Fiction Books

There is a volume of what were once newspapers each on a small half-sheet, yellow and time-stained, of a coarse fabric, and imprinted with a rude old type. Their aspect conveys a singular impression of antiquity, in a species of literature which we are accustomed to consider as connected only with the present moment. Ephemeral as they were intended and supposed to be, they have long outlived the... more...

CHAPTER I. WHICH TELLS OF THE COMING OF THE GIPSY. It was April among the hills, waes me, the far-away days of my youth, when the hills were smiling through the mists of their tears, and the green grasses thrusting themselves through the withered mat of the pasture like slender fairy swords. April in the hills, with the curlews crying far out on the moorside, past the Red Ground my grandfather wrought,... more...

CHAPTER I Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows. Of these obscure heroes, philosophers, and martyrs, the greater part will never be known till that hour, when many that are great shall be small, and the small great; but of others the world's knowledge may be said to sleep: their lives and characters lie hidden from... more...

Nil sapientiæ odiosius acumine nimio.—Seneca.At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18—, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and meerschaum, in company with my friend, C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet, au troisième, No. 33 Rue Dunôt, Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence; while each, to any... more...

Paul's Letter to the Galatians 1:1 Paul, an apostle (not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead), 1:2 and all the who are with me, to the assemblies of Galatia: 1:3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, 1:4 who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us out of this present evil age,... more...

OCEANUS I My Dear Violet,—So you "gather from the tone of two or three recent letters that my spirit is creeping back to light and warmth again"? Well, after a fashion you are right. I shall never laugh again as I used to laugh before Harry's death. The taste has gone out of that carelessness, and I turn even from the remembrance of it. But I can be cheerful, with a cheerfulness which... more...

CHAPTER ONE JOHNNY ASSUMES A DEBT OF HONOR Since Life is no more than a series of achievements and failures, this story is going to begin exactly where the teller of tales usually stops. It is going to begin with Johnny Jewel an accepted lover and with one of his dearest ambitions realized. It is going to begin there because Johnny himself was just beginning to climb, and the top of his desires was... more...

CHAPTER I St George's Hall, situated on a high hill overlooking the city of Warwick, was still silent and tenantless, though the long vacation was drawing to a close. To a stranger passing that way for the first time, the building and the surrounding country would doubtless have suggested the old England rather than the new. There was something mediaeval in the massive, castellated tower that... more...

CHAPTER ONE The thin winter day had died early, and at four o'clock it was dark night in the long room in which Mr. Innes gave his concerts of early music. An Elizabethan virginal had come to him to be repaired, and he had worked all the afternoon, and when overtaken by the dusk, he had impatiently sought a candle end, lit it, and placed it so that its light fell upon the jacks.... Only one more... more...

When Jérôme Lafirme died, his neighbors awaited the results of his sudden taking off with indolent watchfulness. It was a matter of unusual interest to them that a plantation of four thousand acres had been left unincumbered to the disposal of a handsome, inconsolable, childless Creole widow of thirty. A bêtise of some sort might safely be looked for. But time passing, the anticipated folly failed... more...