Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. Friendship with Aretino—Its effect on Titian's art—Characteristics of the middle period—"Madonna with St. Catherine" of National Gallery—Portraits not painted from life—"Magdalen" of the Pitti—First Portrait of Charles V.—Titian the painter, par excellence, of aristocratic traits—The "d'Avalos Allegory"—Portrait of Cardinal Ippolito... more...

CHAPTER I In Which Things Are Said of Diogenes and of a Lady With a Lantern. The second day of the New Year came on Saturday. The holiday atmosphere had thus been extended over the week-end. The Christmas wreaths still hung in the windows, and there had been an added day of feasting. Holidays always brought people from town who ate with sharp appetites. It was mostly men who came, men who fished and... more...

Introductory. It is undeniably true that the progress of scientific thought and speculative inquiry, both in this country and in Europe, is rapidly tending towards a purely materialistic view of the universe, or one that utterly excludes the ancient and long-predominating metaphysical conceptions of Life, to say nothing of the more regnant and universally prevailing conception of a God. And it is quite... more...

The work which we now place within the reach of every reader of the English tongue is one of the finest productions of its distinguished author. The first edition appeared in 1874. At that time the conviction of man's natural evolution was even less advanced in Germany than in England, and the work raised a storm of controversy. Theologians—forgetting the commonest facts of our individual... more...

I Eeldrop and Appleplex rented two small rooms in a disreputable part of town. Here they sometimes came at nightfall, here they sometimes slept, and after they had slept, they cooked oatmeal and departed in the morning for destinations unknown to each other. They sometimes slept, more often they talked, or looked out of the window. They had chosen the rooms and the neighborhood with great care. There... more...

INTRODUCTION I know many people who have felt the same inclination that sometimes comes over me, to choose bad weather to go out in. They are generally men who have passed from a childhood lived in the open air of the country, to an occupation which entails much sitting still, and for whom the room sometimes seems to become too narrow and confined—or else they are poets. Their recollection and... more...

CHAPTER THE FIRST OF BLADESOVER HOUSE, AND MY MOTHER; AND THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETYIMost people in this world seem to live "in character"; they have a beginning, a middle and an end, and the three are congruous one with another and true to the rules of their type. You can speak of them as being of this sort of people or that. They are, as theatrical people say, no more (and no less) than... more...

THE STATEN CLUB. In the world of clubs the "Staten" held its head proudly. It was a social union comprising the most exclusive men of family and fashion. Though its outward walls differed little from those of other clubs which lined the avenue, its muster-roll was sacredly guarded by the governors, and posted at the hall desk was a long list of waiting aspirants, each to undergo in his turn the... more...

T was Friday, the day he always came, if (so she safeguarded it) he was to come at all. They had left it that way in the beginning, that it should be open to him to come or not to come. They had not even settled that it should be Fridays, but it always was, the week-end being the only time when he could get away; the only time, he had explained to Agatha Verrall, when getting away excited no remark. He... more...

CHAPTER I. "Boys, the mustangs will be up from the range this morning. Which of you want to go down to the corral with me?" "I do! I do!" exclaimed both in the same breath. "I spoke first," cried Hal. "No, you didn't; I spoke first myself," retorted Ned. "I say you didn't," rejoined Hal. Seeing that the dispute was likely to become a serious one, I... more...