Fiction Books

I. In Ypres JULY, 1915. My mouth does not get so dry as once it did, I notice, when walking in from Suicide Corner to the Cloth Hall. There I was this summer day, in Ypres again, in a silence like a threat, amid ruins which might have been in Central Asia, and I, the last man on earth, contemplating them. There was something bumping somewhere, but it was not in Ypres, and no notice is taken in Flanders... more...

ELECTRICITY. Some of the phenomena of electricity are manifested upon so large a scale as to be thrust upon the attention of everybody. Thus lightning, which accompanies so many showers in warm weather in almost every latitude, has always excited in some individuals a superstitious awe, as being an exhibition of supernatural agency; and probably every one feels more or less dread of it during a... more...

CHAPTER I—THE PARSONAGE All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.  Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge.  I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to... more...

PREFACE. The scope of this work is in the main identical with that of "Archaia," published in 1860; but in attempting to prepare a new edition brought up to the present condition of the subject, it was found that so much required to be rewritten as to make it essentially a new book, and it was therefore decided to give it a new name, more clearly indicating its character and purpose. The... more...

Introduction. Had Rabelais never written his strange and marvellous romance, no one would ever have imagined the possibility of its production. It stands outside other things—a mixture of mad mirth and gravity, of folly and reason, of childishness and grandeur, of the commonplace and the out-of-the-way, of popular verve and polished humanism, of mother-wit and learning, of baseness and nobility, of... more...

THE FIRST DINNER This is the story of a year, beginning on New Year's eve. In the main it is the story of four—two artists and two writers—and of a paper which these four started. Three of them—the artists and one of the writers—toiled and dwelt together in rooms near Union Square, and earned a good deal of money sometimes, when matters went well. The fourth—the other writer—did... more...

SEA MARVELS   This morning more mysterious seems the sea  Than yesterday when, with reverberant roar,  It charged upon the beaches, and the sky  Above it shimmered cloudless. Now the waves  Lap languorously along the foamless sand,  And till the far horizon swims in mist.  Out of this murk, across this oily sweep,  Might lost armadas grandly sail to shore;  Jason might oar on Argo, or... more...

NOTE UPON THE ROMAN AGRONOMISTS Quaecunque autem propter disciplinam ruris nostrorum temporum cum priscis discrepant, non deterrere debent a lectione discentem. Nam multo plura reperiuntur, apud veteres, quae nobis probanda sint, quam quae repudianda. COLUMELLA I, I. The study of the Roman treatises on farm management is profitable to the modern farmer however practical and scientific he may be. He... more...

Chapter I "I am very much distressed about it all," murmured Mrs. Baxter. She was a small, delicate-looking old lady, very true to type indeed, with the silvery hair of the devout widow crowned with an exquisite lace cap, in a filmy black dress, with a complexion of precious china, kind shortsighted blue eyes, and white blue-veined hands busy now upon needlework. She bore about with her always... more...

The Director General of District Three, Ural Division of the Russian States, was a fool. Danny O'Rourke had reached that conclusion some time before—a conclusion, however, that he was most careful to keep unexpressed.Like the Hammer of Thor was the clash of Danny O'Rourke with the mysterious giant of space.  And then Danny not only thought it; he knew the Director was a fool; and the... more...