Fiction Books

LOCAL DESCRIPTIONS. Nothing is more idle, and, what is less to be forgiven in a writer, more tedious, than minute and lengthened descriptions of localities; where it is very doubtful whether the writers themselves had formed any tolerable notion of the place they describe,—it is certain their readers never can! These descriptive passages, in which writers of imagination so frequently indulge, are... more...

CHAPTER I PAUL HARLEY OF CHANCERY LANE Toward the hour of six on a hot summer's evening Mr. Paul Harley was seated in his private office in Chancery Lane reading through a number of letters which Innes, his secretary, had placed before him for signature. Only one more remained to be passed, but it was a long, confidential report upon a certain matter, which Harley had prepared for His... more...

CHAPTER I "Wait and thy soul shall speak." There is, in the human soul, as in the depths of the ocean, a state of eternal calm. Around it the waves of unrest may surge and roar but there peace reigns. In that sanctuary the tides are born and, in their appointed time, swelling and rising, they carry the poor jetsam and flotsam of life before them. The tide was rising in the soul of Meredith... more...

CHAPTER I URANUS AND EROSPopular view of discovery.Discovery is expected from an astronomer. The lay mind scarcely thinks of a naturalist nowadays discovering new animals, or of a chemist as finding new elements save on rare occasions; but it does think of the astronomer as making discoveries. The popular imagination pictures him spending the whole night in watching the skies from a high tower through... more...

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There is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the morning!-and, through the partially frosted window-panes, I love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm. A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air, and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere. These are not the big flakes, heavy with moisture,... more...

CHAPTER I. HIS GREAT MISTAKE It appeared that Armour had made the great mistake of his life. When people came to know, they said that to have done it when sober had shown him possessed of a kind of maliciousness and cynicism almost pardonable, but to do it when tipsy proved him merely weak and foolish. But the fact is, he was less tipsy at the time than was imagined; and he could have answered to more... more...

he knock at the door came in the middle of the night, as Josip Pekic had always thought it would. He had been but four years of age when the knock had come that first time and the three large men had given his father a matter of only minutes to dress and accompany them. He could barely remember his father. The days of the police state were over, so they told you. The cult of the personality was a thing... more...

His father was dying. John Gallant paced the narrow sun-baked lawn between the porch of his home and the street. Soon, he knew, the door would open and he would be called inside. That would be the end. A sickening feeling of terror gripped him and his heart pounded in his chest. He took a step toward the door, which was really an involuntary movement. No, he couldn't go in there. The doctor was in... more...

CHAPTER I. THE QUEEN'S GOOD-BY A man who has lived in the world, marking how every act, although in itself perhaps light and insignificant, may become the source of consequences that spread far and wide, and flow for years or centuries, could scarcely feel secure in reckoning that with the death of the Duke of Strelsau and the restoration of King Rudolf to liberty and his throne, there would end,... more...