Fiction Books

CHAPTER ONE Allan Finds A Champion "I cannot carry your message, Sir Knight." Quiet-spoken was the lad, though his heart held a moment's fear as, scowling and menacing, the knight who sat so easily the large horse, flamed fury at his refusal. "And why can you not? It is no idle play, boy, to flaunt SirPellimore. Brave knights have found the truth of this at bitter cost."... more...

There is no country where there are so many people asking what is "proper to do," or, indeed, where there are so many genuinely anxious to do the proper thing, as in the vast conglomerate which we call the United States of America. The newness of our country is perpetually renewed by the sudden making of fortunes, and by the absence of a hereditary, reigning set. There is no aristocracy here... more...

OVERWORK AND RECREATION—OUTING AND OUTERS HOW TO DO IT, AND WHY THEY MISS IT t does not need that Herbert Spencer should cross the ocean to tell us that we are an overworked nation; that our hair turns gray ten years earlier than the Englishman's; or, "that we have had somewhat too much of the gospel of work," and, "it is time to preach the gospel of relaxation." It is all... more...

I. Of English blood, of Tuscan birth, What country should we give her? Instead of any on the earth, The civic Heavens receive her. II. And here among the English tombs In Tuscan ground we lay her, While the blue Tuscan sky endomes Our English words of prayer. III. A little child!—how long she lived, By months, not years, is reckoned: Born in one July, she survived Alone to see a second. IV.... more...

THE STATUS CIVILIZATION Chapter One His return to consciousness was a slow and painful process. It was a journey in which he traversed all time. He dreamed. He rose through thick layers of sleep, out of the imaginary beginnings of all things. He lifted a pseudopod from primordial ooze, and the pseudopod was him. He became an amoeba which contained his essence; then a fish marked with his own peculiar... more...

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eighth Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the old woman said to Hasan, "By Allah, O my son, hearken to my words! Choose thee one of these girls in lieu of thy wife and presently return to thy country in safety," he hung down his head and recited the couplets quoted above. Then he wept till he swooned away and Shawahl sprinkled... more...

THE DOCK AND THE SCAFFOLD. The 23rd day of November, 1867, witnessed a strange and memorable scene in the great English city of Manchester. Long ere the grey winter's morning struggled in through the crisp frosty air—long ere the first gleam of the coming day dulled the glare of the flaming gas jets, the streets of the Lancashire capital were all astir with bustling crowds, and the silence of... more...

CHAPTER I. There is a vast deal talked in the present day about Freewill. We like to feel that we are independent agents and are ready to overlook the fact that our surroundings and circumstances and the hundred and one subtle and mysterious workings of the fate we can none of us escape, control our actions and are responsible for our movements, and make us to a great extent what we are. A man is not... more...

CHAPTER I Bonbright Foote VI arose and stood behind the long table which served him as a desk and extended his hand across it. His bearing was that of a man taking a leading part in an event of historic importance. "My son," said he, "it gratifies me to welcome you to your place in this firm." Then he smiled. When Bonbright Foote VI smiled it was as though he said to himself, "To... more...

INTRODUCTION This book has grown out of a series of articles contributed to "The Saturday Review" some ten or twelve years ago. As they appeared they were talked of and criticized in the usual way; a minority of readers thought "the stuff" interesting; many held that my view of Shakespeare was purely arbitrary; others said I had used a concordance to such purpose that out of the mass of... more...