Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. AT LONGVIEW. Little Jack Wilson had been born in England; but when he was quite a baby his parents had sailed across the sea, taking him with them, and settled out on one of the distant prairies of America. Of course, Jack was too small when he left to remember anything of England himself, but as he grew older he liked to hear his father and mother talk about the old country where he and... more...

CHAPTER I."What, am I poor of late?'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,Must fall out with men too. What the declined is,He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;And not a man, for being simply man,Hath any honour; but honour for those honoursThat are without him, as place,... more...

I. There are words which have careers as well as men, or, perhaps it may be more happily said, as well as women. Mere words breathed on by Fancy, and sent forth not so much to serve man's ordinary colloquial uses, apparently, as to fascinate his mind, have their débuts. their season, their vogue, and finally a period in which it is really too bad if they have not the consolation of reflecting... more...

I The Story of the Little Red Sleigh It was in 1835, about mid-winter, when Brier Dale was a narrow clearing, and the horizon well up in the sky and to anywhere a day's journey. Down by the shore of the pond, there, Allen built his house. To-day, under thickets of tansy, one may see the rotting logs, and there are hollyhocks and catnip in the old garden. He was from Middlebury, they say, and came... more...

CHAPTER I BACK FROM THE DEAD Westward the little three-car train chugged its way fussily across the brown prairie toward distant mountains which, in that clear atmosphere, loomed so deceptively near. Standing motionless beside the weather-beaten station shed, the solitary passenger watched it absently, brows drawn into a single dark line above the bridge of his straight nose. Tall, lean, with legs... more...

1 When Mr. Henley reached his dingy little house in Twentieth Street, a servant met him at the door with a letter, saying: "The postman has just left it, sir, and hopes it is right, as it has given him a lot of trouble." Mr. Henley examined the letter with curiosity. There were several erased addresses. The original was: "Mr. P. Henley, New York City." Scarcely legible, in the lower... more...

FOREWORD Jimmy Collins used periodically to try to change his name to Jim Collins, but he never could make it stick. There was something about him that made everybody call him Jimmy. He did sign his wonderful article in the Saturday Evening Post about dive testing “Jim Collins,” but his friends kidded him so much about wanting to be a “he-man” that he went back to Jimmy in his... more...

OF EARLSCOURT'S FIANCEE."To compass her with sweet observances,To dress her beautifully and keep her true." That, according to Mr. Tennyson's lately-published opinion, is the devoir of that deeply-to-be-pitied individual, l'homme marié. Possibly in the times of which the Idyls treat, Launcelot and Gunevere might have been the sole, exceptional mauvais sujets in the land, and... more...

WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. THE OVERTURE. Constantinople; the month of August; the early days of the century. It was the hour of the city's most perfect beauty. The sun was setting, and flung a mellowing glow over the great golden domes and minarets of the mosques, the bazaars glittering with trifles and precious with elements of Oriental luxury, the tortuous thoroughfares with their motley throng, the... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY SOME DETAILS OF THE BIOGRAPHY OF THAT HIGHLY RESPECTED GENTLEMAN STEPAN TROFIMOVITCH VERHOVENSKY. IN UNDERTAKING to describe the recent and strange incidents in our town, till lately wrapped in uneventful obscurity, I find myself forced in absence of literary skill to begin my story rather far back, that is to say, with certain biographical details concerning that talented and... more...