Fiction Books

This, then, was the Creche, Anno Domini 2500. A great, mile-square blind cube topping a ragged mountain; bare escarpments falling away to a turbulent sea. For five centuries the Creche had stood so, and the Androids had come forth in an unending stream to labor for Man, the Master.... —Quintus Bland, The Romance of Genus Homo. irector Han Merrick paced the floor nervously. His thin, almost ascetic... more...

OLD PORTRAITS AND MODERN SKETCHES Inscribed as follows, when first collected in book-form:—To Dr. G. BAILEY, of the National Era, Washington, D. C., thesesketches, many of which originally appeared in the columns of thepaper under his editorial supervision, are, in their present form,offered as a token of the esteem and confidence which years ofpolitical and literary communion have justified and... more...

THE IMPOVERISHED HERO AND THE SURPASSING DAMSEL Mr. Lionel Mortimer was a young gentleman of few intentions and no private means. Good-humored, by no means ill-looking, and with engaging manners, he was the type of man of whom one would have prophesied great things. His natural gaiety and address were more than enough to carry him over the early stages of acquaintanceship, but subsequent meetings were... more...

Section 1. Socrates begins the Timaeus with a summary of the Republic. He lightly touches upon a few points,—the division of labour and distribution of the citizens into classes, the double nature and training of the guardians, the community of property and of women and children. But he makes no mention of the second education, or of the government of philosophers. And now he desires to see the ideal... more...

ACHILLES GOES TO CHICAGO Achilles Alexandrakis was arranging the fruit on his stall in front of his little shop on Clark Street. It was a clear, breezy morning, cool for October, but not cold enough to endanger the fruit that Achilles handled so deftly in his dark, slender fingers. As he built the oranges into their yellow pyramid and grouped about them figs and dates, melons and pears, and grapes and... more...

UPS AND DOWNS; OR, DAVID STUART'S ACCOUNT OF HIS PILGRIMAGE. Old David Stuart was the picture of health—a personification of contentment. When I knew him, his years must have considerably exceeded threescore; but his good-natured face was as ruddy as health could make it; his hair, though mingled with grey, was as thick and strong as if he had been but twenty; his person was still muscular and... more...

CHAPTER I PLANS "Whoever heard of such a plan—a visit to Land's End! The very name of the place suggests the last spot on the globe; a great old house set down on the edge of a forest; and Dad called off on business for an indefinite period, but seemingly content to ship us on a wild goose chase. He's scarcely told us a word before of the place or of great-aunt Janice Meredith!"... more...

CHAPTER I THE ONLY HOPE 'To a large extent the working people of this country do not care any more for the doctrines of Christianity than the upper classes care for the practice of that religion.'—JOHN BRIGHT in the year 1880. It is wonderful how quickly, when a peril is past, men forget about it and straightway compose themselves to slumbrous dreams again. It was so after the Great War; it... more...

How strange it seems, after this long lapse of time, to look back upon those days, and after all that has come between. When I think of the child whose curious fancies, strange whims, and still stranger life, I am about to portray, I find myself inclining towards what is certainly a feeling of bewilderment, and one that might almost be said to be akin to physical pain. That the little fellow I see in... more...

INTRODUCTION. It has been claimed for James Barron Hope that he was "Virginia's Laureate." He did not deal in "abstractions, or generalized arguments," or vague mysticisms. He fired the imagination purely, he awoke lofty thoughts and presented, through his noble odes that which is the soul of "every true poem, a living succession of concrete images and pictures." James... more...