Fiction Books

It was last winter, after a twelve years' absence from New York, that I saw again, at one of the Jim Cumnors' dinners, my old friend Halston Merrick. The Cumnors' house is one of the few where, even after such a lapse of time, one can be sure of finding familiar faces and picking up old threads; where for a moment one can abandon one's self to the illusion that New York humanity is... more...

INTRODUCTION. The subject of the Charmides is Temperance or (Greek), a peculiarly Greek notion, which may also be rendered Moderation (Compare Cic. Tusc. '(Greek), quam soleo equidem tum temperantiam, tum moderationem appellare, nonnunquam etiam modestiam.'), Modesty, Discretion, Wisdom, without completely exhausting by all these terms the various associations of the word. It may be described... more...

INTRODUCTION. OUR generous friends in Georgia and South Carolina will not add among their assumptions that we know nothing of the South and Southern life. A residence of several years in those States, a connection with the press, and associations in public life, gave us opportunities which we did not lose, and have not lost sight of; and if we dipped deeper into the vicissitudes of life and law than... more...

CHAPTER I Somewhere, not far off on the still sea that held the tiny islet in a warm embrace, a boy's voice was singing "Napoli Bella." Vere heard the song as she sat in the sun with her face set towards Nisida and the distant peak of Ischia; and instinctively she shifted her position, and turned her head, looking towards the calm and untroubled water that stretched between her and Naples.... more...

INTRODUCTION In the library of the Peabody Museum of Harvard University there is an invaluable collection of photographs of old manuscripts relating to Middle America. These photographs, made by Professor William E. Gates of Point Loma, California, were given to the Peabody Museum by Charles P. Bowditch, Esq., of Boston. One of the volumes contains a photographic reproduction of an original manuscript... more...

CHAPTER I.Roll on thou deep and dark blue ocean roll;. . . . . . Upon the watery plain.The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remainA shadow of man's ravage, save his own,When for a moment like a drop of rain,He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. September 27, 1607. Dead bodies everywhere. The ocean, lashed to fury by the gale of... more...

CHAPTER I CHOOSING THE TENS Near the eastern boundary of that level region of northern Egypt, known as the Delta, once thridded by seven branches of the sea-hunting Nile, Rameses II, in the fourteenth century B. C., erected the city of Pithom and stored his treasure therein. His riches overtaxed its coffers and he builded Pa-Ramesu, in part, to hold the overflow. But he died before the work was... more...

The Pithecanthropus Silent as the shadows through which he moved, the great beast slunk through the midnight jungle, his yellow-green eyes round and staring, his sinewy tail undulating behind him, his head lowered and flattened, and every muscle vibrant to the thrill of the hunt. The jungle moon dappled an occasional clearing which the great cat was always careful to avoid. Though he moved through... more...

CHAPTER I About the time the winner of the Baltimore Handicap flashed under the wire, Johnny Gamble started to tear up a bundle of nice pink tickets on Lady S. Just then Ashley Loring came by swiftly in the direction of the betting shed. Loring stopped and wheeled when he caught sight of him as did most men who knew him. "Hello, Johnny! I didn't know you had run over. How are you picking them... more...

CHAPTER FIRST. FRANCES MEETS THE SPECTACLE MAN."The bridge is broke, and I have to mend it,  Fol de rol de ri do, fol de rol de ri do—"sang the Spectacle Man, leaning his elbows on the show-case, with his hands outspread, and the glasses between a thumb and finger, as he nodded merrily at Frances. Such an odd-looking person as he was! Instead of an ordinary coat he wore a velvet... more...