Romance Books

CHAPTER I. On the stern, pine-clad southern coast of Norway, off the picturesquely-situated town of Arendal, stand planted far out into the sea the white walls of the Great and Little Torungen Lighthouses, each on its bare rock-island of corresponding name, the lesser of which seems, as you sail past, to have only just room for the lighthouse and the attendant's residence by the side. It is a wild... more...

TALE LI. Because he would not have his son make a poor marriage, theDuke of Urbino, contrary to the promise given to his wife,hanged a young maiden by whom his son was wont to inform hissweetheart of the love he bore her. The Duke of Urbino, called the Prefect, (1) the same that married the sister of the first Duke of Mantua, had a son of between eighteen and twenty years of age, who was in love with a... more...

TALE XIX. Pauline, being in love with a gentleman no less than he was with her, and finding that he, because forbidden ever again to speak with her, had entered the monastery of the Observance, gained admittance for her own part into the convent of St. Clara, where she took the veil; thus fulfilling the desire she had conceived to bring the gentleman's love and her own to a like ending in respect... more...

TALE XXXI. A monastery of Grey Friars was burned down, with the monksthat were in it, as a perpetual memorial of the crueltypractised by one among them that was in love with a lady. In the lands subject to the Emperor Maximilian of Austria (1) there was a monastery of Grey Friars that was held in high repute, and nigh to it stood the house of a gentleman who was so kindly disposed to these monks that... more...

CHAPTER I It was an evening late in November. The fog that during the afternoon had been lying like a crouching beast between the closely built houses had now risen. It was as though it had waited till nightfall for its prey, and then departed, leaving a sense of sulkiness in the atmosphere that weighed persistently on the spirits. A slight drizzling rain was wetting the pavements. It clung in a mist... more...

I Dream.         True, I talk of dreams;Which are the children of an idle brain,Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,Which is as thin of substance as the air;And more inconstant than the wind, who woosEven now the frozen bosom of the north,And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence,Turning his face to the dew-dropping south. Il est naturel que nos idées les plus vives et les plus familières se... more...

CHAPTER I A NIGHT journey is essentially a thing of possibilities. To those who count it as mere transit, mere linking of experiences, it is, of course, a commonplace; but to the imaginative, who by gift divine see a picture in every cloud, a story behind every shadow, it suggests romance—romance in the very making.Such a vessel of inspiration was the powerful north express as it thundered over the... more...

I She sat at the base of the big tree—her little sunbonnet pushed back, her arms locked about her knees, her bare feet gathered under her crimson gown and her deep eyes fixed on the smoke in the valley below. Her breath was still coming fast between her parted lips. There were tiny drops along the roots of her shining hair, for the climb had been steep, and now the shadow of disappointment darkened... more...

I In the living-room of The Dreamerie, his home on Tyee Head, Hector McKaye, owner of the Tyee Lumber Company and familiarly known as "The Laird," was wont to sit in his hours of leisure, smoking and building castles in Spain—for his son Donald. Here he planned the acquisition of more timber and the installation of an electric-light plant to furnish light, heat, and power to his own town of... more...

HEIRESS AND HEIR They stood high on the Abbey cliff-edge—an old man, eagle-profiled, hawk-beaked, cockatoo-crested, with angry grey eyebrows running peakily upwards towards his temples at either side ... and a boy. They were the Earl Raincy and his grandson Louis—all the world knew them in that country of the Southern Albanach. For Leo Raincy was a great man, and the lad the heir of all he... more...