Fiction Books

In Venusport, on payday-night, it is difficult to tell for certain where the town leaves off and the pink elephants begin. It is difficult to tell about other things, too. Spud Newlin had heard that a man could sometimes get rich overnight just tending bar on such occasions, and he was putting the rumor to the test. Not many bartenders had lasted long enough to find out. The night had had a good start.... more...

The stories in this volume are all of Czech, Moravian, and Slovak origin, and are to be found in many versions in the books of folk tales collected by Erben, Nemcova, Kulda, Dobsinsky, Rimavsky, Benes-Trebizsky, Miksicek. I got them first by word of mouth and afterwards hunted them out in the old books. My work has been that of retelling rather than translating since in most cases I have put myself in... more...

SCENE I.—MUSIC MASTER, DANCING MASTER, THREE SINGERS, TWO VIOLIN PLAYERS, FOUR DANCERS. MUS. MAS. (to the MUSICIANS). Come into this room, and rest till he comes. DAN. MAS. (to the DANCERS). Come also, on this side. MUS. MAS. (to his PUPIL). Have you finished? PUP. Yes. MUS. MAS. Let me see. Very good. DAN. MAS. Is it anything new? MUS. MAS. Yes; it is an air for a serenade that I made him compose... more...

THE TRAGEDY Here was a small stream of water, bright, clear and cool, running its merry way among the tall pines, hurrying to the dense shade of the lower valley. The grass on its banks stood tall, lush and faintly odorous, fresh with the newly come springtime, delicately scented with the thickly strewn field flowers. The sunlight lay bright and warm over all; the sky was blue with a depth of colour... more...

PART I. An Errant King THE thunder groaned, the wind howled, the rain fell in hissing torrents, impenetrable darkness covered the earth. A blue and forky flash darted a momentary light over the landscape. A Doric temple rose in the centre of a small and verdant plain, surrounded on all sides by green and hanging woods. 'Jove is my only friend,' exclaimed a wanderer, as he muffled himself up... more...

CHAPTER I "Wait and thy soul shall speak." There is, in the human soul, as in the depths of the ocean, a state of eternal calm. Around it the waves of unrest may surge and roar but there peace reigns. In that sanctuary the tides are born and, in their appointed time, swelling and rising, they carry the poor jetsam and flotsam of life before them. The tide was rising in the soul of Meredith... more...

THE GENIUS OF JOSEPH CONRAD I In these piping days when fiction plays the handmaid or prophet to various propaganda; when the majority of writers are trying to prove something, or acting as venders of some new-fangled social nostrums; when the insistent drums of the Great God Réclame are bruising human tympani, the figure of Joseph Conrad stands solitary among English novelists as the very ideal of a... more...

THE NJO HAPA* SONG   Green, ah greener than emeralds are, tree-tops beckon the        dhows to land,  White, oh whiter than diamonds are, blue waves burst on the        amber sand,  And nothing is fairer than Zanzibar from the Isles o' the West        to the Marquesand.         I was old when the world was wild with youth        (All love was lawless... more...

THE SHEPHERD AND THE BIBLEDan'l Burdon, the treasure-seeker—The shepherd's feeling for the Bible—Effect of the pastoral life—The shepherd's story of Isaac's boyhood—The village on the WylyeOne of the shepherd's early memories was of Dan'l Burdon, a labourer on the farm where Isaac Bawcombe was head-shepherd. He retained a vivid recollection of this person, who had... more...

CHAPTER I. A NEW-COMER. "YES, indeed," remarked one of the guests at the English table, "yes, indeed, we start life thinking that we shall build a great cathedral, a crowning glory to architecture, and we end by contriving a mud hut!" "I am glad you think so well of human nature," said the Disagreeable Man, suddenly looking up from the newspaper which he always read during meal-... more...