Fiction Books

The ancient town and borough of Horsham, which has generally been past over in topographical accounts, as a place unworthy of notice; or lost in the dazzling descriptions, of the “modern maritime Babylon of Sussex,” must always remain a spot, dear to the lover of antiquities, and romantic scenery.  The derivation of its name, has ever continued a matter of great perplexity; which perhaps may be... more...

HE was walking endlessly down a long, glass-walled corridor. Bright sunlight slanted in through one wall, on the blue knapsack across his shoulders. Who he was, and what he was doing here, was clouded. The truth lurked in some corner of his consciousness, but it was not reached by surface awareness. The corridor opened at last into a large high-domed room, much like a railway station or an air... more...

CHAPTER I Everybody knew that Miss Audrey Craven was the original of "Laura," the heroine of Langley Wyndham's masterpiece. She first attracted the attention of that student of human nature at Oxford, at a dinner given by her guardian, the Dean of St. Benedict's, ostensibly in honour of the new Master of Lazarus, in reality for his ward's entertainment and instruction in the... more...

LIGHT IN DARKNESS."Good God! to think upon a childThat has no childish days,No careless play, no frolics wild,No words of prayer and praise."—Landon.It was growing dark in the city. Out in the open country it would be light for half-an-hour or more; but in the streets it was already dusk. Upon the wooden door-step of a low-roofed, dark, and unwholesome-looking house, sat a little girl,... more...

"It's your own choosing," said the man with the withered arm once more. I heard the faint sound of a stick and a shambling step on the flags in the passage outside. The door creaked on its hinges as a second old man entered, more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first. He supported himself by the help of a crutch, his eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half... more...

A FEW TESTIMONIALS TO THE INFANT SYSTEM. It is said that we are aiming at carrying education too far; that we are drawing it out to an extravagant length, and that, not satisfied with dispensing education to children also have attained what in former times was thought a proper age, we are now anxious to educate mere infants, incapable of receiving benefit from such instruction. This objection may be... more...

CHAPTER I One bitter day in January in the year 1880, when New York was a tranquil city, a young man stood at the South Ferry waiting for the up-town horse car. With a few other passengers he had just left the packet which had arrived in New York harbour that afternoon from New Orleans. Antony Fairfax was an utter stranger to the North. In his hand he carried a small hand-bag, and by his side on the... more...

CHAPTER I. Remarks from the Period of my Embarkation at St. Helens, to my arrival at Sierra Leone—Sketches of the Land discovered in the Passage—its Bearings and Distance—with Observations upon the Bay and Entrance of Sierra Leone River, &c. Previous to my arrival and landing in the river Sierra Leone, on the 6th of April, 1805, I shall notice my passage, and display the sketches I have taken... more...

Mon Portrait Written by the poet at the age of 15. Vous me demandez mon portrait,Mais peint d'apres nature:Mon cher, il sera bientot fait,Quoique en miniature. Je suis un jeune polissonEncore dans les classes;Point sot, je le dis sans facon,Et sans fades grimaces. Oui! il ne fut babillardNi docteur de Sorbonne,Plus ennuyeux et plus braillardQue moi-meme en personne. Ma taille, a celle des plus... more...

THE STORY OF THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. There was once a great mountain which rose from the shore of the sea, and on its flanks it bore a mighty forest. Beyond the crest of the mountain were ridges and valleys, peaks and chasms, springs and torrents. Farther on lay a sandy desert, which stretched its monotonous breadth to the shore of a wide, swift river. What lay beyond the river no one knew, because... more...