Fiction Books

MY OWN LIFE. It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity; therefore I shall be short. It may be thought an instance of vanity that I pretend at all to write my life; but this narrative shall contain little more than the history of my writings; as, indeed, almost all my life has been spent in literary pursuits and occupations. The first success of most of my writings was not such... more...

BOOK I. Every summer, for several years past, it has been my custom to arrange in some pleasant place, either in England or on the continent, a gathering of old college friends. In this way I have been enabled not only to maintain some happy intimacies, but (what to a man of my occupation is not unimportant) to refresh and extend, by an interchange of ideas with men of various callings, an experience... more...

THE MAY-DAY QUEEN This is the book of Lappo Lappi, called by his friends the careless, the happy-go-lucky, the devil-may-take-it, the God-knows-what. Called by his enemies drinker, swinker, tumbler, tinker, swiver. Called by many women that liked him pretty fellow, witty fellow, light fellow, bright fellow, bad fellow, mad fellow, and the like. Called by some women who once loved him Lapinello,... more...

I Her Grand Ducal Highness the Princess Priscilla of Lothen-Kunitz was up to the age of twenty-one a most promising young lady. She was not only poetic in appearance beyond the habit of princesses but she was also of graceful and appropriate behaviour. She did what she was told; or, more valuable, she did what was expected of her without being told. Her father, in his youth and middle age a fiery man,... more...

A noble Huguenot family, owning considerable property in Normandy, the Le Fanus of Caen, were, upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, deprived of their ancestral estates of Mandeville, Sequeville, and Cresseron; but, owing to their possessing influential relatives at the court of Louis the Fourteenth, were allowed to quit their country for England, unmolested, with their personal property. We meet... more...

In a note prepared in 1915 for the English edition, Professor Oppenheim stated the circumstances under which his tractate on The Future of International Law was undertaken and published. 'This little work,' he said, 'originally written in German, was first published in 1911, under the title Die Zukunft des Völkerrechts (Leipzig: W. Engelmann), as a contribution to the Festschrift... more...

CHAPTER I CAUSES OF MISFITS "Blessed is the man who has found his work."—Carlyle. Only the rarest kind of soul has a clear call to his vocation. Still rarer is he who, knowing his work, can create circumstances which will permit him to do it. Of the thousands of young people who have sought us for counsel, only a very small percentage have had even a vague idea of what they are fitted to do,... more...

DING-DONG! Ding-dong! Ding-dong! The town crier has rung his bell, at a distant corner, and little Annie stands on her father's doorsteps, trying to hear what the man with the loud voice is talking about. Let me listen too. O, he is telling the people that an elephant, and a lion, and a royal tiger, and a horse with horns, and other strange beasts from foreign countries, have come to town, and... more...

INTRODUCTION Birth and Education. Of the life of Thomas Lodge comparatively little is definitely known. Yet, though even the year of his birth is uncertain, we are able from the meager facts that have come down to us to see that his life was typically Elizabethan. Like Sidney and like Raleigh, Lodge lived a varied and active life. He was born in either 1557 or 1558 of a rather prominent middle-class... more...

THE CHOICE I Pondering over Alison's note, he suddenly recalled and verified some phrases which had struck him that summer on reading Harnack's celebrated History of Dogma, and around these he framed his reply. "To act as if faith in eternal life and in the living Christ was the simplest thing in the world, or a dogma to which one has to submit, is irreligious. . . It is Christian to pray... more...