Fiction Books

THE FOURTH MAN The raft might have been taken for a swath of cut sedge or a drifting tangle of roots as it slid out of the shadowy river mouth at dawn and dipped into the first ground swell. But while the sky brightened and the breeze came fresh offshore it picked a way among shoals and swampy islets with purpose and direction, and when at last the sun leaped up and cleared his bright eye of the... more...

"Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been?" "I've been to London, to see the Queen.""Pussycat, Pussycat, what did you there?" "I caught a little mouse under the chair," Her mother said it three times. And each time the Baby Harriett laughed. The sound of her laugh was so funny that she laughed again at that; she kept on laughing, with shriller and shriller squeals.... more...

CHAPTER I. JUDAS The autumn of the year 1803 was one of the finest in the early part of that period of the present century which we now call "Empire." Rain had refreshed the earth during the month of October, so that the trees were still green and leafy in November. The French people were beginning to put faith in a secret understanding between the skies and Bonaparte, then declared Consul for... more...

PROLOGUE In the first place please bear in mind that I do not expect you to believe this story. Nor could you wonder had you witnessed a recent experience of mine when, in the armor of blissful and stupendous ignorance, I gaily narrated the gist of it to a Fellow of the Royal Geological Society on the occasion of my last trip to London. You would surely have thought that I had been detected in no less... more...

CHAPTER I On the day Fort Sumter surrendered I was seventeen years old, having been born April 14, 1844. Like other boys, I proposed enlisting, but my father refused consent; and at that time youths under eighteen years would not be accepted without the consent of parents. In July of the following year, when the news of McClellan's retreat on the Peninsula was published, I was satisfied that the... more...

THE DREAM. It was Sunday night, and Robert Hardy had just come home from the evening service in the church at Barton. He was not in the habit of attending the evening service, but something said by his minister in the morning had impelled him to go out. The evening had been a little unpleasant, and a light snow was falling, and his wife had excused herself from going to church on that account. Mr.... more...

SHOEING THE BAY MARE Original Picture: National Gallery, London,            England. Artist: Sir Edwin Landseer (lănd´´sÄ“r). Birthplace: London, England. Dates: Born, 1802; died, 1873. Questions to arouse interest. What is the man in this picture doing? How many have watched a blacksmith shoe a horse? Why does he wear an apron made of leather? From what do the sparks fly?... more...

The litigation seemed interminable and had in fact been complicated; but by the decision on the appeal the judgement of the divorce-court was confirmed as to the assignment of the child. The father, who, though bespattered from head to foot, had made good his case, was, in pursuance of this triumph, appointed to keep her: it was not so much that the mother's character had been more absolutely... more...

CHURCHILL—HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS. In Churchill we find a signal specimen of a considerable class of writers, concerning whom Goldsmith's words are true—   "Who, born for the universe, narrow'd their mind,  And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." Possessed of powers and natural endowments which might have made him, under favourable circumstances, a poet, a hero, a man,... more...

PROLOGUE At the piano a man sat playing the "Revolutionary Étude" of Chopin. The room was magnificent in its proportions, its furnishings were massive, its paneled oak walls were hung with portraits of men and women in the costumes of a bygone day. Through the lofty windows, the casements of which were open to the evening sky there was a vista of forest and meadow-land stretching interminably... more...