Fiction Books

PREFACE "The Portrait of a Lady" was, like "Roderick Hudson," begun in Florence, during three months spent there in the spring of 1879. Like "Roderick" and like "The American," it had been designed for publication in "The Atlantic Monthly," where it began to appear in 1880. It differed from its two predecessors, however, in finding a course also open to it, from... more...

CHAPTER I The Baroness Volterra drove to the Palazzo Conti in the heart of Rome at nine o'clock in the morning, to be sure of finding Donna Clementina at home. She had tried twice to telephone, on the previous afternoon, but the central office had answered that "the communication was interrupted." She was very anxious to see Clementina at once, in order to get her support for a new and... more...

A GOOD GENIUS. The first of the two, whose arrival had interrupted the answer of the notary, was Faringhea. At sight of this man's forbidding countenance, Samuel approached, and said to him: "Who are you, sir?" After casting a piercing glance at Rodin, who started but soon recovered his habitual coolness, Faringhea replied to Samuel: "Prince Djalma arrived lately from India, in order... more...

THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS; OR, THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN. * * * * * A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me one day, as if between jest and earnest, "Fancy! since we last met I have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London." "Really haunted,—and by what?—ghosts?" "Well, I can't answer that question; all I know is this: six weeks ago... more...

To John Snow's home in Gloucester came the tale this night of how Arthur Snow was washed from the deck of Hugh Glynn's vessel and lost at sea; and it was Saul Haverick, his sea clothes still on him, who brought the word. "I'm telling you, John Snow," said Saul—and he out of breath almost with the telling—"and others than me will by an' by be telling you, what a black... more...

THE NEW HYPERION. FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. THE FLOWERS OF WAR."Thou art no less a man because thou wearest no hauberk nor mail sark, and goest not on horseback after foolish adventures." So I said, reassuring myself, thirty years ago, when, as Paul Flemming the Blond, I was meditating the courageous change of cutting off my soap-locks, burning my edition of Bulwer and giving my... more...

"Neque imbellem ferocesProgenerant aquilæ columbam."It is not a pleasant epoch in one's life, the first forty-eight hours at a large public school. I have known strong-minded men of mature age confess that they never thought of it without a shiver. I don't count the home-sickness, which perhaps only affects seriously the most innocent of débutants, but there are other thousand and... more...

INTRODUCTION. Twenty years have passed away since a band of hastily-gathered minute-men left their homes to defend the soil of Pennsylvania from the first threatened invasion of the State by the rebel army under General R.E. Lee. Viewed through the lapse of this long period, crowded as it has been with so many momentous events in the life of the nation, the incidents of that brief and comparatively... more...

In a letter of Lafayette to Washington ("Paris, 12 Jan., 1790") he writes: "Common Sense is writing for you a brochure where you will see a part of my adventures." It thus appears that the narrative embodied in the reply to Burke ("Rights of Man," Part I.), dedicated to Washington, was begun with Lafayette's collaboration fourteen months before its publication (March 13,... more...

THE SERPENT KNIGHT Signelil sits in her bower alone,Of her golden harp she waked the tone. Beneath her mantle her harp she played,Then in came striding the worm so laid. “Proud Signelil, if thou me wilt wed,I’ll give thee store of gold so red.” “Forbid the heavenly God so greatThat I should become the Lindworm’s mate.” “Since thee I may not for a wife acquire,Kiss me only and I’ll... more...