Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. San Augustin, this 29th of June, Anno Domini 1670. It is now more than a month since our captivity began, and there seems scant likelihood that it will come to a speedy close,—altho', being in good health myself, and of an age when hope dies slowly, I despair not of recovering both liberty and friends. Yet, in the event of our further detention, of sickness or any other evil that may... more...

CHAPTER I. THE ARRIVAL. "Mamma," said Hildegarde Grahame, flying into her mother's room,"I have news for you, thrilling news! Guess what it is!" Mrs. Grahame looked up from her sewing. "The house is on fire," she said, quietly, "or you have found a Royal Walnut Moth; or, possibly, Hugh has developed wings and flown away. None of these things would greatly surprise me;... more...

On the Night of the Strange Bird, many people at Sidderton (and some nearer) saw a Glare on the Sidderford moor. But no one in Sidderford saw it, for most of Sidderford was abed. All day the wind had been rising, so that the larks on the moor chirruped fitfully near the ground, or rose only to be driven like leaves before the wind. The sun set in a bloody welter of clouds, and the moon was hidden. The... more...

THE EXILES I The greatest number of people in the world prefer the most highly civilized places of the world, because they know what sort of things are going to happen there, and because they also know by experience that those are the sort of things they like. A very few people prefer barbarous and utterly uncivilized portions of the globe for the reason that they receive while there new impressions,... more...

On the 12th of November the railroad and telegraph communications with the rear were broken, and the army stood detached from all friends, dependent on its own resources and supplies. No time was to be lost; all the detachments were ordered to march rapidly for Atlanta, breaking up the railroad en route, and generally to so damage the country as to make it untenable to the enemy. By the 14th all the... more...

CHAPTER I. A voice rang through one of the streets of Alexandria. "Sinners, away, or keep your eyes to the ground! Keep your eyes to the ground!" The white-robed priestesses of Ceres, carrying a sacred basket, walked in procession through the Alexandrian street, and as they walked they cried aloud their warning. So, for four centuries, since the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, had priestesses of... more...

Ruth 1:1 It happened in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. 1:2 The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. They came into the country of Moab, and continued... more...

I ZOLA LEAVES FRANCE From the latter part of the month of July 1898, down to the end of the ensuing August, a frequent heading to newspaper telegrams and paragraphs was the query, 'Where is Zola?' The wildest suppositions concerning the eminent novelist's whereabouts were indulged in and the most contradictory reports were circulated. It was on July 18 that M. Zola was tried by default... more...

It is just as well to say at the onset that the tragedy in which Tristrem Varick was the central figure has not been rightly understood. The world in which he lived, as well as the newspaper public, have had but one theory between them to account for it, and that theory is that Tristrem Varick was insane. Tristrem Varick was not insane. He had, perhaps, a fibre more or a fibre less than the ordinary... more...

There was no sense to the note. There was no sense to anything that Vic Butler did, for that matter. Where he hid away his vast scientific knowledge in that rattle-brained, red-haired head of his has always been a mystery to me. The note read: Dear Pete: If you get this, I’m in a jam that promises some action. Drive out, if plane-peddling is palling on you, and bust into the lab. I’m leaving... more...