Fiction Books

n the day the Earth vanished, Herman Raye was earnestly fishing for trout, hip-deep in a mountain stream in upstate New York. Herman was a tall, serious, sensitive, healthy, well-muscled young man with an outsize jaw and a brush of red-brown hair. He wore spectacles to correct a slight hyperopia, and they had heavy black rims because he knew his patients expected it. In his off hours, he was fond of... more...

Preface Who says that English folk have no fairy-tales of their own? The present volume contains only a selection out of some 140, of which I have found traces in this country. It is probable that many more exist. A quarter of the tales in this volume, have been collected during the last ten years or so, and some of them have not been hitherto published. Up to 1870 it was equally said of France and of... more...

CHAPTER I. About ten o'clock one Sunday morning, in the month of July 18—, the dazzling sunbeams, which had for several hours irradiated a little dismal back attic in one of the closest courts adjoining Oxford Street, in London, and stimulated with their intensity the closed eyelids of a young man—one Tittlebat Titmouse—lying in bed, at length awoke him. He rubbed his eyes for some time, to... more...

ANTHROPOLOGY,AS A SCIENCE,ANDAs a Branch of University Education. What Anthropology Is. Man himself is the only final measure of his own activities. To his own force and faculties all other tests are in the end referred. All sciences and arts, all pleasures and pursuits, are assigned their respective rank in his interest by reference to those physical powers and mental processes which are peculiarly... more...

TO CROSS THE BAY "I wouldn't try a crossing in weather like this," warned the old man. "It's a bad time of year, what with the wind and all. Worse still, the lake water is lethal by November. That means if you capsize it will be the chill that does you in." The old man stopped short, conscious of the look of defiance in the youth's eyes. Young fool biting the nose to... more...

"Do you know what would happen to him?" NOW state your problem." The man who was thus addressed shifted uneasily on the long bench which he and his companion bestrode. He was facing the speaker, and though very little light sifted through the cobweb-covered window high over their heads, he realized that what there was fell on his features, and he was not sure of his features, or of what... more...

ABNER AND THE WIDOW JONES, A Familiar Ballad. Well! I'm determin'd; that's enough:—  Gee, Bayard! move your poor old bones,I'll take to-morrow, smooth or rough,  To go and court the Widow Jones. Our master talks of stable-room,  And younger horses on his grounds;'Tis easy to foresee thy doom,  Bayard, thou'lt go to feed the hounds. The first Determination. But... more...

CHAPTER I. In the year 165–, when Cromwell had gained ascendancy in England and over the greater portion of the Channel Islands, there lived in Guernsey, at the Bay of Moulin Huêt, a miller of the name of Pierre Moullin. Unlike his class generally, he was a very morose man, hard in his dealings with the poor around him, and exceedingly unsympathizing in all his domestic relations, as will appear as... more...

TRANSLATION FROM THE ENEID, BOOK I. THE god looked out upon the troubled deepWaked into tumult from its placid sleep;The flame of anger kindles in his eyeAs the wild waves ascend the lowering sky;He lifts his head above their awful heightAnd to the distant fleet directs his sight,Now borne aloft upon the billow's crest,Struck by the bolt or by the winds oppressed,And well he knew that Juno's... more...

CHAPTER I. THE STORY BEGINS.   It begins right in the middle; but a story must begin somewhere. The town is down below the hill. It lies in the hollow, and stretches on till it runs against another hill, over opposite; up which it goes a little way before it can stop itself, just as it does on this side. It is no matter for the name of the town. It is a good, large country town,—in fact, it has some... more...