Under the Skylights

With the publication of his first book, _This Weary World_, Abner Joyce immediately took a place in literature. Or rather, he made it; the book was not like other books, and rea...

But Abner would none of it. Possessed of the fatalistic belief in the efficacy of mere legislation such as dominates the rural townships of the West, he grasped his companion fi...

"My father's. We try to do a little livening up for the old people every July and August. They got acquainted there; they took to it like ducks to water. That's where Bond got h...

Clytie fell into silence and nursed her wrath through a long service and through a hearty rustic sermon from the text, "Peace on earth, goodwill toward men." Abner, in exacerbat...

"I know I'm a fastidious, ungrateful wretch," he said to himself, as he saw his trunk started off to a better neighbourhood and prepared to follow it. "They've been very kind to...

The good Doctor, now alone with Abner, gave him a chance to celebrate himself, to make known what there was in him. But Abner remained inexpressive; and the Doctor, who himself...

Adrian and Clytie were but lately back from their wedding-trip. Adrian, after several years of unproductive traffic in exotic literature, had finally made a hit; he had been abl...

Thus, at least, Virgilia Jeffreys saw him. Virgilia herself was intellectual to excess and cultivated beyond the utmost bounds of reason; indeed, her people were beginning to wo...

"Then I don't see but that he is about the man for us," said Roscoe Orlando Gibbons;--"at least he seems to provide a point for us to start from."

"They're business-men," returned Virgilia. "For our own credit--for our own salvation, indeed--we must be clear-cut and definite. Even if we are artists we mustn't give those ha...

Prochnow turned on him with a grim tight smile--a smile that slightly dilated the nostrils of his good firm nose and shifted in ever so small a degree the smutch of black beneat...

A few days later, and his bold step seemed justified. The directors were an elusive body, and even when got together they found it hard to act with anything like unanimity and d...

Prochnow remained smilelessly severe; and Little O'Grady, after one or two more feeble efforts to save his "face," slunk away--vastly impressed, as he never failed to be when he...

"Don't. There is still some hope left," said Prochnow thickly, "and you would only make matters worse. A great deal of unsuspected talent has been developed, it appears, by thes...

Eudoxia Pence immediately got herself into motion. During the watches of the night she evolved plans for such a function as she thought the present situation required. Her pictu...

_Onward and Upward_ was full of the customary things--things that get said and believed (said from mere habit and believed from mere inertia),--things that must be said and beli...

The country parsons, left to themselves, would have admired the ingenuity of this zoological presentation, but Dr. Gowdy's intimidating strictures froze their appreciation. They...

Well, what would they have? demanded the Doctor. Should we gain anything whatever by always throwing bouquets at ourselves? Could we go along forever living on the flubdub of se...