Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. French Mission of Peking—Glance at the Kingdom of Ouniot—Preparations for Departure—Tartar-Chinese Inn—Change of Costume—Portrait and Character of Samdadchiemba—Sain-Oula (the Good Mountain)—The Frosts on Sain-Oula, and its Robbers—First Encampment in the Desert—Great Imperial Forest—Buddhist monuments on the summit of the mountains—Topography of the Kingdom of... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HUCKSTER Sir Oliver Tressilian sat at his ease in the lofty dining-room of the handsome house of Penarrow, which he owed to the enterprise of his father of lamented and lamentable memory and to the skill and invention of an Italian engineer named Bagnolo who had come to England half a century ago as one of the assistants of the famous Torrigiani. This house of such a startlingly singular... more...

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THE COLONIAL MORTUARY BARD A writer in the Sydney Evening News last year gave that journal some amusing extracts from the visitors' book at Longwood, St. Helena. If the extracts are authentic copies of the original entries, they deserve to be placed on the same high plane as the following, which appeared in a Melbourne newspaper some years ago:— "Our Emily was so fairThat the angels envied... more...

CHAPTER I—MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW SHE WENT ON, AND WENT OVER Ah!  It’s pleasant to drop into my own easy-chair my dear though a little palpitating what with trotting up-stairs and what with trotting down, and why kitchen stairs should all be corner stairs is for the builders to justify though I do not think they fully understand their trade and never did, else why the sameness and why not more... more...

I WALKING PAPERS Through the suave, warm radiance of that afternoon of Spring in England a gentleman of modest and commonly amiable deportment bore a rueful countenance down Piccadilly and into Halfmoon street, where presently he introduced it to one whom he found awaiting him in his lodgings, much at ease in his easiest chair, making free with his whiskey and tobacco, and reading a slender brown... more...

CHAPTER XXVIII. FREEDOM AT LAST ASSURED. As to the Military situation, a few words are, at this time, necessary: Hood had now marched Northward, with some 50,000 men, toward Nashville, Tenn., while Sherman, leaving Thomas and some 35,000 men behind, to thwart him, had abandoned his base, and was marching Southward from Atlanta, through Georgia, toward the Sea. On the 30th of November, 1864, General... more...

FIRE QUARTERS. "Four bells, sir!" reported the messenger-boy, to the officer who had charge of the deck of the Storm King. "Very good. Quartermaster, make it so." The silvery tones of the little bell rang through the vessel, and immediately there began a great noise and hubbub on the berth-deck, which, but a moment before, had been so quiet and orderly. Songs, shouts of laughter, and... more...

PREFACE When the late Mr. Arthur Strong asked me to undertake the present volume, I pointed out to him that, to fulfil the advertised programme of the Series he was editing, was more than could be hoped from my attainments. He replied, that in the case of Dürer a book, fulfilling that programme, was not called for, and that what he wished me to attempt, was an appreciation of this great artist in... more...

CHAPTER I. DEPENDENCIES IN EUROPE. HELIGOLAND AND THE FRISIANS.—GIBRALTAR AND THE SPANISH STOCK.—MALTA.—THE IONIAN ISLANDS.—THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. Heligoland.—We learn from a passage in the Germania of Tacitus, that certain tribes agreed with each other in the worship of a goddess who was revered as Earth the Mother; that a sacred grove, in a sacred island, was dedicated to her; and that, in... more...