Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. THE HAY-LOFT I HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind. An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived there, and were so comfortable that they could not bear it any longer, and drowned themselves. My story is not the same as his. I do not think Herodotus had got the right account of the place. I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who went there. He lived in a... more...

INTRODUCTION It is fun to entertain—if you don't make hard work of it. And why make hard work of it when there are ways to entertain easily? Besides you know that the more easily you do it, the more successful you'll be, and there's hardly a woman in the world—is there?—who wouldn't like to be known as a good hostess. "But," says one of you, "I haven't the... more...

CHAPTER IA RESCUE BY MOONLIGHT "Help! Help!" The cry rang out despairingly over the almost-deserted beach at Golden Gate Park. Jumping up so suddenly that the checker-board went in one direction, the table in another, while the checkers rolled to every corner of the little volunteer life-saving station house, Eric Swift made a leap for the door. Quick as he was to reach the boat, he was none... more...

THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. Being disappointed in my hopes of meeting Johnson this year, so that I could hear none of his admirable sayings, I shall compensate for this want by inserting a collection of them, for which I am indebted to my worthy friend Mr. Langton, whose kind communications have been separately interwoven in many parts of this work. Very few articles of this collection were... more...

I am not naturally superstitious. The Saharaman is. He has many strange beliefs. When one is at close quarters with him, sees him day by day in his home, the great desert, listens to his dramatic tales of desert lights, visions, sounds, one's common-sense is apt to be shaken on its throne. Perhaps it is the influence of the solitude and the wide spaces, of those far horizons of the Sahara where... more...

PREFACE There is, perhaps, a better excuse for giving an Anthology of American Negro Poetry to the public than can be offered for many of the anthologies that have recently been issued. The public, generally speaking, does not know that there are American Negro poets—to supply this lack of information is, alone, a work worthy of somebody's effort. Moreover, the matter of Negro poets and the... more...

Chapter One. Man’s oldest pursuit was undoubtedly the tilling of the soil. He may in his earliest beginnings have combined therewith a certain amount of hunting while he was waiting for his crops to grow, and was forced into seeking wild fruits and turning up and experimenting on the various forms of root, learning, too, doubtless with plenty of bitter punishment, to distinguish between the good and... more...

LECTURE I HOW TO ENTER IT; HOW TO USE IT; AND HOW TO ENJOY IT I HAVE promised to introduce you today to the fairy-land of science - a somewhat bold promise, seeing that most of you probably look upon science as a bundle of dry facts, while fairy- land is all that is beautiful, and full of poetry and imagination. But I thoroughly believe myself, and hope to prove to you, that science is full of... more...

The End of the Honeymoon It was certainly a queer house. Even through the blinding storm they could distinguish its eccentric outlines as they alighted from the stage. Dorothy laughed happily, heedless of the fact that her husband’s umbrella was dripping down her neck. “It’s a dear old place,” she cried; “I love it already!” For an instant a flash of lightning turned the peculiar windows... more...

When it was the One Hundred and Forty-fourth Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the two Kings agreed each to rule one day in turn: then made they feasts and offered sacrifices of clean beasts and held high festival; and they abode thus awhile, whilst Sultan Kanmakan spent his nights with his cousin Kuzia Fakan. And after that period, as the two Kings sat rejoicing in their... more...