveler when he finally presented himself, pursuant to the letter of advice sent me by the friend who introduced him. It would be easy enough to take care of him in the hotel; I had merely to engage a room for him, and have the clerk tell him his money was not good if he tried... more...

I SAW a gray-haired man, a figure of hale age, sitting at a desk and writing. He seemed to be in a room in a tower, very high, so that through the tall window on his left one perceived only distances, a remote horizon of sea, a headland and that vague haze and glitter in the sunset that many miles away marks a city. All the appointments of this room were orderly and beautiful, and in some subtle... more...

CHAPTER I: DISCUSSION AND BED Up at the League, says a friend, there had been one night a brisk conversational discussion, as to what would happen on the Morrow of the Revolution, finally shading off into a vigorous statement by various friends of their views on the future of the fully-developed new society. Says our friend: Considering the subject, the discussion was good-tempered; for those present... more...

CHAPTER 1. A Not Unnatural Enterprise This is written from memory, unfortunately. If I could have brought with me the material I so carefully prepared, this would be a very different story. Whole books full of notes, carefully copied records, firsthand descriptions, and the pictures—that's the worst loss. We had some bird's-eyes of the cities and parks; a lot of lovely views of streets, of... more...

CHAPTER I. A FARMER'S SON WITH PROGRESSIVE TENDENCIES. One bright summer afternoon, near the close of the month of August, 1905, two young college chums, Fillmore Flagg and George Gaylord, just met after a long separation, were seated on a rustic bench near a well-appointed mountain hotel. The superb view before them was well worthy of their half-hour's silent admiration. Full one thousand... more...

OVERTURE All around stretched the great blue sky and the blue sea of the Gulf of Bengal. Mrs. Clifton lay dozing at full length on a pillowed bench and her husband sat near her and followed his Lily, his daughter, with his eyes: his Lily, eight years old, “that high,” waving among the passengers the white coral necklace which Pa had bought her on leaving Australia; his Lily, his star, his New... more...

THE cave had been their hiding-place as children; it was a secret refuge now against hunger or darkness when they were hunting in the woods. The primitive meal was finished; ashes were raked over the red coals; the slice of bacon and the little bag of meal were hung high against the rock wall; and the two stepped from the cavern into a thicket of rhododendrons. Parting the bushes toward the dim light,... more...

I had taken Mrs. Prest into my confidence; in truth without her I should have made but little advance, for the fruitful idea in the whole business dropped from her friendly lips. It was she who invented the short cut, who severed the Gordian knot. It is not supposed to be the nature of women to rise as a general thing to the largest and most liberal view—I mean of a practical scheme; but it has... more...

"I say, you know, Kate—you did stay!" had been Merton Densher's punctual remark on their adventure after they had, as it were, got out of it; an observation which she not less promptly, on her side, let him see that she forgave in him only because he was a man. She had to recognise, with whatever disappointment, that it was doubtless the most helpful he could make in this character. The... more...