Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:05

Excerpt #1, from Seven O’Clock Stories, by Robert Gordon Anderson

…Who could they be talking about? Then they went through the gate. “Be very quiet,” said Mother as they entered the door, “and you’ll see the end of another true fairy story.” So they tiptoed in. There in a bed lay Mrs. Brown, looking very happy. And curled up in her arm she had–well, what do you think she had? A little sleeping baby! Like the little Orioles Baby had been born just a few days ago. “That,” said Mother, “is the prettiest fairy story of all.” And the children thought so too. There–we’ve finished just in time. We hear the Little Clock. There goes his silver tongue now. Good-night! Sweet Dreams. ELEVENTH NIGHT MOTHER HEN AND ROBBER HAWK Jehosophat and Marmaduke were whispering together. “Let’s try it,” said Jehosophat. “An’ see what happens,” added Marmaduke. So they tiptoed into the House of the White Wyandottes and placed the big duck’s eggs in with the smaller eggs under the setting hen. Mother Hen did not like that, oh no!…

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Excerpt #2, from Astounding Stories of Super

…For four hours after sunrise Bell worked desperately. With the few and inadequate tools in the plane he took apart the oiling system of the motor. It was in duplicate, of course, like all modern air engines, and there were three magnetos, and double spark plugs. Bell drained the crankcase beneath a sun that grew more and more hot and blistering, catching the oil in a gasoline can that he was able to empty into the main tanks. He washed out innumerable small oil pipes with gasoline, and flushed out the crankcase itself, and had at the end of his working as many small scraps of metal as would half fill a thimble. He showed then to Paula. “And the stars in their courses fought against Sisera,” he quoted dryly. “Any one of these, caught in just the right place, would have let us down into the jungle last night.” She smiled up at him. “But they didn’t.” “No…. God loves the Irish,” said Bell. “What’s that thing?” Paula was fishing, sitting on a fallen tree in the cloud of smoke from a smudge fire Bell had built for her. She was wearing the oily flying suit he had found in the shed with the plane, and had torn strips from her discarded dress to make a fishing line. The hook was made out of the stiff wire handle of one of the extra gasoline tins. "Hook and…

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Excerpt #3, from The School for Scandal, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

…Passion.– MARIA. Why will you distress me by renewing this subject– SURFACE. Ah! Maria! you would not treat me thus and oppose your guardian’s Sir Peter’s wishes–but that I see that my Profligate Brother is still a favour’d Rival. MARIA. Ungenerously urged–but whatever my sentiments of that unfortunate young man are, be assured I shall not feel more bound to give him up because his Distresses have sunk him so low as to deprive him of the regard even of a Brother. SURFACE. Nay but Maria do not leave me with a Frown–by all that’s honest, I swear—-Gad’s Life here’s Lady Teazle–you must not–no you shall–for tho’ I have the greatest Regard for Lady Teazle—- MARIA. Lady Teazle! SURFACE. Yet were Sir Peter to suspect—- [Enter LADY TEAZLE, and comes forward] LADY TEAZLE. What’s this, Pray–do you take her for me!–Child you are wanted in the next Room.–What’s all this, pray– SURFACE. O the most unlucky circumstance in Nature. Maria has somehow suspected the tender concern I have for your happiness, and threaten’d to acquaint Sir Peter with her suspicions–and I was just endeavouring to reason with her when you came….

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Excerpt #4, from The Astral Plane, by C. W. Leadbeater

…to the entity itself is by no means all the harm that may accrue from such a practice, for those who habitually attend séances during life are almost certain to develop a tendency to haunt them after death, and so themselves in turn run the risks into which they have so often brought their predecessors. Besides, it is well known that the vital energy necessary to produce physical manifestations is frequently drawn from the sitters as well as from the medium, and the eventual effect on the latter is invariably evil, as is evinced by the large number of such sensitives who have gone either morally or psychically to the bad–some becoming epileptic, some taking to drink, others falling under influences which induced them to stoop to fraud and trickery of all kinds. 4. The Shade. When the separation of the principles is complete, the Kâmaloka life of the person is over, and, as before stated, he passes into the devachanic condition. But just as when he dies to this plane he leaves his physical body behind him, so when he dies to the astral plane he leaves his Kâmarûpa behind him. If he has purged himself from all earthly desires during life, and directed all his energies into the channels of unselfish spiritual aspiration, his higher Ego will be able to draw back into itself the whole of the lower Manas which it…

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Excerpt #5, from Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata, by H. G. Wells

…(abducens) are distributed to exactly the same muscles of the eyeball as they are in the rabbit. The fifth nerve, has, in the dog-fish, as in the rabbit, three chief branches. V.2 and V.3 fork over the mouth just as they do in the mammal; V.1 passes out of the cranium by a separate and more dorsal opening, and runs along a groove along the dorsal internal wall of the orbit, immediately beneath a similar branch of VII., which is not distinct in the rabbit. The grooves are shown in the figure of the cranium, Sheet 18; the joint nerve thus compounded of V. and VII. is called the ophthalmic (oph.). It is distributed to the skin above the nose and orbit. When the student commences to dissect the head of a dog-fish he notices over the dorsal surface of the snout an exudation of a yellowish jelly-like substance, and on removing the tough skin over this region and over the centre of the skull he finds, lying beneath it, a quantity of coiling simple tubuli full of such yellowish matter. These tubuli open on the surface by small pores, and the nerves terminate in hair-like extremities in their lining. These sense tubes are peculiar to aquatic forms; allied structures are found over the head and along a lateral line (see below) in the tadpole, but when the frog emerges from the water they are lost. They, doubtless, indicate some unknown sense entirely beyond our experience, and either only…

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Excerpt #6, from Word Portraits of Famous Writers, by Mabel E. Wotton

…admirably portrayed in Bleak House, still at first strikes every stranger,–for twenty-two years have not materially changed him,–no less than his perfect frankness and reckless indifference to what he says.”–1830. [Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s Retrospect of a Long Life.] “… He was at that time sixty years of age, although he did not look so old; his form and features were essentially masculine; he was not tall, but stalwart; of a robust constitution, and was proud even to arrogance of his physical and intellectual strength. He was a man to whom passers-by would have looked back and asked, ‘Who is that?’ His forehead was high, but retreated, showing remarkable absence of the organs of benevolence and veneration. It was a large head, fullest at the back, where the animal propensities predominate; it was a powerful, but not a good head, the expression the opposite of genial. In short, physiognomists and phrenologists would have selected it,–each to illustrate his theory.”–1836. [Sidenote: Harriet Martineau’s Biographical Sketches.] “His tall, broad, muscular, active frame was characteristic, and so was his head, with the strange elevation of the eyebrows which expresses self-will as strongly in some cases as astonishment in others. Those eyebrows, mounting up until they comprehend a good portion of the…

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Excerpt #7, from Appletons’ Popular Science Monthly, March 1899, by Various

…more or less related and mostly tropical groups. The whole subclass has certain pretty well-defined characteristics. They are almost without exception carnivorous (insectivorous). They are seldom subject to metamorphosis. The legs are usually eight in number. The eyes are always situated on the cephalo-thorax (head and breast plate), and not infrequently are the same in number as the legs. Not a few are fitted with poison sacs and fangs, and in the case of some of the larger true spiders and scorpions the venom is very virulent, and in some instances has proved fatal to human life. As this is hardly the place for a technical description of my Thelyphonus–a female–I shall content myself with a few facts and measurements. Those who are curious as to her personal appearance can consult the accompanying photograph. Most persons will conclude that her beauty is not even “skin deep.” [Illustration: Photograph of a Thelyphonus] The following post-mortem data will perhaps aid in giving a clearer idea of this curious little creature. The length of the body from the front of the cephalo-thorax to the end of the last post-abdominal segment was fifty-two millimetres–a little more than two inches; the length of the tail was fifty millimetres, thus making the total length about four inches. The width of the abdomen in its widest part, near…

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Excerpt #8, from An Universal Dictionary of the Marine, by William Falconer

…defending the fore-part, and those that followed the flanks, keeping the boss of their bucklers level with the top of the parapet. “To this purpose Polybius gives us an account of the first warlike preparations which the Romans made by sea. We may add, in short, the order, which they observed in drawing up their fleet for battle, taken from the same author. The two consuls were in the two admiral galleys, in the front of their two distinct squadrons, each of them just a-head of their own divisions, and a-breast of each other; the first fleet being posted on the right, the second on the left, making two long files or lines of battle. And, whereas it was necessary to give a due space between each galley, to ply their oars, and keep clear one of another, and to have their heads or prows looking somewhat outwards; this manner of drawing up did therefore naturally form an angle, the point whereof was at the two admiral galleys, which were near together; and as their two lines were prolonged, so the distance grew consequently wider and wider towards the rear. But, because the naval as well as the land army consisted of four legions, and accordingly the ships made four divisions; two of these were yet behind: Of which the third fleet, or the third legion, was drawn up front-ways in the rear of the first and second, and so stretching along from point to point composed a triangle, whereof the third line was the base. Their…

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Excerpt #9, from On the Anzac trail: Being extracts from the diary of a New Zealand sapper, by Anzac

…The Turks attacked gamely, like the big, brave soldiers they are and always were. Led by their splendid officers, they came on in masses, shoulder to shoulder, and did all that in them lay to rush our trenches. They were met by a storm of bullets that would have staggered anything born of woman. It did stagger them: they recoiled before that leaden blast that piled their dead and wounded up in ghastly heaps and ridges like broken-down walls—before that smashing fire delivered at twenty yards range. They recoiled—yes. But run—no! They charged, charged right through that hurricane of machine-gun and rifle fire—charged right up to our parapets. And now it was our turn. Like one man the colonial infantry leaped from their cover. Crash! They were into the Turks. Followed a wild hurly-burly of hacking and stabbing while one might count twenty slowly; then the enemy were beaten back, and the defenders ran, limped, and crawled back to their trenches and took to their rifles again. Thus it went on from before dawn till towards evening. Charge and counter-charge, till men reeled from sheer exhaustion, and their bloodclotted weapons slipped from hands sticky with the same red paint. I am not exaggerating; those who were present on that awful Tuesday will bear me out. We were hard pressed. The strongest men in the world are only human….

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Excerpt #10, from Latin for Beginners, by Benjamin L. D’Ooge

…pugnātum est Dēnique tamen mulieres terga vertērunt et fugā salūtem petiērunt. Multae autem captae sunt, in quō numerō erat ipsa Hippolytē. Herculēs postquam balteum accēpit, omnibus captīvīs lībertātem dedit. [Footnote 1: A fabled tribe of warlike women living in Asia Minor.] [Footnote 2: «omnīnō», etc., to have consisted entirely of women.] [Footnote 3: «Amāzonibus», §501.14.] [Illustration: HERCULES ET CERBERUS] THE DESCENT TO HADES AND THE DOG CER´BERUS Iamque ūnus modo ē duodecim labōribus relinquēbātur sed inter omnīs hic erat difficillimus. Iussus est enim canem Cerberum[4] ex Orcō in lūcem trahere. Ex Orcō autem nēmō anteā reverterat. Praetereā Cerberus erat mōnstrum maximē horribile et tria capita habēbat. Herculēs postquam imperia Eurystheī accēpit, statim profectus est et in Orcum dēscendit. Ibi vērō nōn sine summō periculō Cerberum manibus rapuit et ingentī cum labōre ex Orcō in lūcem et adurbem Eurystheī trāxit. Sic duodecim laborēs illī[5] intrā duodecim annōs cōnfectī sunt. Dēmum post longam vītam Herculēs ā deīs receptus est et Iuppiter fīliō suō dedit immortālitātem. [Footnote 4: The dog Cerberus guarded the gate of Orcus, the abode of the dead.] [Footnote 5: «illī», those famous.]…

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Excerpt #11, from Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases, by Grenville Kleiser

…Delicious throng of sensations Despite her pretty insolence Dignity and sweet patience were in her look Dim opalescence of the moon Dimly foreshadowed on the horizon Dimmed by the cold touch of unjust suspicion Disfigured by passages of solemn and pompous monotony. Disguised itself as chill critical impartiality Dismal march of death Distinguished by hereditary rank or social position Distract and beguile the soul Distressing in their fatuous ugliness Diverted into alien channels Diverting her eyes, she pondered Dogs the footsteps Doled out in miserly measure Doubt tortured him Doubts beset her lonely and daring soul Down the steep of disenchantment Dreams and visions were surpassed Dreams that fade and die in the dim west…

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Excerpt #12, from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon

…his active and capacious mind; and the age, the merit, the reputation of Athanasius, enabled him to assume, in a moment of danger, the office of Ecclesiastical Dictator. 129 Three years were not yet elapsed since the majority of the bishops of the West had ignorantly, or reluctantly, subscribed the Confession of Rimini. They repented, they believed, but they dreaded the unseasonable rigor of their orthodox brethren; and if their pride was stronger than their faith, they might throw themselves into the arms of the Arians, to escape the indignity of a public penance, which must degrade them to the condition of obscure laymen. At the same time the domestic differences concerning the union and distinction of the divine persons, were agitated with some heat among the Catholic doctors; and the progress of this metaphysical controversy seemed to threaten a public and lasting division of the Greek and Latin churches. By the wisdom of a select synod, to which the name and presence of Athanasius gave the authority of a general council, the bishops, who had unwarily deviated into error, were admitted to the communion of the church, on the easy condition of subscribing the Nicene Creed; without any formal acknowledgment of their past fault, or any minute definition of their scholastic opinions. The advice of the…

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