Fiction Books

I Dream.         True, I talk of dreams;Which are the children of an idle brain,Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,Which is as thin of substance as the air;And more inconstant than the wind, who woosEven now the frozen bosom of the north,And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence,Turning his face to the dew-dropping south. Il est naturel que nos idées les plus vives et les plus familières se... more...

CHAPTER IA Roadside Meeting The white dust, which lay thick upon the wide road between rolling fields of ripened grain, rose in little spirals from beneath the heavy feet of the plodding farm-horses drawing the empty hay-wagon, and had scarcely settled again upon the browning goldenrod and fuzzy milkweed which bordered the rail fences on either side when Ebb Fischel’s itinerant butcher-jitney rattled... more...

The Woman Who Tried to Be Good [1913] Before she tried to be a good woman she had been a very bad woman—so bad that she could trail her wonderful apparel up and down Main Street, from the Elm Tree Bakery to the railroad tracks, without once having a man doff his hat to her or a woman bow. You passed her on the street with a surreptitious glance, though she was well worth looking at—in her furs and... more...

MQuarrie, the City Editor, looked up as I entered his office. "Bond," he asked, "do you know Jim Carpenter?" "I know him slightly," I replied cautiously. "I have met him several times and I interviewed him some years ago when he improved the Hadley rocket motor. I can't claim a very extensive acquaintance with him." "I thought you knew him well. It is a surprise... more...

THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG On Kvalholm, down in Helgeland, dwelt a poor fisherman, Elias by name, with his wife Karen, who had been in service at the parson's over at Alstad. They had built them a hut here, and he used to go out fishing by the day about the Lofotens. There could be very little doubt that the lonely Kvalholm was haunted. Whenever her husband was away, Karen heard all manner of... more...

Scotland was always foremost in superstition. Her wild hills and lonely fells seemed the fit haunting-places for all mysterious powers; and long after spirits had fled, and ghosts had been laid in the level plains of the South, they were to be found lingering about the glens and glades of Scotland. Very little of graceful fancy lighted up the gloom of those popular superstitions. Even Elfame, or... more...

TO YOU Blue Wednesday The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day—a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste. Every floor must be spotless, every chair dustless, and every bed without a wrinkle. Ninety-seven squirming little orphans must be scrubbed and combed and buttoned into freshly starched ginghams; and all ninety-seven reminded of their... more...

CHAPTER I THE COAST OF FRANCE I dare say that I had already read my uncle's letter a hundred times, and I am sure that I knew it by heart. None the less I took it out of my pocket, and, sitting on the side of the lugger, I went over it again with as much attention as if it were for the first time. It was written in a prim, angular hand, such as one might expect from a man who had begun life as a... more...

CHAPTER I. THE FAMILY AND EARLY WARS OF ONUND THE SON OF OFEIG There was a man named Onund, the son of Ofeig Clumsyfoot, who was the son of Ivar Horsetail. Onund was the brother of Gudbjorg, the mother of Gudbrand Knob, the father of Asta, the mother of King Olaf the Saint. His mother came from the Upplands, while his father's relations were mostly in Rogaland and Hordland. He was a great viking... more...

The Soul of the Great Bell She hath spoken, and her words still resound in his ears. Hao-Khieou-Tchouan: c. ix. THE SOUL OF THE GREAT BELL The water-clock marks the hour in the Ta-chung sz',—in the Tower of the Great Bell: now the mallet is lifted to smite the lips of the metal monster,—the vast lips inscribed with Buddhist texts from the sacred Fa-hwa-King, from the chapters of the holy... more...