Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:20

Excerpt #1, from Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

…of the day, chilled me through my jacket. The HISPANIOLA still lay where she had anchored; but, sure enough, there was the Jolly Roger–the black flag of piracy–flying from her peak. Even as I looked, there came another red flash and another report that sent the echoes clattering, and one more round-shot whistled through the air. It was the last of the cannonade. I lay for some time watching the bustle which succeeded the attack. Men were demolishing something with axes on the beach near the stockade–the poor jolly-boat, I afterwards discovered. Away, near the mouth of the river, a great fire was glowing among the trees, and between that point and the ship one of the gigs kept coming and going, the men, whom I had seen so gloomy, shouting at the oars like children. But there was a sound in their voices which suggested rum. At length I thought I might return towards the stockade. I was pretty far down on the low, sandy spit that encloses the anchorage to the east, and is joined at half-water to Skeleton Island; and now, as I rose to my feet, I saw, some distance further down the spit and rising from among low bushes, an isolated rock, pretty high, and peculiarly white in colour. It occurred to me that this might be the white rock of which Ben Gunn had spoken and that some day or other a boat might be wanted and I should know where to look for one….

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Excerpt #2, from The Talking Horse, and Other Tales, by F. Anstey

…‘I wanted to ask you,’ he said, ‘should you say that Red Indians were–well, common in England?’ ‘You have asked me a straightforward question, and I’ll give you a straightforward answer,’ was the reply. ‘Till quite lately I should say they were absolutely unknown in this country.’ Clarence’s face brightened; he felt quite fond of Uncle Lambert, and began to think him a particularly well-informed and entertaining person. ‘Yes,’ continued Uncle Lambert, thoughtfully, ‘I must confess I thought it a little unlikely at first that you should have been annoyed by Red Indians; but, of course, when I remembered the Earl’s Court Show, I saw at once that it was quite possible.’ Clarence felt a cold qualm. He had, as we already know, seen Buffalo Bill’s wonderful show, which, indeed, was responsible for much of his recent military enthusiasm. But till that moment, curiously enough, it had not occurred to him to connect the mysterious Wah Na Sa Pash Boo with the denizens of the Wild West whom he had seen careering about the immense arena at Earl’s Court. ‘Do you mean,’ he said, with an effort, ‘that you thought some of Buffalo Bill’s Indians had managed to escape?’ ‘Well, I don’t know any other way to account for such a thing. Do you?’ Clarence did not answer this question directly: ‘But,’ he objected desperately, ’those were converted Indians. They went to church, and…

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Excerpt #3, from Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

…the severity of my bondage to that taskmaster could scarcely be afforded, than the degrading shifts to which I was constantly driven to find him employment. So mean is extremity, that I sometimes sent him to Hyde Park corner to see what o’clock it was. Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the fender, I said to Herbert, “My dear Herbert, I have something very particular to tell you.” “My dear Handel,” he returned, “I shall esteem and respect your confidence.” “It concerns myself, Herbert,” said I, “and one other person.” Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his head on one side, and having looked at it in vain for some time, looked at me because I didn’t go on. “Herbert,” said I, laying my hand upon his knee, “I love—I adore—Estella.” Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy matter-of-course way, “Exactly. Well?” “Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well?” “What next, I mean?” said Herbert. “Of course I know that.” “How do you know it?” said I. “How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you.”…

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Excerpt #4, from Canadian Fairy Tales, by Cyrus MacMillan

…ransom his boy. But Raven, when he saw the presents, said, “No, I do not want these gifts; they do not pay me for my trouble,” and he would not part with the baby. The messengers again reported to the Chief what had happened. Then the Chief gave them still richer gifts, the best he had in all his land, and sent them back. But again Raven said, “No, your gifts are valueless, compared with my trouble and expense. Say this to your Chief.” When the Chief heard this from his messengers he was sore perplexed, for he had offered the best he had, and he thought that he had reached the end of his resources. So he said, “Go back and ask the people to demand what they wish in exchange for my boy and they will receive it if it can be provided.” So the messengers went back to Raven and spoke as they had been commanded. And Raven said, “Only one thing can pay for the child, and that is Fire. Give me Fire and you can take the baby.” The messenger laughed and said, “Why did you not say so at first and save us all this trouble and anxiety? Fire is the most plentiful thing in our kingdom, and we hold it in no value.” So they returned happy to the Chief. And he sent back much Fire and received his child unharmed from Raven in exchange. And he sent Raven two small stones which the messengers taught Raven how to use. And they said, "If you ever lose Fire or if it dies for lack of food you can always…

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Excerpt #5, from Don Juan, by Baron George Gordon Byron Byron

…But I will fall at least as fell my hero; Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign; Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go, With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe. Sir Walter reign’d before me; Moore and Campbell Before and after; but now grown more holy, The Muses upon Sion’s hill must ramble With poets almost clergymen, or wholly; And Pegasus hath a psalmodic amble Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley, Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts, A modern Ancient Pistol—by the hilts? Then there’s my gentle Euphues, who, they say, Sets up for being a sort of moral me; He’ll find it rather difficult some day To turn out both, or either, it may be. Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three; And that deep-mouth’d Boeotian ‘Savage Landor’ Has taken for a swan rogue Southey’s gander. John Keats, who was kill’d off by one critique,…

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Excerpt #6, from English Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs

…“What are you a-doing of?”, says she. “I’m going to make some gruel for the young master,” says the cook, “for he’s dying for love of the lady.” “Let me make it,” says Cap o’ Rushes. Well, the cook wouldn’t at first, but at last she said yes, and Cap o’ Rushes made the gruel. And when she had made it she slipped the ring into it on the sly before the cook took it upstairs. The young man he drank it and then he saw the ring at the bottom. “Send for the cook,” says he. So up she comes. “Who made this gruel here?” says he. “I did,” says the cook, for she was frightened. And he looked at her, “No, you didn’t,” says he. “Say who did it, and you shan’t be harmed.” “Well, then, ‘twas Cap o’ Rushes,” says she. “Send Cap o’ Rushes here,” says he. So Cap o’ Rushes came. “Did you make my gruel?” says he. “Yes, I did,” says she. “Where did you get this ring?” says he. “From him that gave it me,” says she….

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Excerpt #7, from An Outcast of the Islands, by Joseph Conrad

…gesture, of action, of any outward manifestation of life; those are lost in the unearthly brilliance or in the unearthly gloom of such moments. We are absorbed in the contemplation of that something, within our bodies, which rejoices or suffers while the body goes on breathing, instinctively runs away or, not less instinctively, fights–perhaps dies. But death in such a moment is the privilege of the fortunate, it is a high and rare favour, a supreme grace. Willems never remembered how and when he parted from Aissa. He caught himself drinking the muddy water out of the hollow of his hand, while his canoe was drifting in mid-stream past the last houses of Sambir. With his returning wits came the fear of something unknown that had taken possession of his heart, of something inarticulate and masterful which could not speak and would be obeyed. His first impulse was that of revolt. He would never go back there. Never! He looked round slowly at the brilliance of things in the deadly sunshine and took up his paddle! How changed everything seemed! The river was broader, the sky was higher. How fast the canoe flew under the strokes of his paddle! Since when had he acquired the strength of two men or more? He looked up and down the reach at the forests of the bank with a confused notion that with one sweep of his hand he could tumble all these trees into the stream. His face felt burning. He drank again, and shuddered with a…

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Excerpt #8, from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated, by Alexandre Dumas

…or heart all he is now saying, I should throw myself into the sea at once, for I could not bear it.’” “Poor father!” murmured the priest. “From day to day he lived on alone, and more and more solitary. M. Morrel and Mercédès came to see him, but his door was closed; and, although I was certain he was at home, he would not make any answer. One day, when, contrary to his custom, he had admitted Mercédès, and the poor girl, in spite of her own grief and despair, endeavored to console him, he said to her,—‘Be assured, my dear daughter, he is dead; and instead of expecting him, it is he who is awaiting us; I am quite happy, for I am the oldest, and of course shall see him first.’ “However well disposed a person may be, why, you see we leave off after a time seeing persons who are in sorrow, they make one melancholy; and so at last old Dantès was left all to himself, and I only saw from time to time strangers go up to him and come down again with some bundle they tried to hide; but I guessed what these bundles were, and that he sold by degrees what he had to pay for his subsistence. At length the poor old fellow reached the end of all he had; he owed three quarters’ rent, and they threatened to turn him out; he begged for another week, which was granted to him. I know this, because the landlord came into my apartment when he left his….

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Excerpt #9, from Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Life, by Knox

…on the afternoon of the seventeenth, we carried our baggage to the Ingodah, which lay half a mile from shore. We reached the steamer after about twenty minutes pulling in a whale-boat and shipping a barrel of water through the carelessness of an oarsman. At Nicolayevsk the Amoor is about a mile and a half wide, with a depth of twenty to thirty-five feet in the channel. I asked a resident what he thought the average rapidity of the current in front of the town. “When you look at it or float with it,” said he, “I think it is about three and a half miles. If you go against it you find it not an inch less than five miles.” The rowers had no light task to stem the rapid stream, and I think it was about like the Mississippi at Memphis. The boat was to leave early in the morning. I took a farewell dinner with Mr. Chase, and at ten o’clock received a note from Borasdine announcing his readiness to go to the steamer. Anossoff, Chase, and half a dozen others assembled to see us off, and after waking the echoes and watchmen on the pier, we secured a skiff and reached the Ingodah. The rain was over, and stars were peeping through occasional loop-holes in the clouds. [Illustration: SEEING OFF.] ‘Seeing off’ consumed much time and more champagne. As we left the…

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Excerpt #10, from The Pirates Own Book, by Charles Ellms

…Beard lay, about the distance of twenty leagues. The hardened and infatuated pirate, having been often deceived by false intelligence, was the less attentive to this information, nor was he convinced of its accuracy until he saw the sloops sent to apprehend him. Though he had then only twenty men on board, he prepared to give battle. Lieutenant Maynard arrived with his sloops in the evening, and anchored, as he could not venture, under cloud of night, to go into the place where Black Beard lay. The latter spent the night in drinking with the master of a trading-vessel, with the same indifference as if no danger had been near. Nay, such was the desperate wickedness of this villain, that, it is reported, during the carousals of that night, one of his men asked him, “In case any thing should happen to him during the engagement with the two sloops which were waiting to attack him in the morning, whether his wife knew where he had buried his money?” when he impiously replied, “That nobody but himself and the devil knew where it was, and the longest liver should take all.” In the morning Maynard weighed, and sent his boat to sound, which coming near the pirate, received her fire. Maynard then hoisted royal colors, and made directly towards Black Beard with every sail and oar. In a little time the pirate ran aground, and so also did the king’s vessels. Maynard lightened his vessel of the ballast and water, and made towards…

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Excerpt #11, from The power and the glory, by Henry Kuttner

…“We have atomic power now,” Miller said. “The beginnings of it. You’re merely beginning. It will be a long, long time before you stand where Atlantis once stood. First you must change the very structure of your world! Only then will you change, will the radiation-caused mutation alter you and give you the powers and senses you lost when a world went to war a millennium ago. “The fires of matter itself moved across the planet, and where it passed, structure altered and what was bright and shining and glorious became a dull, empty thing. Men lost their specialized, hard-won powers then. But the seeds remain latent in their bodies, recessive characteristics. Here, on the mountain, the recessive can become dominant for a little while. It is unstable, of course. . . .” “Then—I’m like you? Tsi told me but I couldn’t believe it. I’m a—a sort of superman?” “Every gift has its price,” she said oddly. “There is beauty here but there is terror too. You must have noticed that you see with clearer eyes—the eyes of the mind.” “Yes,” he said. “I’ve noticed that. Things are—shining, somehow.” “It would be well if you remembered your own world,” Orelle said, after a little pause. Her eyes were troubled. “Your own atomic structure has altered but that can take place only once.”…

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Excerpt #12, from Home Life in Colonial Days, by Alice Morse Earle

…stood on tall, spindling legs, or were carefully shaped to be set up on trivets. They usually had, also, long, adjustable handles, which helped to make endurable the blazing heat of the great logs. All such irons as waffle-irons had far longer handles than are seen on any cooking-utensils in these days of stoves and ranges, where the flames are covered and the housewife shielded. Gridirons had long handles of wood or iron, which could be fastened to the shorter stationary handles. The two gridirons in the accompanying illustration are a century old. The circular one was the oldest form. The oblong ones, with groove to collect the gravy, did not vary in shape till our own day. Both have indications of fittings for long handles, but the handles have vanished. A long-handled frying-pan is seen hanging by the side of the slave-kitchen fireplace. An accompaniment of the kitchen fireplace, found, not in farmhouses, but among luxury-loving town-folk, was the plate-warmer. They are seldom named in inventories, and I know of but one of Revolutionary days, and it is here shown. Similar ones are manufactured to-day; the legs, perhaps, are shorter, but the general outline is the same. An important furnishing of every fireplace was the andirons. In kitchen fireplaces these were usually of iron, and the shape known as goose-neck were common. Cob irons were the simplest form, and merely supported the…

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