Fiction Books

I. BOYHOOD I It was dawn on the first of May, 1877. From the sea the mist came sweeping in, in a gray trail that lay heavily on the water. Here and there there was a movement in it; it seemed about to lift, but closed in again, leaving only a strip of shore with two old boats lying keel uppermost upon it. The prow of a third boat and a bit of breakwater showed dimly in the mist a few paces off. At... more...

ACT I Hildegarde is sitting at a desk, writing . John, in a lounging attitude, is reading a newspaper . Enter Tranto, back . TRANTO. Good evening. HILDEGARDE ( turning slightly in her seat and giving him her left hand, the right still holding a pen ). Good evening. Excuse me one moment. TRANTO. All right about my dining here to-night? (Hildegarde nods .) Larder equal to the strain? HILDEGARDE.... more...

Chap. I. Being an Introduction to the whole Work. I doubt not but the title of this book will amuse some of my reading friends a little at first; they will make a pause, perhaps, as they do at a witch’s prayer, and be some whether they had best look into it or no, lest they should really raise the Devil by reading his story. Children and old women have told themselves so many frightful things of the... more...

CHAPTER I. It was about the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius that I, Genevieve, a slave of Aurelia, the wife of a Roman named Gremion and located in Marseilles, departed from Marseilles with my mistress and her husband for Judea. The dominion of the Romans, at that period, extended from one end of the world to the other. Judea had submitted to them, as a dependence of the province of... more...

CHAPTER I. The psychical growth of a child is not influenced by days and years, but by the impressions passing events make on its mind. What may prove a sudden awakening to one, giving an impulse in a certain direction that may last for years, may make no impression on another. People wonder why the children of the same family differ so widely, though they have had the same domestic discipline, the... more...

It would be absorbing to discover the present feminine attitude toward the profoundest compliment ever paid women by the heart and mind of men in league—the worshipping devotion conceived by Plato and elevated to a living faith in mediaeval France. Through that renaissance of a sublimated passion domnei was regarded as a throne of alabaster by the chosen figures of its service: Melicent, at... more...

They were having tea on the terrace. As Varian strolled up to the group he wished that Hunter could see the picture they made—Hunter, who had not been in America for thirty years, and who had been so honestly surprised when Varian had spoken of Mrs. Dud's pretty maids—she always had pretty ones, even to the cook's third assistant. "Maids? Maids? It used to be 'help,'" he... more...

ACT I. A plain Tradesman's Room, with old fashioned Furniture. Master Clarenbach. (Busied with a design.) Clar. So!--there is my design, and I think it is a pretty good one. It will make a substantial building.--When I am gone, people will say, when they look at the pile, "Master Clarenbach was a man that knew what he was about." SCENE II. Enter Lewis. Lew. Deputy Clarenbach presents his... more...

I I had made up my mind that when my vacation came I would spend it seeking adventures. I have always wished for adventures, but, though I am old enough—I was twenty-five last October—and have always gone half-way to meet them, adventures avoid me. Kinney says it is my fault. He holds that if you want adventures you must go after them. Kinney sits next to me at Joyce & Carboy's, the... more...

CHAPTER I THE WILL OF JOHN MARSHALL GLENARM Pickering’s letter bringing news of my grandfather’s death found me at Naples early in October. John Marshall Glenarm had died in June. He had left a will which gave me his property conditionally, Pickering wrote, and it was necessary for me to return immediately to qualify as legatee. It was the merest luck that the letter came to my hands at all, for it... more...