Fiction Books

PREFACE. The more frequently we read and contemplate the lives of those eminent men so beautifully traced by the amiable Izaak Walton, the more we are impressed with the sweetness and simplicity of the work. Walton was a man of genius—of simple calling and more simple habits, though best known perhaps by his book on Angling; yet in the scarcely less attractive pages of his biographies, like the... more...

CHAPTER I OUT OF THE WILDERNESS He appeared an odd figure, sitting loosely on an old white mare which held her nose to the ground and cautiously single-footed over the uneven road. Unconcerned, perhaps unconscious that he bestrode a horse, his head was thrown back and his gaze penetrated the lace-work of branches to a sky exquisite blue where a few white, puffy clouds were aimlessly suspended. And,... more...

CHAPTER I 1572 Marriages of Henri IV--Marguerite de Valois--Her character--Her marriage with the King of Navarre--Massacre of Saint Bartholomew--Henri, Duc d'Anjou, elected sovereign of Poland--Death of Charles IX--Accession of Henri III--Conspiracy of the Duc d'Alençon--Revealed by Marguerite--Henry of Navarre escapes from the French Court--Henry of Navarre protests against his enforced... more...

CHAPTER V 1625-28 Death of James I.--The Princesse Henriette is married by proxy to Charles I. --The Duke of Buckingham arrives in France to conduct his young sovereign to her new country--An arrogant suitor--Departure of the English Queen--Indisposition of Marie de Medicis--Arrival of Henriette in London--Growing power of Richelieu--Suspicions of the Queen-mother --Influence of the Jesuit Bérulle... more...

The fine charter with which France had presumably closed the revolutionary epoch, in order to live for the first time under a constitutional government, was about to display its fatal weakness in the production of a deadlock. This possibility had been clearly foreseen by acute observers, since there was no provision for the control of one arm of the government by the other, and in any working system... more...

CHAPTER I DARKNESS There was a house in this town where always by night lights burned. In one of its rooms many lights burned; in each of the other rooms at least one light. It stood on Clay Street, on a treeless plot among flower beds, a small dull-looking house; and when late on dark nights all the other houses on Clay Street were solid blockings lifting from the lesser blackness of their background,... more...

CHAPTER I Back and forth, back and forth, over the net, spun the little white ball, driven by the quick, sure strokes of the players. There was no sound save the bounding of the ball against the racquets, and the thud of rubber soles on the hard ground. Then—a sudden twirl of a supple wrist, and— "Deuce!" cried the girl, triumphantly brandishing her racquet in the air. The man on the other... more...

INTRODUCTION My publisher wants me to apologize for—"introduce" was the kindly word he used—this collection of articles and verses from Punch. I do so with pleasure. Among the many interests of a long and varied career— No, I don't think I shall begin like that. It was early in 1871— Nor like that. Really it is very difficult, you know. I wrote these things for a number of years,... more...

The One Room House It was in “the littlest house in Ne’ York” that Glory lived, with grandpa and Bo’sn, the dog, so she, and its owner, often boasted; and whether this were actually true or not, it certainly was so small that no other sort of tenant than the blind captain could have bestowed himself, his grandchild, and their few belongings in it. A piece-of-pie shaped room, built to utilize a... more...

CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. On the 10th of November, 1483, their first child was born to a young couple, Hans and Margaret Luder, at Eisleben, in Saxony, where the former earned his living as a miner. That child was Martin Luther. His parents had shortly before removed thither from Möhra, the old home of his family. This place, called in old records More and Möre, lies among the low hills where... more...