Fiction Books

CHAPTER I Crash! Bang! Bang! "The March of the Pilgrims" came to an abrupt end. John Lansing Birch laid down his viola and bow, whirled about, and flung out his arms in despair. "Oh, this crowd is hopeless!" he groaned. "Never mind any other instrument, providing yours is heard. This march is supposed to die away in the distance! You murder it in front of the house. That second... more...

Early in the sixteenth century, reports of the progress of discovery in America began to make their way to France, and, as a natural result, to arouse emulation. For no one had the stirring tales a greater charm than for the reigning Sovereign, Francis I., whose spirit of rivalry, thirst of glory, and love of adventure, they were especially calculated to stimulate. It would have been as repugnant to... more...

CHAPTER I. It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in all conscience, as the sequel will show. The way I came by it was this. When our frigate lay in Callao, on the coast of Peru—her last harbour in the Pacific—I found myself without a grego, or sailor's surtout; and as, toward the end of a three years' cruise, no pea-jackets could be had from the purser's steward: and... more...

Chapter I These are the errors, and these are the fruits of misspending our prime youth at the schools and universities, as we do, either in learning mere words, or such things chiefly as were better unlearned.—MILTON. My father was a gentleman, and a man of considerable property. In my infancy and childhood I was weak and sickly, but the favourite of my parents beyond all my brothers and sisters,... more...

  After the great war it is difficult, to point out a single nation that is happy; but this has come out of the war, that there is not a single nation outside India, that is not either free or striving to be free. It is said that we, too, are on the road to freedom, that it is better to be on the certain though slow course of gradual unfoldment of freedom than to take the troubled and dangerous path... more...

BULLY PRESBY Plainly the rambling log structure was a road house and the stopping place for a mountain stage. It had the watering trough in front, the bundle of iron pails cluttered around the rusted iron pump, and the trampled muddy hollow created by many tired hoofs striking vigorously to drive away the flies. It was in a tiny flat beside the road, and mountains were everywhere; hard-cut, relentless... more...

CHAPTER I WE START FOR THE WAR I, James Frisby of Fairlee, in the county of Kent, on the eastern shore of what was known in my youth as the fair Province of Maryland, but now the proud State of that name, growing old in years, but hearty and hale withal, though the blood courses not through my veins as in the days of my youth, sit on the great porch of Fairlee watching the sails on the distant bay,... more...

INTRODUCTION EARLY SUGGESTIONS REGARDING THE TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE BY INSECTS Until very recent years insects and their allies have been considered as of economic importance merely in so far as they are an annoyance or direct menace to man, or his flocks and herds, or are injurious to his crops. It is only within the past fifteen years that there has sprung into prominence the knowledge that in... more...

CHAPTER I. Caledonia, stern and wild, may be called "meet nurse" of geologists as well as of poets. Among the most remarkable of the former is Charles Lyell, who was born in Forfarshire on November 14th, 1797, at Kinnordy, the family mansion. His father, who also bore the name of Charles, was both a lover of natural history and a man of high culture. He took an interest at one time in... more...

JOHN HENRY SMITH ENTRY No. I Miss HARDING Is COMING "Heard the news?" demanded Chilvers, approaching the table whereMarshall, Boyd, and I were smoking on the broad veranda of the WoodvaleGolf and Country Club. We shook our heads with contented indifference.It was after luncheon, and the cigars were excellent. "Where's LaHume?" grinned Chilvers. "Where's our Percy? He must... more...