Fiction Books

CHAPTER I The Nature, Functions, and Classification of Banking Institutions The terms, "bank" and "banking," are applied to institutions and to businesses which differ considerably in character, functions, and methods, but which nevertheless have certain common features which justify their being grouped together. We can best prepare the way for a discussion of these differences and... more...

INTRODUCTION These paragraphs, dignified by the revised edition of Gallantry and spuriously designated An Introduction, are nothing more than a series of notes and haphazard discoveries in preparation of a thesis. That thesis, if it is ever written, will bear a title something academically like The Psychogenesis of a Poet; or Cabell the Masquerader. For it is in this guise—sometimes self-declared,... more...

INTRODUCTION. This volume has been compiled chiefly for the benefit of opium-eaters. Its subject is one indeed which might be made alike attractive to medical men who have a fancy for books that are professional only in an accidental way; to general readers who would like to see gathered into a single volume the scattered records of the consequences attendant upon the indulgence of a pernicious habit;... more...

A CARDINAL SIN. CHAPTER I. On a beautiful, bright morning of the month of May, 18—, a young girl of eighteen years or thereabouts, whose pale, melancholy face reflected only too plainly the wretchedness and privations of her daily life, was wending her way, timidly and with hesitating steps, through that populous quarter of the city known as the Charnier des Innocents, a dreary spot, principally... more...

PREFACE. This Volume contains the argument, drawn from the Plays usually attributed to Shakspere, in support of a theory which the author of it has demonstrated by historical evidences in another work. Having never read this historical demonstration (which remains still in manuscript, with the exception of a preliminary chapter, published long ago in an American periodical), I deem it necessary to cite... more...

"Prut!" said Annot, her sabots clattering loudly on the brick floor as she moved more rapidly in her wrath. "Prut! Madame Giraud, indeed! There was a time, and it was but two years ago, that she was but plain Mere Giraud, and no better than the rest of us; and it seems to me, neighbors, that it is not well to show pride because one has the luck to be favored by fortune. Where, forsooth,... more...

CHAPTER 1 "Go on, Astro," shouted the young Space Cadet. "Boot that screwy ball with everything you've got!" The three cadets of the Polaris unit raced down the Academy field toward the mercuryball, a plastic sphere with a vial of mercury inside. At the opposite end of the field, three members of the Arcturus unit ran headlong in a desperate effort to reach the ball first. Astro,... more...

DREAMS The man, for the first time, stood face to face with Life and, for the first time, knew that he was a man. For a long time he had known that some day he would be a man. But he had always thought of his manhood as a matter of years. He had said to himself: "when I am twenty-one, I will be a man." He did not know, then, that twenty-one years—that indeed three times twenty-one... more...

I. THE LOST JOY. All day, where the sunlight played on the sea-shore, Life sat. All day the soft wind played with her hair, and the young, young face looked out across the water. She was waiting—she was waiting; but she could not tell for what. All day the waves ran up and up on the sand, and ran back again, and the pink shells rolled. Life sat waiting; all day, with the sunlight in her eyes, she sat... more...

DUTY Back kitchen of a country public house. Micus and Padna seated at a table drinking from pewter pints. Mrs. Cotter enters in response to a call. PADNA (pointing to pint measures)Fill 'em again, ma'am, please. MRS. COTTER (taking pints, and wiping table)Fill 'em again, is it? Indeed I won't do any such thing. MICUSIndeed you will, Mrs. Cotter. MRS. COTTER Don't you know that... more...