Fiction Books

INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME NINE Among so many effective and artistic tales, it is difficult to give a preference to one over all the rest. Yet, certainly, even amid Verne's remarkable works, his "Off on a Comet" must be given high rank. Perhaps this story will be remembered when even "Round the World in Eighty Days" and "Michael Strogoff" have been obliterated by centuries of... more...

THE Methodist circuit-preacher is in the way of seeing human nature in many rare and curious aspects. Under the itinerating system, the United States are divided into conferences, districts, and circuits. The conference usually embraces a State, the district a certain division of the State or conference, and the circuit a portion of the district. To every circuit is assigned a preacher, who is expected... more...

A GRAPEFRUIT PRELUDE. Splash! The grapefruit hit her in the eye! Splash! His psychic wave was dashed to smithereens! “Oh! Oh!” the two girls screamed in unison. “D–––!” the young man sitting near ejaculated. For ten minutes there in the Oak Room of the Ritz-Carlton he had been hurling across the narrow intervening space this mental command to the girl facing him: “Look here! Look at me!... more...

Hannibal was underfoot and the captain on the bridge, and Rear-Admiral Garnet had shaken hands with the last of the "leading" Fijian white residents, who always did the welcoming and farewelling when distinguished persons visited Levuka, when Lieutenant Bollard approached him and intimated that "a person" from the shore had just come alongside in a boat and desired to see "his... more...

CHAPTER I EXIT MR. STANLEY G. FULTON There was a thoughtful frown on the face of the man who was the possessor of twenty million dollars. He was a tall, spare man, with a fringe of reddish-brown hair encircling a bald spot. His blue eyes, fixed just now in a steady gaze upon a row of ponderous law books across the room, were friendly and benevolent in direct contradiction to the bulldog, never-let-go... more...

THE LINE-RIDER Day was breaking in the Panhandle. The line-rider finished his breakfast of buffalo-hump, coffee, and biscuits. He had eaten heartily, for it would be long after sunset before he touched food again. Cheerfully and tunelessly he warbled a cowboy ditty as he packed his supplies and prepared to go. "Oh, it's bacon and beans most every day,I'd as lief be eatin' prairie... more...

CHAPTER I. THE DEPUTY TURN Mr. Arthur Mackwayte slipped noiselessly into the dining-room and took his place at the table. He always moved quietly, a look of gentle deprecation on his face as much as to say: "Really, you know, I can't help being here: if you will just overlook me this time, by and by you won't notice I'm there at all!" That was how he went through life, a shy,... more...

"What Think Ye, Masters, of These Things?" (A Poem read on Oklahoma Day, September 6, 1904, at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.)O, ye who frame the sovereign law,And heal the hurts of ocean islesTill hid are savage tooth and clawAnd Peace above the battle smiles,—If Justice reigns and Mercy clings,What think ye, Masters, of these things?The Father of the Waters greetsImperial sisters proud... more...

It happened in the beginning of the summer that Sigurd Erikson journeyed north into Esthonia to gather the king's taxes and tribute. His business in due course brought him into a certain seaport that stood upon the shores of the great Gulf of Finland. He was a very handsome man, tall and strong, with long fair hair and clear blue eyes. There were many armed servants in his following, for he was a... more...

LONDON AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS. Writing the history of a vast city like London is like writing a history of the ocean—the area is so vast, its inhabitants are so multifarious, the treasures that lie in its depths so countless. What aspect of the great chameleon city should one select? for, as Boswell, with more than his usual sense, once remarked, "London is to the politician merely a seat of... more...