Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. It is with some degree of awe that I touch upon the enigma of my impressions at the commencement of my life. I am almost doubtful whether they had reality within my own experience, or whether they are not, rather, recollections mysteriously transmitted—I feel an almost sacred hesitation when I would fathom their depths. I came forth from the darkness of unconsciousness very gradually, for... more...

HOW TO USE THE BOOK One recognizes a plant by the presence of structural features peculiar to itself, and not found on any other kind of plant. In such a book as this, these characters are given one or a few at a time, and contrasted with the characters which other sorts of plants possess. Such a presentation is called a Key, and by its proper use the name may be learned of any plant considered in it.... more...

PROLOGUE There was no mistake this time: he had struck gold at last! It had lain there before him a moment ago—a misshapen piece of brown-stained quartz, interspersed with dull yellow metal; yielding enough to have allowed the points of his pick to penetrate its honeycombed recesses, yet heavy enough to drop from the point of his pick as he endeavored to lift it from the red earth. He was seeing all... more...

THE RED CITY A NOVEL OF THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF WASHINGTON About five in the afternoon on the 23d of May, 1792, the brig Morning Star of Bristol, John Maynard, master, with a topgallant breeze after her, ran into Delaware Bay in mid-channel between Cape May and Cape Henlopen. Here was the only sunshine they had seen in three weeks. The captain, liking the warmth on his broad back, glanced up... more...

INTRODUCING A CAPITALIST A cordon of blue regiments surrounded the city at first from Carondelet to North St. Louis, like an open fan. The crowds liked best to go to Compton Heights, where the tents of the German citizen-soldiers were spread out like so many slices of white cake on the green beside the city's reservoir. Thence the eye stretched across the town, catching the dome of the Court House... more...

CHAPTER I The Grill is the club most difficult of access in the world. To be placed on its rolls distinguishes the new member as greatly as though he had received a vacant Garter or had been caricatured in "Vanity Fair." Men who belong to the Grill Club never mention that fact. If you were to ask one of them which clubs he frequents, he will name all save that particular one. He is afraid if he... more...

CHAPTER I THE GENESIS OF PRAGMATISMThere is a curious impression to-day in the world of thought that Pragmatism is the most audacious of philosophic novelties, the most anarchical transvaluation of all respectable traditions. Sometimes it is pictured as an insurgence of emotion against logic, sometimes as an assault of theology upon the integrity of Pure Reason. One day it is described as the reckless... more...

CHAPTER I. At the open window, which looked out into the little flower-garden, stood the blind daughter of the village sacristan, refreshing herself in the cool breeze that swept across her hot cheeks; her delicate, half-developed form trembled, her cold little hands lay folded in each other upon the window-sill. The sun had already set, and the night-flowers were beginning to scent the air. Further... more...

INTRODUCTION Defoe has been recognized as the author of A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates since 1932 when John Robert Moore suggested that the supposed author, Captain Charles Johnson, like Andrew Moreton, Kara Selym or Captain Roberts, was merely another mask for the creator of Robinson Crusoe. Although most of the first volume is of minor literary... more...

One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow. The elder child was a little girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her parents, and other people who were familiar with her, used to call... more...