Fiction Books

PARDNERS "Most all the old quotations need fixing," said Joyce in tones forbidding dispute. "For instance, the guy that alluded to marriages germinating in heaven certainly got off on the wrong foot. He meant pardnerships. The same works ain't got capacity for both, no more'n you can build a split-second stop-watch in a stone quarry. No, sir! A true pardnership is the... more...

A SANDWICH AT RINI’S “You know, Lou, I’ve been doing a lot of wondering here of late,” remarked Penny Parker to her chum, Louise Sidell. The girls were riding in Penny’s mud-splattered blue coupe, otherwise known as the Leaping Lena. At the moment Lena was bouncing more than usual for the pavement was bumpy in this section of Riverview. “Wondering what?” inquired Louise, absently brushing... more...

The Wild West. Unroll the world’s map, and look upon the great northern continent of America. Away to the wild west, away toward the setting sun, away beyond many a far meridian, let your eyes wander. Rest them where golden rivers rise among peaks that carry the eternal snow. Rest them there. You are looking upon a land whose features are un-furrowed by human hands, still bearing the marks of the... more...

Of all the objects, which have since the revolution, engaged the attention of the legislature, the proper method of adjusting our present quarrels with the Americans is undoubtedly the most important. For as the riches and power of Britain depend chiefly on trade, and that trade on her colonies; it is evident that her very existence as the first of commercial nations, turns upon this hinge. It cannot... more...

Chapter One The marriage of Albert Bradley and Anne Polk Barrett was as close as anything comes, in these prosaic days, to a high adventure. Nancy's Uncle Thomas, a quiet, gentle old Southerner who wore tan linen suits when he came to New York, which was not often, and Bert's mother, a tiny Boston woman who had lived in a diminutive Brookline apartment since her three sons had struck out into... more...

Chapter I. Preliminary Ideas--criterion of the Oratorical Art. Let us note an incontestable fact. The science of the Art of Oratory has not yet been taught. Hitherto genius alone, and not science, has made great orators. Horace, Quintilian and Cicero among the ancients, and numerous modern writers have treated of oratory as an art. We admire their writings, but this is not science; here we seek in vain... more...

Justus Miles was sitting on a bench in the park, down at the heels, hungry, desperate, when a gust of wind whirled a paper to his feet. It was the advertising section of the New York Times. Apathetically, he picked it up, knowing from the past weeks' experience that few or no jobs were being advertised. Then with a start he sat up, for in the center of the page, encased in a small box and printed... more...

CHAPTER I. EARLY LIFE. Cowper is the most important English poet of the period between Pope and the illustrious group headed by Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley, which arose out of the intellectual ferment of the European Revolution. As a reformer of poetry, who called it back from conventionality to nature, and at the same time as the teacher of a new school of sentiment which acted as a solvent upon... more...

THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS In the Similitude of a Dream {10} As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his... more...

CHAPTER I. THE LAST DAY AT REDMAYNE HOUSE. What trifles vex one! I was always sorry that my name was Esther; not that I found fault with the name itself, but it was too grave, too full of meaning for such an insignificant person. Some one who was learned in such matters—I think it was Allan—told me once that it meant a star, or good fortune. It may be so, but the real meaning lay for me in the... more...