Fiction Books

I had entered, in an idle mood, the shop of one of those curiosity venders who are called marchands de bric-à-brac in that Parisian argot which is so perfectly unintelligible elsewhere in France. You have doubtless glanced occasionally through the windows of some of these shops, which have become so numerous now that it is fashionable to buy antiquated furniture, and that every petty stockbroker... more...

Two years ago I was travelling by diligence in the Sahara Desert on the great caravan route, which starts from Beni-Mora and ends, they say, at Tombouctou. For fourteen hours each day we were on the road, and each evening about nine o'clock we stopped at a Bordj, or Travellers' House, ate a hasty meal, threw ourselves down on our gaudy Arab rugs, and slept heavily till the hour before dawn,... more...

CHAPTER I. WHY ROBERT WYNN EMIGRATED.night train drew up slowly alongside the platform at the Euston Square terminus. Immediately the long inanimate line of rail-carriages burst into busy life: a few minutes of apparently frantic confusion, and the individual items of the human freight were speeding towards all parts of the compass, to be absorbed in the leviathan metropolis, as drops of a shower in a... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TRIAL Some years ago there was a trial in Dublin, which, partly because the parties in the cause were in a well-to-do condition of life, and partly because the case in some measure involved the interests of the two conflicting Churches, excited considerable sensation and much comment. The contention was the right to the guardianship of a boy whose father and mother had ceased to live... more...

CHAPTER I THE BOY 1727-1741 Wolfe was a soldier born. Many of his ancestors had stood ready to fight for king and country at a moment's notice. His father fought under the great Duke of Marlborough in the war against France at the beginning of the eighteenth century. His grandfather, his great-grandfather, his only uncle, and his only brother were soldiers too. Nor has the martial spirit deserted... more...

CHAPTER I MAY-JUNE, 1815 Passage from Ceylon to England—Napoleon's return—Ostend—Bruges—Ghent— The King of France at Mass—Alost—Bruxelles—The Duke of Wellington very confident—Feelings of the Belgians—Good conduct of British troops—Monuments in Bruxelles—Theatricals—Genappe and Namur—Complaints against the Prussian troops—Mons—Major-General Adam—Tournay—A French... more...

CHAPTER ONE THE HOUSE BY THE MARSH It was in fat Madame Fontaine's little café at Bar la Rose, that Norman village by the sea, that I announced my decision. It being market-day the café was noisy with peasants, and the crooked street without jammed with carts. Monsieur Torin, the butcher, opposite me, leaned back heavily from his glass of applejack and roared. Monsieur Pompanet, the blacksmith,... more...

CHAPTER I. SPREADING THE STRANDS. “Shout three times three, like Ocean’s surges,Join, brothers, join, the toast with me;Here’s to the wind of life, which urgesThe ship with swelling waves o’er sea!” “Masters, I can not spin a yarnTwice laid with words of silken stuff.A fact’s a fact; and ye may larnThe rights o’ this, though wild and roughMy words may loom. ’Tis your consarn,Not... more...

During the first weeks at Damascus my only work was to find a suitable house and to settle down in it. Our predecessor in the Consulate had lived in a large house in the city itself, and as soon as he retired he let it to a wealthy Jew. In any case it would not have suited us, nor would any house within the city walls; for though some of them were quite beautiful—indeed, marble palaces gorgeously... more...

CHAPTER IX The church bells were ringing for morning service as Mr. Vickers, who had been for a stroll with Mr. William Russell and a couple of ferrets, returned home to breakfast. Contrary to custom, the small front room and the kitchen were both empty, and breakfast, with the exception of a cold herring and the bitter remains of a pot of tea, had been cleared away. "I've known men afore... more...