Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:35

Excerpt #1, from Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), by Jerome K. Jerome

…rapid rate, with his tail shut down, and the moment it was put upon the stove he would promptly climb out of the boat, and sit on the bank, till the whole tea business was over. George got out his banjo after supper, and wanted to play it, but Harris objected: he said he had got a headache, and did not feel strong enough to stand it. George thought the music might do him good—said music often soothed the nerves and took away a headache; and he twanged two or three notes, just to show Harris what it was like. Harris said he would rather have the headache. George has never learned to play the banjo to this day. He has had too much all-round discouragement to meet. He tried on two or three evenings, while we were up the river, to get a little practice, but it was never a success. Harris’s language used to be enough to unnerve any man; added to which, Montmorency would sit and howl steadily, right through the performance. It was not giving the man a fair chance. “What’s he want to howl like that for when I’m playing?” George would exclaim indignantly, while taking aim at him with a boot. “What do you want to play like that for when he is howling?” Harris would retort, catching the boot. “You let him alone. He can’t help howling. He’s got a musical ear, and your playing makes him howl.” So George determined to postpone study of the banjo until he reached…

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Excerpt #2, from Mazes and Labyrinths: A General Account of Their History and Development

…simplified form of a more elaborate sign representing the plan of a palace court, a figure to which one of the Minoan signs bears a close resemblance. The Knossian coins shown in Figs. 20 to 31 are from the British Museum collection and are reproduced by the courtesy of the Keeper of the Coins and Medals Department, who supplied the writer with plaster casts for the purpose. They date, of course, from times greatly posterior to those of the Minoan civilisation, from times when the culture of Greece had long replaced that of the Mycenaeans, or whatever similar race it was that succeeded the Minoans (see Appendix IV, i.). Figs. 20, 21, and 22 show silver coins dating from about 500 to 430 B.C. They portray on one side the Minotaur and on the other a symmetrical meander pattern which, it needs very little imagination to see, has reference to the labyrinth in which the monster was alleged to dwell. Fig. 23 shows a silver coin of a rather later date, representing on its obverse a female head which is thought to be that of Demeter or Persephone, and on the reverse a meander-labyrinth containing a star at its centre. Fig. 24 shows a similar obverse, but on the reverse we see a bull’s head surrounded by a simple meander frame….

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Excerpt #3, from The Beetle: A Mystery, by Richard Marsh

…departure–that it occurred to me of what an extremely sensible act I had been guilty in letting him go at all. Here was an individual who had been committing burglary, or something very like it, in the house of a budding cabinet minister, and who had tumbled plump into my arms, so that all I had to do was to call a policeman and get him quodded,–and all that I had done was something of a totally different kind. ‘You’re a nice type of an ideal citizen!’ I was addressing myself. ‘A first chop specimen of a low-down idiot,–to connive at the escape of the robber who’s been robbing Paul. Since you’ve let the villain go, the least you can do is to leave a card on the Apostle, and inquire how he’s feeling.’ I went to Lessingham’s front door and knocked,–I knocked once, I knocked twice, I knocked thrice, and the third time, I give you my word, I made the echoes ring,–but still there was not a soul that answered. ‘If this is a case of a seven or seventy-fold murder, and the gentleman in the cloak has made a fair clearance of every living creature the house contains, perhaps it’s just as well I’ve chanced upon the scene,–still I do think that one of the corpses might get up to answer the door. If it is possible to make noise enough to waken the dead, you…

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Excerpt #4, from Rocks and Their Origins, by Grenville A. J. Cole

…quartzite owes its characters to metamorphism. Microscopic examination sometimes reveals the effects of earth-pressures in the crushed and powdered condition of the larger grains; and no rocks exhibit the power of such pressures in producing structural modifications more strikingly than the coarse quartz-grits that are sometimes involved in regions of dynamic metamorphism. Pebbles and grains are alike deformed, pressed out along planes of fracture, and finally reduced to bands of powdered quartz. When felspathic pebbles occur in these grits, the resulting schistose mass has almost the appearance of a banded igneous rock, and streaky white mica may arise from the alteration of potassium felspar. Some sandstones contain sufficient felspar or calcium carbonate to form a flux when they are subjected to thermal metamorphism. At times a glass thus arises between the grains, and reacts upon the original quartz. When the igneous magma has melted up a sandstone or a quartzite, blocks of the sediment may remain surrounded by a mixed and recrystallised product from both rocks. Wright and Bailey[102] have studied an example in Colonsay, where a hornblende rock has partly dissolved a quartzite, the residual blocks being surrounded by “halos” of interaction, composed of quartz and alkali felspar. GNEISSES Gneisses may be broadly defined as banded crystalline rocks in which…

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Excerpt #5, from Tanks in the Great War, 1914 to 1918, by J. F. C. Fuller

…Lieutenant A. G. STERN, R.N.A.S., Director of Naval Constructions Committee. Members. E. H. T. D’EYNCOURT, Esq., C.B., Director of Naval Construction. Lieutenant-Colonel E. D. SWINTON, D.S.O., R.E., Assistant Secretary, Committee of Imperial Defence. Major G. L. WHEELER, R.A., Director of Artillery’s Branch, War Office. Lieutenant W. G. WILSON, R.N.A.S., Director of Naval Constructions Committee. Lieutenant K. P. SYMES, R.N.A.S., Director of Naval Constructions Committee. P. DALE-BUSSELL, Esq., Director of Naval Constructions Committee, Contract Department, Admiralty. Consultant. Captain T. G. TULLOCH, Ministry of Munitions. On February 14, 1916, Mr. D’Eyncourt wrote the following letter, which we quote in full, to Lieutenant-Colonel W. S. Churchill, commanding 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, B.E.F., France, whose initiative and foresight were the true parents of the tank as a war machine: “DEAR COLONEL CHURCHILL,…

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Excerpt #6, from Not that it Matters, by A. A. Milne

…a wasp gun indicates a lack of silver spoons suitable for lethal uses. Perhaps it shows too careful a consideration of the marmalade. A man of money drowns his wasp in the jar with his spoon, and carelessly calls for another pot to be opened. The poor man waits on the outskirts with his gun, and the marmalade, void of corpses, can still be passed round. Your gun proclaims your poverty; then let it be avoided. All the same I think I shall have one. I have kept clear of hat- guards and Richards and made-up ties without quite knowing why, but honestly I have not felt the loss of them. The wasp gun is different; having seen it, I feel that I should be miserable without it. It is going to be excellent sport, wasp-shooting; a steady hand, a good eye, and a certain amount of courage will be called for. When the season opens I shall be there, good form or bad form. We shall shoot the apple-quince coverts first. “Hornet over!” A Slice of Fiction This is a jolly world, and delightful things go on in it. For instance, I had a picture post card only yesterday from William Benson, who is staying at Ilfracombe. He wrote to say that he had gone down to Ilfracombe for a short holiday, and had been much…

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Excerpt #7, from A Floating City, and The Blockade Runners, by Jules Verne

…the shattered remnants of glass still trembled in their casements. The “Great Eastern” had staggered beneath the shock, but she continued her way with an indomitable audacity. It was necessary, as quickly as possible, to remove the spars which encumbered the ship at the bows, and in order to do this it was indispensable to avoid the sea, but the steam-ship obstinately continued to make head against the waves. The spirit of her captain seemed to animate her; he did not want to yield, and yield he would not. An officer and some men were sent to the bows to clear the deck. “Mind,” said the Doctor to me, “the moment of the catastrophe is not far off.” The sailors went towards the bows, whilst we fastened ourselves to the second mast, and looked through the spray, which fell in showers over us with each wave. Suddenly there was another swoop more violent than the first, and the sea poured through the barricading by the opened breach, tore off an enormous sheet of cast-iron which covered the bit of the bows, broke away the massive top of the hatchway leading to the crew’s berths, and lashing against the starboard barricadings, swept them off like the sheets of a sail. The men were knocked down; one of them, an officer, half-drowned, shook his red whiskers, and picked himself up; then seeing one of the sailors…

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Excerpt #8, from From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan, by H. P. Blavatsky

…carvings. Before it stands the “lion column,” so-called from the four lions carved as large as nature, and seated back to back, at its base. Over the principal entrance, its sides covered with colossal male and female figures, is a huge arch, in front of which three gigantic elephants are sculptured in relief, with heads and trunks that project from the wall. The shape of the temple is oval. It is 128 feet long and forty-six feet wide. The central space is separated on each side from the aisles by forty-two pillars, which sustain the cupola-shaped ceiling. Further on is an altar, which divides the first dome from a second one which rises over a small chamber, formerly used by the ancient Aryan priests for an inner, secret altar. Two side passages leading towards it come to a sudden end, which suggests that, once upon a time, either doors or wall were there which exist no longer. Each of the forty-two pillars has a pedestal, an octagonal shaft, and a capital, described by Fergusson as “of the most exquisite workmanship, representing two kneeling elephants surmounted by a god and a goddess.” Fergusson further says that this temple, or chaitya, is older and better preserved than any other in India, and may be assigned to a period about 200 years B.C., because Prinsep, who has read the inscription on the Silastamba pillar, asserts that the lion pillar was the gift of Ajmitra Ukasa, son of Saha Ravisobhoti, and another inscription shows that…

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Excerpt #9, from Emma, by Jane Austen

…woman of her good sense and quick feelings: standing in a mother’s place, but without a mother’s affection to blind her. It is on her account that attention to Randalls is doubly due, and she must doubly feel the omission. Had she been a person of consequence herself, he would have come I dare say; and it would not have signified whether he did or no. Can you think your friend behindhand in these sort of considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to herself? No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French, not in English. He may be very ‘amiable,’ have very good manners, and be very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people: nothing really amiable about him.” “You seem determined to think ill of him.” “Me!—not at all,” replied Mr. Knightley, rather displeased; “I do not want to think ill of him. I should be as ready to acknowledge his merits as any other man; but I hear of none, except what are merely personal; that he is well-grown and good-looking, with smooth, plausible manners.” “Well, if he have nothing else to recommend him, he will be a treasure at Highbury. We do not often look upon fine young men, well-bred and agreeable. We must not be nice and ask for all the virtues into the…

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Excerpt #10, from My Adventures During the Late War, by Donat Henchy O’Brien

…Egyptian mummy. In proportion as we were mendicant they became peremptory, and even fierce; and at last we were obliged to depart in what seemed little less than a deluge. As soon as they saw that they had got us over the threshold, some few and faint feelings of commiseration seemed to touch their obdurate breasts, and they had the charity to point out to us a direction which led to a barn, which they assured us was full of hay, and seldom visited, so that we could very safely remain concealed in it until the following night. They further advised us to proceed either to Dieppe or St. Valery, as the two ports at which it was most probable that we should succeed in procuring a boat. We shortly discovered the barn, and had the good fortune to arrive at it a little before daylight. We found it full of hay, as they had stated; a most timely relief for us, being quite drenched with the incessant rain, and all over mud and dirt. Each soon found, or made, a convenient hole for himself through the hay, taking the precaution to work a good way down and to cover himself well over, lest our steps into this place should lead to a suspicion and we might be found out. We fell into a most profound sleep; nor did I awake until nine o’clock in the morning (Friday, 18th Sept.), when I heard my name called repeatedly by Mr. Tuthill. He proposed that we should quit that place immediately, and get down to the sea-side, as the day was the only time to succeed in…

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Excerpt #11, from Hawaiian Folk Tales, by Thomas G. Thrum

…“What sort of a coming back is this?” demanded Kana. “I slipped and fell, and just escaped with my life,” answered Niheu. “Back with you!” thundered Kana. Again the luckless Niheu sprang ashore, but the long-eyed sand-crabs (ohiki-makaloa) made the sand fly with their scratching till his eyes were filled. Back to the canoes again he went. “Got it all in my eyes!” said he, and he washed them out with sea-water. “You fool!” shouted Kana; “what were you looking down for? The sand-crabs are not birds. If you had been looking up, as you ought, you would not have got the sand in your eyes. Go again!” This time he succeeded, and climbed to the top of Haupu. Arriving at the house, Hale-huki, where Hina dwelt, he entered at once. Being asked “Why enterest thou this forbidden door?” he replied: “Because I saw thee entering by this door. Hadst thou entered some other way, I should not have come in at the door.” And behold, Kapeepeekauila and Hina sat before him. Then Niheu seized the hand of Hina and said, “Let us two go.” And she arose and went. When they had gone about half-way to the brink of the precipice, Kapeepeekauila exclaimed, “What is this? Is the woman gone?” Mo-i, the sister of Kana, answered and said, “If you wish the woman, now is the time; you and I fight.”…

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Excerpt #12, from Einstein and the universe: A popular exposition of the famous theory, by Nordmann

…follow a straight line from one point to another if there is a hill between them. Whatever path we take, it will be curved. But amongst the various possible paths which lead from one point to the other on the farther side of the hill, there is one—and only one, as a rule—which is shorter than any of the others, as we could prove by means of a tape. This shortest path, the only one of its kind, is what is called the geodetical of the surface covered. In the same way no vessel can go in a straight line if it is sailing from Lisbon to New York. It must follow a curved path, because the earth is round. But amongst the possible curved paths there is a privileged one which is shorter than the others: the one which follows the direction of the great circle of the earth. In going from Lisbon to New York, though they are nearly in the same latitude, vessels are careful not to head straight westward, in the direction of the parallels. They sail a little to the north-west, so that when they reach New York they come from the north-east, having followed pretty closely a terrestrial great circle. On our globe, as on all spheres, the geodetical, the shortest route between two points, is the arc of a great circle passing through the two points. Now the “Interval” of two points in the four-dimensional universe precisely represents the geodetical, the minimum path of progress…

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