Fiction Books

CHAPTER I Frau von Sigmundskron was not really much past middle age, though the people in the village generally called her the old baroness. Her hair was very white and she was thin and pale; her bold features, almost emaciated, displayed the framework of departed beauty, and if her high white forehead and waxen face were free from lines and wrinkles, it must have been because time and grief could find... more...

Breakfasts at High Noon. A VERY SWELL REPAST FOR A SWAGGER SET. By the operation of one of those laws of occult force, the power of which we feel while we are totally ignorant of its rules, we fix upon the noonday as the time for some of our chief social functions. As a matter of fact we are at our best at this time of the day, both physically and mentally; and we naturally choose it for our special... 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...

CHAPTER I. A mile or two from Starnberg, on the shore of the beautiful lake, stands a plain country-house, whose chief ornament is a shady and rather wild little park of beeches and cedars. This stretches from the highway that connects Starnberg with the castle and fishermen's huts of Possenhofen, down to the lake--a narrow strip of woodland, separated only by picket fences from the neighboring... more...

A Rough Suitor. “Be quiet! What a silly little fluttering dove it is, struggling like this, ruffling all your plumes, and making your face so red. But how it becomes you!” “Mr Saul Harrington, how dare you!” “Because I love you so, you little beauty. There—and there—and there!” The kisses were given in spite of the frightened looks and struggles; but at each kiss... more...

IRUSTIC SOUNDS Sounds are to me more reminiscent than sights; they bring back the sensations of childhood, and indeed all memories of my past life, in a way more touching and clear than what is seen.  Wendell Holmes claims the sense of smell as most closely associated with memory; for me, as I say, it is that of hearing. In this paper I shall wander in imagination through the different seasons in the... more...

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INTRODUCTION. This translation of Dante's Convito—the first in English—is from the hand of a lady whose enthusiasm for the genius of Dante has made it a chief pleasure of her life to dwell on it by translating, not his Divine Comedy only, but also the whole body of his other works. Among those works the Vita Nuova and the Convito have a distinct place, as leading up to the great masterpiece.... more...

PART I. THE CHRISTIAN’S WARFARE. I would like to have you open your Bible at the first epistle of John, fifth chapter, fourth and fifth verses: “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” When a battle is fought, all are anxious to know... more...

Chapter One. The “Stella Maris” and Mrs Vansittart. “Well, young man, what do you think of her?” The question was addressed to me in a very pleasantly modulated female voice, carrying just the slightest suspicion of an American accent. For the fraction of a second I was a wee bit startled. I had not had the ghost of a suspicion that anyone was nearer me than the gang of labourers who were... more...