Fiction Books

CHAPTER I Michael Arranstoun folded a letter which he had been reading for the seventh time, with a vicious intentness, and then jumping up from the big leather chair in which he had been buried, he said aloud, "Damn!" When a young, rich and good-looking man says that particular word aloud with a fearful grind of the teeth, one may know that he is in the very devil of a temper! Michael... more...

INTRODUCTION The testimony of librarians as to the kind of books people are reading nowadays is somewhat discouraging to the book-lover who has been brought up in the old traditions. We are told that Scott and Thackeray and George Eliot cannot compete with the year's "best sellers," and that the old classics are read only by the few who have a cultivated taste and a trained intelligence.... more...

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A sleepy Sunday morning—and no need for any one to go to church. It was at Neuchâtel, under the trees by the lake, that I first became conscious of what wonderful assistance Sweetheart might be to me in my literary work. She corrected me as to the date upon which we had made our pilgrimage to Chaumont, as to the color of the hair of the pretty daughter of the innkeeper whom we had seen there—in... more...

CHAPTER I. BERWEN BANKS. Caer Madoc is a sleepy little Welsh town, lying two miles from the sea coast. Far removed from the busy centres of civilisation, where the battle of life breeds keen wits and deep interests, it is still, in the opinion of its inhabitants, next to London, the most important place in the United Kingdom. It has its church and three chapels, its mayor and corporation, jail, town... more...

Uncle Indefer  "I have a conscience, my dear, on this matter," said an old gentleman to a young lady, as the two were sitting in the breakfast parlour of a country house which looked down from the cliffs over the sea on the coast of Carmarthenshire. "And so have I, Uncle Indefer; and as my conscience is backed by my inclination, whereas yours is not—" "You think that I shall give... more...

About the Beginning of last June (as near as I can remember) Bellamora came to Town from Hampshire, and was obliged to lodge the first Night at the same Inn where the Stage-Coach set up. The next Day she took Coach for Covent-Garden, where she thought to find Madam Brightly, a Relation of hers, with whom she design’d to continue for about half a Year undiscover’d, if possible, by her Friends in... more...

CHAPTER I THE SHOP It was an evening early in May. The sun was low, and the street was mottled with the shadows of its paving-stones—smooth enough, but far from evenly set. The sky was clear, except for a few clouds in the west, hardly visible in the dazzle of the huge light, which lay among them like a liquid that had broken its vessel, and was pouring over the fragments. The street was almost... more...

The G—s were living in the country, near Florence, when the Italian army began preparations to advance upon Rome. In the family the enterprise was regarded with disapproval. The father, the mother, and the two grown daughters, all ardent Catholics and temperate patriots, talked of moral measures. "We don't profess to understand anything about politics," Signora G—- would say to her... more...

I MIRDATH THE BEAUTIFUL     "And I cannot touch her face    And I cannot touch her hair,    And I kneel to empty shadows—    Just memories of her grace;    And her voice sings in the winds    And in the sobs of dawn    And among the flowers at night    And from the brooks at sunrise    And from the sea at sunset,    And I answer with vain callings …"... more...