Fiction Books

He yearned for a sign from the heavens. Could one intimation be vouchsafed him, how it would confirm his faltering faith! Jubal Kennedy was of the temperament impervious to spiritual subtleties, fain to reach conclusions with the line and rule of mathematical demonstration. Thus, all unreceptive, he looked through the mountain gap, as through some stupendous gateway, on the splendors of autumn; the... more...

Chapter I "... going to the big house to live." Hortense's father put the letter back into its envelope and handed it across the table to her mother. "I hadn't expected anything of the kind," he said, "but it makes the plan possible provided——" Hortense knew very well what Papa and Mamma were talking about, for she was ten years old and as smart as most girls and... more...

Chapter 1 I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857. "What!" you say, "eighteen fifty-seven? That is an odd slip. He means nineteen fifty-seven, of course." I beg pardon, but there is no mistake. It was about four in the afternoon of December the 26th, one day after Christmas, in the year 1857, not 1957, that I first breathed the east wind of Boston, which, I assure... more...

CHAPTER I. "Where shall I sign my name?" Veronica Serra's thin, dark fingers rolled the old silver penholder nervously as she sat at one end of the long library table, looking up at the short, stout man who stood beside her. "Here, if you please, Excellency," answered Lamberto Squarci, with an affable smile. His fingers were dark, too, but not thin, and they were smooth and dingy... more...

CHAPTER I THE BOYS OF OAK HALL "Hello, Dave; where are you bound?" "For the river, Phil. I am going out for a row. Want to come along?" "That suits me," answered Phil Lawrence, throwing down the astronomy he had been studying. "But I can't stay out late," he added, reaching for his cap. "Got two examples in algebra to do. Have you finished up?"... more...

CHAPTER I. Introductory.—Coming from the Eastward.—Interesting Ocean Phenomena.—Denizens of the Sea.—Bird Travelers.—Delusive Mirage.—A Thrilling Adventure.—Prompt Seamanship.—A Struggle for Life.—Dust of the Sea.—A Dangerous Wreck.—Night Watches.—Sighting the Island of Ceylon.—Adam's Peak, among the Clouds.—A Beautiful Shore.—Steamers and Sailing Ships.—Curious... more...

MONTESQUIEU. Montesquieu is beyond all doubt the founder of the philosophy of history. In many of its most important branches, he has carried it to a degree of perfection which has never since been surpassed. He first looked on human affairs with the eye of philosophic observation; he first sought to discover the lasting causes which influence the fate of mankind; he first traced the general laws which... more...

CHAPTER I. merry party were sitting in the verandah of one of the largest and handsomest bungalows of Poonah. It belonged to Colonel Hastings, colonel of a native regiment stationed there, and at present, in virtue of seniority, commanding a brigade. Tiffin was on, and three or four officers and four ladies had taken their seats in the comfortable cane lounging chairs which form the invariable... more...

or the last time, for the present, I give the children of the British Isles a selection of Fairy Tales once or still existing among them. The story store of Great Britain and Ireland is, I hope, now adequately represented in the four volumes which have won me so many little friends, and of which this is the last. My collections have dealt with the two folk-lore regions of these Isles on different... more...

PREFATORY NOTE "Love is the golden bead in the bottom of the crucible." And the crucible was St. Angé. Fifty years before this story began, St. Angé was a lumber camp; the first gash in that part of the great Solitude to the north, which lay across Beacon Hill, three miles from Hillcrest. When the splendid lumber had been felled within a prescribed limit, Industry took another leap, left St.... more...