CHAPTER I. Gloria sat in her favorite chair on the broad veranda. The shadow of the vines made a delicate tracery over her white dress. Gloria was lazily content. She had been comfortable and content for seventeen years. "There's that queer little thing again, going off with her queer little bag!" Gloria's gaze dwelt on the house across the wide street. Down its steps a small, neat... more...

AN INTRODUCTION by Wilson Follett Mr. Cabell, in making ready this second or intended edition of THE CORDS OF VANITY, performs an act of reclamation which is at the same time an act of fresh creation. For the purely reclamatory aspect of what he has done, his reward (so far as that can consist in anything save the doing) must come from insignificantly few directions; so few indeed that he, with a wrily... more...

The reader may think that while coal must be a dirty cargo it is in other respects an innocent one; but there is no shipmaster who does not dread a long voyage with this kind of freight, for many a fine vessel has been lost owing to the coal taking fire through spontaneous combustion; therefore the greatest care is exercised in carrying it, and whenever the weather will permit, the hatches are opened... more...

I am the last of my type existing today in all the Solar System. I, too, am the last existing who, in memory, sees the struggle for this System, and in memory I am still close to the Center of Rulers, for mine was the ruling type then. But I will pass soon, and with me will pass the last of my kind, a poor inefficient type, but yet the creators of those who are now, and will be, long after I pass... more...

CHAPTER I Say, what's next to knowin' when you're well off? Why, thinkin' you are. Which is a little nugget of wisdom I panned out durin' a chat I had not long ago with Mr. Quinn, that I used to work under when I was on the door of the Sunday sheet, three or four years back. "Hail, Torchy!" says he, as we meets accidental on Broadway. "Still carrying the burning... more...

THE LIBERTY OF FRANZAND THEREBELLION OF FUZZY WUZZY Madame Morelli, the pretty little Frenchwoman who makes a half-score of leopards, panthers and jaguars do things which nature never intended them to do, had finished her act and driven the snarling performers through the narrow runway to their separate cages, fastening each one, as she thought, securely. Two French clowns were filling in the time and... more...

CHAPTER I BEGINNING OF THE IDYLL In the Five Towns human nature is reported to be so hard that you can break stones on it. Yet sometimes it softens, and then we have one of our rare idylls of which we are very proud, while pretending not to be. The soft and delicate South would possibly not esteem highly our idylls, as such. Nevertheless they are our idylls, idyllic for us, and reminding us, by certain... more...

Chapter I The chief merchant of Ascalon stood in the guest-chamber of his house. Although it was a late winter day the old man was clad in the free white garments of a midsummer afternoon, for to the sorrow of Philistia the cold season of the year sixty-nine had been warm, wet and miasmic. An old woman entering presently glanced at the closed windows of the apartment when she noted the flushed face of... more...

CHAPTER I. MARK NELSON'S FAMILY. "I wish I could pay off the mortgage on my farm," said Mark Nelson soberly, taking his seat on the left of the fireplace, in the room where his wife and family were assembled. "Have you paid the interest, Mark?" asked his wife. "Yes; I paid it this afternoon, and it has stripped me of money completely. I have less than five dollars in my... more...

There was a sudden crash that hung sharply in the air, as if a tree had been hit by lightning some distance away. Then another. Alan stopped, puzzled. Two more blasts, quickly together, and the sound of a scream faintly. Frowning, worrying about the sounds, Alan momentarily forgot to watch his step until his foot suddenly plunged into an ant hill, throwing him to the jungle floor. "Damn!" He... more...