Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. ALL ABOUT THE FLAG. "Rodney Gray, I am ashamed of you; and if you were not my cousin, I should be tempted to thrash you within an inch of your life." "Never mind the relationship. After listening to the sentiments you have been preaching in this academy for the last three months, I am more ashamed of it than you can possibly be. You're a Yankee at heart, and a traitor to... more...

CHAPTER I THE BROKEN WIRE Winter had begun and snow blew about the lonely telegraph shack where Jim Dearham studied an old French romance. He read rather by way of mental discipline than for enjoyment, and partly with the object of keeping himself awake. Life is primitive in the British Columbian bush and Jim sometimes felt he must fight against the insidious influence of the wilds. Although he had... more...

CHAPTER I THE DRYAD DOOR It was a horrible day at sea, horrible even on board the new and splendid Monarchic. All the prettiest people had disappeared from the huge dining-saloon. They had turned green, and then faded away, one by one or in hurried groups; and now the very thought of music at meals made them sick, in ragtime. Peter Rolls was never sick in any time or in any weather, which was his one... more...

CHAPTER I. At the open window, which looked out into the little flower-garden, stood the blind daughter of the village sacristan, refreshing herself in the cool breeze that swept across her hot cheeks; her delicate, half-developed form trembled, her cold little hands lay folded in each other upon the window-sill. The sun had already set, and the night-flowers were beginning to scent the air. Further... more...

INTRODUCTION Thomas Hill Green was born in Birkin, Yorkshire, April 7, 1836. His early education was acquired first at home under his father, the rector of Birkin, then at Rugby, where he was sent at the age of fourteen. In 1855 he entered Balliol College, Oxford, and came under the influence of Jowett, afterwards famous as Master of Balliol and translator of Plato. Though he matured early, Green was... more...

INTRODUCING A CAPITALIST A cordon of blue regiments surrounded the city at first from Carondelet to North St. Louis, like an open fan. The crowds liked best to go to Compton Heights, where the tents of the German citizen-soldiers were spread out like so many slices of white cake on the green beside the city's reservoir. Thence the eye stretched across the town, catching the dome of the Court House... more...

CHAPTER IIN A LONDON SCHOOLROOM ‘It’s no good,’ sighed Barbara, looking disconsolately round the room; ‘we shall never get straight in time. Don’t you think we had better leave it, and let Auntie Anna see us as we really are? She will only be disappointed afterwards, if we begin by being tidy; and I don’t like disappointing people, do you?’ There was a shout of laughter when she finished... more...

COMRADES In the late May evening the soul of summer had gone suddenly incarnate, but the old man, indifferent and petulant, thrashed upon his bed. He was not used to being ill, and found no consolations in weather. Flowers regarded him observantly—one might have said critically—from the tables, the bureau, the window-sills: tulips, fleurs-de-lis, pansies, peonies, and late lilacs, for he had a... more...

THE STRANGER. That portion of territory known throughout Christendom as Kentucky, was, at an early period, the theatre of some of the wildest, most hardily contested, and bloody scenes ever placed on record. In fact its very name, derived from the Indian word Kan-tuck-kee, which was applied to it long before its discovery by the whites, is peculiarly significant in meaning—being no less than "the... more...

THE RED CITY A NOVEL OF THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF WASHINGTON About five in the afternoon on the 23d of May, 1792, the brig Morning Star of Bristol, John Maynard, master, with a topgallant breeze after her, ran into Delaware Bay in mid-channel between Cape May and Cape Henlopen. Here was the only sunshine they had seen in three weeks. The captain, liking the warmth on his broad back, glanced up... more...