Fiction Books

CHAPTER I THE FIRST DAY Michael felt glad to think he would start the adventure of Oxford from Paddington. The simplicity of that railway station might faintly mitigate alarms which no amount of previous deliberation could entirely disperse. He remembered how once he had lightly seen off a Cambridge friend from Liverpool Street and, looking back at the suburban tumult of the Great Eastern Railway, he... more...

THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT I Those who have not seen the glory of the Emperor Napoleon, during the years 1810, 1811, and 1812, can never conceive what a pitch of power one man may reach. When he passed through Champagne, or Lorraine, or Alsace, people gathering the harvest or the vintage would leave everything to run and see him; women, children, and old men would come a distance of eight or ten leagues... more...

CHAPTER I N a blaze of splendor the morning sun broke over the mountain, throwing its scraggy brown bowlders, spruce-pines, thorn-bushes, and tangled vines into impenetrable shadow. Massed at the base and along the rocky sides were mists as dense as clouds, through the filmy upper edges of which the yellow light shone as through a mighty prism, dancing on the dew-coated corn-blades, cotton-plants, and... more...

Although as brash as any other ace newspaper reporter for a high school weekly—and there is no one brasher—Garth was scared. His head crest lifted spasmodically and the rudimentary webbing between his fingers twitched. To answer a dare, Garth was about to attempt something that had never been dared before: a newspaper interview with The Visitor. There had been questions enough asked and answered... more...

NUMBER FIVE. We who are Tiverton born, though false ambition may have ridden us to market, or the world's voice incited us to kindred clamoring, have a way of shutting our eyes, now and then, to present changes, and seeing things as they were once, as they are still, in a certain sleepy yet altogether individual corner of country life. And especially do we delight in one bit of fine mental... more...

THE ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS OF VICE FOR some inscrutable reason which she has as yet given no hint of revealing, Nature is wondrously wasteful in the matter of generation. She creates a thousand where she intends to make use of one. Imbued with the maternal instinct, the female cod casts millions of eggs upon the waters, expecting them to return after many days as troops of interesting offspring. Instead,... more...

My First Literary Venture I was a very smart child at the age of thirteen—an unusually smart child, I thought at the time. It was then that I did my first newspaper scribbling, and most unexpectedly to me it stirred up a fine sensation in the community. It did, indeed, and I was very proud of it, too. I was a printer's "devil," and a progressive and aspiring one. My uncle had me on his... more...

CHAPTER I t was Springtime in Switzerland! Once more the snow-capped mountains mirrored their proud heads in sapphire lakes; and on the beeches by the banks of Lake Lucerne green buds were bursting into leaves. Everywhere were bright signs of the earth's awakening. Springtime in Switzerland! And that, you know—you young hearts to whom the gods are kind—is only another way of saying Paradise!... more...

INTRODUCTION For what has Virro painted, built, and planted? Only to show, how many Tastes he wanted. What brought Sir Visto's ill got wealth to waste? Some Daemon whisper'd, "Visto! have a Taste." (Pope, Epistle to Burlington) The idea of "taste" and the ideal of the "man of taste" have fallen considerably in critical esteem since the eighteenth century. When F. R.... more...

CHAPTER I OLD STYLE 1. LOCAL COLOR A study of the American novel of the twentieth century must first of all take stock of certain types of fiction which continue to persist, with varying degrees of vitality and significance, from the last quarter of the century preceding. There is, to begin with, the type associated with the now moribund cult of local color, which originally had Bret Harte for its... more...