Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:29

Excerpt #1, from Planet of Sand, by Murray Leinster

…be easy to make terms with the life which held other life so cheaply. With the planet’s only source of power now guarded, matters looked less bright than before. But after they had reached the icecap, and when they slanted down out of the airlessness to the spot which was their home because their seeds had been planted there–as they dived down for a landing, their real situation appeared. There was a colossal object with many pairs of legs moving back and forth over the little space where their food plants sprouted. In days, those plants would have yielded food. They wouldn’t yield food now. Their garden was being trampled to nothingness by a multilegged machine of a size comparable to the other machine which had chased them on the grid. It was fifty feet high from ground to top, and had a round, tanklike body all of twenty feet in diameter. Round projections at one end looked like eyes. It moved on multiple legs which trampled in orderly confusion. It stamped the growing plants to pulped green stuff in the polar sand. It went over and over and over the place where the food necessary for the humans’ survival had promised to grow. It stamped and stamped: It destroyed all hope of food. And it destroyed all hope. Because, as Stan drove the skid down to see the machine more clearly, it stopped in its stamping. It swung about to face him, with a…

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Excerpt #2, from The Heroes; Or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children, by Charles Kingsley

…Then the strange lady smiled again, and said: ‘Not yet; you are too young, and too unskilled; for this is Medusa the Gorgon, the mother of a monstrous brood. Return to your home, and do the work which waits there for you. You must play the man in that before I can think you worthy to go in search of the Gorgon.’ Then Perseus would have spoken, but the strange lady vanished, and he awoke; and behold, it was a dream. But day and night Perseus saw before him the face of that dreadful woman, with the vipers writhing round her head. So he returned home; and when he came to Seriphos, the first thing which he heard was that his mother was a slave in the house of Polydectes. Grinding his teeth with rage, he went out, and away to the king’s palace, and through the men’s rooms, and the women’s rooms, and so through all the house (for no one dared stop him, so terrible and fair was he), till he found his mother sitting on the floor, turning the stone hand-mill, and weeping as she turned it. And he lifted her up, and kissed her, and bade her follow him forth. But before they could pass out of the room Polydectes came in, raging. And when Perseus saw him, he flew upon him as the mastiff flies on the boar. ‘Villain and tyrant!’ he cried; ‘is this your respect for the Gods, and thy mercy to strangers and widows? You shall die!’ And because he had no sword he caught up the stone…

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Excerpt #3, from Biology, by Edmund B. Wilson

…Belfast address, where he declared himself driven by an intellectual necessity to cross the boundary line of the experimental evidence and to discern in non-living matter, as he said, the promise and potency of every form and quality of terrestrial life. This intellectual necessity was created by a conviction of the continuity and consistency of natural phenomena, which is almost inseparable from the scientific attitude towards nature. But Tyndall’s words stood after all for a confession of faith, not for a statement of fact; and they soared far above the terra firma of the actual evidence. At the present day we too may find ourselves logically driven to the view that living things first arose as a product of non-living matter. We must fully recognize the extraordinary progress that has been made by the chemist in the artificial synthesis of compounds formerly known only as the direct products of living protoplasm. But it must also be admitted that we are still wholly without evidence of the origin of any living thing, at any period of the earth’s history, save from some other living thing; and after more than two centuries Redi’s aphorism omne vivum e vivo retains to-day its full force. It is my impression therefore that the time has not yet come when hypotheses regarding a different origin of life can be considered as practically useful. If I have the temerity to ask your attention to the fundamental…

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Excerpt #4, from Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen

…salmon to cod, or boiled fowls to veal cutlets. They reached town by three o’clock the third day, glad to be released, after such a journey, from the confinement of a carriage, and ready to enjoy all the luxury of a good fire. The house was handsome, and handsomely fitted up, and the young ladies were immediately put in possession of a very comfortable apartment. It had formerly been Charlotte’s, and over the mantelpiece still hung a landscape in coloured silks of her performance, in proof of her having spent seven years at a great school in town to some effect. As dinner was not to be ready in less than two hours from their arrival, Elinor determined to employ the interval in writing to her mother, and sat down for that purpose. In a few moments Marianne did the same. “I am writing home, Marianne,” said Elinor; “had not you better defer your letter for a day or two?” “I am not going to write to my mother,” replied Marianne, hastily, and as if wishing to avoid any farther inquiry. Elinor said no more; it immediately struck her that she must then be writing to Willoughby; and the conclusion which as instantly followed was, that, however mysteriously they might wish to conduct the affair, they must be engaged. This conviction, though not entirely satisfactory, gave her pleasure, and she continued her letter with greater alacrity….

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Excerpt #5, from Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

…frolicsome Lambs had permitted the joke to escape. No hint of this had reached the culprits, however, and Amy’s dismay can be imagined, when, the very evening before the fair, as she was putting the last touches to her pretty table, Mrs. Chester, who, of course, resented the supposed ridicule of her daughter, said, in a bland tone, but with a cold look… “I find, dear, that there is some feeling among the young ladies about my giving this table to anyone but my girls. As this is the most prominent, and some say the most attractive table of all, and they are the chief getters-up of the fair, it is thought best for them to take this place. I’m sorry, but I know you are too sincerely interested in the cause to mind a little personal disappointment, and you shall have another table if you like.” Mrs. Chester fancied beforehand that it would be easy to deliver this little speech, but when the time came, she found it rather difficult to utter it naturally, with Amy’s unsuspicious eyes looking straight at her full of surprise and trouble. Amy felt that there was something behind this, but could not guess what, and said quietly, feeling hurt, and showing that she did, “Perhaps you had rather I took no table at all?” “Now, my dear, don’t have any ill feeling, I beg. It’s merely a matter…

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Excerpt #6, from Round the Red Lamp: Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life, by Arthur Conan Doyle

…This was depressing. Dr. Wilkinson blushed until he was nearly as red as the other. “May I ask what I can do for you?” he asked, picking up his stethoscope and tapping it gently against his thumb-nail. “Yes, I was just going to tell you. I heard of your coming, but I couldn’t get round before—-” He broke into a nervous little cough. “Yes?” said the doctor encouragingly. “I should have been here three weeks ago, but you know how these things get put off.” He coughed again behind his large red hand. “I do not think that you need say anything more,” said the doctor, taking over the case with an easy air of command. “Your cough is quite sufficient. It is entirely bronchial by the sound. No doubt the mischief is circumscribed at present, but there is always the danger that it may spread, so you have done wisely to come to me. A little judicious treatment will soon set you right. Your waistcoat, please, but not your shirt. Puff out your chest and say ninety-nine in a deep voice.” The red-faced man began to laugh. “It’s all right, doctor,” said he. “That cough comes from chewing tobacco, and I know it’s a very bad habit. Nine-and-ninepence is what I have to say to you, for I’m the officer of the gas company, and they have a claim against you for that on the metre.”…

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Excerpt #7, from The Communist Manifesto, by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx

…working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling as to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production. These measures will of course be different in different countries. Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all right of inheritance….

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Excerpt #8, from The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

…for his sake; but I might be powerless, for I might arrive too late, and nothing would be left for you but lifelong remorse, and . . . and . . . for me, a broken heart.” “But, Lady Blakeney,” said the young man, touched by the gentle earnestness of this exquisitely beautiful woman, “do you know that what you propose doing is man’s work?—you cannot possibly journey to Calais alone. You would be running the greatest possible risks to yourself, and your chances of finding your husband now—were I to direct you ever so carefully—are infinitely remote.” “Oh, I hope there are risks!” she murmured softly. “I hope there are dangers, too!—I have so much to atone for. But I fear you are mistaken. Chauvelin’s eyes are fixed upon you all, he will scarce notice me. Quick, Sir Andrew!—the coach is ready, and there is not a moment to be lost. . . . I must get to him! I must!” she repeated with almost savage energy, “to warn him that that man is on his track. . . . Can’t you see—can’t you see, that I must get to him . . . even . . . even if it be too late to save him . . . at least . . . to be by his side . . . at the last.” “Faith, Madame, you must command me. Gladly would I or any of my comrades lay down our lives for your husband. If you will go yourself . . .”…

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Excerpt #9, from Psmith, Journalist, by P. G. Wodehouse

…The new arrival was a young man with a shock of red hair, an ingrowing Roman nose, and a mouth from which force or the passage of time had removed three front teeth. He held on to the edges of the trap with his hands, and stared in a glassy manner into Psmith’s face, which was within a foot of his own. There was a momentary pause, broken by an oath from Mr. Gooch, who was still undergoing treatment in the background. “Aha!” said Psmith genially. “Historic picture. ‘Doctor Cook discovers the North Pole.’” The red-headed young man blinked. The strong light of the open air was trying to his eyes. “Youse had better come down,” he observed coldly. “We’ve got youse.” “And,” continued Psmith, unmoved, “is instantly handed a gum-drop by his faithful Esquimaux.” As he spoke, he brought the stick down on the knuckles which disfigured the edges of the trap. The intruder uttered a howl and dropped out of sight. In the room below there were whisperings and mutterings, growing gradually louder till something resembling coherent conversation came to Psmith’s ears, as he knelt by the trap making meditative billiard-shots with the stick at a small…

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Excerpt #10, from The Myths and Fables of To Day, by Samuel Adams Drake

…Highway,” that is to say, the lawfully laid out public road, she thereby cleared herself from any old indebtedness. As amazing as it may seem, several such cases are recorded in New England, the formalities observed differing somewhat in different localities. It is considered unlucky to get married before breakfast. “If you marry in Lent, You will live to repent.” May is considered an unlucky month to be married in. “Marry in May, And you’ll rue the day.” To remove an engagement or wedding ring from the finger is also a bad omen.[17] To lose either of them, or to have them broken on the finger, also denotes misfortune. It is extremely unlucky for either the bride or groom to meet a funeral when on their way to be married. It is an unlucky omen for the church clock to strike during the performance of a marriage ceremony, as it is said to portend the death of one of the contracting parties before the year is out. [Illustration] IX OF EVIL OMENS…

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Excerpt #11, from The Intrusion of Jimmy, by P. G. Wodehouse

…for ways of retrenchment. His lordship’s allowance was an obvious way. He had not to wait long for an excuse for annihilating it. There is a game called poker, at which a man without much control over his features may exceed the limits of the handsomest allowance. His lordship’s face during a game of poker was like the surface of some quiet pond, ruffled by every breeze. The blank despair of his expression when he held bad cards made bluffing expensive. The honest joy that bubbled over in his eyes when his hand was good acted as an efficient danger-signal to his grateful opponents. Two weeks of poker had led to his writing to his uncle a distressed, but confident, request for more funds; and the avuncular foot had come down with a joyous bang. Taking his stand on the evils of gambling, Sir Thomas had changed the conditions of the money-market for his nephew with a thoroughness that effectually prevented the possibility of the youth’s being again caught by the fascinations of poker. The allowance vanished absolutely; and in its place there came into being an arrangement. By this, his lordship was to have whatever money he wished, but he must ask for it, and state why it was needed. If the request were reasonable, the cash would be forthcoming; if preposterous, it would not. The flaw in the scheme, from his lordship’s point of view, was the difference of opinion…

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Excerpt #12, from Curious Punishments of Bygone Days, by Alice Morse Earle

…the nose of the woman whose misfortune it was to wear it. The mode of putting it on would be thus: The brank would be opened by throwing back the sides of the hoop, and the hinder part of the top band by means of the hinges. The constable would then stand in front of his victim and force the knife or plate into her mouth, the divided band passing on either side of her nose, which would protrude through the opening. The hoop would then be closed behind, the band brought down from the top to the back of the head, and fastened down upon it, and thus the cage would at once be firmly and immovably fixed so long as her tormentors might think fit. On the left side is a chain, one end of which is attached to the hoop, and on the other end is a ring by which the victim was led, or by which she was at pleasure attached to a post or wall. On the front of the brank is the date 1688." This brank is depicted in the Reliquary for October, 1860. Mr. William Andrews, in his interesting book, entitled Old-Time Punishments gives drawings of no less than sixteen branks now preserved in England. Some of them are massive, and horrible instruments of torture. It will be noted that the brank is universally spoken of as a punishment for women; but men also were sentenced to wear it–paupers, blasphemers, railers. I am glad John Winthrop and John Carver did not bring cumbrous and cruel…

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