Fiction Books

PREFACE. These lectures have been so maimed and mutilated by orthodox malice; have been made to appear so halt, crutched and decrepit by those who mistake the pleasures of calumny for the duties of religion, that in simple justice to myself I concluded to publish them. Most of the clergy are, or seem to be, utterly incapable of discussing anything in a fair and catholic spirit. They appeal, not to... more...

PREFACE. In this book Dr. Schaffle seeks to carry out still further the idea which he developed in his last book (The Impossibility of Social Democracy) of the essential difference between a socialistic policy and what he calls a Positive Social Policy, proceeding constructively upon the basis of the existing social order. He emphatically vindicates the Emperor William’s policy, as shown in the... more...

CHAPTER I It was the day of the private view at the Royal Academy. The great courtyard of Burlington House was full of carriages, and a continuous stream of guests was pressing up the red-carpeted stairs, over which presided some of the most imposing individuals known to the eyes of Londoners, second only to Her Majesty's beefeaters in glory of scarlet apparel. Inside, however, as it was not yet... more...

THE JOY OF ANTICIPATION Elk Creek Valley was a blue and golden place that mid-summer morning in the Big Horn Country. It seemed like a joyous secret tucked away among the mountains, whose hazy, far-away summits were as blue as the sky above them. The lower ranges, too, were blue from purple haze and gray-green sagebrush, while the bare, brown foot-hills tumbling about their feet were golden in the... more...

"You don't think it's too young for me, girls?" "Young for you—par exemple! I should say not," her niece replied, perking the quivering aigrette still more obliquely upon her aunt's head. Carolyn used par exemple as a good cook uses onion—a hint of it in everything. There were those who said that she interpolated it in the Litany; but Carolyn, who was born Caroline... more...

INTRODUCTION In giving to the world the record of what, looked at as an adventure only, is I suppose one of the most wonderful and mysterious experiences ever undergone by mortal men, I feel it incumbent on me to explain what my exact connection with it is. And so I may as well say at once that I am not the narrator but only the editor of this extraordinary history, and then go on to tell how it found... more...

hat? Oh, that's a perspective machine. Well, not exactly, but that's what I call it. No, I don't know how it works. Too complicated for me. Carter could make it go, but after he made it he never used it. Too bad; he thought he'd make a lot of money with it there for awhile, while he was working it out. Almost had me convinced, but I told him, "Get it to working first, Carter,... more...

THE BUSTED EX-TEXAN. were camped amid the foot-hills on the trail which led up to the Kicking Horse Pass. The sun had already passed from sight, beyond the white summits above us, and the shadow of the monstrous mountain range darkened the prairie to the east, to the horizon's rim. Our bivouac was made in a grove of lofty firs, six or eight in number; and a little rivulet, trickling from the upper... more...

Preface The children who read fairy books, or have fairy books read to them, do not read prefaces, and the parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, who give fairy books to their daughters, nieces, and cousins, leave prefaces unread. For whom, then, are prefaces written? When an author publishes a book 'out of his own head,' he writes the preface for his own pleasure. After reading over his book... more...

EDMOND ABOUT The King of the MountainsEdmond About was the son of a grocer at Dieuze, in Lorraine, France, where he was born Feb. 14, 1828. Even in childhood he displayed the vivacity of mind and the irreverent spirit which were to make him the most entertaining anti-clerical writer of his period. His tales have the qualities of the best writing of the eighteenth century, enhanced by the modern... more...