Fiction Books

CHAPTER IHONOURS ‘Oh, there’s that stick.  What can he want?’ sighed one of a pair of dignified elderly ladies, in black silk, to the other, as in a quiet country-town street they saw themselves about to be accosted by a man of about forty, with the air of a managing clerk, who came up breathlessly, with a flush on his usually pale cheeks. ‘Miss Lang; I beg pardon!  May I be allowed a few... more...

CONCERNING MORALS There were fifty thousand acres within view of the ranchhouse—virgin grass land dotted with sage, running over a wide level, into little hills, and so on to an upland whose rise was so gradual that it could be seen only from a distance, best from the gallery of the ranchhouse. The first tang of autumn was in the sage-scented breeze that swept the county, and the tawny valley,... more...

The Japanese Mason Without haste, gathering scrape of the trowel, slap of cement, reaching for a block, setting and tapping it level, turning with the wheelbarrow, graceful, sweating, freed of every moment. Kauai Sweet Hawaii Even if somebody did steal my battery, generator, oil cap, visegrips last night, I passed the test to be a taxi driver, and even if I don't have the money to buy a... more...

Chapter 1: The Knight And Squire. The opening scene of our tale is a wild tract of common land, interspersed with forest and heath, which lies northward at the foot of the eastern range of the Sussex downs. The time is the year of grace twelve hundred and fifty and three; the month a cold and seasonable January. The wild heath around is crisp with frost and white with snow, it appears a dense solitude;... more...

Chapter One STEERING OF NEW YORK "Hoo-ee-ow-ohme!" It was half a sob, half a laugh, and, half sobbing, half laughing, the young man stopped his horse on the crest of the Tigmore Hills, in the Ozark Uplift, raised in his stirrups, and looked the country through and through, as though he must see into its very heart. In the brilliant mid-afternoon light the Southwest unrolled below him and around... more...

CHAPTER I. THE IMPOSSIBLE—INEVITABLE. In the garden the question was settled without serious difference of opinion. If Sir Robert Perry really could not go on—and Lady Eynesford was by no means prepared to concede even that—then Mr. Puttock, bourgeois as he was, or Mr. Coxon, conceited and priggish though he might be, must come in. At any rate, the one indisputable fact was the impossibility of... more...

ERNEST DOWSON I The death of Ernest Dowson will mean very little to the world at large, but it will mean a great deal to the few people who care passionately for poetry. A little book of verses, the manuscript of another, a one-act play in verse, a few short stories, two novels written in collaboration, some translations from the French, done for money; that is all that was left by a man who was... more...

LESLY'S MARCH. "But, O my country! how shall memory trace"Thy glories, lost in either Charles's days,"When through thy fields destructive rapine spread,"Nor sparing infants' tears, nor hoary head!"In those dread days, the unprotected swain"Mourn'd, in the mountains, o'er his wasted plain;"Nor longer vocal, with the shepherd's lay,"Were... more...

VIII. The Temple of Yahu at Elephantine. These Aramaic legal documents also contain many references to Yahu (the older form of Yahweh or Jehovah), the god worshipped by the Jews, and to Yahu's temple situated on King's Street, one of the main thoroughfares of the city. These references have been signally confirmed by a most remarkable letter recently discovered by the Germans at this site. It... more...

CHAPTER I The two men, sole occupants of the somewhat shabby cottage parlour, lingered over their port, not so much with the air of wine lovers, but rather as human beings and intimates, perfectly content with their surroundings and company. Outside, the wind was howling over the marshes, and occasional bursts of rain came streaming against the window panes. Inside at any rate was comfort, triumphing... more...