Category: Short Stories

The Four-Masted Cat-Boat, and Other Truthful Tales

To send a book into the world without a preface is like thrusting a bashful man into a room full of company without introducing him; and there could be only one thing worse than that,--to a bashful man,--and that would be to introduce him.

Chapters

7. Part 7

Thomas Morley knew the value of promptitude. He was a young man on whom ninety-two seasons had poured benefits and adversities, although many of the latter he took to be the for...

3. Part 3

“As I came away, he said: ‘Glad to have you call any time that you feel the need of a few plain truths. We have a minister who says what he thinks in a very trenchant way, and I...

6. Part 6

“_Resolved_, That we hereby express our contempt for a man who, with every incentive to be always bad, should have so far forgotten himself as to lead a third of a worthy life.”

2. Part 2

“Well, those cakes of ice were evidently formed in a hens’ drinking-pan. They are solid. The water froze a little all day long, and froze solid in the night. It was thawed out i...

5. Part 5

I here interrupted the flow of his conversation to say: “Your experience is not unlike that of the reviewer who criticized ‘Silas Lapham,’ and who had a sort of hazy notion from...

4. Part 4

“‘Do you sell it by the yard?’ I asked, just to bring him out. ‘Shuah!’ and pulling down a roll of black goods, he unrolled enough dialect to color ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ But I sa...

1. Part 1

To send a book into the world without a preface is like thrusting a bashful man into a room full of company without introducing him; and there could be only one thing worse than...

8. Part 8

But this dreadful waste of time that is going on in thousands of homes in this country every day was brought home to me in a still more striking manner not long after. My sister...