Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. HOMILETIC. Dear Friends,—I am beginning a new book like an old sermon; but, as you know, I have been so accustomed to preach all my life, that whatever I say or write will more or less take the shape of a sermon; and if you had not by this time learned at least to bear with my oddities, you would not have wanted any more of my teaching. And, indeed, I did not think you would want any more.... more...

FAMILY CARES Mr. Jernshaw, who was taking the opportunity of a lull in business to weigh out pound packets of sugar, knocked his hands together and stood waiting for the order of the tall bronzed man who had just entered the shop—a well-built man of about forty—who was regarding him with blue eyes set in quizzical wrinkles. "What, Harry!" exclaimed Mr. Jernshaw, in response to the wrinkles.... more...

Chapter I It is imperative that now at once, while these stupendous events are still clear in my mind, I should set them down with that exactness of detail which time may blur. But even as I do so, I am overwhelmed by the wonder of the fact that it should be our little group of the "Lost World"—Professor Challenger, Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and myself—who have passed through... more...

THE GIRL, AND A GREAT PERIL The late afternoon sun was streaming in across the cabin floor as the girl stole around the corner and looked cautiously in at the door. There was a kind of tremulous courage in her face. She had a duty to perform, and she was resolved to do it without delay. She shaded her eyes with her hand from the glare of the sun, set a firm foot upon the threshold, and, with one wild... more...

THE BESETMENT OF KURT LIEDERS A SILVER rime glistened all down the street. There was a drabble of dead leaves on the sidewalk which was of wood, and on the roadway which was of macadam and stiff mud. The wind blew sharply, for it was a December day and only six in the morning. Nor were the houses high enough to furnish any independent bulwark; they were low, wooden dwellings, the tallest a bare two... more...

HEINRICH HEINE. (BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.) Harry Heine, as he was originally named, was born in Düsseldorf on the Rhine, December 13th, 1799. His father was a well-to-do Jewish merchant; and his mother, the daughter of the famous physician and Aulic Counlor Von Geldern, was, according to her son, a "femme distinguée." His early childhood fell in the days of the occupation of Düsseldorf by the... more...

Chapter One THE MILLIONAIRE AND THE WAITER 'YES, sir?' Jules, the celebrated head waiter of the Grand Babylon, was bending formally towards the alert, middle-aged man who had just entered the smoking-room and dropped into a basket-chair in the corner by the conservatory. It was 7.45 on a particularly sultry June night, and dinner was about to be served at the Grand Babylon. Men of all sizes,... more...

PREFACE. Since the method of treating snakebite-poisoning by hypodermic injections of strychnine, discovered by the writer and published but a few years ago, has already been adopted by the medical profession throughout the Australian colonies, and practised even by laymen in cases of urgency with much success, it has been repeatedly suggested to him that the subject calls for further elucidation at... more...

The volume of which the following pages are a translation, has been adopted by the University Commission at Paris among their prize books, and has reached an eighth edition. Perhaps these facts speak sufficiently in its favor; but as translator, and to some extent editor, I wish to add my testimony to the great charm as well as merit of the little work. I sat down to it, I must own, with no special... more...

CHAPTER I From Monte Motterone you survey the Lombard plain. It is a towering dome of green among a hundred pinnacles of grey and rust-red crags. At dawn the summit of the mountain has an eagle eye for the far Venetian boundary and the barrier of the Apennines; but with sunrise come the mists. The vast brown level is seen narrowing in; the Ticino and the Sesia waters, nearest, quiver on the air like... more...