Fiction Books

JERSEY AND MULBERRY I found this letter and comment in an evening paper, some time ago, and I cut the slip out and kept it for its cruelty: To the Editor of the Evening ——. Sir: In yesterday's issue you took occasion to speak of the organ-grinding nuisance, about which I hope you will let me ask you the following questions: Why must decent people all over town suffer these pestilential beggars... more...

I A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor. The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the... more...

Chapter I 'A fair vestal, throned in the west' Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface. Their nature more precisely, and as modified by the creeping hours of time, was known only to those who watched the circumstances of her history. Personally, she was the combination of very interesting particulars, whose rarity, however, lay in the combination itself rather... more...

POINT OF VIEW. This book was not designed as a biography, but is rather a portrait. And, to speak more carefully still, it is not so much this, as my conception of what a portrait of Hawthorne should be. For I cannot write with the authority of one who had known him and had been formally intrusted with the task of describing his life. On the other hand, I do not enter upon this attempt as a mere... more...

When a slightly mad robot drunk on AC, wants you to join an experiment in optimum ecology—don't do it! After all, who wants to argue like Disraeli or live like Ivan the Terrible? I Nicholas Martin looked up at the robot across the desk. "I'm not going to ask what you want," he said, in a low, restrained voice. "I already know. Just go away and tell St. Cyr I approve. Tell him I... more...

CHAPTER I The landlord, the lady, and Mr. Charles Wogan were all three, it seemed, in luck's way that September morning of the year 1719. Wogan was not surprised, his luck for the moment was altogether in, so that even when his horse stumbled and went lame at a desolate part of the road from Florence to Bologna, he had no doubt but that somehow fortune would serve him. His horse stepped gingerly... more...

So far as parties go, Jocelyn's were no duller than any others. I went to this one mainly to listen to Paul Kutrov and Frank Alva bait each other, which is usually more entertaining than most double features. Kutrov adheres to the "onward and upward" school of linear progress, while Alva is more or less of a Spenglerian. More when he goes along by himself; less when you try to pin him down... more...

Knut Hamsun: From Hunger to Harvest Between "Hunger" and "Growth of the Soil" lies the time generally allotted to a generation, but at first glance the two books seem much farther apart. One expresses the passionate revolt of a homeless wanderer against the conventional routine of modern life. The other celebrates a root-fast existence bounded in every direction by monotonous chores.... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE DEEP WOODS A light wind sang through the foliage, turned to varying and vivid hues now by the touch of autumn, and it had an edge of cold that made Robert Lennox shiver a little, despite a hardy life in wilderness and open. But it was only a passing feeling. A moment or two later he forgot it, and, turning his eyes to the west, watched the vast terraces of blazing color piled one above... more...

CHAPTER I.THE HOME ITSELF.Itwas a pleasant place. The house was a large, low, old-fashioned one, with the modern addition of a deep, wide verandah running across its front. Before it was a circular sweep of lawn, fringed with trees; beside it stood a few noble elms, which bent lovingly above the gambrel roof. There were some flower-beds, rather neglected-looking, under the south windows, and there was... more...