Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:42

Excerpt #1, 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…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #2, from Psmith, Journalist, by P. G. Wodehouse

…“I don’t know your name,” Billy hesitated. “Never mind about my name,” said the stranger. “It won’t be needed. Is Mr. Smith on your paper? Excuse my asking.” Psmith bowed. “That’s all right, then. I can go ahead.” He bent forward. “Neither of you gentlemen are hard of hearing, eh?” “In the old prairie days,” said Psmith, “Comrade Windsor was known to the Indians as Boola-Ba-Na-Gosh, which, as you doubtless know, signifies Big-Chief-Who-Can-Hear-A-Fly-Clear-Its-Throat. I too can hear as well as the next man. Why?” “That’s all right, then. I don’t want to have to shout it. There’s some things it’s better not to yell.” He turned to Billy, who had been looking at him all the while with a combination of interest and suspicion. The man might or might not be friendly. In the meantime, there was no harm in being on one’s guard. Billy’s experience as a cub-reporter had given him the knowledge that is only given in its entirety to police and newspaper men: that there are two New Yorks. One is a modern, well-policed city, through which one may walk from end to end without encountering adventure. The other is a city as full of sinister intrigue, of whisperings and conspiracies, of battle,…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #3, from Literary Lapses, by Stephen Leacock

…with wrinkles; better let me rub some of this Rejuvenator into the face." This process is continued until one of two things happens. Either the customer is obdurate, and staggers to his feet at last and gropes his way out of the shop with the knowledge that he is a wrinkled, prematurely senile man, whose wicked life is stamped upon his face, and whose unstopped hair-ends and failing follicles menace him with the certainty of complete baldness within twenty-four hours–or else, as in nearly all instances, he succumbs. In the latter case, immediately on his saying “yes” there is a shout of exultation from the barber, a roar of steaming water, and within a moment two barbers have grabbed him by the feet and thrown him under the tap, and, in spite of his struggles, are giving him the Hydro-magnetic treatment. When he emerges from their hands, he steps out of the shop looking as if he had been varnished. But even the application of the Hydro-magnetic and the Rejuvenator do not by any means exhaust the resources of the up-to-date barber. He prefers to perform on the customer a whole variety of subsidiary services not directly connected with shaving, but carried on during the process of the shave. In a good, up-to-date shop, while one man is shaving the customer, others black his boots; brush his clothes, darn his socks, point his…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #4, from Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka

…did not want to think about too much, so he started to move about, crawling up and down the room. Once during that long evening, the door on one side of the room was opened very slightly and hurriedly closed again; later on the door on the other side did the same; it seemed that someone needed to enter the room but thought better of it. Gregor went and waited immediately by the door, resolved either to bring the timorous visitor into the room in some way or at least to find out who it was; but the door was opened no more that night and Gregor waited in vain. The previous morning while the doors were locked everyone had wanted to get in there to him, but now, now that he had opened up one of the doors and the other had clearly been unlocked some time during the day, no-one came, and the keys were in the other sides. It was not until late at night that the gaslight in the living room was put out, and now it was easy to see that his parents and sister had stayed awake all that time, as they all could be distinctly heard as they went away together on tip-toe. It was clear that no-one would come into Gregor’s room any more until morning; that gave him plenty of time to think undisturbed about how he would have to re-arrange his life. For some reason, the tall, empty room where he was forced to remain made him feel uneasy as he lay there flat on the floor, even though he…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #5, from Astrology: How to Make and Read Your Own Horoscope, by Sepharial

…or arousing the envy and malice of a considerable number of individuals. Nevertheless, there are only two aspects in this horoscope which seem to point to any sort of trouble from such causes. The points are those of Neptune, which afflicts both the Moon and Venus, and of Mars which afflicts Uranus in the Midheaven and the Sun in the 2nd House. By referring these two points to the Ecliptic we find they correspond to the Sun’s position on or about the 24th of May, and the 26th of January, and I shall leave the reader to look up his Almanac and find the individuals (illustrious they must needs be to find chronicle in Whittaker) who were capable of filling the requirements of the case. As to friends, Mr. Chamberlain should lack nothing. With the Moon in sextile to the Sun and Jupiter, the ruler of the 11th House, in the same benefic relations with the Moon, he would always be able to count upon a strong adherence, and the only adverse indication in this matter is that Mars, part ruler of the 11th House, holds the 12th House in square aspect to Uranus in the Midheaven. This would be interpreted to mean that some of his friends will be disposed to become his enemies, and to militate, although ineffectually, against his credit and position. Why ineffectually? Because Mercury, the ruler of the Ascendant and prime significator of Mr. Chamberlain, is angular and well aspected, while Mars is weak and afflicted by Uranus which is in elevation above it….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #6, from Home Life in Colonial Days, by Alice Morse Earle

…5 Pair Gloves, 1 Stuff Coat with black buttons, 1 Cloth Coat, 1 Pair blew plush britches, 1 Pair Serge britches, 2 Combs, 1 Pair new Shooes, Silk & Thred to mend his Cloathes." Osenbrig was a heavy, strong linen. This would seem to be a summer outfit, and scarcely warm enough for New England winters. Other schoolboys at that date had deerskin breeches. Leather was much used, especially in the form of tanned buckskin breeches and the deerskin hunters’ jackets, which have always and deservedly been a favorite wear, since they are one of the most appropriate, useful, comfortable, and picturesque garments ever worn by men in any active outdoor life. Soon in the larger cities and among wealthy folk a much more elaborate and varied style of dress became fashionable. The dress of little girls in families of wealth was certainly almost as formal and elegant as the dress of their mammas, and it was a very hampering and stiff dress. They wore vast hoop-petticoats, heavy stays, and high-heeled shoes. Their…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #7, from The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

…were full of activity; cattle were being unloaded from the cars in the distance, and across the way the “beef-luggers” were toiling in the darkness, carrying two-hundred-pound quarters of bullocks into the refrigerator cars. Before the first streaks of daylight there came the crowding throngs of workingmen, shivering, and swinging their dinner pails as they hurried by. Jurgis took up his stand by the time-office window, where alone there was light enough for him to see; the snow fell so quick that it was only by peering closely that he could make sure that Ona did not pass him. Seven o’clock came, the hour when the great packing machine began to move. Jurgis ought to have been at his place in the fertilizer mill; but instead he was waiting, in an agony of fear, for Ona. It was fifteen minutes after the hour when he saw a form emerge from the snow mist, and sprang toward it with a cry. It was she, running swiftly; as she saw him, she staggered forward, and half fell into his outstretched arms. “What has been the matter?” he cried, anxiously. “Where have you been?” It was several seconds before she could get breath to answer him. “I couldn’t get home,” she exclaimed. “The snow—the cars had stopped.” “But where were you then?” he demanded. “I had to go home with a friend,” she panted—“with Jadvyga.”…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #8, from R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), by Karel Čapek

…HELENA. (Drawing back) No, no, I must do it myself. Just look at the flames. They are like hands, like tongues, like living shapes. (Raking fire with the poker) Lie down, lie down. NANA. That’s the end of them. (Fireplace slowly out.) HELENA. Nana, Nana! NANA. Good gracious, what is it you’ve burned? (Almost to herself.) HELENA. Whatever have I done? NANA. Well, what is it? (MEN’S laughter off L.2.) HELENA. Go quickly. It’s the gentlemen calling. NANA. Good gracious, what a place! (Exits L.1.) DOMIN. (Opens door L.2) Come along and offer your congratulations. (Enter HALLEMEIER and DR. GALL.) HALLEMEIER. (Crosses to R.C.) Madame Helena, I congratulate you on this festive day. HELENA. Thank you. (Coming to C.) Where are Fabry and Busman? DOMIN. They’ve gone down the harbor. (Closes the door and comes to C.) HALLEMEIER. Friends, we must drink to this happy occasion. HELENA. (Crosses L.) Brandy? With soda water? (Exits L.1.) HALLEMEIER. Let’s be temperate. No soda. DOMIN. What’s been burning here? Well, shall I tell her about it? DR. GALL. (L.C.) Of course. It’s all over now….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #9, from To Cuba and Back, by Richard Henry Dana

…to the northern eye–an exotic wherever you meet it. It seems to be conscious of its want of usefulness for food or shade, yet has a dignity of its own, a pride of unmixed blood and royal descent–the hidalgo of the soil. What are those groves and clusters of small growth, looking like Indian corn in a state of transmigration into trees, the stalk turning into a trunk, a thin soft coating half changed to bark, and the ears of corn turning into melons? Those are the bananas and plantains, as their bunches of green and yellow fruits plainly enough indicate, when you come nearer. But, that sad, weeping tree, its long yellow-green leaves drooping to the ground! What can that be? It has a green fruit like a melon. There it is again, in groves! I interrupt my neighbor’s tenth cigarrito, to ask him the name of the tree. It is the cocoa! And that soft green melon becomes the hard shell we break with a hammer. Other trees there are, in abundance, of various forms and foliage, but they might have grown in New England or New York, so far as the eye can teach us; but the palm, the cocoa, the banana and plantain are the characteristic trees you could not possibly meet with in any other zone. Thickets–jungles I might call them–abound. It seems as if a bird could hardly get through them; yet they are rich with wild flowers of all forms and colors, the white, the purple, the pink, and the blue. The…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #10, from A Sub and a Submarine: The Story of H.M. Submarine R19 in the Great War

…She’ll be done in, Macquare." Even if the dog managed to withstand the low temperature of the water, she would be in considerable danger from the drifting floes. Quickly the Hon. Derek rose to the occasion and ordered the Berthon to be launched. The collapsible boat was unfolded in record time and dropped over the side on the ice. Three men, one of whom was Cassidy, followed, and, grasping the gunwale, urged the Berthon forward like a sleigh across the 300 yards of frozen water that separated the submarine from the canal. “Avast there, Flirt!” shouted Cassidy when the boat drew within hailing distance, for the terrier was dipping one paw into the water as a preliminary to jumping in. At the sound of the A.B.’s voice Flirt cocked one ear, gave a yelp of welcome, and leapt from the fixed ice to a detached piece that had drifted within reach. “Silly little josser!” exclaimed another of the Berthon’s crew as the floe tilted under the dog’s weight. It looked as if the animal would slide backwards in spite of her frantic efforts to find a firm foothold. Not until her body was half immersed did the sheet of ice recover itself, only to tilt in the opposite direction and…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #11, from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne

…cypress was used by the antients on mournful occasions?_ ] ——’Tis one thing, brother Shandy, for a soldier to hazard his own life—to leap first down into the trench, where he is sure to be cut in pieces:——’Tis one thing, from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to enter the breach the first man,—to stand in the foremost rank, and march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and colours flying about his ears:——’Tis one thing, I say, brother Shandy, to do this,—and ’tis another thing to reflect on the miseries of war;—to view the desolations of whole countries, and consider the intolerable fatigues and hardships which the soldier himself, the instrument who works them, is forced (for sixpence a day, if he can get it) to undergo. Need I be told, dear Yorick, as I was by you, in Le Fever’s funeral sermon, That so soft and gentle a creature, born to love, to mercy, and kindness, as man is, was not shaped for this?——But why did you not add, Yorick,—if not by NATURE—that he is so by NECESSITY?——For what is war? what is it, Yorick, when fought as ours has been, upon principles of liberty, and upon principles of honour—what is it, but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within bounds? And heaven is my witness, brother Shandy, that the pleasure I have taken in these things,—and that infinite delight, in particular,…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #12, from Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell

…and that won’t suit me.” He spoke as if he was in a strong passion. He was a builder who had often been to the park on business. “And do you think,” said master sternly, “that treatment like this will make him fond of your will?” “He had no business to make that turn; his road was straight on!” said the man roughly. “You have often driven that pony up to my place,” said master; “it only shows the creature’s memory and intelligence; how did he know that you were not going there again? But that has little to do with it. I must say, Mr. Sawyer, that a more unmanly, brutal treatment of a little pony it was never my painful lot to witness, and by giving way to such passion you injure your own character as much, nay more, than you injure your horse; and remember, we shall all have to be judged according to our works, whether they be toward man or toward beast.” Master rode me home slowly, and I could tell by his voice how the thing had grieved him. He was just as free to speak to gentlemen of his own rank as to those below him; for another day, when we were out, we met a Captain Langley, a friend of our master’s; he was driving a splendid pair of grays in a kind of break. After a little conversation the captain said: “What do you think of my new team, Mr. Douglas? You know, you are the…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

A production of Friendlyskies.net