Fiction Books

PRELUDE The works of great artists are silent books of eternal truths. And thus it is indelibly written in the face of Balzac, as Rodin has graven it, that the beauty of the creative gesture is wild, unwilling and painful. He has shown that great creative gifts do not mean fulness and giving out of abundance. On the contrary the expression is that of one who seeks help and strives to emancipate... more...

It is fully fifteen, if not twenty, years since my father commenced the composition of an historical romance on the subject of Pausanias, the Spartan Regent. Circumstances, which need not here be recorded, compelled him to lay aside the work thus begun. But the subject continued to haunt his imagination and occupy his thoughts. He detected in it singular opportunities for effective exercise of the... more...

THE FIELD OF LABOUR British Columbia, now forming part of "The Dominion of Canada," includes within its limits several islands, of which Vancouver's is the principal, and that part of the continent of North America, west of the Rocky Mountains and east of Alaska, which is included between the 49 deg. and the 60 deg. parallels of north latitude. English connection with this part of the... more...

I She did not wish any supper and she sank forgetfully back into the stately oak chair. One of her hands lay palm upward on her white lap; in the other, which drooped over the arm of the chair, she clasped a young rose dark red amid its leaves—an inverted torch of love. Old-fashioned glass doors behind her reached from a high ceiling to the floor; they had been thrown open and the curtains looped... more...

CHAPTER I Mefiez-Vous! Taisez-Vous! Les Oreilles Ennemies Vous Ecoutent! The usual little crowd was waiting in the lobby of a fashionable London restaurant a few minutes before the popular luncheon hour. Pamela Van Teyl, a very beautiful American girl, dressed in the extreme of fashion, which she seemed somehow to justify, directed the attention of her companions to the notice affixed to the wall... more...

CHAPTER I. A DISAPPOINTMENT. Slewbury was a very fine town in its way; a little quiet and sleepy perhaps, as country towns often are, but it was large and handsome, and beautifully situated on the side of a steep hill. It had a grand market-place, a large town-hall where concerts were often given, and some well-kept public gardens, of all of which the Slewbury people were very proud, and justly so. But... more...

The public—that is, the reading world made up of those who love the products of authorship—always takes an interest in the methods of work adopted by literary men, and is fond of gaining information about authorship in the act, and of getting a glimpse of its favorite, the author, at work in that "sanctum sanctorum"—the study. The modes in which men write are so various that it would take... more...

CHAPTER I. GLASS-BLOWER’S APPARATUS. Introductory.—I shall endeavour to give such an account of the operations required in constructing glass apparatus as will be useful to chemical and other students; and as this book probably will come into the hands of beginners who are not in a position to secure any further assistance, I shall include descriptions even of the simple operations which are... more...

Chapter I To and fro, like a wild creature in its cage, paced that handsome woman, with bent head, locked hands, and restless steps. Some mental storm, swift and sudden as a tempest of the tropics, had swept over her and left its marks behind. As if in anger at the beauty now proved powerless, all ornaments had been flung away, yet still it shone undimmed, and filled her with a passionate regret. A... more...

The brown or Norway rat (Mus norvegicus) is the worst mammal pest in the United States, the losses from its depredations amounting to many millions of dollars yearly—to more, indeed, than the losses from all other injurious mammals combined. In addition to its destructive habits, this rat is now known to be an active agent in disseminating infectious diseases, a fact which renders measures for its... more...