Fiction Books

Magister Nicholas Udal, the Lady Mary's pedagogue, was very hungry and very cold. He stood undecided in the mud of a lane in the Austin Friars. The quickset hedges on either side were only waist high and did not shelter him. The little houses all round him of white daub with grey corner beams had been part of the old friars' stables and offices. All that neighbourhood was a maze of dwellings... more...

It was the evening of Madame Okraska's concert at the old St. James's Hall. London was still the place of the muffled roar and the endearing ugliness. Horse-'buses plied soberly in an unwidened Piccadilly. The private motor was a curiosity. Berlin had not been emulated in an altered Mall nor New York in the façades of giant hotels. The Saturday and Monday pops were still an institution;... more...

THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. INTRODUCTORY TO “THE SCARLET LETTER.” t is a little remarkable, that—though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends—an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years since, when I favored the reader—inexcusably, and for no... more...

Preface The writer of the following pages has long been convinced, from an experience of many years in the Ministry, that a great desideratum among Church people is a Church Dictionary, especially one not so expensive as the more costly works, and at the same time something more complete and satisfactory than a mere glossary of terms. What seems to be needed is an inexpensive, handy volume, "short... more...

SANDY SWAPS HIS POWNEY. He's a queer cratur, my man Sandy! He's made, mind an' body o' him, on an original plan a'thegither. He says an' does a' mortal thing on a system o' his ain; Gairner Winton often says that if Sandy had been in the market-gardenin' line, he wudda grown his cabbage wi' the stocks aneth the ground, juist to lat them get the fresh... more...

CHAPTER I There were nine altogether in the party registering. This number included the manager, who, both on and off the stage, quite successfully impersonated the villain—a rather heavy-jawed, middle-aged fellow, of foreign appearance, with coarse, gruff voice; three representatives of the gentler sex; a child of eight, exact species unknown, wrapped up like a mummy; and four males. Beyond doubt... more...

THE VOICE IN THE FOG Out of the unromantic night, out of the somber blurring January fog, came a voice lifted in song, a soprano, rich, full and round, young, yet matured, sweet and mysterious as a night-bird's, haunting and elusive as the murmur of the sea in a shell: a lilt from La Fille de Madame Angot, a light opera long since forgotten in New York. Hillard, genuinely astonished, lowered his... more...

CHAPTER I Said Mother Binning: "Whiles I spin and whiles I dream. A bonny day like this I look." English Strickland, tutor at Glenfernie House, looked, too, at the feathery glen, vivid in June sunshine. The ash-tree before Mother Binning's cot overhung a pool of the little river. Below, the water brawled and leaped from ledge to ledge, but here at the head of the glen it ran smooth and... more...

NE of the grandest institutions of ancient France was the Parlement de Paris, and its history and that of the prévôts would constitute a history of the capital, while that of the fitful and accidental convocations of the États Généraux would in nowise illustrate that of the nation. Our facilities for acquiring a knowledge of the functions and methods of procedure of the Parlement have been greatly... more...

CHAPTER I. My father, Reginald Monfort, was an English gentleman of good family, who, on his marriage with a Jewish lady of wealth and refinement, emigrated to America, rather than subject her and himself to the commentaries of his own fastidious relatives, and the incivilities of a clique to which by allegiance of birth and breeding he unfortunately belonged. Her own family had not been less averse to... more...