Fiction Books

One The red sun rose slowly, achingly across the high Scottish moor, touching with melancholy gold the patching hoar frost and purple heath. For this was a land of pain, and stark beauty, and restless dream. Here the spirits of the dead walked by night through grim castles of shadow and dust, their glory long past. Here the spirits of the living grieved by day for a proud and chivalrous time forever... more...

She was one of those girls who have become much more common of late years among the upper-middle classes, the comfortably fixed classes, than they have ever been since the aristocracy left off marrying Italian prime-donne. You know the type of English beauty, so often insisted on, say, twenty years ago—placid, fair, gentle, blue-eyed, fining into distinction in Lady Clara Vere de Vere? Always she was... more...

CHAPTER ITHERE was not a person in Old Chester less tainted by the vulgarity of secretiveness than Miss Lydia Sampson. She had no more reticence than sunshine or wind, or any other elemental thing. How much of this was due to conditions it would be hard to say; certainly there was no "reticence" in her silence as to her neighbors' affairs; she simply didn't know them! Nobody ever... more...

THE BRACELETS. In a beautiful and retired part of England lived Mrs. Villars, a lady whose accurate understanding, benevolent heart, and steady temper, peculiarly fitted her for the most difficult, as well as most important of all occupations—the education of youth. This task she had undertaken; and twenty young persons were put under her care, with the perfect confidence of their parents. No young... more...

GREAT many years ago there dwelt in a city of the East, of which you have never heard the name, a wise and holy man. He was highly esteemed by his fellow citizens, for he was kind and benevolent, never refusing good counsel to those in earnest to profit by it, so that by degrees the fame of his sagacity spread far and wide, and many came from great distances to consult him. One day he was sitting in... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BABE IN THE WOODS. Drifted beech leaves had made a soft, clean bed in a little hollow in a wood. The wood was beside a river, the trend of which was toward the east. There was an almost precipitous slope, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet from the wood, downward to the river. The wood itself, a sort of peninsula, was mall in extent and partly isolated from the greater forest back of it by... more...

ENGLISH LANDSCAPE—CONSTABLE. The appearance of the second edition of Leslie's Life of Constable invites attention to this truly English and original artist. We have read this volume with much interest. It is a graceful homage paid by a great living painter to the memory of one who is no more: a kindly, and, as we believe, an honest testimony to the moral and professional worth of one whose works... more...

PREFACE. By a marvellous combination of circumstances a number of fragments of the Royal Archives of Memphis have been preserved from destruction with the rest, containing petitions written on papyrus in the Greek language; these were composed by a recluse of Macedonian birth, living in the Serapeum, in behalf of two sisters, twins, who served the god as "Pourers out of the libations." At a... more...

Chapter 1. NIGHT ON THE BEACH Throughout the island world of the Pacific, scattered men of many European races and from almost every grade of society carry activity and disseminate disease. Some prosper, some vegetate. Some have mounted the steps of thrones and owned islands and navies. Others again must marry for a livelihood; a strapping, merry, chocolate-coloured dame supports them in sheer... more...

CHAPTER I. Most visitors to Brighton prefer the new pier; it is altogether a more magnificent affair. It is in the fashionable town, for fashion will go westward; it is larger, more commodious, more frequented. Go to the West Pier when you will, there is always something to see; beautiful women, pretty girls, fashionable belles promenade incessantly. There are times when it is crowded, and there is... more...