Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. SPILLED OUT. Sylvie Argenter was driving about in her mother's little basket-phæton. There was a story about this little basket-phæton, a story, and a bit of domestic diplomacy. The story would branch away, back and forward; which I cannot, right here in this first page, let it do. It would tell—taking the little carriage for a text and key—ever so much about aims and ways and... more...

AN OBJECT OF VALUE AND VIRTUE This happened a very little time after we left our humble home in Lewisham, and went to live at the Blackheath house of our Indian uncle, which was replete with every modern convenience, and had a big garden and a great many greenhouses. We had had a lot of jolly Christmas presents, and one of them was Dicky's from father, and it was a printing-press. Not one of the... more...

CHAPTER I "Quod felix faustumque sit!" There is a happiness which no poet has yet properly sung, which no lady-reader, let her be ever so amiable, has experienced or ever will experience in this world. This is a condition of happiness which alone belongs to the male sex, and even then alone to the elect. It is a moment of life which seizes upon our feelings, our minds, our whole being. Tears... more...

OSCAR WILDE ears ago, in a Paris club, one man said to another: "Well, what's up?" The other shook a paper: "There is only one genius in England and they have put him in jail." One may wonder though whether it were their doing, or even Wilde's, that put him there. One may wonder whether it were not the high fates who so gratified him in order that, from his purgatory, he might... more...

MY VISIT TO NIAGARA. Never did a pilgrim approach Niagara with deeper enthusiasm than mine. I had lingered away from it, and wandered to other scenes, because my treasury of anticipated enjoyments, comprising all the wonders of the world, had nothing else so magnificent, and I was loath to exchange the pleasures of hope for those of memory so soon. At length the day came. The stage-coach, with a... more...

REPORTING OUR UNCLE ABE'S LATEST LITTLE TALE; OUR CORRESPONDENT'S HISTORICAL CHAUNT; THE BOSTON NOVEL OF "MR. SMITH;" AND A FUNERAL DISCOURSE BY THE DEVOUT CHAPLAIN OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE. Washington, D.C., Jan. 4th, 1863. The more I see of our Honest Abe, my boy,—the more closely I analyze the occasional acts by which he individualizes himself as a unit distinct from the decimals... more...

ACT THE FIRST. SCENE I. A GARDEN.Enter Castalio, Polydore, and Page.Cas.Polydore, our sportHas been to-day much better for the danger:When on the brink the foaming boar I met,And in his side thought to have lodg'd my spear,The desperate savage rush'd within my force,And bore me headlong with him down the rock.Pol.But then——Cas.Ay, then, my brother, my friend, Polydore,Like Perseus mounted... more...

CHAPTER I y chieftain ancestors had lived at Glandore for many centuries and were very well known. Hardly a ship could pass the Old Head of Kinsale without some boats putting off to exchange the time of day with her, and our family name was on men's tongues in half the seaports of Europe, I dare say. My ancestors lived in castles which were like churches stuck on end, and they drank the best of... more...

CHAPTER I. DUDIE DUNNE PLAYS A GREAT TRICK TO RUN DOWN A CRIMINAL—AS SIMPLE JOHN HE APPEARS INNOCENT, BUT WHEN HIS MASK GOES OFF THE "FUR FLIES." "Oh, fellers, look at this! he's strayed or stolen; let's go for him." A group of little toughs were gathered at a street corner in a low locality in the city of New York when a dude of the first water with the regular Anglo step... more...

ORRAIN CHAPTER I THE CRY IN THE RUE DES LAVANDIERES My father, René, Vidame d'Orrain, was twice married. By his first wife he had one son, Simon, who subsequently succeeded to his title and estates, and was through his life my bitter enemy. By his second wife, whom he married somewhat late in life, he had two sons—the elder, Anne, known as the Chevalier de St. Martin from his mother's... more...