Fiction Books

STRIKING HARD "You've what?" demanded Mrs. Porter, placing the hot iron carefully on its stand and turning a heated face on the head of the family. "Struck," repeated Mr. Porter; "and the only wonder to me is we've stood it so long as we have. If I was to tell you all we've 'ad to put up with I don't suppose you'd believe me." "Very likely,"... more...

OLD NORWAY. Still the old tempests rage around the mountains,And ocean's billows as of old appear;The roaring wood and the resounding fountainsTime has not silenced in his long career,For Nature is the same as ever.Munch. The shadow of God wanders through Nature.Linnæus. Before yet a song of joy or of mourning had gone forth from the valleys of Norway—before yet a smoke-wreath had ascended from... more...

X THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY The poet Longfellow—or was it Confucius, the inventor of wisdom?—remarked: "Life is real, life is earnest; And things are not what they seem." As mathematics are—or is: thanks, old subscriber!—the only just rule by which questions of life can be measured, let us, by all means, adjust our theme to the straight edge and the balanced column of the great goddess... more...

No one can be more aware than the author that the construction of this tale is defective. The state of French society, and the strange scenes of the Fronde, beguiled me into a tale which has become rather a family record than a novel. Formerly the Muse of the historical romance was an independent and arbitrary personage, who could compress time, resuscitate the dead, give mighty deeds to imaginary... more...

CHAPTER I FIVE MILES OUT The four Lanes—Max, Sally, Alec and Robert—climbed the five flights of stairs to their small flat with the agility of youth and the impetus of high but subdued excitement. Uncle Timothy Rudd, following more slowly, reached the outer door of the little suite of rooms in time to hear what seemed to be the first outburst. "Well, what do you think now?" "Forty-two... more...

OUT OF THE WAY To Lisconnel, our very small hamlet in the middle of a wide bogland, the days that break over the dim blue hill-line, faint and far off, seldom bring a stranger's face; but then they seldom take a familiar one away, beyond reach, at any rate of return before nightfall. In fact, there are few places amid this mortal change to which we may come back after any reasonable interval with... more...

A WINTER COURTSHIP. The passenger and mail transportation between the towns of North Kilby and Sanscrit Pond was carried on by Mr. Jefferson Briley, whose two-seated covered wagon was usually much too large for the demands of business. Both the Sanscrit Pond and North Kilby people were stayers-at-home, and Mr. Briley often made his seven-mile journey in entire solitude, except for the limp leather... more...

HOW I GOT THEM. 1882-89. True stories are not often good art. The relations and experiences of real men and women rarely fall in such symmetrical order as to make an artistic whole. Until they have had such treatment as we give stone in the quarry or gems in the rough they seldom group themselves with that harmony of values and brilliant unity of interest that result when art comes in—not so much to... more...

INTRODUCTION These pictures of Colonial life and adventure make up a panorama which extends from Powhatan and John Smith, in the days of the Jamestown colony, to Pontiac’s attempt upon Detroit in the period which preceded the Revolution. Here one may read stories which are strange indeed, of King Philip’s War in New England, of a Dutch hero’s exploit on the shores of Long Island Sound,... more...

Doctor Spechaug stopped running, breathing deeply and easily where he paused in the middle of the narrow winding road. He glanced at his watch. Nine a.m. He was vaguely perplexed because he did not react more emotionally to the blood staining his slender hands. It was fresh blood, though just beginning to coagulate; it was dabbled over his brown serge suit, splotching the neatly starched white cuffs of... more...