Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. MONSIEUR THE SECRETARY It was spring at Bellecour—the spring of 1789, a short three months before the fall of the Bastille came to give the nobles pause, and make them realise that these new philosophies, which so long they have derided, were by no means the idle vapours they had deemed them. By the brook, plashing its glittering course through the park of Bellecour, wandered La Boulaye,... more...

CHAPTER IA FLASH OF FIRE Filled was the room with boys and girls–yes, literally filled; for they moved about so from chair to chair, from divan to sofa, from one side of the apartment to the other, now and then changing corners after the manner of the old-fashioned game of “puss,” that what they lacked in numbers they more than made up in activity. It was a veritable moving picture of healthful,... more...

CHAPTER I John Armitage, Lieutenant U. S. N., followed the porter into the rear car of the midnight express for Boston, and after seeing his bag deposited under a lower berth, stood for a minute in frowning indecision. A half-hour must elapse before the train started. He was not a bit sleepy; he had, in fact, dozed most of the way from Washington, and the idea of threshing about in the hot berth was... more...

The produce of the earth—all that is derived from its surface by the united application of labour, machinery, and capital, is divided among three classes of the community; namely, the proprietor of the land, the owner of the stock or capital necessary for its cultivation, and the labourers by whose industry it is cultivated. But in different stages of society, the proportions of the whole produce of... more...

CHAPTER I On a certain forenoon in the month of April, 1758, there was unusual activity in the harbor of New York. In spite of the disagreeable weather--which had now already lasted two days, with dense fogs and drizzling rain, and even then, from low, gray clouds, was drenching the multitude--there stood upon the quay dense groups of people looking at a large Dutch three-master, which had already lain... more...

INTRODUCTION. On ushering into the world a literary production, custom has established that its parent should give some account of his offspring. Indeed, this becomes the more necessary at the present moment, as the short-lived peace, which gave birth to the following sheets, had already ceased before they were entirely printed; and the war in which England and France are now engaged, is of a nature... more...

CHAPTER FIRST. Isab.—Alas! what poor ability's in meTo do him good?Lucio.—Assay the power you have.Measure for Measure. When Mrs. Saddletree entered the apartment in which her guests had shrouded their misery, she found the window darkened. The feebleness which followed his long swoon had rendered it necessary to lay the old man in bed. The curtains were drawn around him, and Jeanie sate... more...

Antoine Louis Barye At the Metropolitan Museum of Art are two pictures by the Florentine painter of the fifteenth century called Piero di Cosimo. They represent hunting scenes, and the figures are those of men, women, fauns, satyrs, centaurs, and beasts of the forests, fiercely struggling together. As we observe the lion fastening his teeth in the flesh of the boar, the bear grappling with his human... more...

A REMEMBERED DREAM This is the story of a dream that came to me some five-and-twenty years ago. It is as vivid in memory as anything that I have ever seen in the outward world, as distinct as any experience through which I have ever passed. Not all dreams are thus remembered. But some are. In the records of the mind, where the inner chronicle of life is written, they are intensely clear and veridical.... more...

I In Petersburg in the eighteen-forties a surprising event occurred. An officer of the Cuirassier Life Guards, a handsome prince who everyone predicted would become aide-de-camp to the Emperor Nicholas I. and have a brilliant career, left the service, broke off his engagement to a beautiful maid of honour, a favourite of the Empress's, gave his small estate to his sister, and retired to a... more...