General Books

CHAPTER I N a blaze of splendor the morning sun broke over the mountain, throwing its scraggy brown bowlders, spruce-pines, thorn-bushes, and tangled vines into impenetrable shadow. Massed at the base and along the rocky sides were mists as dense as clouds, through the filmy upper edges of which the yellow light shone as through a mighty prism, dancing on the dew-coated corn-blades, cotton-plants, and... more...

Chapter I. ne September morning, many years ago, when the Channel Islands seemed further off than they do now, and for some of them communication with the outer world hardly existed, some two hours after the sun had risen out of the sea, and while the grass and the low-growing bushes were still fresh with the morning dew, a young girl tripped lightly along the ridge of a headland which formed the south... more...

CHAPTER I.   Sam Lyman. In more than one of the sleepy neighborhoods that lay about the drowsy town of Old Ebenezer, Sam Lyman had lolled and dreamed. He had come out of the keen air of Vermont, and for a time he was looked upon as a marvel of energy, but the soft atmosphere of a southwestern state soothed the Yankee worry out of his walk, and made him content to sit in the shade, to wait for the... more...

He was just emerging for the hundredth time during the week from the frightening hallucination that had come to plague him, when Kitty Murchinsom came into his office. "It's almost 15:00, Philip," she said. When she had entered, her face had taken on the placid look that everyone wore—unwittingly, but inevitably—the instant they came near Alcorn. Finding Kitty's cool blonde... more...

hey're all around us. I'll call them the slizzers, because they sliz people. Lord only knows how long they've been on Earth, and how many of them there are.... They're all around us, living with us. We are hardly ever aware of their existence, because they can make themselves look like us, and do most of the time; and if they can look like us, there's really no need for them to... more...

Richard Herrick was a young man with a gentle disposition, much money, and no sense of humor. His object in life was to marry Miss Catherweight. For three years she had tried to persuade him this could not be, and finally, in order to convince him, married some one else. When the woman he loves marries another man, the rejected one is popularly supposed to take to drink or to foreign travel. Statistics... more...

I. It was many years ago.  Hadleyburg was the most honest and upright town in all the region round about.  It had kept that reputation unsmirched during three generations, and was prouder of it than of any other of its possessions.  It was so proud of it, and so anxious to insure its perpetuation, that it began to teach the principles of honest dealing to its babies in the cradle, and made the like... more...

CHAPTER I. SOME OPINIONS AND A WEDDING "I, Bertram, take thee, Billy," chanted the white-robed clergyman. "'I, Bertram, take thee, Billy,'" echoed the tall young bridegroom, his eyes gravely tender. "To my wedded wife." "'To my wedded wife.'" The bridegroom's voice shook a little. "To have and to hold from this day forward." "'To... more...

CHAPTER I Early life—Leaving home—I meet Jensen—I go pearling—Daily routine—Submarine beauties—A fortune in pearls—Seized by an octopus—Shark-killing extraordinary—Trading with the natives—Impending trouble—Preparing for the attack—Baffling the savages. I was born in or near Paris, in the year 1844.  My father was a fairly prosperous man of business—a general merchant, to be... more...

ATHALIA HALL stopped to get her breath and look back over the road climbing steeply up from the covered bridge. It was a little after five, and the delicate air of dawn was full of wood and pasture scents—the sweetness of bay and the freshness of dew-drenched leaves. In the valley night still hung like gauze under the trees, but the top of the hill was glittering with sunshine. "Why, we've... more...