Fiction Books

IN MIDSUMMER DAYS In Midsummer days when in the countries of the North the earth is a bride, when the ground is full of gladness, when the brooks are still running, the flowers in the meadows still untouched by the scythe, and all the birds singing, a dove flew out of the wood and sat down before the cottage in which the ninety-year-old granny lay in her bed. The old woman had been bedridden for twenty... more...

OSCAR WILDE ears ago, in a Paris club, one man said to another: "Well, what's up?" The other shook a paper: "There is only one genius in England and they have put him in jail." One may wonder though whether it were their doing, or even Wilde's, that put him there. One may wonder whether it were not the high fates who so gratified him in order that, from his purgatory, he might... more...

CHAPTER 1 How it happened that Mastro Cherry, carpenter, found a piece of wood that wept and laughed like a child. Centuries ago there lived— "A king!" my little readers will say immediately. No, children, you are mistaken. Once upon a time there was a piece of wood. It was not an expensive piece of wood. Far from it. Just a common block of firewood, one of those thick, solid logs that are... more...

PREFACE. The speeches which have been selected for publication in these volumes possess a value, as examples of the art of public speaking, which no person will be likely to underrate. Those who may differ from Mr. Bright's theory of the public good will have no difficulty in acknowledging the clearness of his diction, the skill with which he arranges his arguments, the vigour of his style, the... more...

CHAPTER I "EVENTS, EVENTS" Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back Wherein he puts alms for oblivion. —Troilus and Cressida. "The knowledge that you're alive gives me no pleasure," growled the grim old Austrian premier. "Thank you!" laughed John Armitage, to whom he had spoken. "You have lost none of your old amiability; but for a renowned diplomat, you are... more...

The pleasant historical novel which is now offered to the American public, refers to a period of history very much misrepresented, though very frequently written about, or at least referred to by popular writers. In the contest between Pope Alexander III. and the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, we see a very important phase of the long struggle between the spiritual and civil power; a struggle, in which... more...

CHAPTER I THE GIRL ON THE "VEILED LADYE" The big coastwise tug Hydrographer slid stern-ward into a slip cluttered with driftwood and bituminous dust, stopping within heaving distance of three coal-laden barges which in their day had reared "royal s'ls" to the wayward winds of the seven seas. Near-by lay Horace Howland's ocean-going steam yacht, Veiled Ladye, which had put into... more...

I. THE WORK OF THE TEACHER Education is a group enterprise. We establish schools in which we seek to develop whatever capacities or abilities the individual may possess in order that he may become intelligently active for the common good. Schools do not exist primarily for the individual, but, rather, for the group of which he is a member. Individual growth and development are significant in terms of... more...

THE MEETIN' Now is it to be rain or a storm of wind at the Basin? I love that foam out on the sea; those boulders, black and wet along the shore, they are a rest to me; the clouds chase one another; in this dim north country the wind is cool and strong, though it is now midsummer; at sunset you shall see such color! From a little, low, storm-beaten building comes the sound of a fog-horn. That is... more...

THE IRON FURROW The Ventisquero Range stretches across the circumference of one's vision in a procession of mountains that come tall and blue out of the distant north and seemingly march past to vanish in the remote south like azure phantoms. The mountains wall the horizon and dominate the mesa, their black forest-clad flanks crumpled and broken and gashed by cañons, lifting above timber-line... more...