PREFACE The pessimistic tone of Continental fiction, and its pronounced preference for minute and morbid analysis, are quite revolutionizing the modern novel. Fiction is ceasing to be a branch of art, and fast becoming, instead, a branch of science. The aim of the novelist, apparently, is to lecture instead of to amuse his readers. Plot, incident, and description are being sacrificed more and more to... more...

A FAIRY TALE. ADRIAN and Amaranthé were born in an old castle, that had once been the scene of splendour and festivity, but, together with the fortunes of its owners, had fallen very much into decay. Their parents, in proud resentment of the fancied neglect and ingratitude of the world, had lived retired in the only habitable part of it from the time of their birth, associating but little with the... more...

INTRODUCTION A Threefold Aim.—This book is based upon three theses—namely, first, that the monogamic, private, family is a priceless inheritance from the past and should be preserved; second, that in order to preserve it many of its inherited customs and mechanisms must be modified to suit new social demands; and third, that present day experimentation and idealistic effort already indicate certain... more...

INTRODUCTION. From the remote period; when the Roman province was contracted by the ramparts of Severus, until the union of the kingdoms, the borders of Scotland formed the stage, upon which were presented the most memorable conflicts of two gallant nations. The inhabitants, at the commencement of this aera, formed the first wave of the torrent which assaulted, and finally overwhelmed, the barriers of... more...

Mason was nervous. It was the nervousness of cold apprehension, not simply that which had become indigenous to his high-strung make-up. He was, in his way, afraid; afraid that he'd again come up with a wrong answer. He'd brought the tiny Scout too close to the Rim. Facing the facts squarely, he knew, even as he fingered the stud that would wrench them out of their R-curve, that he'd not... more...

"CHRISTMAS PRESENTS MADE HERE." BOUT a year ago, Edwin had a Christmas present of a jig-saw. If Santa Claus brought it, then Santa Claus did a good thing for himself; for last Christmas his pack was loaded down with presents of Edwin's manufacture.Nice little brackets to set up against the wall, nice little bedsteads, book-shelves, toy-houses, frames for pictures, card-baskets,—these are... more...

He who shakes the tree of Vengeance but harvests apples of Sodom in whose fruit of ashes he becomes buried, for the wage of the sinner is death. There was no doubt of Ragobah's guilt in any of our minds, so that action at our end of the line seemed entirely useless, and nothing was left us but to quietly await whatever developments Maitland should disclose. We were not kept long in suspense, for... more...

OFF TO WAR The time was late in the autumn of the second year of the war; the place, the garden of a war hospital in a small Austrian town, which lay at the base of wooded hills, sequestered as behind a Spanish wall, and still preserving its sleepy contented outlook upon existence. Day and night the locomotives whistled by. Some of them hauled to the front trains of soldiers singing and hallooing,... more...

A DESCENT ON LONDON On a day in August, in one of those swiftly-moving years which hurried Europe towards the catastrophe awaiting it, there arrived in London a couple of unusual appearance, striking, charming, and amusing. The man was tall, big, and queerly compounded of sensitive beauty and stodgy awkwardness. He entered London with an air of hostility; sniffed distastefully the smells of the... more...

BOOK I SYLVIA AS WIFE 1. I am telling the story of Sylvia Castleman. I should prefer to tell it without mention of myself; but it was written in the book of fate that I should be a decisive factor in her life, and so her story pre-supposes mine. I imagine the impatience of a reader, who is promised a heroine out of a romantic and picturesque "society" world, and finds himself beginning with the... more...