Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:05

Excerpt #1, from Diary of Anna Green Winslow, a Boston School Girl of 1771, by Anna Green Winslow

…Miss Polly Glover was Mary Glover, born in Boston, October 12, 1758, baptized at the Old South Church, married to Deacon James Morrell, of the Old South, on April 23, 1778, and died April 3, 1842. She was the daughter of Nathaniel Glover (who was born May 16, 1704, in Dorchester; died December, 1773), and his wife, Anne Simpson. They were married in 1750. Nathaniel Glover was a graduate of Harvard, and a wealthy man; partner first of Thomas Hancock, and then of John Hancock. NOTE 10. Miss Bessy Winslow was Elizabeth, Anna’s cousin, who was then about ten years old. See Note 5. NOTE 11. Miss Nancy or Anne Glover was Mary Glover’s sister. See Note 9. She was born in Boston, March 28, 1753, baptized in the Old South Church, died in Roxbury, August, 1797. She married Samuel Whitwell, Jr., son of Samuel Whitwell, a prominent Boston merchant. See Note 7. NOTE 12. Miss Sally Winslow was Sarah, daughter of John Winslow (see Note 5), and was, therefore, Anna’s cousin. She was born April 12, 1755, died April 3, 1804. She married, November 27, 1787, Samuel Coverly,…

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Excerpt #2, from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau

…much they have reaped. Who would live there where a body can never think for the barking of Bose? And O, the housekeeping! to keep bright the devil’s door-knobs, and scour his tubs this bright day! Better not keep a house. Say, some hollow tree; and then for morning calls and dinner-parties! Only a woodpecker tapping. O, they swarm; the sun is too warm there; they are born too far into life for me. I have water from the spring, and a loaf of brown bread on the shelf.—Hark! I hear a rustling of the leaves. Is it some ill-fed village hound yielding to the instinct of the chase? or the lost pig which is said to be in these woods, whose tracks I saw after the rain? It comes on apace; my sumachs and sweet-briers tremble.—Eh, Mr. Poet, is it you? How do you like the world to-day? Poet. See those clouds; how they hang! That’s the greatest thing I have seen to-day. There’s nothing like it in old paintings, nothing like it in foreign lands,—unless when we were off the coast of Spain. That’s a true Mediterranean sky. I thought, as I have my living to get, and have not eaten to-day, that I might go a-fishing. That’s the true industry for poets. It is the only trade I have learned. Come, let’s along. Hermit. I cannot resist. My brown bread will soon be gone. I will go with you gladly soon, but I am just concluding a serious meditation. I…

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Excerpt #3, from Rocks and Their Origins, by Grenville A. J. Cole

…already basic, and basalts are therefore the prevalent type of igneous rock. They reach us, moreover, from considerable depths. The acid rocks are formed by amalgamation of this magma with siliceous material lying nearer the earth’s surface. Igneous rocks exceptionally rich in alkalies, the so-called “alkaline” series, result from the absorption of limestone in the magma; denser lime-bearing silicates are thus formed, which sink by gravitation, leaving a lighter magma above in which soda has become concentrated. Carbon dioxide liberated from the limestone also plays a part in carrying up the alkalies that might otherwise remain in a lower portion[81]. E. H. L. Schwarz[82] extends Daly’s views with an almost romantic fulness. He holds, with Chamberlin, that the primitive globe resulted from the aggregation of basic meteoritic material. The more siliceous crust arose from the withdrawal of magnesium and iron into the depths by long-continued processes of leaching and gravitation. The melting of this crust produces the acid igneous rocks. Igneous cauldrons originate in the heat due to faulting, or to crumpling, or even to the impact of gigantic meteorites. When a molten magma is locally established, variation occurs in it by assimilation of different types of material round it. The balance of judgment as to differentiation and assimilation, which…

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Excerpt #4, from Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, by Lewis Carroll

…up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery, and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried. [Illustration] “Come! there’s no use in crying!” said Alice to herself rather sharply, “I advise you to leave off this minute!” (she generally gave herself very good advice, and sometimes scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes, and once she remembered boxing her own ears for having been unkind to herself in a game of croquet she was playing with herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people,) “but it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!” Soon her eyes fell on a little ebony box lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which was lying a card with the words EAT ME beautifully printed on it in large letters. “I’ll eat,” said Alice, “and if it makes me larger, I can reach the key, and if it makes me smaller, I can creep under the door, so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!” She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself "which way?…

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Excerpt #5, from The Busy Life of Eighty Five Years of Ezra Meeker, by Ezra Meeker

…great numbers already on hand landed by previous steamers. The staking of lots on the tide flats at night, when the tide was out, seemed to be a staple industry. Driving of piles or planting of posts as permanent as possible often preceded and accompanied by high words between contestants came to be a commonplace occurrence. The belief among these people seemed to be that if they could get stakes or posts to stand on end, and a six-inch strip nailed to them to encompass a given spot of the flats, that they would thereby become the owner, and so the merry war went on until the bubble burst. A few days after my arrival four steamers came with an aggregate of over two thousand passengers, many of whom, however, did not leave the steamer and took passage either to their port of departure, San Francisco, Victoria, or points on the Sound. The ebb tide had set in, and although many steamers came later and landed passengers, their return lists soon became large and the population began to diminish. Taking my little dory that we had with us on the scow, I rowed out to the largest steamer lying at anchor surrounded by small boats so numerous that in common parlance the number was measured by the acre, “an acre of boats.” Whether or not an acre of space was covered by these craft striving to reach the steamer I will not pretend to say, but can say that I certainly could not get within a hundred feet of…

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Excerpt #6, from The Sea

…I should have gone to see her, but Masha here went, and she refuses to see any one. Some one told me she had been seen wandering in the fields a mile from here yesterday evening. MEDVIEDENKO. Yes, I saw her. She was walking away from here in the direction of the village. I asked her why she had not been to see us. She said she would come. TREPLIEFF. But she won’t. [A pause] Her father and stepmother have disowned her. They have even put watchmen all around their estate to keep her away. [He goes with the doctor toward the desk] How easy it is, Doctor, to be a philosopher on paper, and how difficult in real life! SORIN. She was a beautiful girl. Even the State Councillor himself was in love with her for a time. DORN. You old Lovelace, you! SHAMRAEFF’S laugh is heard. PAULINA. They are coming back from the station. TREPLIEFF. Yes, I hear my mother’s voice. ARKADINA and TRIGORIN come in, followed by SHAMRAEFF. SHAMRAEFF. We all grow old and wither, my lady, while you alone, with your light dress, your gay spirits, and your grace, keep the secret of eternal youth. ARKADINA. You are still trying to turn my head, you tiresome old man….

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Excerpt #7, from Astounding Stories, August, 1931, by Various

…winging away in fright, and the night and the forest echoed with the roar of a wrathful, impatient human voice. “You hear me, wherever you are! And hear this: I leave you now, but in ten minutes I have you! You little fool–you think you can get free? It is only by minutes you delay me!” Snarling a curse, the treacherous giant turned and crashed through the bush and took his huge form striding back towards the cabin. * * * * * Garth was thinking of many things as he scrambled back wearily from his refuge to the trail. He was cursing the unwanted publicity which prying reporters had given his work in Detroit, and which had led him to lease the lonely island and build a laboratory in the wilderness. Had it not been for that publicity, he would never have needed an assistant, and the vision of fame would never have come to delude Hagendorff and turn his thoughts towards murder. His position seemed a horrible delirium from which he must presently awake. Naked, dwarfed by each ordinary forest weed, unarmed, and trembling from the wind-sharpened night, he hardly knew which way to turn. His body was blotched with blood and mud, and under it the ragged gashes made by glass and bush stung painfully; he was hungry and stiff and tired and miserable. He remembered Hagendorff’s threat…

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Excerpt #8, from Guide to Fortune Telling, by Dreams, by Anonymous

…post-paid upon receipt of only =Ten Cents=. KEYSTONE BOOK CO., Philadelphia, Pa. * * * * * Parlor Magic. [Illustration] This valuable textbook contains complete and exhaustive directions for performing over one hundred amusing and mysterious tricks in magic and legerdemain, including sleights with dice, dominoes, cards, ribbons, rings, fruit, coin, balls, handkerchiefs, etc., etc., the whole illustrated and clearly explained with 121 engravings. The directions for performing these tricks are made so very clear by the aid of the many illustrations given that any one may readily perform them, and thus become a veritable wizard in his own circle of acquaintances. Tricks which you have seen performed by professional magicians, and which have seemed to you almost miraculous, are so clearly and fully explained in this book that you may perform them with ease. Among the tricks explained in the book are: “The Magic Coin,” “The Magic Handkerchief,” “The Dancing Egg,” “The Domino Oracle,” “The Magic Bond,” “To Swallow a Barber’s Pole,” “The Restored Ribbon,” “The Magnetized Cane,” “To Eat a Peck of Shavings, and Convert them into a Ribbon,” “The Wonderful Hat,” “The Pepper-Box Trick,” “The Bag of…

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Excerpt #9, from Mr. Munchausen , by John Kendrick Bangs

…us any bit of music we wished to have. Then I used to give musicales at my house and all the Siamese people, from the King down asked to be invited, so that through my pets my home became one of the most attractive in all Asia. "And the honey those bees made! It was the sweetest honey you ever tasted, and every morning when I got down to breakfast there was a fresh bottleful ready for me, the bees having made it in the bottle itself over night. They were the most grateful pets I ever had, and once they saved my life. They used to live in a hive I had built for them in one corner of my room and I could go to bed and sleep with every door in my house open, and not be afraid of robbers, because those bees were there to protect me. One night a lion broke loose from the Royal Zoo, and while trotting along the road looking for something to eat he saw my front door wide open. In he walked, and began to sniff. He sniffed here and he sniffed there, but found nothing but a pot of anchovy paste, which made him thirstier and hungrier than ever. So he prowled into the parlour, and had his appetite further aggravated by a bronze statue of the Emperor of China I had there. He thought in the dim light it was a small-sized human being, and he pounced on it in a minute. Well, of course, he couldn’t make any headway trying to eat a bronze statue, and the more he tried the more…

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Excerpt #10, from Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

…all on myself; but this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and I hope you’ll overlook shortcomings.” Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from that night. We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart. “However,” said Joe, rising to replenish the fire; “here’s the Dutch-clock a-working himself up to being equal to strike Eight of ’em, and she’s not come home yet! I hope Uncle Pumblechook’s mare mayn’t have set a forefoot on a piece o’ ice, and gone down.” Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on market-days, to assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a woman’s judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no confidences in his domestic servant. This was market-day, and Mrs. Joe was out on one of these expeditions. Joe made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we went to the door to listen for the chaise-cart. It was a dry cold night, and the wind blew keenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die to-night of lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to…

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Excerpt #11, from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

…actions, and if we ever got the least show we would give them the cold shake and clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one morning we hid the raft in a good, safe place about two mile below a little bit of a shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and told us all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see if anybody had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. (“House to rob, you mean,” says I to myself; “and when you get through robbing it you’ll come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and the raft–and you’ll have to take it out in wondering.”) And he said if he warn’t back by midday the duke and me would know it was all right, and we was to come along. So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated around, and was in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we couldn’t seem to do nothing right; he found fault with every little thing. Something was a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday come and no king; we could have a change, anyway–and maybe a chance for the change on top of it. So me and the duke went up to the village, and hunted around there for the king, and by and by we found him in the back room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers bullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening with all his might, and so tight he couldn’t walk, and couldn’t do nothing to…

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Excerpt #12, from The Foolish Dictionary, by Gideon Wurdz

…trait in others is downright idiocy. * * * * =INDORSE= To write on the back of; the best indorsed man in town being the Sandwich-Man. * * * =INFANT= A disturber of the peace. =INFANTRY= A defender of the peace. * * * =INHABITANT= A native of any village, town or city. =OLDEST INHABITANT= The Champion Liar. * * * =INTUITION= A fictitious quality in females–really Suspicion. * * * =IRRITANT= Something which irritates. =COUNTER IRRITANT= A woman shopping. * * * =ISLAND= A place where the bottom of the sea sticks up through the water. * * * * =ISOLATION= From Eng. ice, meaning cold, and Lat. solus, alone. Alone in the cold….

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