Fiction Books

CHAPTER I f all the sensations to which the human mind is a prey, there is none so powerful in its finality, so chilling in its sense of an impending event as the knowledge that Death—grim, implacable Death—has cast his shadow on a life that custom and circumstance have rendered familiar. Whatever the personal feeling may be—whether dismay, despair, or relief—no man or woman can watch that... more...

Jim Carter read the news dispatch thoughtfully and handed it back to his chief without comment. “Well, what do you make of it?” Miles Overton, city editor of , shoved his green eye-shade far back on his bald head and glanced up irritably from his littered desk. “I don’t know,” said Jim. “You don’t know!” Overton snorted, biting his dead cigar impatiently. “And I suppose you don’t... more...

CHAPTER I THE CORNERSTONE OF LIBERTY Three little vessels—the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery—left England in December, 1606, under the command of Captain Christopher Newport, to found a colony on the distant shores of Virginia. Two decades earlier Sir Walter Raleigh had sent out a group of settlers to what is now North Carolina, and they had disappeared mysteriously. What had... more...

THE EARTHQUAKEHE train from 'Frisco was very late. It should have arrived at Hugson's siding at midnight, but it was already five o'clock and the gray dawn was breaking in the east when the little train slowly rumbled up to the open shed that served for the station-house. As it came to a stop the conductor called out in a loud voice: "Hugson's Siding!" At once a little girl... more...

1. I always knew I should write a book. Something to help tired minds lay aside the cares of the day. But I always say you never can tell what's around the corner till you turn it, and everyone has become so accustomed to fantastic occurrences in the last twenty one years that the inspiring and relaxing novel I used to dream about would be today as unreal as Atlantis. Instead, I find I must write... more...

I By various influences and agents the Past is summoned before us, more vivid than a dream. The process seems as magical as those whereof we read in fairy legends, where circles are drawn, wands waved, mystic syllables pronounced. Adjured by these rites, voices speak, or forms and faces shape themselves from nothing. So, through certain influences, not magical at all, our brains are made to flash with... more...

For the first time in her life, Barrie saw the door that led to the garret stairs standing ajar. It was always, always locked, as is correct, though irritating, for a door that leads to Fairyland. In Barrie's Outer Life that her grandmother knew, and Miss Hepburn knew, and Mrs. Muir the housekeeper knew, there was—Heaven be praised!—no romance at all; for romance is an evil thing, still worse,... more...

ETHIOPIA From the various circumstances of our day, the impression is powerfully made upon intelligent men in Europe, that some extraordinary change is about to take place in the general condition of mankind. A new ardour of human intercourse seems to be spreading through all nations. Europe has laid aside her perpetual wars, and seems to be assuming a habit of peace. Even France, hitherto the most... more...

There was, Telzey Amberdon thought, someone besides TT and herself in the garden. Not, of course, Aunt Halet, who was in the house waiting for an early visitor to arrive, and not one of the servants. Someone or something else must be concealed among the thickets of magnificently flowering native Jontarou shrubs about Telzey. She could think of no other way to account for Tick-Tock's spooked... more...

The obedience which he practised in committing himself in simple faith to this religious prospect prepared the way for a temporal blessing, as well as for the return of inward joy. He little knew, when persecuted by the Accuser of the brethren, and mourning over the weakness of his own corrupt nature, that his Lord was about to provide for him a congenial and helpful companion, in the room of her whose... more...