Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:15

Excerpt #1, from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources

…With foamy waters on a muddy shore.= Dryden. =More potatoes and fewer potations.= Motto for Working-men. =More servants wait on man / Than he’ll take= 35 =notice of.= George Herbert. =More sinn’d against than sinning.= Lear, iii. 2. =More springs up in the garden than the gardener sows there.= Pr. =More suo=–After his usual manner; as is his wont. =More than all things, avoid fault-finding and a habit of criticism.= Prof. Blackie to young men. =More than kisses letters mingle souls.= Donne. 40 =More than we use is more than we want.= Pr. =More things are wrought by prayer / Than this world dreams of.= Tennyson. =More water glideth by the mill / Than wots the miller of.= Tit. Andron., ii. 1. =Mores amici noveris, non oderis=–Know well, but take no offence at the manners of a friend. Pr.…

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Excerpt #2, from Utilitarianism, by John Stuart Mill

…it is disinterested, is always in the mind itself; and the notion, therefore, of the transcendental moralists must be, that this sanction will not exist in the mind unless it is believed to have its root out of the mind; and that if a person is able to say to himself, That which is restraining me, and which is called my conscience, is only a feeling in my own mind, he may possibly draw the conclusion that when the feeling ceases the obligation ceases, and that if he find the feeling inconvenient, he may disregard it, and endeavour to get rid of it. But is this danger confined to the utilitarian morality? Does the belief that moral obligation has its seat outside the mind make the feeling of it too strong to be got rid of? The fact is so far otherwise, that all moralists admit and lament the ease with which, in the generality of minds, conscience can be silenced or stifled. The question, Need I obey my conscience? is quite as often put to themselves by persons who never heard of the principle of utility, as by its adherents. Those whose conscientious feelings are so weak as to allow of their asking this question, if they answer it affirmatively, will not do so because they believe in the transcendental theory, but because of the external sanctions. It is not necessary, for the present purpose, to decide whether the feeling of duty is innate or implanted. Assuming it to be innate, it is…

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Excerpt #3, from Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens

…and nieces, who had been perfectly inconsolable during the previous illness, and whose grief had been wholly irrepressible even on the most public occasions, they would be as happy among themselves as need be—quite cheerful and contented—conversing together with as much freedom and gaiety, as if nothing whatever had happened to disturb them. Husbands, too, bore the loss of their wives with the most heroic calmness. Wives, again, put on weeds for their husbands, as if, so far from grieving in the garb of sorrow, they had made up their minds to render it as becoming and attractive as possible. It was observable, too, that ladies and gentlemen who were in passions of anguish during the ceremony of interment, recovered almost as soon as they reached home, and became quite composed before the tea-drinking was over. All this was very pleasant and improving to see; and Oliver beheld it with great admiration. That Oliver Twist was moved to resignation by the example of these good people, I cannot, although I am his biographer, undertake to affirm with any degree of confidence; but I can most distinctly say, that for many months he continued meekly to submit to the domination and ill-treatment of Noah Claypole: who used him far worse than before, now that his jealousy was roused by seeing the new boy promoted to the black stick and hatband, while he, the old one, remained stationary in…

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Excerpt #4, from The Student’s Elements of Geology, by Sir Charles Lyell

…England or France. It has been called the Trias by German writers, or the Triple Group, because it is separable into three distinct formations, called the “Keuper,” the “Muschelkalk,” and the “Bunter-sandstein.” Of these the middle division, or the Muschelkalk, is wholly wanting in England, and the uppermost (Keuper) and lowest (Bunter) members of the series are not rich in fossils. Upper Trias or Keuper.—In certain grey indurated marls below the bone-bed Mr. Boyd Dawkins has found at Watchet, on the coast of Somersetshire, a molar tooth of Microlestes, enabling him to refer to the Trias strata formerly supposed to be Liassic. Mr. Charles Moore had previously discovered many teeth of mammalia of the same family near Frome, in Somersetshire, in the contents of a vertical fissure traversing a mass of carboniferous limestone. The top of this fissure must have communicated with the bed of the Triassic sea, and probably at a point not far from the ancient shore on which the small marsupials of that era abounded. This upper division of the Trias called the Keuper is of great thickness in the central counties of England, attaining, according to Mr. Hull’s estimate, no less than 3450 feet in Cheshire, and it covers a large extent of country between Lancashire and Devonshire. In Worcestershire and Warwickshire in sandstone belonging to the…

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Excerpt #5, from English Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs

…remembered about the little golden box that his father gave him. And he said to himself: “Well, well, I never was so near my death as I am now;” and then he felt in his pocket, and drew the little box out. And when he opened it, out there hopped three little red men, and asked Jack: “What is your will with us?” “Well,” said Jack, “I want a great lake and some of the largest man-of-war vessels in the world before this mansion, and one of the largest vessels to fire a royal salute, and the last round to break one of the legs of the bed where this young lady is sleeping.” “All right,” said the little men; “go to sleep.” Jack had hardly time to bring the words out of his mouth, to tell the little men what to do, but what it struck eight o’clock, when Bang, bang went one of the largest man-of-war vessels; and it made Jack jump out of bed to look through the window; and I can assure you it was a wonderful sight for him to see, after being so long with his father and mother living in a wood. By this time Jack dressed himself, and said his prayers, and came down laughing; for he was proud, he was, because the thing was done so well. The gentleman comes to him, and says to him: “Well, my young man, I must say that you are very clever indeed. Come and have some breakfast.” And the gentleman tells him, “Now there are two more things you have to do, and then you shall have my daughter in marriage.” Jack gets his…

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Excerpt #6, from Anne of the Island, by L. M. Montgomery

…“At ten years? Dear me, how sad!” “I’m not making fun,” said Davy with dignity. “I’m dis—dis—discouraged”—bringing out the big word with a valiant effort. “Why and wherefore?” asked Anne, sitting down beside him. “’Cause the new teacher that come when Mr. Holmes got sick give me ten sums to do for Monday. It’ll take me all day tomorrow to do them. It isn’t fair to have to work Saturdays. Milty Boulter said he wouldn’t do them, but Marilla says I’ve got to. I don’t like Miss Carson a bit.” “Don’t talk like that about your teacher, Davy Keith,” said Mrs. Rachel severely. “Miss Carson is a very fine girl. There is no nonsense about her.” “That doesn’t sound very attractive,” laughed Anne. “I like people to have a little nonsense about them. But I’m inclined to have a better opinion of Miss Carson than you have. I saw her in prayer-meeting last night, and she has a pair of eyes that can’t always look sensible. Now, Davy-boy, take heart of grace. ‘Tomorrow will bring another day’ and I’ll help you with the sums as far as in me lies. Don’t waste this lovely hour ’twixt light and dark worrying over arithmetic.” “Well, I won’t,” said Davy, brightening up. “If you help me with the sums I’ll have ’em done in time to go fishing with Milty. I wish old Aunt Atossa’s funeral was tomorrow instead of today. I wanted to go to…

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Excerpt #7, from Tales from a Rolltop Desk, by Christopher Morley

…different ages, doing her gymnastic exercises, beginning as a little plump Venus and ending as a stunning profile in tights. We tried to maintain an attitude of merely scientific detachment toward those pictures, admiring them only as connoisseurs of physical culture; but we ended by begging him for copies, insisting that they would be a useful guide to us in our own private exercising. But Larsen said he was keeping them to illustrate a new enlarged edition of his physical-culture book. We told him that it would sell a million copies, and I think we all volunteered to act as selling-agents for the book. Annette Kellermann and Susanna Cocroft, we cried, were scarecrows compared to Gloria. “To all this banter Gloria would listen calmly and unembarrassed, for she had a magnificent unconsciousness of her own superb allure. We would each try to get a moment alone with her to describe the exercises we were taking, and to ask her advice about our muscular development. I remember that Blackmore, after secret practice that we had not suspected, took the wind out of our sails one evening when some of us were bragging of our accomplishment in bending and touching the floor while standing on tiptoe. He jumped up and caught hold of the lintel of the doorway, and chinned himself on it a dozen times or so. We were all crestfallen by this feat until Gloria came forward–all the other…

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Excerpt #8, from The Writing of the Short Story, by Lewis Worthington Smith

…the usual custom and that these people have an underlying sense of decorum. Sentence two has the same effect in their abstraction, and this is emphasized again in the “two graven images.” The third sentence is a mood “effect” of kind, since we recognize the conventionally sobered feeling without the “settled melancholy.” This is true again in sentence four, and in five we have a “fact as effect,” drawing the inference that they are a long-lived race in Drumtochty. From the yielding to an invitation so framed as to put aside the semblance of yielding to inclination, we get a knowledge of character which seems to us individual, but which is used by the author to indicate a local community characteristic. The author’s mood of amused observation is evident here, too, in his unbelieving acquiescence in Tammas’s point of view. In sentences eight and nine we come to know Jeems in a more individual way, through the mingling in him of moods of conventional solemnity and everyday discussion. This is repeated in sentence ten. In sentence twelve we draw an emotional inference concerning the degree of their feeling from the fact that “not a glass had been touched.” This is told in the explanatory way in thirteen with the addition of a suggestion of the author’s sympathetic understanding and appreciation. Knowing Drumsheigh’s reserve, from things that have gone before this in the story, we feel that only strong emotion could have called out…

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Excerpt #9, from King’s Cutters and Smugglers 1700

…ahead to reconnoitre, and reported that a sloop-of-war lay opposite to the quay, so that her guns could be pointed against the doors of the Custom House; but afterwards it was found that, owing to the ebb-tide, the guns of the sloop could not be made to bear on that spot. The band, numbering about thirty, therefore rode down to spot, and while Perin and one other man looked after their horses, the rest proceeded to the Custom House, forced open the door with hatchets and other implements, rescued the tea, fastening packages of the latter on to their horses, with the exception only of 5 lbs. The next morning they passed through Fordingbridge in Hampshire, where hundreds of the inhabitants stood and watched the cavalcade. Now among the latter was a man named Daniel Chater, a shoemaker by trade. He was known to Diamond, one of the gang then passing, for they had both worked together once at harvest time. Recognising each other, Diamond extended his arm, shook hands, and threw him a bag of tea, for the booty had been divided up so that each man carried five bags of 27 lbs. [Illustration: A Representation of ye Smugglers breaking open ye KING’S Custom House at Poole.] After the Poole officers discovered what had happened to their Custom House, there was not unnaturally a tremendous fuss, and eventually the…

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Excerpt #10, from Anticipations, by H. G. Wells

…English traffic is concerned, the statement is approximately correct. In the United States, however, there are several trains running now which average over considerable distances more than sixty miles an hour, stoppages included, nor is there much reason why this should not be considerably increased. What especially hampers the development of railways in England–as compared with other countries–is the fact that the rolling-stock templet is too small. Hence carriages in England have to be narrower and lower than carriages in the United States, although both run on the same standard gauge (4 feet 8½ inches). The result is that several things which you describe as not possible at present, such as to ‘write smoothly and easily at a steady table, read papers, have one’s hair cut, and dine in comfort,’ are not only feasible, but actually attained on some of the good American trains. For instance, on the present Empire State Express, running between New York and Buffalo, or on the present Pennsylvania, Limited, running between New York and Chicago, and on others. With the Pennsylvania, Limited, travel stenographers and typewriters, whose services are placed at the disposal of passengers free of charge. But the train on which there is the least vibration of any is probably the new Empire State Express, and on this it is certainly possible to write smoothly and easily at a steady table."…

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Excerpt #11, from An Account of Egypt, by Herodotus

…in his right hand a spear and in his left a bow and arrows, and the other equipment which he has is similar to this, for it is both Egyptian and Ethiopian: and from the one shoulder to the other across the breast runs an inscription carved in sacred Egyptian characters, saying thus, “This land with my shoulders I won for myself.” But who he is and from whence, he does not declare in these places, though in other places he had declared this. Some of those who have seen these carvings conjecture that the figure is that of Memnon, but herein they are very far from the truth. As this Egyptian Sesostris was returning and bringing back many men of the nations whose lands he had subdued, when he came (said the priests) to Daphnai in the district of Pelusion on his journey home, his brother to whom Sesostris had entrusted the charge of Egypt invited him and with him his sons to a feast; and then he piled the house round with brushwood and set it on fire: and Sesostris when he discovered this forthwith took counsel with his wife, for he was bringing with him (they said) his wife also; and she counselled him to lay out upon the pyre two of his sons, which were six in number, and so to make a bridge over the burning mass, and that they passing over their bodies should thus escape. This, they said, Sesostris did, and two of his sons were burnt to death in this manner, but the rest got away safe with their father….

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Excerpt #12, from Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, by John Wesley Powell

…met here in 1804 by Lewis and Clarke. On the northeast Salish territory extended to about the fifty-third parallel. In the northwest it did not reach the Chilcat River. Within the territory thus indicated there is considerable diversity of customs and a greater diversity of language. The language is split into a great number of dialects, many of which are doubtless mutually unintelligible. The relationship of this family to the Wakashan is a very interesting problem. Evidences of radical affinity have been discovered by Boas and Gatschet, and the careful study of their nature and extent now being prosecuted by the former may result in the union of the two, though until recently they have been considered quite distinct. PRINCIPAL TRIBES. Atnah. Pentlatc. Skitsuish. Bellacoola. Pisquow. Skokomish. Chehalis. Puyallup. Skopamish. Clallam. Quaitso. Sktehlmish. Colville. Queniut. Smulkamish. Comux. Queptlmamish. Snohomish. Copalis. Sacumehu. Snoqualmi. Cowichin. Sahewamish. Soke….

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