Fiction Books

THE MAGICIAN'S SHOW BOX. There was once a boy, named Gaspar, whose uncle made voyages to China, and brought him home chessmen, queer toys, porcelain vases, embroidered skullcaps, and all kinds of fine things. He gave him such grand descriptions of foreign countries and costumes, that Gaspar was not at all satisfied to live in a small village, where the people dressed in the most commonplace way.... more...

A shot from the alarm-gun! Timidly does the citizen examine the dark corners of his house to discover whether any strange man be hid there. The peasant in the field stops his horses to consider whether he would wish to meet with any fugitive, and earn capture-money, or whether he should save some desperate man, in spite of the severe punishment with which every one was threatened who enabled a deserter... more...

ROYAL," said the man's mother that evening, "are you still thinking of Fanny Price?" It was in Gramercy Park. As you may or may not know, Gramercy Park is the least noisy spot in the metropolitan Bedlam. Without being unreasonably aristocratic it is sedate and what agents call exclusive. The park itself is essentially that. Its design is rather English. The use is restricted to... more...

CHAPTER ONE No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that... more...

CHAPTER I y chieftain ancestors had lived at Glandore for many centuries and were very well known. Hardly a ship could pass the Old Head of Kinsale without some boats putting off to exchange the time of day with her, and our family name was on men's tongues in half the seaports of Europe, I dare say. My ancestors lived in castles which were like churches stuck on end, and they drank the best of... more...

CHAPTER I. UNWILLING PASSENGERS. "What is your name, boy?" "Joe Curtis, sir." "And your number? " " Two hundred and ninety-seven." " Very well, now listen to what I say, and see that you do exactly as I tell you. I am going to Providence by the Sound steamer that sails in an hour and a half; take these tickets, go to the office of the boat, get the key of the... more...

CHAPTER I EXIT MR. STANLEY G. FULTON There was a thoughtful frown on the face of the man who was the possessor of twenty million dollars. He was a tall, spare man, with a fringe of reddish-brown hair encircling a bald spot. His blue eyes, fixed just now in a steady gaze upon a row of ponderous law books across the room, were friendly and benevolent in direct contradiction to the bulldog, never-let-go... more...

Mr. Joseph Kilgore was suffering from one of those spring influenzas which make a man feel as if he were his own grandfather. His nose had acquired the shape of a turnip and the complexion of a beet. All his bones ached as if he had been soundly thrashed, and his eyes were weak and watery. Your deadly disease is oftener than not a gentleman who takes your life without mauling you, but the minor... more...

This story was written by Madame de Lafayette and published anonymously in 1662. It is set in a period almost 100 years previously during the sanguinary wars of the counter-reformation, when the Catholic rulers of Europe, with the encouragement of the Papacy, were bent on extirpating the followers of the creeds of Luther and Calvin. I am not qualified to embark on a historical analysis, and shall do no... more...

1. ORIENTAL PAINTING Any bunch of roses or flowers, or anything of the kind that you admire, take the pattern of by placing them against a light of window glass, then lay a piece of white paper over them, and through the latter you will see the roses, &c. Now with a lead pencil take the pattern of the roses, &c., on the paper; when you have them all marked, cut then out with a scissors, so that... more...