Fiction Books

Preface AN ALLEGED humorist once proposed the query, "Are all fishermen liars, or do only liars go fishing?" This does not seem to me to be funny. It is doubtless true that a cynical attitude of suspicion and doubt is often exhibited on the recital of a fishing exploit. I believe the joke editors of magazines and newspapers are responsible for the spread of the propaganda of ridicule,... more...

NAPOLEONDER[1] [Footnote 1: The Russian peasant's name for Napoleon Bonaparte. The final syllable "der" has perhaps been added because to the ear of the peasant "Napoleon" sounds clipped and incomplete, as "Alexan" would sound to us without the "der."] Long ago—but not so very long ago; our grandfathers remember it—the Lord God wanted to punish the people of the... more...

FLOWER BABIESI know where some babies are snug asleep,All in a long straight row.And I know that someone is singing to them,Singing soft and low.And all night long the babies sleepAnd dream baby dreams, you know.And the little stars are listening, too,To the singing soft and low.Shall I tell you where these babies are?You never can guess, I know.And shall I tell you just who it isThat is singing soft... more...

THE ARM CHAIR.Cowper, the poet of the Christian muse,Sung of the Sofa; could I but infuseSome of his talent in my laggard quill,Some of his genius on my verse distil,Then would I sing,—my theme too from the fair,—Of thy coevals, rhyme-creating chair!He who with artist's skill scooped out thy seat,Trim made thy elbows, uprights, and thy feet,Now fourscore years and four has measured... more...

PREFACE. Since the first publication of Cock Lane and Common-Sense in 1894, nothing has occurred to alter greatly the author’s opinions.  He has tried to make the Folklore Society see that such things as modern reports of wraiths, ghosts, ‘fire-walking,’ ‘corpse-lights,’ ‘crystal-gazing,’ and so on, are within their province, and within the province of anthropology.  In this attempt he... more...

BOOK III have often wondered by what arguments those who indicted (1) Socrates could have persuaded the Athenians that his life was justly forfeit to the state. The indictment was to this effect: "Socrates is guilty of crime in refusing to recognise the gods acknowledged by the state, and importing strange divinities of his own; he is further guilty of corrupting the young." (1) {oi... more...

Donkey Skin There was once upon a time a king who was so much beloved by his subjects that he thought himself the happiest monarch in the whole world, and he had everything his heart could desire. His palace was filled with the rarest of curiosities, and his gardens with the sweetest flowers, while in the marble stalls of his stables stood a row of milk-white Arabs, with big brown eyes. Strangers who... more...

CHAPTER I After luncheon they walked over from the ranch-house—more indeed a country villa, what with its ceiled redwood walls, its prints, its library, than the working house of a practical farm—and down the dusty, sun-beaten lane to the apricot orchard. Picking was on full blast, against the all too fast ripening of that early summer. Judge Tiffany, pattern of a vigorous age, seemed to lean a... more...

CHAPTER XVIII. IN his room, solitary and brooding, sat the defeated hero of a hundred fights. It was now twilight; but the shutters had been partially closed all day, in order to exclude the sun, which had never before been unwelcome to Tom Bowles, and they still remained so, making the twilight doubly twilight, till the harvest moon, rising early, shot its ray through the crevice, and forced a silvery... more...

It was not mere impulsive action when Bron Hoddan started for the planet Walden by stowing away on a ship that had come to his native planet to hang all his relatives. He'd planned it long before. It was a long-cherished and carefully worked out scheme. He didn't expect the hanging of his relatives, of course. He knew that they'd act grieved and innocent, and give proof that they were... more...