Fiction Books

CHAPTER I.THE AVENGER. "Bill! Wild Bill! Is this you, or your ghost? What, in great Creation's name, are you doing here?" "Gettin' toward sunset, old pard–gettin' toward sunset, before I pass in my checks!" The first speaker was an old scout and plainsman, Sam Chichester by name, and he spoke to a passenger who had just left the west-ward-bound express train at Laramie,... more...

CHAPTER I—WHEN THE GEAN-TREE BLOSSOMED Rain was beating on the open leaf of plane and beech, and rapping at the black doors of the ash-bud, and the scent of the gean-tree flourish hung round the road by the river, vague, sweet, haunting, like a recollection of the magic and forgotten gardens of youth. Over the high and numerous hills, mountains of deer and antique forest, went the mist, a slattern,... more...

CHAPTER I To Cornelius Cethegus Cæsarius, a Friend: I send these notes to you rather than to any other man. Why? First of all, because I know not where you are, so the missive will probably be lost. Doubtless that would be the best thing which could happen, especially for the man who would then be spared reading these pages! But it will also be well for me that these lines should lie--or be lost--in... more...

I.BEGINNINGSThe invention of epic poetry corresponds with a definite and, in the history of the world, often recurring state of society. That is to say, epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the invention itself has been. Most nations have passed through the same sort of chemistry. Before their hot racial... more...

A STUDY I We all settled down in a circle and our good friend AlexandrVassilyevitch Ridel (his surname was German but he was Russian to themarrow of his bones) began as follows: I am going to tell you a story, friends, of something that happened tome in the 'thirties ... forty years ago as you see. I will bebrief--and don't you interrupt me. I was living at the time in Petersburg and had only... more...

Amongst the many pleasant circumstances attendant on a love of flowers—that sort of love which leads us into the woods for the earliest primrose, or to the river side for the latest forget-me-not, and carries us to the parching heath or the watery mere to procure for the cultivated, or, if I may use the expression, the tame beauties of the parterre, the soil that they love; amongst the many... more...

DIVERSIONS OF A RUINED GENTLEMAN Upon a certain dreary April afternoon in the year of grace, 1906, the apprehensions of Philip Kirkwood, Esquire, Artist-peintre, were enlivened by the discovery that he was occupying that singularly distressing social position, which may be summed up succinctly in a phrase through long usage grown proverbial: "Alone in London." These three words have come to... more...

I. DR. DILLON TO EDWARD DELANEY, ESQ., AT THE PINES. NEAR RYE, N.H. August 8, 1872. My Dear Sir: I am happy to assure you that your anxiety is without reason. Flemming will be confined to the sofa for three or four weeks, and will have to be careful at first how he uses his leg. A fracture of this kind is always a tedious affair. Fortunately the bone was very skilfully set by the surgeon who chanced to... more...

rnie turned the dial on his television. The station he had selected brightened and the face of the set turned from dark to blue. Ernie sipped his can of beer. He was alone in the room, and it was night. The picture steadied and Jory looked out of the set at him. Jory's face was tired. He looked bad. "Hello, Ernie," Jory said. Ernie turned the dial to the next station. "Hello,... more...

Four nominal species of the genus Pipistrellus are currently recognized in North America. They are (F. Cuvier) of eastern North America, (H. Allen) of western North America, (Ward) from Veracruz, Mexico, and Miller from Tabasco, Mexico.In the past three years, specimens have been obtained in Veracruz (by Dalquest) of each of the southern species. One of these, P. cinnamomeus, previously was known from... more...