Fiction Books

CHAPTER I THE HONOURABLE HILARY VANE SITS FOR HIS PORTRAIT I may as well begin this story with Mr. Hilary Vane, more frequently addressed as the Honourable Hilary Vane, although it was the gentleman's proud boast that he had never held an office in his life. He belonged to the Vanes of Camden Street,—a beautiful village in the hills near Ripton,—and was, in common with some other great men who... more...

CHAPTER I. MISS PINSHON. I want an excuse to myself for writing my own life; an excuse for the indulgence of going it all over again, as I have so often gone over bits. It has not been more remarkable than thousands of others. Yet every life has in it a thread of present truth and possible glory. Let me follow out the truth to the glory. The first bright years of my childhood I will pass. They were... more...

Chapter One. The Ghosts’ Pass. “Well, old man, what do we do next?” The speaker, a fine young fellow of some five-and-twenty summers, reclining on the rough grass, with clouds of tobacco-smoke filtering through his lips, looked the picture of comfort, his appearance belying in every way the discontent expressed in his tones as he smoked his pipe in the welcome shade of a giant rock, which... more...

CHAPTER I. THE DUBOIS HOUSE. "Well, verily, I didn't expect to find anything like this, in such a wild region", said Mr. Norton, as he settled himself comfortably in a curiously carved, old-fashioned arm-chair, before the fire that blazed cheerily on the broad hearth of the Dubois House. "'Tis not a Yankee family either", added he, mentally. "Everything agreeable and tidy,... more...

IMPERFECT RESPECTABILITIES.   Everybody must have had some trouble in his time with imperfect respectabilities. Nice, well-dressed, well-housed, civil, agreeable people are they. No fault to find with them but that there is some little flaw in their history, for which the very good (rigid) don't visit them. The degree to which one is incommoded with imperfect respectabilities, depends of course a... more...

TROTTY VECK AND HIS DAUGHTER MEG."TROTTY" seems a strange name for an old man, but it was given to Toby Veck because of his always going at a trot to do his errands; for he was a ticket porter or messenger and his office was to take letters and messages for people who were in too great a hurry to send them by post, which in those days was neither so cheap nor so quick as it is now. He did not... more...

CHAPTER I "I always thought that you, Pegler, were such a very sensible woman." The words were said in a good-natured, though slightly vexed tone; and a curious kind of smile flitted over the rather grim face of the person to whom they were addressed. "I've never troubled you before in this exact way, have I, ma'am?" "No, Pegler. That you certainly have not." Miss... more...

When Gerrit woke that morning, his head felt misty and tired, as though weighed down by a mountain landscape, by a whole stack of mist-mountains that bore heavily upon his brain. His eyes remained closed; and, though he was waking, his nightmare still seemed to cast an after-shadow: a nightmare that he was being crushed by great rocky avalanches, which he felt pressing deep down inside his head, though... more...

Chapter I. 'Nothing fills a child's mind like a large old mansion; better if un- or partially occupied; peopled with the spirits of deceased members of the county and Justices of the Quorum. Would I were buried in the peopled solitude of one, with my feelings at seven years old!'—From Letters of Charles Lamb. To attempt a formal biography of Derrick Vaughan would be out of the... more...

CHAPTER I.INTRODUCING MR. HOPKINS TOPPLETON.Mr. Hopkins Toppleton, Barrister of London and New York, was considered by his intimates a most fortunate young man. He was accounted the happy possessor of an income of something over fifty thousand dollars a year, derived from investments which time had shown to be as far removed from instability, and as little influenced by the fluctuations of the stock... more...