Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. "Take any shape but that, and my firm nervesshall never tremble. Hence horrible shadow!Unreal mockery, hence!"—MACBETH It was a gloomy evening, towards the autumn of the year 1676, and the driving blasts which wept from the sea upon Greville Cross, a dreary and exposed mansion on the coast of Lancashire, gave promise of a stormy night and added to the desolation which at all traces... more...

I After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the... more...

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. Emile Verhaeren, remarkable among of the brilliant group of writers representing "Young Belgium," and one who has been recognized by the literary world of France as holding a foremost place among the lyric poets of the day was born at St. Amand, near Antwerp, in 1855. His childhood was passed on the banks of the Scheldt, in the midst of the wide-spreading Flemish plains, a... more...

I A swarm of children was playing on the damp floor of the shaft. They hung from the lower portions of the timber-work, or ran in and out between the upright supports, humming tunes, with bread-and-dripping in their hands; or they sat on the ground and pushed themselves forward across the sticky flagstones. The air hung clammy and raw, as it does in an old well, and already it had made the little... more...

CHAPTER I GANGOIL. Just a fortnight before Christmas, 1871, a young man, twenty-four years of age, returned home to his dinner about eight o'clock in the evening. He was married, and with him and his wife lived his wife's sister. At that somewhat late hour he walked in among the two young women, and another much older woman who was preparing the table for dinner. The wife and the wife's... more...

CHAPTER I. LOVE ON THE OCEAN Nothing is so easy as falling in love on a long sea voyage, except falling out of love. Especially was this the case in the days when the wooden clippers did finely to land you in Sydney or in Melbourne under the four full months. We all saw far too much of each other, unless, indeed, we were to see still more. Our superficial attractions mutually exhausted, we lost heart... more...

INTRODUCTION It is a melancholy but instructive fact to remember that, in the opinion of him whom nature had adorned with the greatest intellect that the world has yet seen, selfishness and self-interest lie at the root of all human action. "For," as Napoleon said, "in ambition is to be found the chief motive force of humanity, and a man puts forth his best powers in proportion to his hopes... more...

CHAPTER I WHEN Mrs. Greensleeve first laid eyes on her baby she knew it was different from the other children. "What is the matter with it?" she asked. The preoccupied physician replied that there was nothing the matter. In point of fact he had been admiring the newly born little girl when her mother asked the question. "She's about as perfect as they make 'em," he concluded,... more...

CHAPTER I. In Tyniec,[1] in the inn under "Dreadful Urus," which belonged to the abbey, a few people were sitting, listening to the talk of a military man who had come from afar, and was telling them of the adventures which he had experienced during the war and his journey. He had a large beard but he was not yet old, and he was almost gigantic but thin, with broad shoulders; he wore his hair... more...

"Sometimes," said Helix Spardleton, Esquire, "a patent case gets away from you. As the attorney in the case, you never quite see it the same as everybody else. You stand isolated and alone, unable to persuade the Patent Examiners, the Board, the courts, possibly even the inventor, to accept your view of the case. Nothing you do or say matches anyone else's thinking, and you begin to... more...