Fiction Books

CHAPTER I THE LOAD All love is a gas, and it takes either loneliness, strength of character, or religion to liquefy it into a condition to be ladled out of us, one to another. There is a certain dangerously volatile state of it; and occasionally people, especially of opposite sexes, try to administer it to each other in that form, with asphyxiation resulting to both hearts. And I'm willing to... more...

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHANTS The first Christians sang hymns. The Saviour went to His passion with a song on His lips. Matthew and Mark agree that the last act of worship in the Upper Room was the singing of a hymn. “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out unto the Mount of Olives.” How we wish that the words of that hymn might have been preserved! Perhaps they have. Many Biblical scholars... more...

A UNIVERSE IN AN ATOM "Then you mean to say there is no such thing as the smallest particle of matter?" asked the Doctor. "You can put it that way if you like," the Chemist replied. "In other words, what I believe is that things can be infinitely small just as well as they can be infinitely large. Astronomers tell us of the immensity of space. I have tried to imagine space as... more...

"WHAT'S become of the Daunt Diana? You mean to say you never heard the sequel?" Ringham Finney threw himself back into his chair with the smile of the collector who has a good thing to show. He knew he had a good listener, at any rate. I don't think much of Ringham's snuff-boxes, but his anecdotes are usually worth while. He's a psychologist astray among bibelots, and the... more...

I.   The Beautiful is one of the immortal themes. It cannot die; it grows not old. On the same day with the sun was beauty born, and its life runs parallel with the path of that great beautifier. As a subject for exposition, it is at once easy and difficult: easy, from the affluence of its resources; difficult, from the exactions which its own spirit makes in the use of them. Beauty—what is it? To... more...

Malachi 1:1 An oracle: the word of Yahweh to Israel by Malachi. 1:2 "I have loved you," says Yahweh. Yet you say, "How have you loved us?" "Wasn't Esau Jacob's brother?" says Yahweh, "Yet I loved Jacob; 1:3 but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness." 1:4 Whereas Edom says, "We are beaten... more...

Some men deliberately don a character in early youth as others don a mask before going to an opera ball. They select it not without some care, being guided in their choice by the opinion they have formed of the world's mind and manner of proceeding. In the privacy of the dressing-room, the candles being lighted and the mirror adjusted at the best angle for a view of self, they assume their... more...

CHAPTER I Beyond the Second Portage "Oh dear, how I should love to go out!" Katherine Radford stretched her arms wearily above her head as she spoke. There had been five days of persistent snowfall; but this morning the clouds had broken, showing strips and patches of blue sky, and there was bright sunshine flooding the world again, with hard and sparkling frost. "Why don't you... more...

AN ARKANSAS PLANTER. Lying along the Arkansas River, a few miles below Little Rock, there is a broad strip of country that was once the domain of a lordly race of men. They were not lordly in the sense of conquest; no rusting armor hung upon their walls; no ancient blood-stains blotched their stairways—there were no skeletons in dungeons deep beneath the banquet hall. But in their own opinion they... more...

SENTIMENT AND CLUES In my criminal work anything that wears skirts is a lady, until the law proves her otherwise. From the frayed and slovenly petticoats of the woman who owns a poultry stand in the market and who has grown wealthy by selling chickens at twelve ounces to the pound, or the silk sweep of Mamie Tracy, whose diamonds have been stolen down on the avenue, or the staidly respectable black and... more...