Fiction Books

SCENE I It was an August evening, still and cloudy after a day unusually chilly for the time of year. Now, about sunset, the temperature was warmer than it had been in the morning, and the departing sun was forcing its way through the clouds, breaking up their level masses into delicate lattice-work of golds and greys. The last radiant light was on the wheat-fields under the hill, and on the long chalk... more...

ITHE OLD HOUSE"Somewhat back from the village streetStands the old-fashioned country seat." nce upon a time in an old town, in an old street, there stood a very old house. Such a house as you could hardly find nowadays, however you searched, for it belonged to a gone-by time—a time now quite passed away. It stood in a street, but yet it was not like a town house, for though the front opened... more...

CHAPTER I From the Old World to the New This is how it befell. Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, thought that a flourishing colony right in the midst of the rich hunting-grounds of the Hudson's Bay Company, in which he was interested, would prove no less a benefit to the natives than an excellent thing for the colonists. Accordingly, he busied himself in persuading a number of his fellow-countrymen... more...

I THE STORY OF THE SESTINA “Armatz de fust e de fer e d’acier, Mos ostal seran bosc, fregz, e semdier, E mas cansos sestinas e descortz, E mantenrai los frevols contra ’ls fortz.”THE FIRST NOVEL.—ALIANORA OF PROVENCE, COMING IN DISGUISE AND IN ADVERSITY TO A CERTAIN CLERK, IS BY HIM CONDUCTED ACROSS A HOSTILE COUNTRY; AND IN THAT TROUBLED JOURNEY ARE MADE MANIFEST TO EACH THE SNARES WHICH HAD... more...

CHAPTER I. "And the Fairy sang to the poor child, and stroked its tangled hair, and smoothed its puckered cheeks. "And it sang and sang until the little face that had been full of trouble grew bright with the cheer of heartsease. "And still the Fairy sang and sang until, from very peacefulness, the child's eyes began to droop and softly close, just as the flowers droop and hang their... more...

A VINDICATION OF ENGLAND’S POLICY WITH REGARD TO THE OPIUM TRADE. Again there has been a debate in Parliament on the opium traffic:again has the same weary series of platitudes and misrepresentations been repeated, and no one has taken the trouble to defend the policy of England as it should and can be defended. But it is high time that the falsities and the fallacies of the statements of the... more...

THE ENCHANTED RING. One of the most imposing buildings in Boston twenty years ago was a granite hotel, whose western windows looked upon a graveyard. Passing up a flight of steps, and beneath a portico of dignified granite columns, and so through an embarrassing pair of swinging-doors to the roomy vestibule,—you would there pause a moment to spit upon the black-and-white tessellated pavement. Having... more...

THE RESTORATION OF THE EASY CHAIR BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION It is not generally known that after forty-two years of constant use the aged and honored movable which now again finds itself put back in its old place in the rear of Harper's Magazine was stored in the warehouse of a certain safety-deposit company, in the winter of 1892. The event which had then vacated the chair is still so near as to be... more...

The price of life was a life for a life—which was all the reward the victim looked for! His hands were shaking as he exhibited the gifts. If he were on Earth, he would be certain it was the flu; in the Centaurus system, kranken. But this was Van Daamas, so Lee Bolden couldn't say what he had. Man hadn't been here long enough to investigate the diseases with any degree of thoroughness. There... more...

NE day Mr. H. M. Woggle-Bug, T. E., becoming separated from his comrades who had accompanied him from the Land of Oz, and finding that time hung heavy on his hands (he had four of them), decided to walk down the Main street of the City and try to discover something or other of interest. The initials "H. M." before his name meant "Highly Magnified," for this Woggle-Bug was several... more...