Fiction Books

Dear Kate: Two years! Only two years, what do you think of it! Why, when I heard the judge say two years, I nearly fell off the bench. You were caught with the goods, and he had your record with its two stretches right before him, yet he only gave you two years. You told me yourself you thought you would get at least five. We tried to dope it out up to the room, and kind of figured that he had it in... more...

I. A beautiful spring day was drawing to a close. High aloft in the clear sky floated small rosy clouds, which seemed never to drift past, but to be slowly absorbed into the blue depths beyond. At an open window, in a handsome mansion situated in one of the outlying streets of O., the chief town of the government of that name—it was in the year 1842—there were sitting two ladies, the one about... more...

1 It was the first Saturday afternoon in August; it had been broiling hot all day, with a cloudless sky, and the sun had been beating down on the houses, so that the top rooms were like ovens; but now with the approach of evening it was cooler, and everyone in Vere Street was out of doors. Vere street, Lambeth, is a short, straight street leading out of the Westminster Bridge Road; it has forty houses... more...

CHAPTER I. When Death is present in a household on a Christmas Day, the very contrast between the time as it now is, and the day as it has often been, gives a poignancy to sorrow—a more utter blankness to the desolation.  James Leigh died just as the far-away bells of Rochdale Church were ringing for morning service on Christmas Day, 1836.  A few minutes before his death, he opened his already... more...

CHAPTER I. NEEDLE-WORK, at best, yields but a small return. Yet how many thousands have no other resource in life, no other barrier thrown up between them and starvation! The manly stay upon which a woman has leaned suddenly fails, and she finds self-support an imperative necessity; yet she has no skill, no strength, no developed resources. In all probability she is a mother. In this case she must not... more...

CHAPTER I "Hi, there! Mikky! Look out!" It was an alert voice that called from a huddled group of urchins in the forefront of the crowd, but the child flashed past without heeding, straight up the stone steps where stood a beautiful baby smiling on the crowd. With his bundle of papers held high, and the late morning sunlight catching his tangle of golden hair, Mikky flung himself toward the... more...

THE PASTORAL BEES The honey-bee goes forth from the hive in spring like the dove from Noah's ark, and it is not till after many days that she brings back the olive leaf, which in this case is a pellet of golden pollen upon each hip, usually obtained from the alder or the swamp willow. In a country where maple sugar is made the bees get their first taste of sweet from the sap as it flows from the... more...

They were rather an incongruous element amid the festivities, but they bore themselves very well, notwithstanding, and seemed to be sufficiently interested. The elder of the two—a tall, slender, middle-aged woman, with a somewhat severe, though delicate face—sat quietly apart, looking on at the rough dances and games with a keen relish of their primitive uncouthness; but the younger, a slight,... more...

INTRODUCTION. I.—THE ORIGIN AND SCOPE OF LOGIC. The question has sometimes been asked, Where should we begin in Logic? Particularly within the present century has this difficulty been felt, when the study of Logic has been revived and made intricate by the different purposes of its cultivators. Where did the founder of Logic begin? Where did Aristotle begin? This seems to be the simplest way of... more...

THOUGHT CAPACITY IN ANIMALS It was in the year 1904 that the first experiments towards understanding an animal's ability to think were brought into public light. Wilhelm von Osten then introduced his stallion Hans II to all who seemed interested in the subject, and the most diametrically opposed opinions were soon rife with regard to the abilities of this horse, to which von Osten maintained he... more...