Fiction Books

THE MOUNTAINS WASHINGTON GLADDEN '59   O, proudly rise the monarchs of our mountain land,    With their kingly forest robes, to the sky,  Where Alma Mater dwelleth with her chosen band,    Where the peaceful river floweth gently by.       Chorus.  The mountains! the mountains! we greet them with a song!  Whose echoes, rebounding their woodland heights along,  Shall mingle... more...

CHAPTER I. Where the road to the west from Birralong dips down to the valley of Boulder Creek, a selection stretches out on the left-hand side, well cleared and fenced, and with the selector's homestead standing back a couple of hundred yards from the main road. Slip-rails in the fence, serving as a gateway, open on to the half-worn track which runs from the roadway to the house; and on either... more...

Not the dark companion of Sirius, brightest of all stars—not our own chill and spectral planet rushing toward Vega in the constellation of Lyra—presided at the birth of millions born to corroborate a bloody horoscope. But a Dark Star, speeding unseen through space, known to the ancients, by them called Erlik, after the Prince of Darkness, ruled at the birth of those myriad souls destined to be... more...

HENRY CLAY. The close of the war removes the period preceding it to a great distance from us, so that we can judge its public men as though we were the "posterity" to whom they sometimes appealed. James Buchanan still haunts the neighborhood of Lancaster, a living man, giving and receiving dinners, paying his taxes, and taking his accustomed exercise; but as an historical figure he is as... more...

ABOARD THE ZLOTUHB IN THE YEAR 2951 10th May There is land ahead! Grip-til-lah was first to see it, and when he shouted the tidings my heart beat fast with joy. The famished crew have forgotten their disconsolate stomachs and are dancing about the deck. 'Tis not I, forsooth, who shall restrain them! A month of emptiness upon a heavy sea is preparation for any folly. Nofuhl alone is without... more...

Possession     Scene.—The Everlasting Habitations It is evening (or so it seems), and to the comfortably furnished Victorian drawing-room a middle-aged maid-servant in cap and apron brings a lamp, and proceeds to draw blinds and close curtains. To do this she passes the fire-place, where before a pleasantly bright hearth sits, comfortably sedate, an elderly lady whose countenance and attitude... more...

Love is as strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. There is nothing in the world nobler, and lovelier, and more absurd, than a boy's lovemaking. And the joyousness of it!... The boy of nineteen, Maurice Curtis, who on a certain June day lay in the blossoming grass at his wife's feet and looked up into her dark... more...

CHAPTER I. “First Fear his hand its skill to try,Amid the chords bewildered laid—And back recoiled, he knew not why,E’en at the sound himself had made.”— Little Helen sat in her long flannel night-dress, by the side of Miss Thusa, watching the rapid turning of her wheel, and the formation of the flaxen thread, as it glided out, a more and more attenuated filament, betwixt the dexterous... more...

CHAPTER I. THE POLAR SHIP. "Oh, it's southward ho, where the breezes blow; we're off for the pole, yo, ho! heave ho!" "Is that you, Harry?" asked a lad of about seventeen, without looking up from some curious-looking frames and apparatus over which he was working in the garage workshop back of his New York home on Madison Avenue. "Ay! ay! my hearty," responded his... more...

CHAPTER I.FRANKIE AND HIS WHEELBARROW.I have already told you that Frankie lived in a pretty cottage, separated from the road by a green lawn, which lay in front of it. On the other side of the street, the land was much lower, a little shining brook running through it, and sometimes, after a rain, there was quite a pond of water. In winter this was a pleasant place for Willie to skate. His mamma liked... more...