Fiction Books

It's natural to trust the unproven word of the fellow who's "on my side"—but the emotional moron is on no one's side, not even his own. Once, such an emotional moron could, at worst, hurt a few. But with the mighty, leashed forces Man employs now.... There were still, in 1968, a few people who were afraid of the nuclear power plant. Oldsters, in whom the term "atomic... more...

CHAPTER I.FRANKIE'S COUSIN NELLY.In another little book I have given you an account of Frankie when he was a baby, and have spoken of some things which he said and did when he began to talk and to walk. In this book I shall tell you more about him, and also about his cousin Nelly, who came to pass some months in his father's house, while her parents visited Europe. Nelly was six years old,... more...

Chapter One. True Blue—A British Seaman of the Old School. The old Terrible, 74, was ploughing her way across the waters of the Atlantic, now rolling and leaping, dark and angry, with white-crested seas which dashed against her bows and flew in masses of foam over her decks. She was under her three topsails, closely reefed; but even thus her tall masts bent, and twisted, and writhed, as if striving... more...

The first battle on the American continent in which horses were used was that of Cintla in Tabasco, March, 1519, the European troops being under the leadership of Hernando Cortes. This fact attaches something more than an ordinary historic interest to the engagement, at least enough to make it desirable to ascertain its precise locality and its proper name. Both of these are in doubt, as well as the... more...

I MOTHER CAREY HERSELF "By and by there came along a flock of petrels, who are Mother Carey's own chickens…. They flitted along like a flock of swallows, hopping and skipping from wave to wave, lifting their little feet behind them so daintily that Tom fell in love with them at once." Nancy stopped reading and laid down the copy of "Water Babies" on the sitting-room table.... more...

WISTARIA TERRACE The house where Mary Gray was born and grew towards womanhood was one of a squat line of mean little houses that hid themselves behind a great church. The roadway in front of the houses led only to the back entrance of the church. Over against the windows was the playground of the church schools, surrounded by a high wall that shut away field and sky from the front rooms of Wistaria... more...

INTRODUCTION BY HEYWOOD BROUN A good many of my radical friends express a certain kindly condescension when they speak of Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward." "Of course you know," they say, "that it really isn't first-rate economics." And yet in further conversation I have known a very large number of these same somewhat scornful Socialists to admit, "You know,... more...

In the newspapers of 1876 appeared the following extracts from the log of a merchantman: "VOLCANIC ISLAND IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC. —The ship Hercules, of Liverpool, lately arrived in the Mersey, reports as follows: March 23, in 2 deg. 12' north latitude, 33 deg. 27' west longitude, a shock of earthquake was felt, and shortly afterward a mass of land was hove up at a distance of about two... more...

Three times during dinner he had asked himself what, after all, was he there for? And at the end of it, as she rose, her eyes held him for the first time that evening, as if they said that he would see. She had put him as far from her as possible, at the foot of her table between two of the four preposterous celebrities whom she had asked him, George Tanqueray, to meet. Everything, except her eyes, had... more...

DANIEL WEBSTER AS A MASTER OF ENGLISH STYLE. From my own experience and observation I should say that every boy, who is ready enough in spelling, grammar, geography, and arithmetic, is appalled when he is commanded to write what is termed "a composition." When he enters college the same fear follows him and the Professor of Rhetoric is a more terrible personage to his imagination than the... more...