Fiction Books

San Francisco Bay is so large that often its storms are more disastrous to ocean-going craft than is the ocean itself in its violent moments. The waters of the bay contain all manner of fish, wherefore its surface is ploughed by the keels of all manner of fishing boats manned by all manner of fishermen. To protect the fish from this motley floating population many wise laws have been passed, and there... more...

CHAPTER I The Master is inordinately fond of young fools. That is why they are permitted to rush in where angels fear to tread—and survive their daring! This supreme protection, this unwritten warranty to disregard all laws, occult or apparent, divine or earthly, may be attributed to the fact that none but young fools dream gloriously. For such of us as pretend to be wise—and we are but fools in a... more...

In the fifth part of Ludwig Traube's Palaeographische Forschungen, (which I had the honor of publishing after that great scholar's death) evidence was presented for Traube's apparently certain discovery of the very handwriting of John the Scot. In manuscripts of Reims, of Laon, and of Bamberg, he had observed certain marginal notes which were neither omitted sections nor glosses, but... more...

I I have seen the improbable turn true too often not to have it disturb me. Suppose these memoirs still exist when the French royalist plot of 1805 and my father's peculiar role in it are forgotten. I cannot help but remember it is a restless land across the water. But surely people will continue to recollect. Surely these few pages, written with the sole purpose of explaining my father's... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BOY AT THE BARONY The Quintards had not prospered on the barren lands of the pine woods whither they had emigrated to escape the malaria of the low coast, but this no longer mattered, for the last of his name and race, old General Quintard, was dead in the great house his father had built almost a century before and the thin acres of the Barony, where he had made his last stand against... more...

CHAPTER I "I am," said Reggie Mann, "quite beside myself to meet this LucyDupree." "Who told you about her?" asked Allan Montague. "Ollie's been telling everybody about her," said Reggie. "It sounds really wonderful. But I fear he must have exaggerated." "People seem to develop a tendency to exaggeration," said Montague, "when they talk about... more...

THE MORNING VISIT A sick man's chamber, though it often boastThe grateful presence of a literal toast,Can hardly claim, amidst its various wealth,The right unchallenged to propose a health;Yet though its tenant is denied the feast,Friendship must launch his sentiment at least,As prisoned damsels, locked from lovers' lips,Toss them a kiss from off their fingers' tips. The morning... more...

IN THE FORKS. Now there was young Deboon from Boston, who was a very learned man. He was in fact one of those fearfully learned men. He was a man who could talk in all tongues—and think in none. Perhaps he had sometime been a waiter. I am bound to say that the most dreadfully learned young men I have ever met are the waiters in the Continental hotels. Besides that he was very handsome. He was,... more...

"People are basically alike," Harding said democratically. He sat idly against the strawlike matting of the hut wall and reached for a native fruit in a nearby bowl. "They're all suckers, even the smartest of them; in fact, the ones who think they're the smartest generally wind up to be the dumbest." Carefully, he bit into the fruit which resembled an orange and, mouth full,... more...

Nada Burnham, who "bound all to her" and, while her father cut his way through the hordes of the Ingobo Regiment, perished of the hardships of war at Buluwayo on 19th May, 1896, I dedicate these tales—and more particularly the last, that of a Faith which triumphed over savagery and death. H. Rider Haggard. Ditchingham.AUTHOR'S NOTEOf the three stories that comprise this volume[*], one,... more...