Fiction Books

Chapter I"If to her share some female errors fall,Look on her face—and you'll forget them all." [Footnote 1: Ao-Tea-Roa, the Maori name of New Zealand.] Though one of the parts of the earth best fitted for man, New Zealand was probably about the last of such lands occupied by the human race. The first European to find it was a Dutch sea-captain who was looking for something else, and who... more...

I Only the young have such moments. I don't mean the very young. No. The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection. One closes behind one the little gate of mere boyishness—and enters an enchanted garden. Its very shades glow with promise.... more...

It deserves some notice, that just at, or soon after writing these sheets, we have an old dispute warmly revived among us, upon the question of our trade being declined, or not declined. I have nothing to do with the parties, nor with the reason of their strife upon that subject; I think they are wrong on both sides, and yet it is hardly worth while to set them to rights, their quarrel being quite of... more...

CHAPTER I. PUNISHMENT. We will again conduct the reader into the study of Jacques Ferrand. Availing ourselves of the loquacity of the clerks, we shall endeavour, through their instrumentality, to narrate the events that had occurred since the disappearance of Cecily. "A hundred sous to ten, if his present state continues, that in less than a month our governor will go off with a pop." "The... more...

I suppose there is no one of us who can honestly deny that he is interested in one way or another in the American short story. Indeed, it is hard to find a man anywhere who does not enjoy telling a good story. But there are some people born with the gift of telling a good story better than others, and of telling it in such a way that a great many people can enjoy its flavor. Most of you are acquainted... more...

CHAPTER I THE FUGITIVE The gaunt man led the way. At his heels, doggedly, came the two short ones, fagged, yet uncomplaining; all of them drenched to the skin by the chill rain that swirled through the Gap, down into the night- ridden valley below. Sky was never so black. Days of incessant storm had left it impenetrably overcast. These men trudged—or stumbled—along the slippery road which skirted... more...

Success has no secret. Her voice is forever ringing through the market-place and crying in the wilderness, and the burden of her cry is one word—WILL. Any normal young man who hears and heeds that cry is equipped fully to climb to the very heights of life. The message I would like to leave with the young men and women of America is a message I have been trying humbly to deliver from lecture platform... more...

CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARIES. My first appearance in the United States was made on the 19th of May, A. D. 1834. I have no recollection of this important event, but am reliably informed that the given date is correct, and that Dorchester county, Maryland, was the locality. At that time I had no premonition of my future life in a rebel prison, and if anyone had told me of the fourteen months which were to be... more...

CHAPTER I. PLANT LIFE. The fact that plants, in common with man and the lower animals, possess the phenomena of life and death, naturally suggested in primitive times the notion of their having a similar kind of existence. In both cases there is a gradual development which is only reached by certain progressive stages of growth, a circumstance which was not without its practical lessons to the early... more...

CHAPTER I. French Mission of Peking—Glance at the Kingdom of Ouniot—Preparations for Departure—Tartar-Chinese Inn—Change of Costume—Portrait and Character of Samdadchiemba—Sain-Oula (the Good Mountain)—The Frosts on Sain-Oula, and its Robbers—First Encampment in the Desert—Great Imperial Forest—Buddhist monuments on the summit of the mountains—Topography of the Kingdom of... more...