Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. Most visitors to Brighton prefer the new pier; it is altogether a more magnificent affair. It is in the fashionable town, for fashion will go westward; it is larger, more commodious, more frequented. Go to the West Pier when you will, there is always something to see; beautiful women, pretty girls, fashionable belles promenade incessantly. There are times when it is crowded, and there is... more...

CHAPTER I HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT Nothing is permanent but change; only it ought to be remembered that change itself is of the nature of an evolution, not of a catastrophe. Commonly this is not remembered, and we seem to go forward by bounds and leaps, or it may be to go backward; in either case the thread of continuity is lost. We appear to have moved far away from the men of forty years ago, except... more...

THE BEQUEST R. Robert Clarkson sat by his fire, smoking thoughtfully. His lifelong neighbour and successful rival in love had passed away a few days before, and Mr. Clarkson, fresh from the obsequies, sat musing on the fragility of man and the inconvenience that sometimes attended his departure. His meditations were disturbed by a low knocking on the front door, which opened on to the street. In... more...

HOO," Hetty Thompson cried, waving her battered old felt hat at the clucking cluster of hens eddying around her legs as she plowed through the flock towards the chicken house. "Scat. You, Solomon," she called out, directing her words at the bobbing comb of the big rooster strutting at the edge of the mob. "Don't just stand there like a satisfied cowhand after a night in Reno. Get... more...

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Chapter ITHE ROCKS AND THEIR STORYWalking along the sea shore, with all its varied interest, many must from time to time have had their attention attracted by the shells to be seen, not lying on the sands, or in the pools, but firmly embedded in the solid rock of the cliffs and of the rock ledges which run out on to the shore, and have, it may be, wondered sometimes how they got there. At almost any... more...

FOREWORD There are two immortal imbecilities that I have no patience for. The other one is the treatment of little towns as if they were essentially different from big towns. Cities are not "Ninevehs" and "Babylons" any more than little towns are Arcadias or Utopias. In fact we are now unearthing plentiful evidence of what might have been safely assumed, that Babylon never was a... more...

CHAPTER I. "Cast thy bread upon the waters." The room was very full. Children, large and small, boys and girls, and some looking almost old enough to be called men and women, filled the seats. The scholars had just finished singing their best-loved hymn, "Happy Land;" and the superintendent was walking up and down the room, spying out classes here and there which were without teachers,... more...

A few words of introduction to this striking story of life in Szeklerland may not be out of place. The events narrated are supposed to take place half a century ago, in the stirring days of '48, when the spirit of resistance to arbitrary rule swept over Europe, and nowhere called forth deeds of higher heroism than in Hungary. To understand the hostility between the Magyars and Szeklers on the one... more...

I.—THE TALE OF SNORRI GAMLASON In the early summer of 1358, with the breaking up of the ice, there came to Brattahlid, in Greenland, a merchant-ship from Norway, with provisions for the Christian settlements on the coast. The master's name was Snorri Gamlason, and it happened that as he sailed into Eric's Fiord and warped alongside the quay, word was brought to him that the Bishop of Garda... more...