Fiction Books

There was a muffled rushing noise and the faintly acrid smell of ion electrodes as the Time Translator deposited Mrs. Mimms back into the year 1958. Being used to such journeys, she looked calmly about with quick gray eyes, making little flicking gestures with her hands as if brushing the stray minutes and seconds from her plain brown coat. The scene of Mrs. Mimms' arrival in the past was the rear... more...

CHAPTER I IN WHICH BABNABAS KNOCKS DOWN HIS FATHER, THOUGH AS DUTIFULLY AS MAY BE John Barty, ex-champion of England and landlord of the "Coursing Hound," sat screwed round in his chair with his eyes yet turned to the door that had closed after the departing lawyer fully five minutes ago, and his eyes were wide and blank, and his mouth (grim and close-lipped as a rule) gaped, becoming aware of... more...

AM I NOT A MAN AND BROTHER? AIR—Bride's Farewell. Am I not a man and brother?  Ought I not, then, to be free?Sell me not one to another,  Take not thus my liberty.Christ our Saviour, Christ our Saviour,  Died for me as well as thee. Am I not a man and brother?  Have I not a soul to save?Oh, do not my spirit smother,  Making me a wretched slave;God of mercy, God of... more...

CHAPTER I.O that Decay were always beautiful!How soft the exit of the dying day,The dying season too, its disarrayIs gold and scarlet, hues of gay misrule,So it in festive cheer may pass away;Fading is excellent in earth or air,With it no budding April may compare,Nor fragrant June with long love-laden hours;Sweet is decadence in the quiet bowersWhere summer songs and mirth are fallen asleep,And sweet... more...

AT SUNDOWN TO E. C. S. Poet and friend of poets, if thy glassDetects no flower in winter's tuft of grass,Let this slight token of the debt I oweOutlive for thee December's frozen day,And, like the arbutus budding under snow,Take bloom and fragrance from some morn of MayWhen he who gives it shall have gone the wayWhere faith shall see and reverent trust shall know. THE CHRISTMAS OF 1888. Low... more...

CHAPTER I The ancient port of Sunwich was basking in the sunshine of a July afternoon. A rattle of cranes and winches sounded from the shipping in the harbour, but the town itself was half asleep. Somnolent shopkeepers in dim back parlours coyly veiled their faces in red handkerchiefs from the too ardent flies, while small boys left in charge noticed listlessly the slow passing of time as recorded by... more...

CHAPTER 1 "Until this moment I have never fully realised how great an ass a man can be. When I think that this morning I scurried through what might have been a decent breakfast, left my comfortable diggings, and was cooped up in a train for seven hours, that I am now driving in a pelting rain through, so far as I can see for the mist, what appears to be a howling wilderness, I ask myself if I am... more...

The German fast mail steamer, Roland, one of the older vessels of the North German Steamship Company, plying between Bremen and New York, left Bremen on the twenty-third of January, 1892. It had been built in English yards with none of those profuse, gorgeous gold decorations in a riotous rococo style which are so unpleasant in the saloons and cabins of ships more recently built in German yards. The... more...

THE AMATEUR. "I ain't sayin' as how I could run a whole fire, same as some of the chiefs do; but when it comes to drivin' an engine, Dan Roberts, an' doin' it in time to get the first water, or layin' hose, I wouldn't knuckle down to the biggest man in the Department." "Now see here, Seth Bartlett, what's the sense of talkin' that way? It would... more...

CHAPTER I SOME CONTRASTS—HENLEY, THOMPSON, HARDY, KIPLING Meaning of the word "advance"—the present widespread interest in poetry—the spiritual warfare—Henley and Thompson—Thomas Hardy a prophet in literature—The Dynasts—his atheism—his lyrical power—Kipling the Victorian—his future possibilities—Robert Bridges—Robert W. Service. Although English poetry of the twentieth... more...