Fiction Books

I They both styled themselves "Madame," but only the younger of the old ladies had been married. Madame Valière was still a demoiselle, but as she drew towards sixty it had seemed more convenable to possess a mature label. Certainly Madame Dépine had no visible matrimonial advantages over her fellow-lodger at the Hôtel des Tourterelles, though in the symmetrical cemetery of Montparnasse... more...

CHAPTER I The Veneration and Invocation of Saints IN THE Creed of the Council of Trent, which the Catholic Church places before the faithful as the Rule of Faith, we read: "I firmly believe that the saints reigning with Christ are to be venerated and invoked." The Church therefore teaches, first, that it is right and pleasing to God to venerate the saints and to invoke their intercession; and... more...

I FROM SPLENDOR TO GLOOM The ice was breaking up along the river Neva, in 1917. At the Winter Palace, the ladies were rejoicing over the good news. The Czar in the field was reorganizing his dismembered armies. America was severing diplomatic relations with the Central Powers. The Asquith Ministry had dissolved and Lloyd-George was hurling his dynamic personality into organizing Victory for the Allied... more...

CHAPTER I [The Knighted Knave of Bergen] One day it occurred to me that it had been many years since the world had been afforded the spectacle of a man adventurous enough to undertake a journey through Europe on foot. After much thought, I decided that I was a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle. So I determined to do it. This was in March, 1878. I looked about me for the right sort of... more...

PETER RABBIT BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH MRS. QUACK Make a new acquaintance every time you can; You'll find it interesting and a very helpful plan. It means more knowledge. You cannot meet any one without learning something from him if you keep your ears open and your eyes open. Every one is at least a little different from every one else, and the more people you know, the more you may learn. Peter... more...

INTRODUCTION These pictures of Colonial life and adventure make up a panorama which extends from Powhatan and John Smith, in the days of the Jamestown colony, to Pontiac’s attempt upon Detroit in the period which preceded the Revolution. Here one may read stories which are strange indeed, of King Philip’s War in New England, of a Dutch hero’s exploit on the shores of Long Island Sound,... more...

THE GENIUS AND POETRY OF POPE. Few poets during their lifetime have been at once so much admired and so much abused as Pope. Some writers, destined to oblivion in after-ages, have been loaded with laurels in their own time; while others, on whom Fame was one day to "wait like a menial," have gone to the grave neglected, if not decried and depreciated. But it was the fate of Pope to combine in... more...

CHAPTER I "Adventure," Rick Brant said, "is kind of hard to define, because what may be adventure to one person may be commonplace to another." He took a bite of cake and stretched his long legs comfortably. "Now, you take flying with Scotty. That's the most adventurous thing I do." Mr. and Mrs. Brant and Jerry Webster looked at Don Scott, the object of Rick's jibe,... more...

ROBERT GAMBLE CABELL I "He loved chivalrye,Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisye.And of his port as meek as is a mayde,He never yet no vileinye ne saydeIn al his lyf, unto no maner wight.He was a verray parfit gentil knyght." Introduction The Cabell case belongs to comedy in the grand manner. For fifteen years or more the man wrote and wrote—good stuff, sound stuff, extremely original... more...

CHAPTER I A LECTURE OF THENARD’S The sun was setting over Paris, a blood-red and violent-looking sun, like the face of a bully staring in at the window of a vast chill room. The bank of cloud above the west, corrugated by the wind, seemed not unlike the lowermost slats of a Venetian blind; one might have fancied that a great finger had tilted them up whilst the red, callous, cruel face took a last... more...