Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:34

Excerpt #1, from The Poetics of Aristotle, by Aristotle

…irrational parts. Everything irrational should, if possible, be excluded; or, at all events, it should lie outside the action of the play (as, in the Oedipus, the hero’s ignorance as to the manner of Laius’ death); not within the drama,–as in the Electra, the messenger’s account of the Pythian games; or, as in the Mysians, the man who has come from Tegea to Mysia and is still speechless. The plea that otherwise the plot would have been ruined, is ridiculous; such a plot should not in the first instance be constructed. But once the irrational has been introduced and an air of likelihood imparted to it, we must accept it in spite of the absurdity. Take even the irrational incidents in the Odyssey, where Odysseus is left upon the shore of Ithaca. How intolerable even these might have been would be apparent if an inferior poet were to treat the subject. As it is, the absurdity is veiled by the poetic charm with which the poet invests it. The diction should be elaborated in the pauses of the action, where there is no expression of character or thought. For, conversely, character and thought are merely obscured by a diction that is over brilliant. XXV With respect to critical difficulties and their solutions, the number and nature of the sources from which they may be drawn may be thus…

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Excerpt #2, from Primitive & Mediaeval Japanese Texts, by F. Victor Dickins

…kamu nagara futoshikimashite 30 Sumerogi no shikimasu kuni to ama no hara ihato wo hiraki kamu nobori 35 nobori imashinu waga ohokimi miko no mikoto no amenoshita shiroshimeshiseba 40 haru hana no tafutokaramu to mochi-tsuki no tatahashikemu to amenoshita 45 yomo no hito no ohobuneno omohi tanomite amatsumidzu…

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Excerpt #3, from Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde, by Oscar Wilde

…chanced to visit them; pageants, by the way, which were considered so important that large prints were made of them and published–a fact which is a proof of the general interest at the time in matters of such kind.–The Truth of Masks. THE ART OF ARCHAEOLOGY Indeed archaeology is only really delightful when transfused into some form of art. I have no desire to underrate the services of laborious scholars, but I feel that the use Keats made of Lempriere’s Dictionary is of far more value to us than Professor Max Muller’s treatment of the same mythology as a disease of language. Better Endymion than any theory, however sound, or, as in the present instance, unsound, of an epidemic among adjectives! And who does not feel that the chief glory of Piranesi’s book on Vases is that it gave Keats the suggestion for his ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’? Art, and art only, can make archaeology beautiful; and the theatric art can use it most directly and most vividly, for it can combine in one exquisite presentation the illusion of actual life with the wonder of the unreal world. But the sixteenth century was not merely the age of Vitruvius; it was the age of Vecellio also. Every nation seems suddenly to have become interested in the dress of its neighbours. Europe began to investigate its own clothes, and the amount of books published on national costumes is quite extraordinary. At…

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Excerpt #4, from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

…discovered them. Felix soon learned that the treacherous Turk, for whom he and his family endured such unheard-of oppression, on discovering that his deliverer was thus reduced to poverty and impotence, became a traitor to good feeling and honour, and had quitted Italy with his daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money to aid him, as he said, in some plan of future maintenance. “Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix, and rendered him, when I first saw him, the most miserable of his family. He could have endured poverty, and when this distress had been the meed of his virtue, he would have gloried in it: but the ingratitude of the Turk, and the loss of his beloved Safie, were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable. The arrival of the Arabian now infused new life into his soul. “When the news reached Leghorn, that Felix was deprived of his wealth and rank, the merchant commanded his daughter to think no more of her lover, but to prepare to return with him to her native country. The generous nature of Safie was outraged by this command; she attempted to expostulate with her father, but he left her angrily, reiterating his tyrannical mandate. “A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter’s apartment, and told her hastily, that he had reason to believe that his residence at Leghorn…

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Excerpt #5, from Phrases and Names, Their Origins and Meanings, by Trench H. Johnson

…Divinity. The first and the last are essentially University degrees, with which the vulgar orders of the people have little or no acquaintance. They know only of one “Doctor,” the medical practitioner, and since he wears a frock coat and a silk hat he is entitled to all the respect that they can pay him. =Doctors’ Commons.= Anciently a college for Professors of Canon and Civil Law, who dined in common on certain days in each term, similar to students at the Inns of Court before they are called to the Bar. =Dog and Duck.= A tavern sign indicative of the old sport of duck hunting by spaniels in a pond. =Dog-cart.= Originally one in which sportsmen drove their pointers and setters to the field. =Dog his Footsteps.= To follow close to his heels like a dog. =Dog in the Manger.= From the old story told of the dog who did not require the hay for himself, yet refused to allow the ox to come near it. =Dog Rose.= From the old idea that the root of this rose-tree was an antidote for the bite of a mad dog. =Dog Watch.= A corruption of “Dodge Watch,” being a watch of two hours only instead of four, by which dodging seamen gradually shift their watch on successive days….

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Excerpt #6, from Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda

…some good-humored gibes, he handed me six passes and a roll of ten-rupee bills. “I hardly think your theoretical trip needs such practical props,” he remarked, “but here they are.” That afternoon I exhibited my booty to Sri Yukteswar. Though he smiled at my enthusiasm, his words were noncommittal: “I would like to go; we shall see.” He made no comment when I asked his little hermitage disciple, Kanai, to accompany us. I also invited three other friends–Rajendra Nath Mitra, Jotin Auddy, and one other boy. Our date of departure was set for the following Monday. On Saturday and Sunday I stayed in Calcutta, where marriage rites for a cousin were being celebrated at my family home. I arrived in Serampore with my luggage early Monday morning. Rajendra met me at the hermitage door. “Master is out, walking. He has refused to go.” I was equally grieved and obdurate. “I will not give Father a third chance to ridicule my chimerical plans for Kashmir. Come; the rest of us will go anyhow.” Rajendra agreed; I left the ashram to find a servant. Kanai, I knew, would not take the trip without Master, and someone was needed to look after the luggage. I bethought myself of Behari, previously…

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Excerpt #7, from History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year

…the Guadalquivir. A demonstration by the allies in the Isla de Leon arrested the march of these French troops for a moment, but on the 14th eight thousand men under generals Godinot and Semélé advanced upon St. Roque and Algeziras. The inhabitants of those places immediately fled to the green island, and Ballesteros took refuge under Gibraltar, where his flanks were covered by the gun-boats of the place. The garrison was too weak to assist him with men, and thus cooped up, he lived upon the resources of the place, while efforts were therefore made to draw off the French by harassing their flanks. The naval means were not sufficient to remove his whole army to another quarter, but seven hundred were transported to Manilba, where the Serranos and some Partidas had assembled on the left of the French, and at the same time twelve hundred British troops with four guns, under colonel Skerrett, and two thousand Spaniards, under Copons, sailed from Cadiz to Tarifa to act upon the French right. Copons was driven back by a gale of wind, but Skerrett arrived the 17th. The next day Godinot sent a detachment against him, but the sea-road by which it marched was so swept with the guns of the Tuscan frigate, aided by the boats of the Stately, that the French after losing some men returned. Then Godinot and Semélé being in dispute, and without provisions, retreated; they were followed by Ballesteros’…

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Excerpt #8, from Nonsense Books, by Edward Lear

…Mr. Spikky said, “How kind, Dear, you are, to speak your mind! All your life I wish you luck! You are, you are, a lovely duck! Witchy witchy witchy wee, Twitchy witchy witchy bee, Tikky tikky tee! IV.”I was also sad, and thinking, When one day I saw you winking, And I heard you sniffle-snuffle, And I saw your feathers ruffle: To myself I sadly said, ‘She’s neuralgia in her head! That dear head has nothing on it! Ought she not to wear a bonnet?’ Witchy kitchy kitchy wee, Spikky wikky mikky bee, Chippy wippy chee! V. "Let us both fly up to town:…

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Excerpt #9, from A Military Dictionary and Gazetteer, by Thomas Wilhelm

…=Paramount.= The highest in rank or order; the chief. =Parapets= (Ital. parapetto, “breastguard”). In fortifications, are breastworks, walls, or bulwarks of earth, brick, wood, iron, stone, or other material. The battlement around a flat roof, or the railing of a bridge is also called a parapet. The parapets of field-works are always made of earth, which is also largely used in permanent fortifications. Earth has great advantages for this purpose, being readily obtained, easily handled, and affords good cover on account of the absence of splinters and flying fragments when struck by a shot. The presence of rock or large gravel in the earth is objectionable for this reason. Of the different earths, sand, hard clay, tufa, etc., resist penetration better than rich soils. The profile of the parapet is determined by its location and purpose. The earth to form it is taken from the ditch, which is sometimes in front and sometimes in rear. In inclosed works, or works built at leisure, the ditch is always on the outside, leaving the natural surface for the parade. Works built hastily, or under fire, have the ditch on the inside. In this way cover is more rapidly obtained. This form of parapet is used in all the trenches in siege operations and the temporary lines thrown up on the field of battle. The command of a parapet is the height of the interior crest above the site. For isolated works the command should be at least 8 feet, as the chances of…

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Excerpt #10, from Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling

…But the Parsee came down from his palm-tree, wearing his hat, from which the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendour, packed up his cooking-stove, and went away in the direction of Orotavo, Amygdala, the Upland Meadows of Anantarivo, and the Marshes of Sonaput. THIS Uninhabited Island Is off Cape Gardafui, By the Beaches of Socotra And the Pink Arabian Sea: But it’s hot–too hot from Suez For the likes of you and me Ever to go In a P. and O. And call on the Cake-Parsee! HOW THE LEOPARD GOT HIS SPOTS IN the days when everybody started fair, Best Beloved, the Leopard lived in a place called the High Veldt. ‘Member it wasn’t the Low Veldt, or the Bush Veldt, or the Sour Veldt, but the ‘sclusively bare, hot, shiny High Veldt, where there was sand and sandy-coloured rock and ‘sclusively tufts of sandy-yellowish grass. The Giraffe and the Zebra and the Eland and the Koodoo and the Hartebeest lived there; and they were ‘sclusively sandy-yellow-brownish all over; but the Leopard, he was the ‘sclusivest…

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Excerpt #11, from Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

…the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, is made the banyan[144] of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men. SELF-RELIANCE “Ne te quæsiveris extra.”[145] “Man is his own star; and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man, Commands all light, all influence, all fate; Nothing to him falls early or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.”[146] * * * * * Cast the bantling on the rocks, Suckle him with the she-wolf’s teat; Wintered with the hawk and fox, Power and speed be hands and feet.[147]…

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Excerpt #12, from Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, by Austen Henry Layard

…I gazed with deep interest upon the scene of such great events–a plain, where nothing remains to tell of the vast armies which once moved across it, of European valour, or of Eastern magnificence. Whilst riding through the jungle towards Negoub, a wolf rose before me from its lair, and ran towards the plain. Following the animal, I wounded it with one barrel of my pistol, and was about to discharge the second, when my horse slipt on some wet straw left by a recent encampment, and we fell together upon the wolf. It struggled and freed itself, leaving me besmeared with its blood. The cock of the pistol fortunately broke in going off whilst the muzzle was close to my head, and I escaped without other injury than a bruised hand, the complete use of which I did not recover for some months. On my return to Nimroud, I remained there a few days to give directions to the overseers for continuing the work during a prolonged absence which I meditated in the desert. At Kouyunjik several new chambers had been opened. The western portal of the great hall, whose four sides were now completely uncovered, led into a long narrow chamber (eighty-two feet by twenty-six), the walls of which had unfortunately been almost entirely destroyed. In the chamber beyond, a few slabs were still standing in their original places. In length this room was the same as that parallel to it, but in breadth it was only eighteen feet. The bas-reliefs represented the…

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