Fiction Books

The Wizard's Daughter There had been a norther during the day, and at sunset the valley, seen from Dysart's cabin on the mesa, was a soft blur of golden haze. The wind had hurled the yellow leaves from the vineyard, exposing the gnarled deformity of the vines, and the trailing branches of the pepper-trees had swept their fallen berries into coral reefs on the southerly side. A young man with... more...

A STUDY I We all settled down in a circle and our good friend AlexandrVassilyevitch Ridel (his surname was German but he was Russian to themarrow of his bones) began as follows: I am going to tell you a story, friends, of something that happened tome in the 'thirties ... forty years ago as you see. I will bebrief--and don't you interrupt me. I was living at the time in Petersburg and had only... more...

CHAPTER I. SCENE. Deck of an ocean steamer. Characters:Mrs. Jerrold, matron and chaperon in general.Edith Jerrold, her daughter.Albert Madden, a young man on study intent.Eric, his brother, on pleasure bent.Norman Mann, cousin of the Jerrolds, old classmate of theMaddens.Mae Madden, sister of the brothers and leading lady. "It's something like dying, I do declare," said Mae, and as she... more...

CHAPTER I The youngish-looking man who so vigorously swung off the train at Restview, wore a pair of intensely dark blue eyes which immediately photographed everything within their range of vision—flat green country, shaded farm-houses, encircling wooded hills and all—weighed it and sorted it and filed it away for future reference; and his clothes clung on him with almost that enviable fit found... more...

The writer has published so much truth which the world has insisted was fiction, and so much fiction which has been received as truth, that, in the present instance, he is resolved to say nothing on the subject. Each of his readers is at liberty to believe just as much, or as little, of the matter here laid before him, or her, as may suit his, or her notions, prejudices, knowledge of the world, or... more...

In the pages that follow I wish only to develop a hypothesis. Perhaps after having read them, the reader will find the evidence insufficient. I do not hesitate to recognize that the scarcity of special studies bearing upon my subject, at least for the period since the end of the Middle Ages, is of a nature to discourage more than one cautious spirit. But, on the one hand, I am convinced that every... more...

Amongst the many pleasant circumstances attendant on a love of flowers—that sort of love which leads us into the woods for the earliest primrose, or to the river side for the latest forget-me-not, and carries us to the parching heath or the watery mere to procure for the cultivated, or, if I may use the expression, the tame beauties of the parterre, the soil that they love; amongst the many... more...

DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN Upon a certain dreary April afternoon in the year of grace, 1906, the apprehensions of Philip Kirkwood, Esquire, Artist-peintre, were enlivened by the discovery that he was occupying that singularly distressing social position, which may be summed up succinctly in a phrase through long usage grown proverbial: "Alone in London." These three words have come to... more...

St. Paul has concluded his great exposition of the meaning of 'the gospel': that in it is the disclosure of a divine righteousness into which all mankind—Jews and Gentiles on the same level of need and sin—are to be freely admitted by simply believing in Jesus. The believer in Jesus first welcomes the absolute and unmerited forgiveness of his sins, which his redeemer has won for him, and... more...

My dear Cornwall Hollis: With the Allied cause crumbling away it is high time we thought of aesthetics. As a triste jest I said that to you the other day, and your reply was a plea to let you write a preface for a new edition of my forgotten Sonnets from the Patagonian. I am at last persuaded, and who but you should do the preface? With Mitteleuropa a fact it should be apparent to any honest, thinking... more...