Fiction Books

A RIDE TO TOWN "Make haste, child," called Aunt Jane; "there's mighty little time between dinner and sundown, and if we're goin' to town we'd better be startin'." Aunt Jane came out of the house, drawing on a pair of silk gloves. She was arrayed in her best gown of black alpaca, a silk-fringed cape covered her shoulders, her poke bonnet was draped with a veil of... more...

THE CHASE OF SAINT-CASTIN. The waiting April woods, sensitive in every leafless twig to spring, stood in silence and dim nightfall around a lodge. Wherever a human dwelling is set in the wilderness, it becomes, by the very humility of its proportions, a prominent and aggressive point. But this lodge of bark and poles was the color of the woods, and nearly escaped intruding as man's work. A glow... more...

INTRODUCTION WHAT are the best fairy stories? Are they not those which have lived most vividly in active minds? The ripeness of after life works its changes; but we are not dealing with literary judgments—rather with the choice of childhood which fortunately lingers in memory, whatever store of wisdom may come in later years. There is here no question of the new or unusual. On the contrary, it is the... more...

Rambling on foot in the spring of my life and the summer of the year, I came one afternoon to a point which gave me the choice of three directions. Straight before me, the main road extended its dusty length to Boston; on the left a branch went towards the sea, and would have lengthened my journey a trifle of twenty or thirty miles; while by the right-hand path, I might have gone over hills and lakes... more...

CHAPTER I. OURSELVES. WE were three quiet, lonely old men, and SHE was a lively, handsome young woman, and we were at our wits' end what to do with her. A word about ourselves, first of all—a necessary word, to explain the singular situation of our fair young guest. We are three brothers; and we live in a barbarous, dismal old house called The Glen Tower. Our place of abode stands in a hilly,... more...

PLAIN WORDS FROM AMERICA February, 1916. Your two letters, with enclosed newspaper clippings, and your postal card were duly received. I can assure you that my failure to reply more promptly was not meant as any discourtesy. The clippings were gladly received, for I am always anxious to read what prominent Germans regard as able and convincing presentations of their side of disputed matters. Your own... more...

I unpacked my things and went down to await luncheon. It was good to be here again in this little old sleepy hostel by the sea. Hostel I say, though it spelt itself without an "s" and even placed a circumflex above the "o." It made no other pretension. It was very cozy indeed. I had been here just a year before, in mid-February, after an attack of influenza. And now I had returned,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE OWNER OF RIVERSIDE. All the day long the September rain had fallen, and when the night closed in it showed no sign of weariness, but with the same monotonous patter dropped upon the roof, or beat against the windows of the pleasantly lighted room where a young man sat gazing at the glowing grate, and listening apparently to the noise of the storm without. But neither the winds, nor yet... more...

It seems justly due to Mr. Hawthorne that the occasion of any portion of his private journals being brought before the Public should be made known, since they were originally designed for his own reference only. There had been a constant and an urgent demand for a life or memoir of Mr. Hawthorne; yet, from the extreme delicacy and difficulty of the subject, the Editor felt obliged to refuse compliance... more...

CHILD LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY FANCHON FANCHON went early one morning, like Little Red Riding-Hood, to see her grandmother, who lives right at the other end of the village. But Fanchon did not stop like little Red Riding-Hood, to gather nuts in the wood. She went straight on her way and she did not meet the wolf. From a long way off she saw her grandmother sitting on the stone step at her cottage door,... more...