Fiction Books

FOREWORD I take up pen for this foreword with the fear of one who knows that he cannot do justice to his subject, and the trembling of one who would not, for a good deal, set down words unpleasing to the eye of him who wrote Green Mansions, The Purple Land, and all those other books which have meant so much to me. For of all living authors—now that Tolstoi has gone I could least dispense with W. H.... more...

On the southeastern coast of Massachusetts is a small village with which I was once familiarly acquainted. It differs little in its general aspect from other hamlets scattered along that shore. It has its one long, straggling street, plain and homelike, from which at two or three different points a winding lane leads off and ends abruptly in the water. Fifty years ago the village had a business... more...

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AN ELEGY High on his Patmos of the Southern SeasOur northern dreamer sleeps,Strange stars above him, and above his graveStrange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave,While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile,The great Pacific, with its faery deeps,Smiles all day long its silken secret smile. Son of a race nomadic, finding stillIts home in regions furthest from its... more...

ÉPÎTRE DÉDICATOIRE 17 Août, 1905. MON CHER DUJARDIN, Il se trouve que je suis Гѓ  Paris en train de corriger mes épreuves au moment où vous donnez les dernières retouches au manuscrit de 'La Source du Fleuve Chrétien,' un beau titre—si beau que je n'ai pu m'empêcher de le 'chipper' pour le livre de Ralph Elles, un personnage de mon roman qui ne parait... more...

CHAPTER I. IN SEARCH OF THE WESTERN TONE "What do you care, anyway?" asked Reeve-Howard philosophically. "It isn't as if you depended on the work for a living. Why worry over the fact that a mere pastime fails to be financially a success. You don't need to write—" "Neither do you need to slave over those dry-point things," Thurston retorted, in none the... more...

THE EXODUS In the Calle Las Gabias—one of those by-streets of Lisbon below St.Catherine—there occurred one New Year a little event in theSynagogue there worth a mention in this history of Richard, Lord ofthe Sea. It was Kol Nidrè, eve of the Day of Atonement, and the little Beth- El, sweltering in a dingy air, was transacting the long-drawn liturgy, when, behind the curtain where the women sat, an... more...

PROLOGUE: THE OLYMPIANSLOOKING back to those days of old, ere the gate shut to behind me, I can see now that to children with a proper equipment of parents these things would have worn a different aspect. But to those whose nearest were aunts and uncles, a special attitude of mind may be allowed. They treated us, indeed, with kindness enough as to the needs of the flesh, but after that with... more...

I. MR. BLACKLOCK When Napoleon was about to crown himself—so I have somewhere read—they submitted to him the royal genealogy they had faked up for him. He crumpled the parchment and flung it in the face of the chief herald, or whoever it was. "My line," said he, "dates from Montenotte." And so I say, my line dates from the campaign that completed and established my fame—from... more...

Mr. Jonathon Chambers left his house on Maple Street at exactly seven o'clock in the evening and set out on the daily walk he had taken, at the same time, come rain or snow, for twenty solid years. The walk never varied. He paced two blocks down Maple Street, stopped at the Red Star confectionery to buy a Rose Trofero perfecto, then walked to the end of the fourth block on Maple. There he turned... more...

CHAPTER I.Description of Fostina's Home—Introduction of Herself and Parents to the Reader—Aunt Aubrey—Sudden Calamity—The Two Brothers and Lewis Mortimer—Introduction of her Uncle, and the Great Change in Fostina's Life.Reader, are you a lover of Nature? And do you behold with pleasure the wonderful works of creation, where the hand of Art has made no claims? Then follow me to the... more...