Fiction Books

ALAS, POOR YORICK! In paying a tribute to the mingled mirth and tenderness of Eugene Field—the poet of whose going the West may say, "He took our daylight with him"—one of his fellow journalists has written that he was a jester, but not of the kind that Shakespeare drew in Yorick. He was not only,—so the writer implied,—the maker of jibes and fantastic devices, but the bard of... more...

Chapter I. Foreign Pastoral Poetry In approaching a subject of literary inquiry we are often able to fix upon some essential feature or condition which may serve as an Ariadne's thread through the maze of historical and aesthetic development, or to distinguish some cardinal point affording a fixed centre from which to survey or in reference to which to order and dispose the phenomena that present... more...

My Childhood. My father—Cuthbert Lascelles—was the great painter who, under a pseudonym which I need not mention here, was a few years ago well known in the world of art, and whose works are now to be found enshrined in some of the noblest public and private collections both at home and abroad. He was a tall and singularly handsome man; with clear grey eyes, and a stern resolute-looking mouth... more...

CHAPTER I.East Anglia in 1837. In 1837 Lord Melbourne was Prime Minister—the handsomest, the most cultivated, the most courteous gentleman that ever figured in a Royal Court.  For his young mistress he had a loyal love, whilst she, young and inexperienced, naturally turned to him as her guide, philosopher and friend.  The Whigs were in office, but not in power.  The popular excitement that had... more...

DICKON THE DEVIL. ABOUT thirty years ago I was selected by two rich old maids to visit a property in that part of Lancashire which lies near the famous forest of Pendle, with which Mr. Ainsworth’s “Lancashire Witches” has made us so pleasantly familiar. My business was to make partition of a small property, including a house and demesne to which they had, a long time before, succeeded as... more...

Bedfordshire. COLMWORTH. Here is a magnificent monument, erected in 1611, by Lady Dyer, in memory of her deceased husband, Sir William Dyer, the inscription upon which tells us that “they multiplied themselves into seven children.”  Beneath are the following quaint lines:— My dearest dust, could not thy hasty dayAfford thy drowsy patience leave to stayOne hour longer, so that we might... more...

I The Mail The ambiguous light of a December morning, peeping through the windows of the Holyhead mail, dispelled the soft visions of the four insides, who had slept, or seemed to sleep, through the first seventy miles of the road, with as much comfort as may be supposed consistent with the jolting of the vehicle, and an occasional admonition to remember the coachman, thundered through the open door,... more...

THE SHOT It was a still, balmy night in late October. The scent of burned autumn leaves hung in the air, and a hazy moon, showing just over the housetops, deepened the shadows on the streets. Policeman Murphy stopped far a moment, as was his custom, at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Sheridan Road. He knew that it was about two o'clock in the morning as that was the hour at which he usually... more...

CHAPTER I. MRS. HARDY'S RESOLUTION. "What are you thinking of, Frank?" Mrs. Hardy asked her husband one evening, after an unusually long silence on his part. "Well, my dear, I was thinking of a good many things. In the first place, I think, I began with wondering what I should make of the boys; and that led to such a train of thoughts about ourselves and our circumstances that I hardly... more...

The fine old house stood on Jumping Tom Hill, above the town. It had stood there before there was a town, when only a cabin or two fringed the woods below, nearer the shore. The weather boarding had been brought in ships from England, ready sawed; likewise the bricks of the chimney. Indians used to come to the house in the cold of winter, begging shelter. Given blankets, and food, and drink, they slept... more...