Fiction Books

CHAPTER I A Momentous Decision It was exactly ten days before the opening of the autumn term at The Gables. The September sunshine, flooding through the window of the Principal's study, lighted up the bowl of carnations upon the writing-table, and, flashed back from the Chippendale mirror on the wall, caught the book-case with the morocco-bound editions of the poets, showed up the etching of... more...

I The Mail The ambiguous light of a December morning, peeping through the windows of the Holyhead mail, dispelled the soft visions of the four insides, who had slept, or seemed to sleep, through the first seventy miles of the road, with as much comfort as may be supposed consistent with the jolting of the vehicle, and an occasional admonition to remember the coachman, thundered through the open door,... more...

PREFACE The present selection of Hazlitt’s critical essays has been planned to serve two important purposes. In the first place it provides the materials for an estimate of the character and scope of Hazlitt’s contributions to criticism and so acquaints students with one of the greatest of English critics. And in the second place, what is perhaps more important, such a selection, embodying a series... more...

CHAPTER I The history of the circumstances about to be related began many years ago—or so it seems in these days. It began, at least, years before the world being rocked to and fro revealed in the pause between each of its heavings some startling suggestion of a new arrangement of its kaleidoscopic particles, and then immediately a re-arrangement, and another and another until all belief in a... more...

It was a bland, sunny morning of a mediæval May,—an old-style May of the most typical quality; and the Council of the little town of St. Radegonde were assembled, as was their wont at that hour, in the picturesque upper chamber of the Hôtel de Ville, for the dispatch of the usual municipal business. Though the date was early sixteenth century, [p 2] the members of this particular town-council... more...

Chapter I. Day glimmered and I went, a gentle breezeRuffling the Leman lake. Rogers. The year was in its fall, according to a poetical expression of our own, and the morning bright, as the fairest and swiftest bark that navigated the Leman lay at the quay of the ancient and historical town of Geneva, ready to depart for the country of Vaud. This vessel was called the Winkelried, in commemoration of... more...

CHAPTER I CARING FOR THE HEALTH Good Health better than Gold.—Horses and houses, balls and dolls, and much else that people think they want to make them happy can be bought with money. The one thing which is worth more than all else cannot be bought with even a houseful of gold. This thing is good health. Over three million persons in our country are now sick, and many of them are suffering much... more...

CHAPTER I MARBLES: WHERE MADE; TERMS OF THE GAMES; DIFFERENT GAMES; HOW TO ACQUIRE SKILL Each season has its own particular work for the farmer, and he does his work without direction from or consultation with his neighbors or any one else. Each season has its own particular games for the young folks, and they take to them without any suggestion from outsiders, just as young ducks take to water,... more...

ystole ... diastole ... the Cardiophone listened, hummed, and recorded; tracing a path of perilous peaks and precipices on the white paper. "Relax!" Dr. Rostov pleaded. "Please relax, Mr. Monk!" The eyes of Fletcher Monk replied. Rostov knew their language well enough to read the glaring messages they transmitted. Indignation ... "Don't use that commanding tone with me,... more...

I. PREFACE TO READERS IN GENERAL You are the children of Old Mother England, on both sides of the Atlantic; you form the majority of buyers and borrowers of novels; and you judge of works of fiction by certain inbred preferences, which but slightly influence the other great public of readers on the continent of Europe. The two qualities in fiction which hold the highest rank in your estimation are:... more...