General Books

Chapter One It was always a matter of wonder to Vandover that he was able to recall so little of his past life. With the exception of the most recent events he could remember nothing connectedly. What he at first imagined to be the story of his life, on closer inspection turned out to be but a few disconnected incidents that his memory had preserved with the greatest capriciousness, absolutely... more...

CHAPTER I When I was a child I lived in a small sea-coast town, with wide, flat sands. The only beautiful thing in the place—a town of no distinction—were the sunsets over this vast, level expanse. I remember them at intervals, as one recalls things seen passing in a train through a solitary landscape. I seem to see myself, a child with a child's imagination, standing on those wet sands,... more...

PART I I It was eleven o'clock in the morning when Mariano Renovales reached the Museo del Prado. Several years had passed since the famous painter had entered it. The dead did not attract him; very interesting they were, very worthy of respect, under the glorious shroud of the centuries, but art was moving along new paths and he could not study there under the false glare of the skylights, where... more...

CHAPTER I By easy stages Blue Jeans had arrived at the water tanks. That had not pleased him much, though the water which fell in a musical drip from the stack nearest the rails into what impressed one as a sensible, frugal tub, until it, too, filled and overflowed and betrayed its trivial nature, was sweet on his tongue and grateful to his mare. Arriving anywhere by easy stages had never appealed to... more...

I Finding himself in the level wood-road, whose open aisle drew a long, straight streak across the sky, still luminous with the late-lingering Adirondack twilight, the tall young fugitive, hatless, coatless, and barefooted, paused a minute for reflection. As he paused, he listened; but all distinctiveness of sound was lost in the play of the wind, up hill and down dale, through chasm and over crag, in... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. "It is not often that what we call the 'great sorrows of life' cause us the greatest sorrow. Death, acute disease, sudden and great losses—these are sometimes easily borne compared with those intricate difficulties which, without name and without appearance, work themselves into the web of our daily life, and, if not rightly met, corrode and tarnish all its... more...

Left entirely alone on a quiet afternoon, the unbroken stillness which surrounded me, as well as the soft haze which floats upon the atmosphere, in that most delightful of all seasons, the glorious "Indian Summer" of Eastern Canada, caused my thoughts to wander far away into the dreamy regions of the past, and many scenes long past, and almost forgotten, passed in review before my mind's... more...

CHAPTER I. HOW DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND, AND HOW THE SPARKS FLEW. The windows are all wide open, and through them the warm, lazy summer wind is stealing languidly. The perfume of the seringas from the shrubbery beyond, mingled with all the lesser but more delicate delights of the garden beneath, comes with the wind, and fills the drawing-room of The Place with a vague, almost drowsy sense of sweetness. Mrs.... more...

I. MY GRANDMOTHER AND I. My grandmother sat in her own particular easy-chair by the open window of her back parlor. This was a pleasant place in which to sit in the afternoon, for the sun was then on the other side of the house, and she could look not only over the smooth grass of the side yard and the flower beds, which were under her especial care, but across the corner of the front lawn into the... more...

HIS OWN PEOPLE "You never met Selwyn, did you?" "No, sir." "Never heard anything definite about his trouble?" insisted Gerard. "Oh, yes, sir!" replied young Erroll, "I've heard a good deal about it. Everybody has, you know." "Well, I don't know," retorted Austin Gerard irritably, "what 'everybody' has heard, but I suppose it's... more...