Fiction Books

The snow had gone from all the foot-hills and had long since disappeared in the broad river bottom. It was fast going from the neighboring mountains, too—both the streams told plainly of that, for while the Platte rolled along in great, swift surges under the Engineer Bridge, its smaller tributary—the "Larmie," as the soldiers called it—came brawling and foaming down its stony bed and... more...

"We moor in ten minutes," I said. We were flying at reduced speed because of the heavy fog we had run into at the outer fringe of Earth's atmosphere. But I knew we were within forty or fifty miles of the Trans-Space base. I had counted the miles on this particular trip because of the load of radium we were carrying from the Venusian mines. I wouldn't draw a completely relieved breath... more...

Chapter I. THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF POMPEII. 'HO, Diomed, well met! Do you sup with Glaucus to-night?' said a young man of small stature, who wore his tunic in those loose and effeminate folds which proved him to be a gentleman and a coxcomb. 'Alas, no! dear Clodius; he has not invited me,' replied Diomed, a man of portly frame and of middle age. 'By Pollux, a scurvy trick! for... more...

LAST DAYS OF THE REBELLION. During the winter of 1864-5 the Second New York (Harris’ Light) Cavalry was in winter quarters near Winchester, Va., on the Romney pike. Alanson M. Randol, Captain First United States Artillery, was colonel of the regiment, which, with the First Connecticut, Second Ohio, and Third New Jersey, constituted the first brigade, third division, cavalry corps. The division was... more...

Along the U-shaped table, the subdued clatter of dinnerware and the buzz of conversation was dying out; the soft music that drifted down from the overhead sound outlets seemed louder as the competing noises diminished. The feast was drawing to a close, and Dallona of Hadron fidgeted nervously with the stem of her wineglass as last-moment doubts assailed her. The old man at whose right she sat noticed,... more...

I inflated a rubber balloon and set it adrift. The idea was that in free fall the balloon would drift slowly in the direction of the leak. This was the first thing I did after I had discovered the trouble. I mean it was the first action I took. I had been thinking about it for some time. I had been thinking about what a great distance it was from Pacific Grove, California to Mars, and how I would... more...

CHAPTER I. Two men sat by the sea waves. "Well, I know I'm not handsome," said one gloomily. He was poking holes in the sand with a discontented cane. The companion was watching the waves play. He seemed overcome with perspiring discomfort as a man who is resolved to set another man right. Suddenly his mouth turned into a straight line. "To be sure you are not," he cried... more...

Bliss Carman: An Appreciation How many Canadians--how many even among the few who seek to keep themselves informed of the best in contemporary literature, who are ever on the alert for the new voices—realise, or even suspect, that this Northern land of theirs has produced a poet of whom it may be affirmed with confidence and assurance that he is of the great succession of English poets? Yet... more...

ORIGINS OF LATIN LITERATURE: EARLY EPIC AND TRAGEDY. To the Romans themselves, as they looked back two hundred years later, the beginnings of a real literature seemed definitely fixed in the generation which passed between the first and second Punic Wars. The peace of B.C. 241 closed an epoch throughout which the Roman Republic had been fighting for an assured place in the group of powers which... more...

CHAPTER I "WHISTLE AND HOE—SING AS WE GO" There is one thing in this good old world that is positively sure—happiness is for all who strive to be happy—and those who laugh are happy. Everybody is eligible—you—me—the other fellow. Happiness is fundamentally a state of mind—not a state of body. And mind controls. Indeed it is possible to stand with one foot on the inevitable... more...