Fiction Books

NUMBER FIVE. We who are Tiverton born, though false ambition may have ridden us to market, or the world's voice incited us to kindred clamoring, have a way of shutting our eyes, now and then, to present changes, and seeing things as they were once, as they are still, in a certain sleepy yet altogether individual corner of country life. And especially do we delight in one bit of fine mental... more...

CHAPTER I THE GREAT SEA WATERSGray sky, brown waters, as a bird that fliesMy heart flits forth to these;Back to the winter rose of Northern skies,Back to the Northern seas.The sea is His, and He made it. I saw a man of God coming over the narrow zigzag path that led across a Shetland peat moss. Swiftly and surely he stepped. Bottomless bogs of black peat-water were on each side of him, but he had... more...

A great man's house is filled chiefly with menials and creatures of ceremony; and great libraries contain, for the most part, books as dry and lifeless as the dust that gathers on them: but from amidst these dead leaves an immortal mind here and there looks forth with light and love. From the point of view of the bank president, Emerson tells us, books are merely so much rubbish. But in his eyes... more...

INTRODUCTION Life was formerly regarded as a phenomenon entirely separated from the other phenomena of Nature, and even up to the present time Science has proved wholly unable to give a definition of Life; evolution, nutrition, sensibility, growth, organization, none of these, not even the faculty of reproduction, is the exclusive appanage of life. Living things are made of the same chemical elements... more...

INTRODUCTION. We are living in an age which is singularly poor in fine voices, both male and female, and with regard to the tenors of the present time there is this additional misfortune, that, as a rule, their voices do not last, but are often worn out in a very few years; in many instances while their owners are still under training, and before they have had an opportunity of making their appearance... more...

SUMMARY. In this summary I shall in general pursue a course the reverse of that which my main work follows. I shall proceed from the primitive, unorganized condition of matter and endeavor to show how organized micellar substance has arisen in it, and how, from this micellar substance, organisms with their manifold properties have arisen. Since such a synthesis of organisms out of known forms of matter... more...

T is a natural, nor can it be deemed an illaudable curiosity to be desirous of being informed of whatever relates to those who have eminently distinguished themselves for sagacity, parts, learning, or what else may have exalted their characters, and thereby entitled them to a degree of respect superior to the rest of their cotemporaries. The transmission of such particulars, has ever been thought no... more...

PREFACE It is not long since the Middle Ages, of the literature of which this book gives us such curious examples, were supposed to be an unaccountable phenomenon accidentally thrust in betwixt the two periods of civilisation, the classical and the modern, and forming a period without growth or meaning—a period which began about the time of the decay of the Roman Empire, and ended suddenly, and more... more...

ANCHOR. I love to look on an Anchor. Like a good friend who helps you in trouble, it holds the ship steady in a storm. Its flukes sink deep into the bottom of the sea, or cling to the rocks, and nothing but a great storm can separate it from the cable which is fastened to the vessel. Anchors are of solid iron and very heavy; and cables are made of hemp or of iron chain. Large ships have four anchors,... more...

All divisions of history into periods are artificial in proportion as they are precise. In history there is, strictly speaking, no end and no beginning. Each event is the product of an infinite series of causes, the starting-point of an infinite series of effects. Language and thought, government and manners, transform themselves by imperceptible degrees; with the result that every age is an age of... more...