Fiction Books

CHAPTER I OURSELVES, OUR TOWN, AND OTHER THINGS Ourselves There are four brothers and sisters of us at home, and as I am the eldest, it is natural that I should describe myself first. I am very tall and slim (Mother calls it "long and lanky"); and, sad to say, I have very large hands and very large feet. "My, what big feet!" our horrid old shoemaker always says when he measures me for a... more...

Mr. Maximilian Untz regarded the monsters with a critical eye. Script girls, cameramen, sometimes even stars quailed under Mr. Untz’s critical eye—but not these monsters. The first had a globelike head and several spidery legs. The second was willowy and long-clawed. The third was covered with hair. The prop department had outdone itself. Hollywood could handle just aboutanything—until... more...

CHAPTER I. FROM 1600 TO 1800 A. D. The year 1600 marked the beginning of a new era in musical history, for in that year the first public performance of regular opera took place in Florence, when the "Eurydice" of Rinuccini and Peri was given in honor of the wedding of Marie de' Medici and Henry IV. of France. The growth and ever-increasing popularity of the opera, the development of... more...

CHAPTER I PAUL KEGWORTHY lived with his mother, Mrs. Button, his stepfather, Mr. Button, and six little Buttons, his half brothers and sisters. His was not an ideal home; it consisted in a bedroom, a kitchen and a scullery in a grimy little house in a grimy street made up of rows of exactly similar grimy little houses, and forming one of a hundred similar streets in a northern manufacturing town. Mr.... more...

TO THE ELEVEN LADIES WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER LOVING CUP ON THE TWENTY-NINTH OF AUGUST, M DCCC LXXXIX "WHO gave this cup?" The secret thou wouldst stealIts brimming flood forbids it to reveal:No mortal's eye shall read it till he firstCool the red throat of thirst. If on the golden floor one draught remain,Trust me, thy careful search will be in vain;Not till the bowl is emptied... more...

CHAPTER I THE HAUNTED MAKE-BELIEVE "CASTLE." It was about the middle of a fall afternoon, and Friday at that, when five well-grown lads, clad in faded khaki suits that proclaimed them to be Boy Scouts, dropped down upon a moss covered log near a cold spring at which they had just quenched their thirst. The one who acted as leader, and to whom the others often deferred, answered to the name of... more...

THE VOYAGE IS BEGUN “A-a-ll ha-a-ands! Up anchor! A-ho-oy!” Instantly all was bustle and action on board the brig Josephine. The sailors ran hither and thither, the sails were loosed and the yards braced. The clanking of the windlass soon told that the anchor was being raised. “Whew! I never saw so much excitement and hurry in all my life,” exclaimed a boy, who with three companions stood on the... more...

CONFERENCE I THE PRIESTLY VOCATION IT is well known that one of the great aims of Cardinal Manning during his long episcopate, and perhaps the one of his works which has left the most permanent impression behind it, was to raise the tone and status of his diocesan clergy. For many reasons connected with our Catholic history, the level at which the average secular priest in the days of the Vicariates... more...

CHAPTER I. The Maliseets. The Indian period of our history possesses a charm peculiarly its own. When European explorers first visited our shores the Indian roamed at pleasure through his broad forest domain. Its wealth of attractions were as yet unknown to the hunter, the fisherman and the fur-trader. Rude as he was the red man could feel the charms of the wilderness in which he dwelt. The voice of... more...

Coblenz is the place which many years ago gave me my first associations with the Rhine. From a neighboring town we often drove to Coblenz, and the wide, calm flow of the river, the low, massive bridge of boats and the commonplace outskirts of a busy city contributed to make up a very different picture from that of the poetic "castled" Rhine of German song and English ballad. The old town has,... more...