Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:22

Excerpt #1, from The Tempest, by William Shakespeare

…[Exeunt Fer. and Mir. severally. Pros. So glad of this as they I cannot be, Who are surprised withal; but my rejoicing At nothing can be more. I’ll to my book; For yet, ere supper-time, must I perform 95 Much business appertaining. [Exit. Notes: III, 1. 1: and] but Pope. 2: sets] Rowe. set Ff. 4, 5: my … odious] my mean task would be As heavy to me as ’tis odious Pope. 9: remove] move Pope. 14: labours] labour Hanmer. 15: Most busy lest] F1. Most busy least F2 F3 F4. Least busy Pope. Most busie-less Theobald._ Most busiest_ Holt White conj. Most busy felt Staunton. Most busy still Staunton conj. Most busy-blest Collier MS. Most busiliest Bullock conj. Most busy lest, when I do (doe F1 F2 F3) it] Most busy when least I do it Brae conj. Most busiest when idlest Spedding conj. Most busy left when idlest Edd. conj. See note (XIII). at a distance, unseen] Rowe….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #2, from The Valley of the Moon, by Jack London

…I want to? Just the same it makes me sick. What’s the good of organized labor if it don’t stand together? For two cents I’d chuck the whole thing up an’ go over to the employers. Only I wouldn’t, God damn them! If they think they can beat us down to our knees, let ‘em go ahead an’ try it, that’s all. But it gets me just the same. The whole world’s clean dippy. They ain’t no sense in anything. What’s the good of supportin’ a union that can’t win a strike? What’s the good of knockin’ the blocks off of scabs when they keep a-comin’ thick as ever? The whole thing’s bughouse, an’ I guess I am, too.” Such an outburst on Billy’s part was so unusual that it was the only time Saxon knew it to occur. Always he was sullen, and dogged, and unwhipped; while whisky only served to set the maggots of certitude crawling in his brain. One night Billy did not get home till after twelve. Saxon’s anxiety was increased by the fact that police fighting and head breaking had been reported to have occurred. When Billy came, his appearance verified the report. His coatsleeves were half torn off. The Windsor tie had disappeared from under his soft turned-down collar, and every button had been ripped off the front of the shirt. When he took his hat off, Saxon was frightened by a lump on his head the size of an apple. “D’ye know who did that? That Dutch slob Hermanmann, with a riot club….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #3, from From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan, by H. P. Blavatsky

…naked travelling monks, but a true Akali; one of the six hundred warrior-priests attached to the Golden Temple, for the purpose of serving God and protecting the temple from the destructive Mussulmans. His name was Ram-Runjit-Das; and his personal appearance was in perfect accordance with his title of “God’s warrior.” His exterior was very remarkable and typical; and he looked like a muscular centurion of ancient Roman legions, rather than a peaceable servant of the altar. Ram-Runjit-Das appeared to us mounted on a magnificent horse, and accompanied by another Sikh, who respectfully walked some distance behind him, and was evidently passing through his noviciate. Our Hindu companions had discerned that he was an Akali, when he was still in the distance. He wore a bright blue tunic without sleeves, exactly like that we see on the statues of Roman warriors. Broad steel bracelets protected his strong arms, and a shield protruded from behind his back. A blue, conical turban covered his head, and round his waist were many steel circlets. The enemies of the Sikhs assert that these sacred sectarian belts become more dangerous in the hand of an experienced “God’s warrior,” than any other weapon. The Sikhs are the bravest and the most warlike sect of the whole Punjab. The word sikh means disciple. Founded in the fifteenth century by the wealthy and noble Brahman Nanak, the new teaching spread so successfully…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #4, from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle

…merest hobby of a dilettante. He has an extraordinary faculty for figures, and audits the books in some of the government departments. Mycroft lodges in Pall Mall, and he walks round the corner into Whitehall every morning and back every evening. From year’s end to year’s end he takes no other exercise, and is seen nowhere else, except only in the Diogenes Club, which is just opposite his rooms.” “I cannot recall the name.” “Very likely not. There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger’s Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere.” We had reached Pall Mall as we talked, and were walking down it from the St. James’s end. Sherlock Holmes stopped at a door some…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #5, from Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Jonathan Swift

…management of our treasury; the valour and achievements of our forces, by sea and land. I computed the number of our people, by reckoning how many millions there might be of each religious sect, or political party among us. I did not omit even our sports and pastimes, or any other particular which I thought might redound to the honour of my country. And I finished all with a brief historical account of affairs and events in England for about a hundred years past. This conversation was not ended under five audiences, each of several hours; and the king heard the whole with great attention, frequently taking notes of what I spoke, as well as memorandums of what questions he intended to ask me. When I had put an end to these long discourses, his majesty, in a sixth audience, consulting his notes, proposed many doubts, queries, and objections, upon every article. He asked, “What methods were used to cultivate the minds and bodies of our young nobility, and in what kind of business they commonly spent the first and teachable parts of their lives? What course was taken to supply that assembly, when any noble family became extinct? What qualifications were necessary in those who are to be created new lords: whether the humour of the prince, a sum of money to a court lady, or a design of strengthening a party opposite to the public interest, ever happened to be the motive in those…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #6, from Scientific Sprague, by Francis Lynde

…“Instructed me to feel Judge Watson on the question of holding things up with an injunction. I did it, and it turned out as you intimated it would; nothing doing. Smith asked me to borrow Maxwell’s special officer, Arch Tarbell, suggesting that we ought to keep in touch with Jennings. Archer was going over to Angels on the afternoon train, but Jennings has saved him the trouble by coming to town.” “Well, what next?” Sprague inquired. “That is just what I’d like to ask you,” was the lawyer’s frank admission. “We’re all looking to you to set the pace. You’re the one man with the holy gift of initiative, Mr. Sprague. You haven’t admitted it in so many words, but I know as well as I know anything that you are the man who started this newspaper talk.” “Pshaw!” said the expert, in genial raillery; “I’m only a Government chemist, Mr. Stillings.” “That’s all right, too; but that isn’t why the railroad men call you ‘Scientific Sprague.’ Four times this summer you’ve dug Maxwell and his railroad out of a hole when the rest of us didn’t know there was any hole. What I’m most afraid of now is that Jennings will put up some sort of a scheme to get you out of the way. He knows well enough by this time that you are the key to his situation.” “I’m a tenderfoot,” said the big man, with naïve irony. “What would you…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #7, from Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall

…things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion. So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach. I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that morning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the time from church-going. I walked homeward, thinking what I would do with Bartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this;—I would put certain calm questions to him the next morning, touching his history, etc., and if…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #8, from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith

…deal lower, or a good deal higher. If it were a good deal lower, one half of it, perhaps, could not be afforded for interest; and more might be afforded if it were a good deal higher.

In countries which are fast advancing to riches, the low rate of profit may, in the price of many commodities, compensate the high wages of labour, and enable those countries to sell as cheap as their less thriving neighbours, among whom the wages of labour may be lower.

In reality, high profits tend much more to raise the price of work than high wages. If, in the linen manufacture, for example, the wages of the different working people, the flax-dressers, the spinners, the weavers, etc. should all of them be advanced twopence a-day, it would be necessary to heighten the price of a piece of linen only by a number of twopences equal to the number of people that had been employed about it, multiplied by the number of days during which they had been so employed. That part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself into the wages, would, through all the different stages of the manufacture, rise only in arithmetical proportion to this rise of wages. But if the profits of all the different employers of those working people should be raised five per cent. that part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself into…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #9, from Old Greek Stories, by James Baldwin

…of that? In a minute she was as close behind him as ever. And yet, she really did pity him. Just then Meilanion threw the second apple over his shoulder. It was handsomer and larger than the first, and Atalanta could not bear the thought of allowing some one else to get it. So she stopped to pick it up from among the long grass, where it had fallen. It took somewhat longer to find it than she had expected, and when she looked up again Meilanion was a hundred feet ahead of her. But that was no matter. She could easily overtake him. And yet, how she did pity the foolish young man! Meilanion heard her speeding like the wind behind him. He took the third apple and threw it over to one side of the path where the ground sloped towards the river. Atalanta’s quick eye saw that it was far more beautiful than either of the others. If it were not picked up at once it would roll down into the deep water and be lost, and that would never do. She turned aside from her course and ran after it. It was easy enough to overtake the apple, but while she was doing so Meilanion gained upon her again. He was almost to the goal. How she strained every muscle now to overtake him! But, after all, she felt that she did not care very much. He was the handsomest young man that she had ever seen, and he had given her three golden apples. It would be a great pity if he…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #10, from The power and the glory, by Henry Kuttner

…a hundred feet above the crag-bordered stream at the cliffs bottom! Panic struck him. Then Tsi’s reassuring thought said, “You are safe. This is teleportation.” He scarcely heard. An age-old instinctive fear chilled his middle. For a million years men have been afraid of falling. He could not now control that fear. Slowly he began to drop. He lost sight of Tsi and the golden trees and then of the water-wall. Under him the stream broadened. He sank down at an angle—and felt solid ground beneath his feet. There was silence except for the whispering murmur of the stream. CHAPTER III The World That Couldn’t Be Miller sat down on a rock and held his head in his hands. His thoughts were swimming. Cold, fresh air blew against his cheeks and he raised his face to meet that satisfying chill. It seemed to rouse him. He began to realize that he had been half asleep during the interview with Tsi, as though the mists of his slumber had still blanketed his senses. Otherwise he would scarcely have accepted this miraculous business. Or was there another reason? He felt a desperate impulse to see Tsi again. She could answer his…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #11, from Psmith, Journalist, by P. G. Wodehouse

…confined exclusively to our two selves. If they are going to strew the street with our carriers, we are somewhat in the soup." Billy said nothing. He was chewing the stem of an unlighted pipe. Psmith went on. “It means, of course, that we must buck up to a certain extent. If the campaign is to be a long one, they have us where the hair is crisp. We cannot stand the strain. Cosy Moments cannot be muzzled, but it can undoubtedly be choked. What we want to do is to find out the name of the man behind the tenements as soon as ever we can and publish it; and, then, if we perish, fall yelling the name.” Billy admitted the soundness of this scheme, but wished to know how it was to be done. “Comrade Windsor,” said Psmith. "I have been thinking this thing over, and it seems to me that we are on the wrong track, or rather we aren’t on any track at all; we are simply marking time. What we want to do is to go out and hustle round till we stir up something. Our line up to the present has been to sit at home and scream vigorously in the hope of some stout fellow hearing and rushing to help. In other words, we’ve been saying in the paper what an out-size in scugs the merchant must be who owns those tenements, in the hope that somebody else will agree with us and be sufficiently…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #12, from Rilla of Ingleside, by L. M. Montgomery

…disorganized–the roads were completely choked up, the trains blockaded, and the telephone wires put entirely out of commission. “And then Jims took ill.”He had a little cold when father and mother went away, and he kept getting worse for a couple of days, but it didn’t occur to me that there was danger of anything serious. I never even took his temperature, and I can’t forgive myself, because it was sheer carelessness. The truth is I had slumped just then. Mother was away, so I let myself go. All at once I was tired of keeping up and pretending to be brave and cheerful, and I just gave up for a few days and spent most of the time lying on my face on my bed, crying. I neglected Jims–that is the hateful truth–I was cowardly and false to what I promised Walter–and if Jims had died I could never have forgiven myself. "Then, the third night after father and mother went away, Jims suddenly got worse–oh, so much worse–all at once. Susan and I were all alone. Gertrude had been at Lowbridge when the storm began and had never got back. At first we were not much alarmed. Jims has had several bouts of croup and Susan and Morgan and I have always brought him through without much trouble. But it wasn’t very long before we were dreadfully alarmed….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

A production of Friendlyskies.net