Fiction Books

Evening Prayer. "Our Father." The mother's voice was low and tender, and solemn. "Our Father." On two sweet voices the tones were borne upward. It was the innocence of reverent children that gave them utterance. "Who art in heaven." "Who art in heaven," repeated the children, one with her eyes bent meekly down, and the other looking upward, as if she would penetrate... more...

Barbara Thorne sat leaning her head on her hand, looking at a photograph that lay on the table beneath her eyes. She had not intended to look for that when she pulled out a dusty drawer full of old letters, papers, and account-books to arrange and set in order. But when in the course of her rummaging and tidying she found that picture in her hand, she paused in her task. The neglected drawer stood... more...

CHAPTER I. THE NAMELESS BAY In the noon of a September day in the year of our dear Lord 1395, a merchant vessel nodded sleepily upon the gentle swells of warm water flowing in upon the Syrian coast. A modern seafarer, looking from the deck of one of the Messagerie steamers now plying the same line of trade, would regard her curiously, thankful to the calm which held her while he slaked his wonder, yet... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE CHURCH It was Sunday morning in a church at New Laodicea. The bell had ceased pealing and the great organ began its prelude with deep bass notes that vibrated through the stately building. The members of the choir were all in their places in the rear gallery, and prepared in order their music in the racks before them. Below the worshipers poured in steady, quiet streams down the... more...

CHAPTER FIRST. How have I sinn'd, that this afflictionShould light so heavy on me? I have no more sons,And this no more mine own.—My grand curseHang o'er his head that thus transformed thee!—Travel? I'll send my horse to travel next.Monsieur Thomas. You have requested me, my dear friend, to bestow some of that leisure, with which Providence has blessed the decline of my life, in... more...

CHAPTER I. VISCOUNT IPSDEN, aged twenty-five, income eighteen thousand pounds per year, constitution equine, was unhappy! This might surprise some people; but there are certain blessings, the non-possession of which makes more people discontented than their possession renders happy. Foremost among these are "Wealth and Rank." Were I to add "Beauty" to the list, such men and women as go... more...

THE DREAMER The boy sat with his back to a rock, his knees drawn up and clasped within fingers nervously interlocked. His eyes were fixed upon the great stretch of landscape below, shadowy now, and indistinct, like a rolling plain of patchwork woven by mysterious fingers. Gray mists were floating over the meadows and low-lying lands. Away in the distance they marked the circuitous course of the river,... more...

THE SOLDIER OF THE VALLEY I I was a soldier. I was a hero. You notice my tenses are past. I am a simple school-teacher now, a prisoner in Black Log. There are no bars to my keep, only the wall of mountains that make the valley; and look at them on a clear day, when sunshine and shadow play over their green slopes, when the clouds all white and gold swing lazily in the blue above them, and they speak of... more...

GRANT IN COMMAND—ROSECRANS RELIEVED Importance of unity in command—Inevitable difficulties in a double organization—Burnside's problem different from that of Rosecrans—Cooperation necessarily imperfect—Growth of Grant's reputation—Solid grounds of it—Special orders sent him—Voyage to Cairo—Meets Stanton at Louisville—Division of the Mississippi created—It included... more...

I. PREFACE TO READERS IN GENERAL You are the children of Old Mother England, on both sides of the Atlantic; you form the majority of buyers and borrowers of novels; and you judge of works of fiction by certain inbred preferences, which but slightly influence the other great public of readers on the continent of Europe. The two qualities in fiction which hold the highest rank in your estimation are:... more...