Fiction Books

I. A certain Persian nobleman obtained from a cow gipsy a small oyster. Holding him up by the beard, he addressed him thus: "You must try to forgive me for what I am about to do; and you might as well set about it at once, for you haven't much time. I should never think of swallowing you if it were not so easy; but opportunity is the strongest of all temptations. Besides, I am an orphan, and... more...

PREFACE. Since the first publication of Cock Lane and Common-Sense in 1894, nothing has occurred to alter greatly the author’s opinions.  He has tried to make the Folklore Society see that such things as modern reports of wraiths, ghosts, ‘fire-walking,’ ‘corpse-lights,’ ‘crystal-gazing,’ and so on, are within their province, and within the province of anthropology.  In this attempt he... more...

The late afternoon sun hid behind gray banks of snow clouds and a cold wind whipped loose leaves across the drill field in front of the Philadelphia Barracks of the North American Continental Thruway Patrol. There was the feel of snow in the air but the thermometer hovered just at the freezing mark and the clouds could turn either into icy rain or snow. Patrol Sergeant Ben Martin stepped out of the... more...

When I quitted home, on a little excursion in the spring of this present year 1808, a thought struck me, which I began to put into immediate execution. I determined to commit to paper any little circumstances that might arise, and any conversations in which I might be engaged, when the subject was at all important, though there might be nothing particularly new or interesting in the discussion itself.... more...

I The guests at Mrs. Smithers's high-class boarding-house for gentlemen had assembled as usual for breakfast, and in a few moments Mary, the dainty waitress, entered with the steaming coffee, the mush, and the rolls. The School-master, who, by-the-way, was suspected by Mrs. Smithers of having intentions, and who for that reason occupied the chair nearest the lady's heart, folded up the... more...

I think, therefore I am. That was the first thought I had. Of course not in the same symbols, but with the same meaning. I awakened, or came alive, or came into existence suddenly, at least my mental consciousness did. "Here am I," I thought, "but what am I, why am I, where am I?" I had nothing to work with except pure reason. I was there because I was not somewhere else. I was certain... more...

n the valley, with the sheltering hills now behind them, the bitterly cold wind drove at the sled with unchecked ferocity. Gusts of snow came with the wind, thick and dry, the separate particles of it stinging on contact. The dogs made slow progress through the deep drifts. Hager's smoldering irritation blazed into abrupt rage. From his position at the rear of the sled, he lashed out with the... more...

SLEEPYHEAD As I lay awake in the white moonlight,I heard a faint singing in the wood,      "Out of bed,      Sleepyhead,    Put your white foot, now;      Here are we      Beneath the tree    Singing round the root now." I looked out of window, in the white moonlight,The leaves were like snow in the wood—      "Come away,      Child, and... more...

THEY TOLD ME They told me Pan was dead, but I  Oft marvelled who it was that sangDown the green valleys languidly  Where the grey elder-thickets hang. Sometimes I thought it was a bird  My soul had charged with sorcery;Sometimes it seemed my own heart heard  Inland the sorrow of the sea. But even where the primrose sets  The seal of her pale loveliness,I found amid the violets  Tears of an... more...

I. Of the celebrated Mrs. Disraeli her husband is reported to have said, "She is an excellent creature, but she never can remember which came first, the Greeks or the Romans." In my walk through life I have constantly found myself among excellent creatures of this sort. The world is full of vague people, and in the average man, and still more in the average woman, the chronological sense seems... more...