Fiction Books

SARRASINE I was buried in one of those profound reveries to which everybody, even a frivolous man, is subject in the midst of the most uproarious festivities. The clock on the Elysee-Bourbon had just struck midnight. Seated in a window recess and concealed behind the undulating folds of a curtain of watered silk, I was able to contemplate at my leisure the garden of the mansion at which I was passing... more...

INTRODUCTION For what has Virro painted, built, and planted? Only to show, how many Tastes he wanted. What brought Sir Visto's ill got wealth to waste? Some Daemon whisper'd, "Visto! have a Taste." (Pope, Epistle to Burlington) The idea of "taste" and the ideal of the "man of taste" have fallen considerably in critical esteem since the eighteenth century. When F. R.... more...

CHAPTER I A FETE AT THE NEW PALACE "SIRE, a fresh dispatch." "Whence?" "From Tomsk?" "Is the wire cut beyond that city?" "Yes, sire, since yesterday." "Telegraph hourly to Tomsk, General, and keep me informed of all that occurs." "Sire, it shall be done," answered General Kissoff. These words were exchanged about two hours after midnight, at the... more...

Don Antonio de Isunza and Don Juan de Gamboa, gentlemen of high birth and excellent sense, both of the same age, and very intimate friends, being students together at Salamanca, determined to abandon their studies and proceed to Flanders. To this resolution they were incited by the fervour of youth, their desire to see the world, and their conviction that the profession of arms, so becoming to all, is... more...

"But this painter!" cried Walter Ludlow, with animation. "He not only excels in his peculiar art, but possesses vast acquirements in all other learning and science. He talks Hebrew with Dr. Mather, and gives lectures in anatomy to Dr. Boylston. In a word, he will meet the best instructed man among us, on his own ground. Moreover, he is a polished gentleman,—a citizen of the... more...

They sent the advance unit out to scout the new planet in the Ambassador, homing down on the secret beeping of a featureless box dropped by an earlier survey party. Then they sat back at GHQ and began the same old pattern of worry that followed every advance unit. Not about the ship. The Ambassador was a perfect machine, automatic, self-adjusting, self-regulating. It was built to last and do its job... more...

CHAPTER I. THE IMPOSSIBLE—INEVITABLE. In the garden the question was settled without serious difference of opinion. If Sir Robert Perry really could not go on—and Lady Eynesford was by no means prepared to concede even that—then Mr. Puttock, bourgeois as he was, or Mr. Coxon, conceited and priggish though he might be, must come in. At any rate, the one indisputable fact was the impossibility of... 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...

The Japanese Mason Without haste, gathering scrape of the trowel, slap of cement, reaching for a block, setting and tapping it level, turning with the wheelbarrow, graceful, sweating, freed of every moment. Kauai Sweet Hawaii Even if somebody did steal my battery, generator, oil cap, visegrips last night, I passed the test to be a taxi driver, and even if I don't have the money to buy a... more...

FOOTSTEPSON THEROAD TO LEARNING;OR THEAlphabet in Rhyme.1850       OR THEALPHABET IN RHYME.    I've got a new Book, full of fine pictures, too!And now I will try to read it all through;Thus showing Mamma how good I can be,And how well I remember my A, B, C, D.          ASS—BOY—COT—DAME        Aa Bb Aa Bb Bb Ais for Ass, for Ape, and for Ark,As well as for Ant and for Ann; Bis... more...