Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:28

Excerpt #1, from Caesar and Cleopatra, by Bernard Shaw

…like the starry firmament. CAESAR (prosaically). Why not simply The Cradle of the Nile? CLEOPATRA. No: the Nile is my ancestor; and he is a god. Oh! I have thought of something. The Nile shall name it himself. Let us call upon him. (To the Major-Domo) Send for him. (The three men stare at one another; but the Major-Domo goes out as if he had received the most matter-of-fact order.) And (to the retinue) away with you all. The retinue withdraws, making obeisance. A priest enters, carrying a miniature sphinx with a tiny tripod before it. A morsel of incense is smoking in the tripod. The priest comes to the table and places the image in the middle of it. The light begins to change to the magenta purple of the Egyptian sunset, as if the god had brought a strange colored shadow with him. The three men are determined not to be impressed; but they feel curious in spite of themselves. CAESAR. What hocus-pocus is this? CLEOPATRA. You shall see. And it is not hocus-pocus. To do it properly, we should kill something to please him; but perhaps he will answer Caesar without that if we spill some wine to him. APOLLODORUS (turning his head to look up over his shoulder at Ra). Why not appeal to our hawkheaded friend here?…

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Excerpt #2, from Tales of the Air Mail Pilots, by Burt M. McConnell

…through the drifts. Eagerly grasping the wings, they helped to steer it through the doorway. Once safely inside, with the door closed behind them, they looked toward the cockpit, expecting to see Blanchfield’s grinning countenance. What they saw, however, was a huge snowman. The pilot himself could not be seen for the snow that covered him and almost filled the cockpit. He seemed frozen in his seat, with one hand clutching the control stick, and his frosted feet resting upon the steering gear. For more than three and a half hours this fearless pilot, sitting in this cramped position, with a violent storm swirling about him, had battled for his life. For the greater part of the 235 miles the ship had been almost beyond his control. The cold was the worst he had ever experienced. At times his powerful De Haviland had been unable to advance a single foot. His attempts to maneuver the plane out of the storm area were unavailing; the blizzard, it seemed, covered the entire State of Nevada. Certainly this was one of Blanchfield’s very narrowest escapes from death. On another occasion, while en route from Elko to Reno, he ran into another eighty-mile-an-hour gale. As usual, a snowstorm was in progress. Unable to see more than fifty yards in any direction, the pilot might fly into the shoulder of a mountain or be swept by a ‘down…

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Excerpt #3, from The Principles of the Art of Conversation, by J. P. Mahaffy

…course be allied with, or even due to, some such moral quality as sympathy, of which we shall speak presently. But quite apart from it, a selfish man, who has no sympathy for his company, may, by the quickness of his intellect, show brilliantly in conversation, while his more solid and worthy fellow is considered a bore. As I have just said, this is generally a gift of nature. Some men and some nations are born with quick wits. But even so it is a great mistake to think that it may not be vastly improved by intercourse with people who have the faculty already well developed. Moreover it is a very dangerous advantage, and if not deepened by solid acquirements, or chastened by moral restraints, may make a man rather the scourge than the delight of his company. For this is the mental quality which is the foundation of wit, and a joker who merely consults his own amusement, or the amusement of some of his hearers at the expense of others, is not a good converser. The tendency of a very quick intellect is also to impatience, and so it will interfere with and cow more modest minds, which might have contributed well to the feast of talk had they been allowed to work without hurry or pressure. So strong do we often find this contrast that it is unadvisable, in choosing a set of people for conversation, to bring together very slow and very quick intellects. While the former are more dazzled and confused than pleased, the latter feel the delay of…

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Excerpt #4, from The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson

…And trust confederate knaves and bawds and whores. MAM. You are too foul, believe it.–Come here, Ulen, One word. FACE. I dare not, in good faith. [GOING.] MAM. Stay, knave. FACE. He is extreme angry that you saw her, sir. MAM. Drink that. [GIVES HIM MONEY.] What is she when she’s out of her fit? FACE. O, the most affablest creature, sir! so merry! So pleasant! she’ll mount you up, like quicksilver, Over the helm; and circulate like oil, A very vegetal: discourse of state, Of mathematics, bawdry, any thing– MAM. Is she no way accessible? no means, No trick to give a man a taste of her–wit– Or so? SUB [WITHIN]. Ulen! FACE. I’ll come to you again, sir. [EXIT.]…

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Excerpt #5, from Psychology and Social Practice, by John Dewey

…already developed. He is engaged in forming habits rather than in definitely utilizing those already formed. Consequently he is absorbed in getting that all-around contact with persons and things, that range of acquaintance with the physical and ideal factors of life, which shall afford the background and material for the specialized aims and pursuits of later life. He is, or should be, busy in the formation of a flexible variety of habits whose sole immediate criterion is their relation to full growth, rather than in acquiring certain skills whose value is measured by their reference to specialized technical accomplishments. This is the radical psychological and biological distinction, I take it, between the child and the adult. It is because of this distinction that children are neither physiologically nor mentally describable as “little men and women.” The full recognition of this distinction means of course the selection and arrangement of all school materials and methods for the facilitation of full normal growth, trusting to the result in growth to provide the instrumentalities of later specialized adaptation. If education means the period of prolonged infancy, it means nothing less than this. But look at our school system and ask whether the three R’s are taught, either as to subject-matter or as to method, with reference to growth, to its present demands and opportunities; or as technical acquisitions…

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Excerpt #6, from Scientific Sprague, by Francis Lynde

…“It sure does. It’s goin’ to hurt Mr. Maxwell good and plenty. He counts all the men in the home office as his fam’ly, and there’s never been one o’ them to go back on him till now.” “What is your evidence?” queried Sprague. “I reckon you’d call it circumstantial–and so will the judge. But it hobbles him all right. There’s a cut-in on the despatcher’s wires over yonder, ’way up under the roof where nobody’d find it, with four little fine lead wires goin’ down in the wall. I couldn’t find where they come out at, but I reckon that don’t make any difference: they’re there.” “Anything else?” “Yes. I’ve got a letter that I hooked out of his coat pocket not ten minutes ago; a letter from some gang boss o’ his’n in New York, givin’ him goss for not showin’ up results, and allowin’ to pull some sort of a gun on him if the papers don’t begin to print scare heads about a certain railroad management, pronto.” The chemistry expert smiled shrewdly. “You are not the young man I took you for, Tarbell, if you are not wringing your brain like a wet towel to make it tell you why anybody in New York should wish to see Nevada Short Line wreck bulletins in the newspapers.”…

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Excerpt #7, from The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean, by R. M. Ballantyne

…his black brawny legs were totally uncovered below the knees. “Where’s the commander of this ship?” inquired our captain, stepping up to this individual. “I is capin,” he answered, taking off his straw hat and making a low bow. “You!” said our captain, in surprise. “Where do you come from, and where are you bound? What cargo have you aboard?” “We is come,” answered the man with the swallow-tail, “from Aitutaki; we was go for Rarotonga. We is native miss’nary ship; our name is de Olive Branch; an’ our cargo is two tons cocoa-nuts, seventy pigs, twenty cats, and de Gosp’l.” This announcement was received by the crew of our vessel with a shout of laughter, which, however, was peremptorily checked by the captain, whose expression instantly changed from one of severity to that of frank urbanity as he advanced towards the missionary and shook him warmly by the hand. “I am very glad to have fallen in with you,” said he, “and I wish you much success in your missionary labours. Pray take me to your cabin, as I wish to converse with you privately.” The missionary immediately took him by the hand, and as he led him away I heard him saying, “Me most glad to find you trader; we t’ought you be pirate. You very like one ’bout the masts.”…

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Excerpt #8, from The Prose Tales of Alexander Pushkin, by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

…immediately agreed to carry them out. Zourin’s detachment was to leave the town that day. There was no time to be lost. I at once took leave of Maria Ivanovna, confiding her to the care of Savelitch, and giving her a letter to my parents. Maria burst into tears. “Farewell, Peter Andreitch,” said she in a gentle voice. “God alone knows whether we shall ever see each other again or not; but I will never forget you; till my dying day you alone shall live in my heart!” I was unable to reply. There was a crowd of people around us, and I did not wish to give way to my feelings before them. At last she departed. I returned to Zourin, silent and depressed. He endeavoured to cheer me up, and I tried to divert my thoughts; we spent the day in noisy mirth, and in the evening we set out on our march. It was now near the end of February. The winter, which had rendered all military movements extremely difficult, was drawing to its close, and our generals began to make preparations for combined action. Pougatcheff was still under the walls of Orenburg, but our divisions united and began to close in from every side upon the rebel camp. On the appearance of our troops, the revolted villages returned to their allegiance; the rebel bands everywhere retreated before us, and everything gave promise of a speedy and successful termination to the…

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Excerpt #9, from The American Diary of a Japanese Girl, by Yoné Noguchi

…Isn’t that “quarter-past” interesting? And I can never be ready before nine. 25th—I dragged my uncle off to the Chute to enrich my store of zoology. “One gape more, Uncle, to count up one dozen!” I said, and pulled his mustache in the car. It was lucky that no one saw my act. Poor Oji San! Playing chaperon is not a very promising occupation, is it? I stood by the “happy family” of monkeys. I tried to descry their point of view in orations. I gave it up. The vain Miss Polly worked hard to bring everybody to an understanding with one eternal “Hello, dear!” I found such grace in the elephant when he waved his honourable trunk. The stupid Mr. Elephant wasn’t stupid a bit in accepting my present. How philosophically he gazed at me! Very likely I was the first Jap girl to his audience. What respectable eyes! “You’ll bankrupt yourself in peanuts,” my uncle warned. 26th—A white apron on my black dress makes me so cute. I am just suited to be a chambermaid. Shall I volunteer as a servant?…

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Excerpt #10, from Remarks, by Bill Nye

…Hopkins wrote a fine Spencerian hand and wore a black and tan dog where-ever he went. The boys were willing to overlook his copper-plate hand, but they drew the line at the dog. He not only wrote in beautiful style, but he copied his manuscript, so that when it went in to the printer it was as pretty as a wedding invitation. [Illustration: HE THREW ME OUT.] Hopkins ran the city page nine days, and then he came into the city hall where I was trying a simple drunk and bade me adieu. I just say this to show how difficult it is for a fine penman to get ahead as a journalist. Of course good, readable writers like Knox and John Hancock may become great, but they have to be men of sterling ability to start with. I have some of the most bloodcurdling horrors preserved for the purpose of showing Hopkins’ wonderful and vivid style. I will throw them in. “A little son of our esteemed fellow townsman, J.H. Hayford, suffered greatly last evening with virulent colic, but this A.M., as we go to press, is sleeping easily.” Think of shaking the social foundations of a mountain mining and stock town with such grim, nervous prostrators as that! The next day he startled Southern Wyoming and Northern Colorado and Utah with the maddening statement that “our genial friend, Leopold Gussenhoven’s fine, yellow dog,…

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Excerpt #11, from Japanese Literature, by Epiphanius Wilson

…I thought of coming to have a talk with you, but you see my health has been very bad of late, and I seldom appear at Court, having resigned my office. It would be impolitic to give cause to be talked about, and for it to be said that I stretch my old bones when private matters please me. Of course, I have no particular reason to fear the world; still, if there is anything dreadful, it is the demagogical world. When I see what unpleasant things are happening to you, which were no more probable than that the heavens should fall, I really feel that everything in the world is irksome to me." “Yes, what you say is indeed true,” replied Genji. "However, all things in the world–this or that–are the outcome of what we have done in our previous existence. Hence if we dive to the bottom we shall see that every misfortune is only the result of our own negligence. Examples of men’s losing the pleasures of the Court are, indeed, not wanting. Some of these cases may not go so far as a deprivation of titles and honors, as is mine;[106] still, if one thus banished from the pleasures of Court, behaves himself as unconcernedly as those to whom no such misfortune has happened, this would not be becoming. So, at least, it is considered in a foreign country. Repentance is what one ought to expect in such circumstances, and banishment to a far-off locality is a measure generally adopted for…

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Excerpt #12, from Let’s Get Together, by Isaac Asimov

…None of Them have ever come to Our conferences on robotics. None that I can remember." “Were They invited?” asked Breckenridge. Lynn, staring and worried, interposed quickly, “Of course.” Breckenridge said, “Do They refuse attendance to any other types of scientific conferences We hold?” “I don’t know,” said Laszlo. He was pacing the floor now. “I haven’t heard of any cases. Have you, Chief?” “No,” said Lynn. Breckenridge said, “Wouldn’t you say it was as though They didn’t want to be put in the position of having to return any such invitation? Or as though They were afraid one of Their men might talk too much?” That was exactly how it seemed, and Lynn felt a helpless conviction that Security’s story was true after all steal over him. Why else had there been no contact between sides on robotics? There had been a cross-fertilizing trickle of researchers moving in both directions on a strictly one-for-one basis for years, dating back to the days of Eisenhower and Khrushchev. There were a great many good motives for that: an honest appreciation of the supra-national character of science; impulses of friendliness that are hard to wipe out completely in the individual human being; the desire to be exposed…

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