The cruiser vanished back into hyperspace and he was alone in the observation bubble, ten thousand light-years beyond the galaxy's outermost sun. He looked out the windows at the gigantic sea of emptiness around him and wondered again what the danger had been that had so terrified the men before him. Of one thing he was already certain; he would find that nothing was waiting outside the bubble to... more...

INTRODUCTORY The New Influences and Tendencies Mere statistics are untrustworthy; dates are even less dependable. But, to avoid hairsplitting, what we call "modern" English literature may be said to date from about 1885. A few writers who are decidedly "of the period" are, as a matter of strict chronology, somewhat earlier. But the chief tendencies may be divided into seven periods.... more...

THE SOLDIER OF THE VALLEY I I was a soldier. I was a hero. You notice my tenses are past. I am a simple school-teacher now, a prisoner in Black Log. There are no bars to my keep, only the wall of mountains that make the valley; and look at them on a clear day, when sunshine and shadow play over their green slopes, when the clouds all white and gold swing lazily in the blue above them, and they speak of... more...

PREFATORY NOTE. The collection of letters and documents which has occasioned the preparation of the present volume, though it has been so long buried in obscurity, appears to have been originally made with a view to publication. It was for many years, and until his decease, in the possession of Mr. Abel Bowen, a well-known engraver and publisher, of Boston, sixty years ago, and was obtained by him from... more...

THE DREAMER The boy sat with his back to a rock, his knees drawn up and clasped within fingers nervously interlocked. His eyes were fixed upon the great stretch of landscape below, shadowy now, and indistinct, like a rolling plain of patchwork woven by mysterious fingers. Gray mists were floating over the meadows and low-lying lands. Away in the distance they marked the circuitous course of the river,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF Moving among the members of the second Continental Congress, which met at Philadelphia in May, 1775, was one, and but one, military figure. George Washington alone attended the sittings in uniform. This colonel from Virginia, now in his forty-fourth year, was a great landholder, an owner of slaves, an Anglican churchman, an aristocrat, everything that stands in... more...

SAM BLANEY   "Patty, Patty, pit-a-pat,  Grinning like a Chessy Cat, if you don't stop looking so everlasting cheerful, I'll throw something at you!" "Throw," returned Patty, as her grin perceptibly and purposely widened to the full extent of her scarlet lips. "All right!" and Elise threw a sofa cushion and another and another, following them up with a knitted... more...

CHAPTER I. VISCOUNT IPSDEN, aged twenty-five, income eighteen thousand pounds per year, constitution equine, was unhappy! This might surprise some people; but there are certain blessings, the non-possession of which makes more people discontented than their possession renders happy. Foremost among these are "Wealth and Rank." Were I to add "Beauty" to the list, such men and women as go... more...

CHAPTER FIRST. How have I sinn'd, that this afflictionShould light so heavy on me? I have no more sons,And this no more mine own.—My grand curseHang o'er his head that thus transformed thee!—Travel? I'll send my horse to travel next.Monsieur Thomas. You have requested me, my dear friend, to bestow some of that leisure, with which Providence has blessed the decline of my life, in... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE CHURCH It was Sunday morning in a church at New Laodicea. The bell had ceased pealing and the great organ began its prelude with deep bass notes that vibrated through the stately building. The members of the choir were all in their places in the rear gallery, and prepared in order their music in the racks before them. Below the worshipers poured in steady, quiet streams down the... more...