Fiction Books

OAKMONT George Morton never could be certain when he first conceived the preposterous idea that Sylvia Planter ought to belong to him. The full realization, at any rate, came all at once, unexpectedly, destroying his dreary outlook, urging him to fantastic heights, and, for that matter, to rather curious depths. It was, altogether, a year of violent change. After a precarious survival of a rural... more...

CHAPTER I. GLENFLESK. In that wild and picturesque valley which winds its way between the town of Macroom and Bantry Bay, and goes by the name of Glenflesk, the character of Irish scenery is perhaps more perfectly displayed than in any other tract of the same extent in the island. The mountains, rugged and broken, are singularly fanciful in their outline; their sides a mingled mass of granite and... more...

A MYSTERIOUS CRIME Reginald Brett, barrister-at-law and amateur detective, had seldom been more at peace with the world and his own conscience than when he entered the dining-room of his cosy flat this bright October morning. Since the famous affair of Lady Delia Lyle's disappearance and death, he had not been busy, and the joy of healthy idleness is only known to the hard worker. Again, while... more...

INTRODUCTION I should like to take the text for my remarks this year on the American Short Story from that notable volume of criticism, "Our America" by Waldo Frank. For the past year, it has been a source of much questioning to me to determine why American fiction, as well as the other arts, fails so conspicuously in presenting a national soul, why it fails to measure sincerely the heights and... more...

THE CENTURY—ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL. II.—AMERICAN PROGRESS.POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT BUILDING AT WASHINGTON.From showing the world's right to the epoch of '76, and sketching the progress of the century in its wider aspect, a natural transition is to the part played in illustrating the period by the people from whose political birth it dates, and who have made the task of honoring it... more...

As the Capital Express train dashed into the village of Bruceton one bright afternoon, a brakeman passing through a car was touched on the shoulder by a man, who said,— "The man that left this in the seat in front got out three stations back. You don't s'pose he'll want it again an' send back for it, do you?" The brakeman looked at an object which the speaker held up as he... more...

THE LONELY DANCER I had no heart to join the dance,  I danced it all so long ago—Ah! light-winged music out of France,  Let other feet glide to and fro,Weaving new patterns of romance  For bosoms of new-fallen snow. But leave me thus where I may hear  The leafy rustle of the waltz,The shell-like murmur in my ear,  The silken whisper fairy-falseOf unseen rainbows circling... more...

CHAPTER I. AN ENCOUNTER. Juarez was sleepy, very sleepy. He had been traveling on a railroad train for several days, and while ordinarily he could adapt himself to circumstances, traveling by car instead of having a soothing influence as it does with some, seemed to keep him awake. He was thoroughly tired out, and was standing, just now, when our story opens, on dark and lonesome dock in San Francisco.... more...

CHAPTER I. THE OLD HOUSE BY THE MILL. 'Mid the New England hills, and beneath the shadow of their dim old woods, is a running brook whose deep waters were not always as merry and frolicsome as now; for years before our story opens, pent up and impeded in their course, they dashed angrily against their prison walls, and turned the creaking wheel of an old sawmill with a sullen, rebellious roar. The... more...

The Tales of the Crusaders was determined upon as the title of the following series of the Novels, rather by the advice of the few friends whom, death has now rendered still fewer, than by the author's own taste. Not but that he saw plainly enough the interest which might be excited by the very name of the Crusaders, but he was conscious at the same time that that interest was of a character which... more...