The Patagoniaby Henry JamesCHAPTER IThe houses were dark in the August night and the perspective ofBeacon Street, with its double chain of lamps, was a foreshorteneddesert. The club on the hill alone, from its semi-cylindrical front,projected a glow upon the dusky vagueness of the Common, and as Ipassed it I heard in the hot stillness the click of a pair ofbilliard-balls. As "every one" was out of town perhaps the servants,in the extravagance of their leisure, were profaning the tables. Theheat was insufferable and I thought with joy of the morrow, of the...
Love-Songs of Childhoodby Eugene FieldTo Mrs. Belle AnglerDearest Aunt:Many years ago you used to rock me to sleep, cradling me in yourarms and singing me petty songs. Surely you have not forgottenthat time, and I recall it with tenderness. You were verybeautiful then. But you are more beautiful now; for, in the yearsthat have come and gone since then, the joys and the sorrows ofmaternity have impressed their saintly grace upon the dear face Iused to kiss, and have made your gentle heart gentler still....
A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHYTwo or three persons having at different times intimated that if Iwould write an autobiography they would read it when they got leisure,I yield at last to this frenzied public demand and herewith tendermy history.Ours is a noble house, and stretches a long way back into antiquity.The earliest ancestor the Twains have any record of was a friend ofthe family by the name of Higgins. This was in the eleventh century,when our people were living in Aberdeen, county of Cork, England.Why it is that our long line has ever since borne the maternal...
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTWO BROTHERSby Hans Christian AndersenON one of the Danish islands, where old Thingstones, the seatsof justice of our forefathers, still stand in the cornfields, and hugetrees rise in the forests of beech, there lies a little town whose lowhouses are covered with red tiles. In one of these houses strangethings were brewing over the glowing coals on the open hearth; therewas a boiling going on in glasses, and a mixing and distilling,while herbs were being cut up and pounded in mortars. An elderly man...
The Wood Beyond the Worldby William MorrisCHAPTER I: OF GOLDEN WALTER AND HIS FATHERAwhile ago there was a young man dwelling in a great and goodly cityby the sea which had to name Langton on Holm. He was but of fiveand twenty winters, a fair-faced man, yellow-haired, tall andstrong; rather wiser than foolisher than young men are mostly wont;a valiant youth, and a kind; not of many words but courteous ofspeech; no roisterer, nought masterful, but peaceable and knowinghow to forbear: in a fray a perilous foe, and a trusty war-fellow.His father, with whom he was dwelling when this tale begi
A Reading of Life, and Other Poemsby George MeredithContents:A Reading of Life - The Vital ChoiceA Reading of Life - With The HuntressA Reading of Life - With The PersuaderA Reading of Life - The Test Of ManhoodThe Cageing Of AresThe Night-WalkThe Hueless LoveSong In The SonglessUnion In DisseveranceThe Burden Of StrengthThe Main RegretAlternationHawardenAt The CloseForest HistoryA Garden IdylForesight And PatienceThe Invective Of AchillesThe Invective of Achilles - V. 225....
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTHE LITTLE ELDER-TREE MOTHERby Hans Christian AndersenTHERE was once a little boy who had caught cold; he had gone outand got wet feet. Nobody had the least idea how it had happened; theweather was quite dry. His mother undressed him, put him to bed, andordered the teapot to be brought in, that she might make him a goodcup of tea from the elder-tree blossoms, which is so warming. At thesame time, the kind-hearted old man who lived by himself in theupper storey of the house came in; he led a lonely life, for he had no...
Father Goriotby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Ellen MarriageTo the great and illustrious Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, a tokenof admiration for his works and genius.DE BALZAC.Mme. Vauquer (nee de Conflans) is an elderly person, who for thepast forty years has kept a lodging-house in the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve, in the district that lies between the LatinQuarter and the Faubourg Saint-Marcel. Her house (known in theneighborhood as the Maison Vauquer) receives men and women, oldand young, and no word has ever been breathed against her...
The Hungry Stones And Other Storiesby Rabindranath TagoreContents:The Hungry StonesThe VictoryOnce There Was A KingThe Home-comingMy Lord, The BabyThe Kingdom Of CardsThe DevoteeVisionThe Babus Of NayanjoreLiving Or Dead?"We Crown Thee King"The RenunciationThe Cabuliwallah[The Fruitseller from Cabul]THE HUNGRY STONESMy kinsman and myself were returning to Calcutta from our Puja trip when we met the man in a train. From his dress and bearing we took him at first for an up-country Mahomedan, but we were puzzled as we heard him...
Whirligigsby O HenryTHE WORLD AND THE DOORA favourite dodge to get your story read by thepublic is to assert that it is true, and then add that Truthis stranger than Fiction. I do not know if the yarn Iam anxious for you to read is true; but the Spanish purserof the fruit steamer El Carrero swore to me by the shrineof Santa Guadalupe that he had the facts from the U. S.vice-consul at La Paz - a person who could not possiblyhave been cognizant of half of them.As for the adage quoted above, I take pleasure in punc-...
THE RED CROSS GIRLTHE RED CROSS GIRLBY RICHARD HARDING DAVISWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GOUVERNEUR MORRIS1- Page 2-THE RED CROSS GIRLINTRODUCTION"And they rise to their feet as he passes, gentlemen unafraid."He was almost too good to be true. In addition, the gods loved him,and so he had to die young. Some people think that a man of fifty-two ismiddle-aged. But if R. H. D. had lived to be a hundred, he would never...
CONDENSED NOVELSCONDENSED NOVELSby BRET HARTE1- Page 2-CONDENSED NOVELSHANDSOME IS AS HANDSOMEDOES.BY CHS RDE.2- Page 3-CONDENSED NOVELSCHAPTER I.The Dodds were dead. For twenty year they had slept under the greengraves of Kittery churchyard. The townfolk still spoke of them kindly. The...
The Friendly Road; New Adventures in Contentmentby David Grayson"Surely it is good to be alive at a time like this."A WORD TO HIM WHO OPENS THIS BOOKI did not plan when I began writing these chapters to make an entire book, but only to put down the more or less unusual impressions, the events and adventures, of certain quiet pilgrimages in country roads. But when I had written down all of these things, I found I had material in plenty."What shall I call it now that I have written it?" I asked myself.At first I thought I should call it "Adventures on the Road," or "The Country Road," or someth
Flatland: A Romance of Many DimensionsEdwin A. Abbott (1838-1926. English scholar, theologian, and writer.)ToThe Inhabitants of SPACE IN GENERALAnd H. C. IN PARTICULARThis Work is DedicatedBy a Humble Native of FlatlandIn the Hope thatEven as he was Initiated into the MysteriesOf THREE DimensionsHaving been previously conversantWith ONLY TWO...
THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMESA Case of Identity"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side ofthe fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitelystranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. Wewould not dare to conceive the things which are really merecommonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that windowhand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs,and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange...
THE MASTER CAT; OR, PUSS IN BOOTSTHERE was a miller who left no more estate to the threesons he had than his mill, his ass, and his cat. Thepartition was soon made. Neither scrivener nor attorneywas sent for. They would soon have eaten up all the poorpatrimony. The eldest had the mill, the second the ass,and the youngest nothing but the cat. The poor youngfellow was quite comfortless at having so poor a lot."My brothers," said he, "may get their livinghandsomely enough by joining their stocks together; but formy part, when I have eaten up my cat, and made me a...