Short Stories

  An Habitation Enforced by Rudyard Kipling   My friend, if cause doth wrest thee, Ere folly hath much oppressed thee, Far from acquaintance kest thee Where country may digest thee . . . Thank God that so hath blessed ...

  An Error In The Fourth Dimension by Rudyard Kipling   Before he was thirty, he discovered that there was no one to play with him. Though the wealth of three toilsome generations stood to his account, though his tastes ...

  A Matter of Fact by Rudyard Kipling   And if ye doubt the tale I tell, Steer through the South Pacific swell; Go where the branching coral hives Unending strife of endless lives, Where, leagued about the ‘wildered boat, ...

  The Fiddler by Herman Melville   So my poem is damned, and immortal fame is not for me! I am nobody forever and ever. Intolerable fate! Snatching my hat, I dashed down the criticism, and rushed out into Broadway, ...

  The Encantadas; or, Enchanted Isles by Herman Melville   (1854)SKETCH FIRST.THE ISLES AT LARGE. –“That may not be, said then the ferryman, Least we unweeting hap to be fordonne; For those same islands seeming now and than, Are not ...

  The Bell-Tower by Herman Melville   In the south of Europe, nigh a once frescoed capital, now with dankmould cankering its bloom, central in a plain, stands what, at distance,seems the black mossed stump of some immeasurable pine, fallen, ...

  The Apple-Tree Table by Herman Melville   or Original Spiritual Manifestations When I first saw the table, dingy and dusty, in the furthest corner of the old hopper-shaped garret, and set out with broken, be-crusted old purple vials and ...

  Poor Man’s Pudding and Rich Man’s Crumbs by Herman Melville   POOR MAN’S PUDDING YOU see,” said poet Blandmour, enthusiastically—as some forty years ago we walked along the road in a soft, moist snowfall, toward the end of March—”you ...

  Endicott and the Red Cross by Nathaniel Hawthorne   At noon of on autumnal day, more than two centuries ago, the English colors were displayed by the standard-bearer of the Salem trainband, which had mustered for martial exercise under ...

  Egotism; or, The Bosom Serpent by Nathaniel Hawthorne   “Here he comes!” shouted the boys along the street. “Here comes the man with a snake in his bosom!” This outcry, saluting Herkimer’s ears as he was about to enter ...

  Edward Fane’s Rosebud by Nathaniel Hawthorne   There is hardly a more difficult exercise of fancy than, while gazing at a figure of melancholy age, to recreate its youth, and without entirely obliterating the identity of form and features ...

  Drowne’s Wooden Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne   One sunshiny morning, in the good old times of the town of Boston, a young carver in wood, well known by the name of Drowne, stood contemplating a large oaken log, which ...

  Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment by Nathaniel Hawthorne   That very singular man, old Doctor Heidegger, once invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were three white-bearded gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne, and a ...

  Thrawn Janet by Robert Louis Stevenson   The Reverend Murdoch Soulis was long minister of the moorland parish of Balweary, in the vale of Dule. A severe, bleak-faced old man, dreadful to his hearers, he dwelt in the last ...

  The Waif Woman by Robert Louis Stevenson     THE WAIF WOMAN A CUE FROM A SAGA   This is a tale of Iceland, the isle of stories, and of a thing that befell in the year of the ...

  The Sire de Maletroit’s Door by Robert Louis Stevenson   Denis de Beaulieu was not yet two-and-twenty, but he counted himself a grown man, and a very accomplished cavalier into the bargain. Lads were early formed in that rough, ...

  The Sea Fogs by Robert Louis Stevenson   A sheeted spectre white and tall, The cold mist climbs the castle wall And lays its hand upon thy cheek. ~Longfellow.     Introduction by Thomas Rutherford Bacon.   Robert Louis ...

  The Scientific Ape by Robert Louis Stevenson   IN A CERTAIN West Indian Isle, there stood a house and hard by a grove of trees. In the house there dwelt a vivisectionist, and on the trees a clan of ...

  The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson   There was a man of the Island of Hawaii, whom I shall call Keawe; for the truth is, he still lives, and his name must be kept secret; but the place ...

  The Clockmaker by Robert Louis Stevenson   THE CARAFFE stood on a table in the midst of the room. For near a week no one had passed the door; the maid was careless and since a month, the water ...