Fiction Books

Kennedy is a country doctor, and lives in Colebrook, on the shores of Eastbay. The high ground rising abruptly behind the red roofs of the little town crowds the quaint High Street against the wall which defends it from the sea. Beyond the sea-wall there curves for miles in a vast and regular sweep the barren beach of shingle, with the village of Brenzett standing out darkly across the water, a spire... more...

Chapter One. A Sad Mistake. The last few rays of a cold September sunset were streaming through the High Street of a large and populous village called Redford, in the county of Surrey, lighting up the pretty red-brick cottages and casting a deep shadow beyond the quaint and tumble-down old porch which led to the church. A few mellow shafts had slipped by it, and, struggling through the iron bars of a... more...

CHAPTER I FROM THE INVASION OF THE NETHERLANDS BY THE ROMANS TO THE INVASION BY THE SALIAN FRANKS B.C. 50—A.D. 200 The Netherlands form a kingdom of moderate extent, situated on the borders of the ocean, opposite to the southeast coast of England, and stretching from the frontiers of France to those of Hanover. The country is principally composed of low and humid grounds, presenting a vast plain,... more...

Birth-night of the Humming Birds The Departure of the Fairies I. I'll tell you a Fairy Tale that's new: How the merry Elves o'er the ocean flew From the Emerald isle to this far-off shore, As they were wont in the days of yore; And played their pranks one moonlit night, Where the zephyrs alone could see the sight. II. Ere the Old world yet had found the New, The fairies oft in their... more...

I. The sun was just going down, a hissing globe of fire and torment. Already the lower limb was in contact with the jagged backbone of the mountain chain that rimmed the desert with purple and gold. Out on the barren, hard-baked flat in front of the corral, just where it had been unhitched when the paymaster and his safe were dumped soon after dawn, a weather-beaten ambulance was throwing unbroken a... more...

THE RAMBLER. No. 106. SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 1751.   Opinionum commenta delet dies, naturæ judicia Confirmat.  CICERO, vi. Att. 1.   Time obliterates the fictions of opinion, and confirms the decisions  of nature. It is necessary to the success of flattery, that it be accommodated to particular circumstances or characters, and enter the heart on that side where the passions stand ready to receive... more...

CHAPTER I It began with Jerry’s finishing off all the olives that were left, “like a pig would do,” as Greg said. His finishing the olives left us the bottle, of course, and there is only one natural thing to do with an empty olive-bottle when you’re on a water picnic. That is, to write a message as though you were a shipwrecked mariner, and seal it up in the bottle and chuck it as far out as... more...

DUMAS IN ITALY.[Souvenirs de Voyage en Italie, parALEXANDRE DUMAS. 5 vols. duod.]France has lately sent forth her poets in great force, to travel, and to write travels. Delamartine, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and others, have been forth in the high-ways and the high-seas, observing, portraying, poetizing, romancing. The last-mentioned of these, M. Dumas, a dramatist very ingenious in the... more...

CHAPTER I In this modern industrial civilization of which we are sometimes wont to boast, a certain glacier-like process may be observed. The bewildered, the helpless—and there are many—are torn from the parent rock, crushed, rolled smooth, and left stranded in strange places. Thus was Edward Bumpus severed and rolled from the ancestral ledge, from the firm granite of seemingly stable and lasting... more...

ANCHOR. I love to look on an Anchor. Like a good friend who helps you in trouble, it holds the ship steady in a storm. Its flukes sink deep into the bottom of the sea, or cling to the rocks, and nothing but a great storm can separate it from the cable which is fastened to the vessel. Anchors are of solid iron and very heavy; and cables are made of hemp or of iron chain. Large ships have four anchors,... more...