Fiction Books

ACT I SCENE: The interior of a farmer's cottage; the kitchen. The entrance is at the back right. To the left is the fire-place, an open hearth, with a fire of peat. There is a room door to the right, a pace below the entrance; and another room door below the fire-place. Between the room door and the entrance there is a row of wooden pegs, on which men's coats hang. Below this door is a... more...

"You ought to buy it," said my host; "it's just the place for a solitary-minded devil like you. And it would be rather worth while to own the most romantic house in Brittany. The present people are dead broke, and it's going for a song—you ought to buy it." It was not with the least idea of living up to the character my friend Lanrivain ascribed to me (as a matter of fact,... more...

CHAPTER I THE INCIDENT AT THE BANK IN the public room of the Sixth National Bank at Bar Harbor in Maine, Lieutenant Alan Drummond, H.M.S. "Consternation," stood aside to give precedence to a lady. The Lieutenant had visited the bank for the purpose of changing several crisp white Bank of England notes into the currency of the country he was then visiting. The lady did not appear to notice... more...

CHAPTER I THE strangest, the most varied, the most erroneous opinions have been expressed with regard to the famous individual commonly known as Bluebeard. None, perhaps, was less tenable than that which made of this gentleman a personification of the Sun. For this is what a certain school of comparative mythology set itself to do, some forty years ago. It informed the world that the seven wives of... more...

SISTER TERESA As soon as Mother Philippa came into the parlour Evelyn guessed there must be serious trouble in the convent. "But what is the matter, Mother Philippa?" "Well, my dear, to tell you the truth, we have no money at all." "None at all! You must have some money." "As a matter of fact we have none, and Mother Prioress won't let us order anything from the... more...

CHAPTER I ANCIENT INDIA The Vedas. Buddhist Literature. Great Epic Poems, then veryDiverse, much Shorter Poems. Dramatic Literature. Moral Literature. THE VEDAS.—The ancient Indians, who spoke Sanscrit, possess a literature which goes back, perhaps, to the fifteenth century before Christ. At first, like all other races, they possessed a sacred literature intimately bound up with their religion. The... more...

CHAPTER I The tall young lady who arrived fifteen minutes before the Freddy Tunbridges' dinner-hour, was not taken into the great empty drawing-room, but, as though she were not to be of the party expected that night, straight upstairs she went behind the footman, and then up more stairs behind a maid. The smart, white-capped domestic paused, and her floating muslin streamers cut short their... more...

CHAPTER I THE MARQUIS ARRIVES AT THE INN By the end of the second decade of the last century Monday Port had passed the height of prosperity as one of the principal depots for the West Indian trade. The shipping was rapidly being transferred to New York and Boston, and the old families of the Port, having made their fortunes, in rum and tobacco as often as not, were either moving away to follow the... more...

CHAPTER I. "I won't give you any farther trouble, I can find what I want myself." The sexton's wife looked at the gentleman in some little surprise, and then glanced at the bunch of huge keys which hung in the door she had just opened for the stranger. "That's right; you need not be uneasy, I shall not stay long, and here is something for your trouble." He pressed a piece... more...

THE CULT OF ALTRUISM In this age of sacred egoisms and oppressed nationalities the drama—or melodrama—of international politics has been enriched by a variety of distressed heroines, in the shape of small nations, whose salvation has inspired professions of altruism slightly incompatible with the previous records of the rescuers as revealed to the impartial observer. The shortage of paper and... more...