Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:43

Excerpt #1, from A Lad of Grit: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea in Restoration Times

…a white flag fluttered from our mainmast truck. The Dutchmen immediately sent boats to take possession of the unfortunate Prince Royal, but ere the first boat came alongside, most of the crew had secured their personal belongings. I, for my part, went below and placed all the money I had in a leather pouch, which I strapped to my waist with a belt underneath my clothing–though it is reported the Hollanders always respect personal property. Then I came on deck and joined my comrades, who stood in a disconsolate group awaiting the arrival of our captors. We were curtly ordered over the side, and hurriedly the whole of the crew were transferred to the various Dutch ships. The officers were taken on board the admiral’s, where de Ruyter himself accepted our surrender, complimenting us on our gallant defence, and permitting the senior officers to retain their swords. This done, we were sent on board a frigate and placed in a dark, stuffy hole below the waterline. Faintly we could hear the dull booming of the guns, which told us that the fleets were re-engaged, but gradually the sound died away. Greville Drake had a pocket compass, which showed us that the vessel was heading eastward. Our captors had taken good care that we should not fall into the hands of our friends: we were on our way to Holland and…

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Excerpt #2, from Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare

…I will with patience hear; and find a time Both meet to hear and answer such high things. Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this: Brutus had rather be a villager Than to repute himself a son of Rome Under these hard conditions as this time Is like to lay upon us. CASSIUS. I am glad that my weak words Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus. Enter Caesar and his Train. BRUTUS. The games are done, and Caesar is returning. CASSIUS. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve, And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you What hath proceeded worthy note today. BRUTUS. I will do so. But, look you, Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesar’s brow, And all the rest look like a chidden train:…

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Excerpt #3, from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle

…upon your fortunes. You will first make a note, Doctor, of the paper and the date.” “It is The Morning Chronicle of April 27, 1890. Just two months ago.” “Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson?” “Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead; “I have a small pawnbroker’s business at Coburg Square, near the City. It’s not a very large affair, and of late years it has not done more than just give me a living. I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now I only keep one; and I would have a job to pay him but that he is willing to come for half wages so as to learn the business.” “What is the name of this obliging youth?” asked Sherlock Holmes. “His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he’s not such a youth, either. It’s hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter assistant, Mr. Holmes; and I know very well that he could better himself and earn twice what I am able to give him. But, after all, if he is satisfied, why should I put ideas in his head?” “Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an employé who comes under the full market price. It is not a common experience among employers in this age. I don’t know that your assistant is not as remarkable as your advertisement.”…

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Excerpt #4, from Condemned as a Nihilist: A Story of Escape from Siberia, by G. A. Henty

…farther." “You don’t know where we are going to then?” “Not at all, it will be known at Tiumen; that is where these things are settled generally, but people like you are under special orders. You don’t look very wicked;” and he smiled in a friendly way as he looked at the lad beside him. “I am not wicked at all, not in the way you think,” Godfrey said. “Do not talk about that,” the soldier interrupted, “I must not know anything about you; talk about other things, but not why you are here.” Godfrey nodded. “If we go on beyond Tiumen we go by steamer, do we not?” “Yes, through Tobolsk to Tomsk, beyond that we shall drive. You are lucky, you people, that you drive, the others walk; it is long work, but not so long as it used to be, they say. I have been told that in the old times, when they started on foot from Moscow it took them sometimes two years to reach the farthest places. Now they have the railway, and the steamers on the river as far as Tomsk.” “How do they take them in the steamers?” "They take them in great barges that are towed; we passed two on our way to Perm. They hold five or six hundred, there is a great iron cage on deck, and they let half the number up at a time in order to get air. They are always going along at this time of year, for they all go early…

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Excerpt #5, from On the Anzac trail: Being extracts from the diary of a New Zealand sapper, by Anzac

…Later.—Under way. All lights out and general air of suppressed excitement on all hands. Some of the chaps making a book on the event, and laying odds on the chances of the takers getting through the slather-up unharmed. Others tossing up to see if certain of their mates will finish up in heaven or hell! No one the least downhearted; all determined to at least give the enemy the time of his life when they come to grips. They are certainly as tough a crowd as ever got into uniform. Landing expected to take place just at daybreak or slightly earlier. Creeping along like a “mob of thieves in the night,” as one of the chaps put it. Distance from Lemnos about 45 miles, I hear, so will be there in whips of time. Funny thing to think that one’s folks will be lying in bed sound asleep at the moment we go into the enemy, and never dreaming of what their men will be taking on. Just as well, too, come to think of it. Weather A1. Sea calm; nothing to complain of in that line, anyway. April 28.—First chance of scribbling anything for three days. Been through hell—just that. War! It wasn’t war; it was just cold-blooded butchery. How the position has been held beats me. But held it has been—and it’s going to be held—at a cost! I wonder what the price of crêpe will rise to out in Australia and New Zealand! Here goes for a…

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Excerpt #6, from Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

…experiences. He digests his events badly; he never gets “done” with them; and German depth is often only a difficult, hesitating “digestion.” And just as all chronic invalids, all dyspeptics like what is convenient, so the German loves “frankness” and “honesty”; it is so CONVENIENT to be frank and honest!–This confidingness, this complaisance, this showing-the-cards of German HONESTY, is probably the most dangerous and most successful disguise which the German is up to nowadays: it is his proper Mephistophelean art; with this he can “still achieve much”! The German lets himself go, and thereby gazes with faithful, blue, empty German eyes–and other countries immediately confound him with his dressing-gown!–I meant to say that, let “German depth” be what it will–among ourselves alone we perhaps take the liberty to laugh at it–we shall do well to continue henceforth to honour its appearance and good name, and not barter away too cheaply our old reputation as a people of depth for Prussian “smartness,” and Berlin wit and sand. It is wise for a people to pose, and LET itself be regarded, as profound, clumsy, good-natured, honest, and foolish: it might even be–profound to do so! Finally, we should do honour to our name–we are not called the “TIUSCHE VOLK” (deceptive people) for nothing…. 245. The “good old” time is past, it sang itself out in Mozart–how…

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Excerpt #7, from The Fifth Ace, by Isabel Ostrander

…hiring others to do it for him." Gentleman Geoff’s fists clenched and he drew a deep breath. “That’s it!” he cried. “You’ve struck it, Mr. Thode! Unless I’m mistaken, he’s dealing the biggest, crookedest hand of his life right now, but we’ll get him, Sir. We’ll show him what fair play is below the border–” He broke off and for a minute the two men sat in silence, straining their ears. Above the click of glasses and sound of many voices in the gambling-rooms had come the sharp, staccato clatter of a horse’s hoofs upon the hard-packed road. It was not unusual in a land where hooch was cheap and stimulating and every drunken roysterer celebrated in the saddle, but there was an ominous, tragic suggestion in the irregularity of the hoof-beats as of an exhausted, failing beast urged on by grim and vital need. The young engineer leaped to his feet as the clatter ceased in a harsh scraping thud, and with Gentleman Geoff beside him, he crossed the patio and re-entered the gambling-room. The voices had hushed as if by magic, and every motionless figure was turned toward the entrance door. It was flung open and a man staggered blindly over the sill, reeling and clutching at his breast with both gnarled, sinewy hands….

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Excerpt #8, from The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson

…LOVE. A smith! then lend me thy help to get this door open. 3 NEI. That I will presently, sir, but fetch my tools– [EXIT.] 1 NEI. Sir, best to knock again, afore you break it. LOVE [KNOCKS AGAIN]. I will. [ENTER FACE, IN HIS BUTLER’S LIVERY.] FACE. What mean you, sir? 1, 2, 4 NEI. O, here’s Jeremy! FACE. Good sir, come from the door. LOVE. Why, what’s the matter? FACE. Yet farther, you are too near yet. LOVE. In the name of wonder, What means the fellow! FACE. The house, sir, has been visited. LOVE. What, with the plague? stand thou then farther. FACE. No, sir, I had it not. LOVE. Who had it then? I left None else but thee in the house. FACE. Yes, sir, my fellow, The cat that kept the buttery, had it on her…

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Excerpt #9, from The Invasion of India, by Alexander the Great as described, by Arrian, Q. Curtius

…boasted to have certain memorials of Dionysos. So he went, it is said, to Mount Mêros with the companion cavalry and the body of foot-guards, and found that the mountain abounded with ivy and laurel and umbrageous groves of all manner of trees, and that it had also chases supplied with game of every description. The Macedonians, to whom the sight of the ivy was particularly welcome, as it was the first they had seen for a long time (there being no ivy in the land of the Indians, even where they have the vine), are said to have set themselves at once to weave ivy chaplets, and, accoutred as they were, to have crowned themselves with these, chanting the while hymns to Dionysos and invoking the god by his different names.[72] Alexander, they say, offered while there sacrifice to Dionysos and feasted with his friends. Some even go so far as to allege, if any one cares to believe such things, that many of his courtiers, Macedonians of no mean rank, while invoking Dionysos, and wreathed with ivy crowns, were seized with the inspiration of the god, raised in his honour shouts of Evoi, and revelled like Bacchanals celebrating the orgies. Chapter III—How Eratosthenes views the legends concerning Heraklês and Dionysos—Alexander crosses the Indus Any one who hears these stories is free to believe them or disbelieve them as he chooses. For my own part, I do not altogether agree with…

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Excerpt #10, from The Anabasis of Alexander, by Arrian

…But to counteract this the Tyrians adopted the following contrivance. They filled a vessel, which had been used for transporting horses, with dry twigs and other combustible wood, fixed two masts on the prow, and fenced it round in the form of a circle as large as possible, so that the enclosure might contain as much chaff and as many torches as possible. Moreover they placed upon this vessel quantities of pitch, brimstone, and whatever else was calculated to foment a great flame.[313] They also stretched out a double yard-arm upon each mast; and from these they hung caldrons into which they had poured or cast materials likely to kindle flame which would extend to a great distance. They then put ballast into the stern, in order to raise the prow aloft, the vessel being weighed down abaft.[314] Then watching for a wind bearing towards the mole, they fastened the vessel to some triremes which towed it before the breeze. As soon as they approached the mole and the towers, they threw fire among the wood, and at the same time ran the vessel, with the triremes, aground as violently as possible, dashing against the end of the mole. The men in the vessel easily swam away, as soon as it was set on fire. A great flame soon caught the towers; and the yard-arms being twisted round poured out into the fire the materials that had been prepared for kindling the flame. The men also in the triremes tarrying near the mole kept on…

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Excerpt #11, from The Pirates’ Who’s Who, by Philip Gosse

…Hanged in Virginia in 1718 with the rest of Blackbeard’s crew. MASSEY, CAPTAIN JOHN. As a lieutenant, he “served with great applause” in the army in Flanders, under the command of the Duke of Marlborough. He afterwards sailed from the Thames in the Gambia Castle, a ship of the African Company, in command of a company of soldiers which was being sent to garrison the fort. The merchants of Gambia were supposed to victual this garrison, but the rations supplied were considered by Massey to be quite insufficient. He quarrelled with the Governor and merchants, and took his soldiers back on board the ship, and with Lowther, the second mate, seized the ship and turned pirate. Lowther and Massey eventually quarrelled, for the latter, being a soldier, “was solicitous to move in his own sphere”–that is, he wanted to land his troops and plunder the French West Indian settlements. In the end Massey and a few followers were permitted to go off in a captured sloop, and in this sailed for Port Royal, Jamaica. Arrived there, “with a bold countenance he went to the Governor” and told a long and plausible tale of how he had managed to escape from the pirates at the first opportunity. He deceived the sympathetic Governor, and was sent with Captain Laws to hunt for Lowther. Returning to Jamaica without finding Lowther, he was granted a “certificate of his surrender,” and came to England as a passenger….

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Excerpt #12, from The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

…like a dagger. The people round began to gape. A lady standing close to her tittered. “Come away, Jim; come away,” she whispered. He followed her doggedly as she passed through the crowd. He felt glad at what he had said. When they reached the Achilles Statue, she turned round. There was pity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips. She shook her head at him. “You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish; a bad-tempered boy, that is all. How can you say such horrible things? You don’t know what you are talking about. You are simply jealous and unkind. Ah! I wish you would fall in love. Love makes people good, and what you said was wicked.” “I am sixteen,” he answered, “and I know what I am about. Mother is no help to you. She doesn’t understand how to look after you. I wish now that I was not going to Australia at all. I have a great mind to chuck the whole thing up. I would, if my articles hadn’t been signed.” “Oh, don’t be so serious, Jim. You are like one of the heroes of those silly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of acting in. I am not going to quarrel with you. I have seen him, and oh! to see him is perfect happiness. We won’t quarrel. I know you would never harm any one I love, would you?” “Not as long as you love him, I suppose,” was the sullen answer….

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