Fiction Books

One minute after the regular report call from the planet Eden was overdue, the communications operator summoned his supervisor. His finger hesitated over the key reluctantly, then he gritted his teeth and pressed it down. The supervisor came boiling out of his cubicle, half-running down the long aisle between the forty operators hunched over their panels. "What is it? What is it?" he quarreled,... more...

"How I hate the man who talks about the 'brute creation,' with an ugly emphasis on /brute/. . . . As for me, I am proud of my close kinship with other animals. I take a jealous pride in my Simian ancestry. I like to think that I was once a magnificent hairy fellow living in the trees, and that my frame has come down through geological time via sea jelly and worms and Amphioxus, Fish,... more...

Every now and then a Jack Johnson would fall and leave a hole in which one could bury a motor, and, apart from the shells, the holes made driving risky. There was over a mile of the road in this unhealthy state, and entirely exposed to the enemy's guns, before any shelter could be obtained; but the wounded must be fetched, and the cars pushed on as fast as they dared to drive. They were suddenly... more...

CHAPTER I HOW BELTANE LIVED WITHIN THE GREENWOOD In a glade of the forest, yet not so far but that one might hear the chime of bells stealing across the valley from the great minster of Mortain on a still evening, dwelt Beltane the Smith. Alone he lived in the shadow of the great trees, happy when the piping of the birds was in his ears, and joying to listen to the plash and murmur of the brook that... more...

INTRODUCTION. THIS book is not for the purpose of instruction in singing, as singing is an art which cannot be taught from book or correspondence. Neither is it a technical treatise on the voice, but instead I aim through the medium of my book to have a "heart-to-heart" talk with the beginner, and with those who contemplate the study of voice culture. Books abounding in technical terms are... more...

THE OVERTURE. Day of the month and year, November the thirtieth, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five.  London Time by the great clock of Saint Paul’s, ten at night.  All the lesser London churches strain their metallic throats.  Some, flippantly begin before the heavy bell of the great cathedral; some, tardily begin three, four, half a dozen, strokes behind it; all are in sufficiently near... more...

INTRODUCTION Up to the years of the Crimean War Russia was always a strange, uncouth riddle to the European consciousness. It would be an interesting study to trace back through the last three centuries the evidence of the historical documents that our forefathers have left us when they were brought face to face, through missions, embassies, travel, and commerce, with the fantastic life, as it seemed... more...

LITERARY LAPSES My Financial Career When I go into a bank I get rattled. The clerks rattle me; the wickets rattle me; the sight of the money rattles me; everything rattles me. The moment I cross the threshold of a bank and attempt to transact business there, I become an irresponsible idiot. I knew this beforehand, but my salary had been raised to fifty dollars a month and I felt that the bank was the... more...

ADDRESS I GOD, THE GREAT REALITY PORTION OF SCRIPTURE—Hebrews xi. 1-6. God is the one great Reality. Will you close your eyes for a moment and say those words over again very slowly so as to let them burn into your inmost heart and soul. The Word of God tells us that "The Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true": this means that we may... more...

CHAPTER IX A pair of well-matched bays in silver-plated harness, and driven by a coachman in livery, turn an easy curve round a corner of the narrow country road, forcing you to step on the sward by the crimson-leaved bramble bushes, and sprinkling the dust over the previously glossy surface of the newly fallen horse chestnuts. Two ladies, elegantly dressed, lounge in the carriage with that graceful... more...