Fiction Books

Honore de Balzac is known to the world in general as a novel-writer, a producer of romances, in which begin the reign of realism in French fiction. His Comedie Humaine is a description of French society, as it existed from the time of the Revolution to that of the Restoration. In this series of stories we find the author engaged in analyzing the manners, motives and external life of the French man and... more...

Chapter One. The Ghosts’ Pass. “Well, old man, what do we do next?” The speaker, a fine young fellow of some five-and-twenty summers, reclining on the rough grass, with clouds of tobacco-smoke filtering through his lips, looked the picture of comfort, his appearance belying in every way the discontent expressed in his tones as he smoked his pipe in the welcome shade of a giant rock, which... more...

CHAPTER IWAVE-TOSSED AND CASTAWAY The beginning was at Cape Town, when Blake and Winthrope boarded the steamer as fellow passengers with Lady Bayrose and her party. This was a week after Winthrope had arrived on the tramp steamer from India, and her Ladyship had explained to Miss Leslie that it was as well for her not to be too hasty in accepting his attentions. To be sure, he was an Englishman, his... more...

THE career of Olive Fremstad has entailed continuous struggle: a struggle in the beginning with poverty, a struggle with a refractory voice, and a struggle with her own overpowering and dominating temperament. Ambition has steered her course. After she had made a notable name for herself through her interpretations of contralto rôles, she determined to sing soprano parts, and did so, largely by an... more...

A PIECE OF BREAD BY FRANCOIS COPPEE The young Due de Hardimont happened to be at Aix in Savoy, whose waters he hoped would benefit his famous mare, Perichole, who had become wind-broken since the cold she had caught at the last Derby,—and was finishing his breakfast while glancing over the morning paper, when he read the news of the disastrous engagement at Reichshoffen. He emptied his glass of... more...

CHAPTER I It was the day after Donne Fair when my story commences. It had been a brisk market: several dealers had attended from the northern and midland counties in England, and English money had flown so merrily about as to gladden the hearts of the Highland farmers. Many large droves were about to set off for England, under the protection of their owners, or of the topsmen whom they employed in the... more...

"But this painter!" cried Walter Ludlow, with animation. "He not only excels in his peculiar art, but possesses vast acquirements in all other learning and science. He talks Hebrew with Dr. Mather, and gives lectures in anatomy to Dr. Boylston. In a word, he will meet the best instructed man among us, on his own ground. Moreover, he is a polished gentleman—a citizen of the world—yes, a... more...

SECTION I 1. A Councillor of Legation in difficulties. In 1868 the French journalist Léonce Dupont, the owner of the Parisian newspaper La Nation, became bankrupt. It was discovered that this paper was really founded by the councillor of the Russian legation in Paris, Tchitchérine, who had supplied the funds necessary to start it, for the purpose of influencing public opinion in Russian interests.... more...

CHAPTER I CAPITAL AND ITS REWARDFinance, in the sense in which it will be used in this book, means the machinery of money dealing. That is, the machinery by which money which you and I save is put together and lent out to people who want to borrow it. Finance becomes international when our money is lent to borrowers in other countries, or when people in England, who want to start an enterprise, get... more...

ESSAYS. I.  ON CRITICISM. Criticism is the art of judging.  As reasonable persons we are called upon to be constantly pronouncing judgment, and either acting upon such judgment ourselves or inviting others to do so.  I do not know how anything can be more important with respect to any matter than the forming a right judgment about it.  We pray that we may have “a right judgment in all... more...