Fiction Books

CHAPTER I For some moments profound silence and darkness had accompanied a Sierran stage-coach towards the summit. The huge, dim bulk of the vehicle, swaying noiselessly on its straps, glided onward and upward as if obeying some mysterious impulse from behind, so faint and indefinite appeared its relation to the viewless and silent horses ahead. The shadowy trunks of tall trees that seemed to approach... more...

With savage pity Marjorie regarded a sobbing girl whose face was distorted, and whose palsied hands were trying to straighten her veil and push back stray wisps of hair. Marjorie thought: "What a fool she is to cry like that! Her nose is red; she's a sight. I can control myself. I can control myself." An elderly man with an austere face, standing beside Marjorie, started to light a... more...

CHAPTER I It was nearly eleven o'clock at night when some one knocked at the door of Fred Osborne's room. He was not in the least expecting any caller at that hour, and had paid no attention when he had heard the doorbell of the boarding-house ring downstairs, and the sound of feet ascending the steps. He hastened to open the door, however, and in the dim hallway he recognized the dark,... more...

CHAPTER I. It is with some degree of awe that I touch upon the enigma of my impressions at the commencement of my life. I am almost doubtful whether they had reality within my own experience, or whether they are not, rather, recollections mysteriously transmitted—I feel an almost sacred hesitation when I would fathom their depths. I came forth from the darkness of unconsciousness very gradually, for... more...

HOW TO USE THE BOOK One recognizes a plant by the presence of structural features peculiar to itself, and not found on any other kind of plant. In such a book as this, these characters are given one or a few at a time, and contrasted with the characters which other sorts of plants possess. Such a presentation is called a Key, and by its proper use the name may be learned of any plant considered in it.... more...

I NOTE.—It would be impossible to depict the Sark of to-day without using the names native to the Island. All such names here employed, however, are used without any reference whatever to any actual persons who may happen to bear similar names in Sark. The characters are to be taken as types. The incidents are in many cases fact. If you want murders, mysteries, or mud—pass on! This is a simple,... more...

PROLOGUE There was no mistake this time: he had struck gold at last! It had lain there before him a moment ago—a misshapen piece of brown-stained quartz, interspersed with dull yellow metal; yielding enough to have allowed the points of his pick to penetrate its honeycombed recesses, yet heavy enough to drop from the point of his pick as he endeavored to lift it from the red earth. He was seeing all... more...

Act I. Scene I.—A tavern and a street in front of it. Settles on porch. Sailors smoking and drinking. Enter Captain Butts, singing.Butts.The Margery D. was a trim little ship, The men they could man, and the skipper could skip; She sailed from her haven one fine summer day, And she foundered at sea in the following way,— To-wit: All.A-rinkety, clinkety, clink, clank, clank, The liquor they bathed... more...

CHAPTER I. No! as I said at the end of the last chapter but one, before I was led away by the circumstances of that time to give the world the benefit of my magnetic reminiscences—valeat quantum!—I was not yet bitten, despite Colley Grattan's urgings, with any temptation to attempt fiction, and "passion, me boy!" But I am surprised on turning over my old diaries to find how much I was... more...

COMRADES In the late May evening the soul of summer had gone suddenly incarnate, but the old man, indifferent and petulant, thrashed upon his bed. He was not used to being ill, and found no consolations in weather. Flowers regarded him observantly—one might have said critically—from the tables, the bureau, the window-sills: tulips, fleurs-de-lis, pansies, peonies, and late lilacs, for he had a... more...