Fiction Books

I MRS. GRUMBLE On Sunday the church bells of Hillsboro rang out across the ripening fields with a grave and holy sound, and again at evening knocked faintly, with quiet sorrow, at doors where children watched for the first star, to make their wishes. Night came, and to the croaking of frogs, the moon rose over Barly Hill. In the early morning the grass, still wet with dew, chilled the bare toes of... more...

CHAPTER I. PAU. Trains and Steamers—Bordeaux and its Hotels—Lamothe—Morcenx—Dax—Puyoo—Orthez—First impressions of Pau—The Hotels andPensions—Amusements—Pension Colbert—Making up parties for thePyrenees—The Place Royale and the view—The... more...

I. PROLOGUE. The present century has seen the rise and development of many towns in various parts of the country, and among them Birmingham is entitled to take a front place. If Thomas Attwood or George Frederick Muntz could now revisit the town they once represented in Parliament they would probably stare with amazement at the changes that have taken place in Birmingham, and would require a guide to... more...

INTRODUCTION. The political condition of Ireland is, at present, grave; and, in the event of a war with the United States, would become menacing, to England. Irish politicians assert—and it is partly admitted by their opponents—that, in the existing state of Ireland, three questions demand an immediate solution: these questions are, the Land Question, the Church Question, and the Education... more...

Theory of New Method.   Let S, Fig. 1, be a slit, through which light passes, falling on R, a mirror free to rotate about an axis at right angles to the plane of the paper; L, a lens of great focal length, upon which the light falls which is reflected from R. Let M be a plane mirror whose surface is perpendicular to the line R, M, passing through the centers of R, L, and M, respectively. If L be so... more...

I received a letter the day before yesterday from my old friend, Jaffery Chayne, which has inspired me to write the following account of that dear, bull-headed, Pantagruelian being. I must say that I have been egged on to do so by my wife, of whom hereafter. A man of my somewhat urbane and dilettante temperament does not do these things without being worried into them. I had the inspiration, however. I... more...

I. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH I CALL it an old town, but it is only relatively old. When one reflects on the countless centuries that have gone to the for-mation of this crust of earth on which we temporarily move, the most ancient cities on its surface seem merely things of the week before last. It was only the other day, then—that is to say, in the month of June, 1603—that one Martin Pring, in the ship... more...

CHAPTER I. THE DETLIJ CLUB. In a handsome block of buildings in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly—a phrase which may embrace a considerable area, North, South, East or West—is located the quarters of that small and extremely select Club, known, and known up till now only to a favoured few, as the Detlij Club. The name, like the Club itself, is an uncommon one, and is simply indicative of the sad... more...

THE LAST DREAM OF BWONA KHUBLA From steaming lowlands down by the equator, where monstrous orchids blow, where beetles big as mice sit on the tent-ropes, and fireflies glide about by night like little moving stars, the travelers went three days through forests of cactus till they came to the open plains where the oryx are. And glad they were when they came to the water-hole, where only one white man... more...

THE MASK CHAPTER I "There! What did I tell you? The news is out!" With a muttered exclamation of annoyance, Kenneth Traynor put down his coffee cup with a crash and, leaning over the table, pointed out to his wife a despatch from London, given prominence in the morning paper, which ran as follows: Advices from Cape Town report the finding on a farm near Fontein, a hundred miles north of here,... more...