The Romance of a Plain Man

"Do you think I'd be left?" I demanded.

Her eyes filled and as she turned from me, a tear fell on my hand.

"But your work, your career – oh, no, no, Ben, no."

"You are my career, darling, I have never in my heart had any career but you. What I am, I am yours, Sally, but there are things that I cannot give you because they are not mine, because they are not in me. These are the things that were George's."

Lifting my hand she kissed it gently and let it fall with a gesture that expressed an acquiescence in life rather than a surrender to love.

"I've sometimes thought that if I hadn't loved you first, Ben – if I could ever have changed, I should have loved George," she said, and added very softly, like one who seeks to draw strength from a radiant memory, "but I had already loved you once for all, I suppose, in the beginning."

"I am yours, such as I am," I returned. "Plain I shall always be – plain and rough sometimes, and forgetful to the end of the little things – but the big things are there as you know, Sally, as you know."

"As I know," she repeated, a little sadly, yet with the pathetic courage in her voice; "and it is the big things, after all, that I've wanted most all my life."

Then she shook her head with a smile that brought me to my knees at her side.

"You've forgotten the railroad," she said. "You've forgotten the presidency of the South Midland – that's what you wanted most."

My laugh answered her. "Hang the presidency of the South Midland!" I responded gaily.

Her brows went up, and she looked at me with the shadow of her old charming archness. By this look I knew that the spirit of the Blands would fight on, though always with that faint wonder. Then her eyes fell on the crumpled telegram I still held in my hand, and she reached to take it.

"What is that, dear?" she asked.

Breaking away from her, I walked to the fireplace and tossed the offer of the presidency of the South Midland and Atlantic Railroad into the grate. It caught slowly, and I stood there while it flamed up, and then crumbled with curled fiery ends among the ashes. When it was quite gone, I turned and came back to her.

"Only a bit of waste paper," I answered.

Mr. JAMES LANE ALLEN'S NOVELS

The Choir Invisible

"One reads the story for the story's sake, and then re-reads the book out of pure delight in its beauty. The story is American to the very core… Mr. Allen stands to-day in the front rank of American novelists. The Choir Invisible will solidify a reputation already established and bring into clear light his rare gifts as an artist. For this latest story is as genuine a work of art as has come from an American hand." – Hamilton Mabie in The Outlook.

The Reign of Law. A Tale of the Kentucky Hempfields

"Mr. Allen has a style as original and almost as perfectly finished as Hawthorne's, and he has also Hawthorne's fondness for spiritual suggestion that makes all his stories rich in the qualities that are lacking in so many novels of the period… If read in the right way, it cannot fail to add to one's spiritual possessions." —San Francisco Chronicle.

The Mettle of the Pasture

"It may be that The Mettle of the Pasture will live and become a part of our literature; it certainly will live far beyond the allotted term of present-day fiction. Our principal concern is that it is a notable novel, that it ranks high in the range of American and English fiction, and that it is worth the reading, the re-reading, and the continuous appreciation of those who care for modern literature at its best." – By E. F. E. in the Boston Transcript.

Summer in Arcady. A Tale of Nature

"This story by James Lane Allen is one of the gems of the season. It is artistic in its setting, realistic and true to nature and life in its descriptions, dramatic, pathetic, tragic, in its incidents; indeed, a veritable masterpiece that must become classic. It is difficult to give an outline of the story; it is one of the stories which do not outline; it must be read." —Boston Daily Advertiser.

Shorter Stories

The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky

Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales

The Bride of the Mistletoe

A Kentucky Cardinal.

Aftermath. A Sequel to "A Kentucky Cardinal"

Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS

Mr. Crawford has no equal as a writer of brilliant cosmopolitan fiction, in which the characters really belong to the chosen scene and the story interest is strong. His novels possess atmosphere in a high degree.

Mr. Isaacs (India)

Its scenes are laid in Simla, chiefly. This is the work which first placed its author among the most brilliant novelists of his day.

Greifenstein (The Black Forest)

"… Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It possesses originality in its conception and is a work of unusual ability. Its interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance even on the previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr. Crawford's work, this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great deal of interest." —New York Evening Telegram.

Zoroaster (Persia)

"It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly do." —The New York Times.

The Witch of Prague (Bohemia)

"A fantastic tale," illustrated by W. J. Hennessy.

"The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is admirable and delightful… Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout… A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting story." —New York Tribune.

Paul Patoff (Constantinople)

"Mr. Crawford has a marked talent for assimilating local color, not to make mention of a broader historical sense. Even though he may adopt, as it is the romancer's right to do, the extreme romantic view of history, it is always a living and moving picture that he evolves for us, varied and stirring." —New York Evening Post.

Marietta (Venice)

"No living writer can surpass Mr. Crawford in the construction of a complicated plot and the skilful unravelling of the tangled skein." —Chicago Record-Herald.

"He has gone back to the field of his earlier triumphs, and has, perhaps, scored the greatest triumph of them all." —New York Herald.

THE SARACINESCA SERIES

Saracinesca

"The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great, – that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope's temporal power… The story is exquisitely told." —Boston Traveler.

Sant' Ilario. A Sequel to "Saracinesca"