Fiction Books

PREFACE. In the spring of 1862 I was induced, at the request of some personal friends, to print, for private circulation only, a small volume of "Translations of Poems Ancient and Modern," in which was included the first Book of the Iliad. The opinions expressed by some competent judges of the degree of success which had attended this "attempt to infuse into an almost literal English... more...

CHAPTER I ONLY A MISSIONARY High upon a rock, poised like a bird for flight, stark naked, his satin skin shining like gold and silver in the rising sun, stood a youth, tall, slim of body, not fully developed but with muscles promising, in their faultless, gently swelling outline, strength and suppleness to an unusual degree. Gazing down into the pool formed by an eddy of the river twenty feet below... more...

A more enlarged account of the Monasteries of the Levant would, I think, be interesting for many reasons if the task was undertaken by some one much more competent than myself to do justice to so curious a subject. In these monasteries resided the early fathers of the Church, and within the precincts of their time-hallowed walls were composed those writings which have since been looked up to as the... more...

A MODERN RICHELIEU The Howe and Webster farms adjoined, lying on a sun-flooded, gently sloping New Hampshire hillside. Between them loomed The Wall. It was not a high wall. On the contrary, its formidableness was the result of tradition rather than of fact. For more than a century it had been an estranging barrier to neighborliness, to courtesy, to broad-mindedness; a barrier to friendship, to... more...

CHAPTER ITHE SUIT "Oh, but this is terrible!" cried Simon Dubosc. "Edward, just listen!" And the young Frenchman, drawing his friend away from the tables arranged in little groups on the terraces of the club-house, showed him, in the late edition of the Argus, which a motorcyclist had just brought to the New Golf Club, this telegram, printed in heavy type: "Boulogne, 20 May.—The... more...

THE STORY OF LITTLE BOY BLUE "But it was not your niece! It was always you I wanted," said the Boy. He lay back, in a deep wicker chair, under the old mulberry-tree. He had taken the precaution of depositing his cup and saucer on the soft turf beneath his chair, because he knew that, under the stress of sudden emotion, china—especially the best china—had a way of flying off his knee. And... more...

Captain Baird stood at the window of the laboratory where the thousand parts of the strange rocket lay strewn in careful order. Small groups worked slowly over the dismantled parts. The captain wanted to ask but something stopped him. Behind him Doctor Johannsen sat at his desk, his gnarled old hand tight about a whiskey bottle, the bottle the doctor always had in his desk but never brought out except... more...

CHAPTER I BOB MAKES TROUBLE "Bob! Bob!" called a woman in loud tones, as she came to the kitchen door, her arms, with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, covered with flour. "Bob, I want you to go to the store for me. I need some more lard for this pie-crust." There was no answer, and the woman looked across the big yard at one side of the cottage. "Where can that boy be?" Mrs.... more...

TROTTING COB "Hi—hey—hold up there, mare, will you? What did you say, mister? A light? Yes. That 's Trotting Cob, that is. The missus 'll give us a cup of tea, but that's about all. Devil fly away with the mare. What is it? Something white in the road? Water by ——. Thank the Lord, they Ve had plenty of rain this year. But they do say there's a ghost hereabouts—a... more...

CHAPTER I THE TENANT OF THE SILENT HOUSE Lucian Denzil was a briefless barrister, who so far departed from the traditions of his brethren of the long robe as not to dwell within the purlieus of the Temple. For certain private reasons, not unconnected with economy, he occupied rooms in Geneva Square, Pimlico; and, for the purposes of his profession, repaired daily, from ten to four, to Serjeant's... more...