Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:12

Excerpt #1, from The Sign of the Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle

…untie it from the hook, shut the window, snib it on the inside, and get away in the way that he originally came. As a minor point it may be noted,” he continued, fingering the rope, “that our wooden-legged friend, though a fair climber, was not a professional sailor. His hands were far from horny. My lens discloses more than one blood-mark, especially towards the end of the rope, from which I gather that he slipped down with such velocity that he took the skin off his hand.” “This is all very well,” said I, “but the thing becomes more unintelligible than ever. How about this mysterious ally? How came he into the room?” “Yes, the ally!” repeated Holmes, pensively. “There are features of interest about this ally. He lifts the case from the regions of the commonplace. I fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in the annals of crime in this country,—though parallel cases suggest themselves from India, and, if my memory serves me, from Senegambia.” “How came he, then?” I reiterated. “The door is locked, the window is inaccessible. Was it through the chimney?” “The grate is much too small,” he answered. “I had already considered that possibility.” “How then?” I persisted. “You will not apply my precept,” he said, shaking his head. “How often…

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Excerpt #2, from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith

…deal lower, or a good deal higher. If it were a good deal lower, one half of it, perhaps, could not be afforded for interest; and more might be afforded if it were a good deal higher.

In countries which are fast advancing to riches, the low rate of profit may, in the price of many commodities, compensate the high wages of labour, and enable those countries to sell as cheap as their less thriving neighbours, among whom the wages of labour may be lower.

In reality, high profits tend much more to raise the price of work than high wages. If, in the linen manufacture, for example, the wages of the different working people, the flax-dressers, the spinners, the weavers, etc. should all of them be advanced twopence a-day, it would be necessary to heighten the price of a piece of linen only by a number of twopences equal to the number of people that had been employed about it, multiplied by the number of days during which they had been so employed. That part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself into the wages, would, through all the different stages of the manufacture, rise only in arithmetical proportion to this rise of wages. But if the profits of all the different employers of those working people should be raised five per cent. that part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself into…

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Excerpt #3, from Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period, by J. Franklin Jameson

…about the fourteenth of April last past, about twelve Leagues South East of the Isle of Sables,[18] he was met and taken by Phillips the Pyrate, who demanded and took from him his vessel, being a better Sailor than that they were in. That he knows both the Prisoners at the Bar, saw them on board the Pyrate when he was taken, but did not see them armed, that neither of them went on board vessels when they were taken. That John Filmore, the day after that this Depont. was taken, Declared his mind to him and the minds of several others, to rise upon the Pyrates in order to subdue them and Endeavour their escape. That Edward Cheesman, upon the rising, threw Nutt the Master of the Pyrate over board, That John Filmore struck Burrell the Boatswain on the head with a broad ax, whilst the Depont. and others Dispatcht the Captain and Gunner.[19] [Footnote 18: Sable Island, south of Nova Scotia.] [Footnote 19: John Phillips and James or Joseph Sparks. “Phillips’ and Burrill’s heads were brought to Boston in pickle”; Diary of Jeremiah Bumstead, May 3, 1724, in N.E. Hist. Gen. Reg., XV. 201.] John Masters, late Mate of the Sloop Content, Deposed That on or about the 27th of October last, he was taken out of the sd sloop Content, George Barrow Master, in the Lattitude of Barbado’s, by the Pyrate Phillips, was kept by the Pyrates four Months and then…

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Excerpt #4, from Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, by Peter Mark Roget

…masculinity, maleness &c 373; female, femininity &c 374. sexual intercourse, copulation, mating, coitus, sex; lovemaking, marital relations, sexual union; sleeping together, carnal knowledge. sex instinct, sex drive, libido, lust, concupiscence; hots, horns [Coll.]; arousal, heat, rut, estrus, oestrus; tumescence; erection, hard-on, boner. masturbation, self-gratification, autoeroticism, onanism, self- abuse. orgasm, climax, ejaculation. sexiness, attractiveness; sensuality, voluptuousness. [sexual intercourse outside of marriage] fornication, adultery. [person who is sexy] sex symbol, sex goddess; stud, hunk. one-night stand. pornography, porn, porno; hardcore pornography, softcore pornography; pin-up, cheesecake; beefcake; [magazines with sexual photos], Playboy, Esquire, Hustler. [unorthodox sexual activity] perversion, deviation, sexual abnormality; fetish, fetishism; homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality; sodomy, buggery; pederasty; sadism. masochism, sado-masochism; incest. V. mate, copulate; make love, have intercourse, fornicate, have sex, do…

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Excerpt #5, from The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

…Buck he knew that he was one in a thousand—“One in ten t’ousand,” he commented mentally. Buck saw money pass between them, and was not surprised when Curly, a good-natured Newfoundland, and he were led away by the little weazened man. That was the last he saw of the man in the red sweater, and as Curly and he looked at receding Seattle from the deck of the Narwhal, it was the last he saw of the warm Southland. Curly and he were taken below by Perrault and turned over to a black-faced giant called François. Perrault was a French-Canadian, and swarthy; but François was a French-Canadian half-breed, and twice as swarthy. They were a new kind of men to Buck (of which he was destined to see many more), and while he developed no affection for them, he none the less grew honestly to respect them. He speedily learned that Perrault and François were fair men, calm and impartial in administering justice, and too wise in the way of dogs to be fooled by dogs. In the ’tween-decks of the Narwhal, Buck and Curly joined two other dogs. One of them was a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergen who had been brought away by a whaling captain, and who had later accompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens. He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one’s face the while he meditated some underhand trick, as, for instance, when he stole from Buck’s food at…

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Excerpt #6, from On War, by Carl von Clausewitz

…what troops, hardened by long practice in the field of danger, can do, when by a career of victory they have reached the noble principle of demanding from themselves their utmost efforts. In pure conception no one would believe it. On the other hand, it is well known that there are troops in the service of European Powers at the present moment who would easily be dispersed by a few cannon shots. But no empirical science, consequently also no theory of the Art of War, can always corroborate its truths by historical proof; it would also be, in some measure, difficult to support experience by single facts. If any means is once found efficacious in War, it is repeated; one nation copies another, the thing becomes the fashion, and in this manner it comes into use, supported by experience, and takes its place in theory, which contents itself with appealing to experience in general in order to show its origin, but not as a verification of its truth. But it is quite otherwise if experience is to be used in order to overthrow some means in use, to confirm what is doubtful, or introduce something new; then particular examples from history must be quoted as proofs. Now, if we consider closely the use of historical proofs, four points of view readily present themselves for the purpose….

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Excerpt #7, from The Genetic Effects of Radiation, by Isaac Asimov and Theodosius Dobzhansky

…advantages to heterozygousness than we know. This may be the basis of what is sometimes called “hybrid vigor”. In a world in which human beings are more mobile than they have ever been in history and in which intercultural marriages are increasingly common, information on this point is particularly important. Mutation Rates It is easier to observe the removal of genes through death or through failure to reproduce than to observe their production through mutation. It is particularly difficult to study their production in human beings, since men have comparatively long lifetimes and few children, and since their mating habits cannot well be controlled. For this reason, geneticists have experimented with species much simpler than man—smaller organisms that are short-lived, produce many offspring, and that can be penned up and allowed to mate only under fixed conditions. Such creatures may have fewer chromosomes than man does and the sites of mutation are more easily pinned down. An important assumption made in such experiments is that the machinery of inheritance and mutation is essentially the same in all creatures and that therefore knowledge gained from very simple species (even from bacteria) is applicable to man. There is overwhelming evidence to indicate that this is true in general, although there are specific…

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Excerpt #8, from Twenty Four Unusual Stories for Boys and Girls, by Anna Cogswell Tyler

…upon just such another, his great red robe fluttering out in the moonlight like huge red wings. “Great herring and little fishes!” roared the fisherman; “it is a billy-goat!” Instantly goats, old man, and all were gone like a flash. Down fell the fisherman through the empty sky, whirling over and over and around and around like a frog. He held tightly to his net, but away flew his fur cap, the golden money falling in a shower like sparks of yellow light. Down he fell and down he fell, until his head spun like a top. By good-luck his house was just below, with its thatch of soft rushes. Into the very middle of it he tumbled, and right through the thatch–bump!–into the room below. The good wife was in bed, snoring away for dear life; but such a noise as the fisherman made coming into the house was enough to wake the dead. Up she jumped, and there she sat, staring and winking with sleep, and with her brains as addled as a duck’s egg in a thunderstorm. “There!” said the fisherman, as he gathered himself up and rubbed his shoulder, “that is what comes of following a woman’s advice!” [Illustration: THE WINDS, THE BIRDS, AND THE TELEGRAPH WIRES] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 3: Reprinted by special permission from Twilight Land, by…

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Excerpt #9, from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, by David Hume

…still supposed imperfect, without the assistance of experience, which is alone able to give stability and certainty to the maxims, derived from study and reflection. But notwithstanding that this distinction be thus universally received, both in the active speculative scenes of life, I shall not scruple to pronounce, that it is, at bottom, erroneous, at least, superficial. If we examine those arguments, which, in any of the sciences above mentioned, are supposed to be the mere effects of reasoning and reflection, they will be found to terminate, at last, in some general principle or conclusion, for which we can assign no reason but observation and experience. The only difference between them and those maxims, which are vulgarly esteemed the result of pure experience, is, that the former cannot be established without some process of thought, and some reflection on what we have observed, in order to distinguish its circumstances, and trace its consequences: Whereas in the latter, the experienced event is exactly and fully familiar to that which we infer as the result of any particular situation. The history of a TIBERIUS or a NERO makes us dread a like tyranny, were our monarchs freed from the restraints of laws…

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Excerpt #10, from Thought Forms, by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater

…usually expands to life-size before it appears at its destination. 2. That which takes the image of some material object. When a man thinks of his friend he forms within his mental body a minute image of that friend, which often passes outward and usually floats suspended in the air before him. In the same way if he thinks of a room, a house, a landscape, tiny images of these things are formed within the mental body and afterwards externalised. This is equally true when he is exercising his imagination; the painter who forms a conception of his future picture builds it up out of the matter of his mental body, and then projects it into space in front of him, keeps it before his mind’s eye, and copies it. The novelist in the same way builds images of his character in mental matter, and by the exercise of his will moves these puppets from one position or grouping to another, so that the plot of his story is literally acted out before him. With our curiously inverted conceptions of reality it is hard for us to understand that these mental images actually exist, and are so entirely objective that they may readily be seen by the clairvoyant, and can even be rearranged by some one other than their creator. Some novelists have been dimly aware of such a process, and have testified that their characters when once created developed a will of their own, and insisted on carrying the plot of the story along lines quite different from those originally intended…

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Excerpt #11, from Studying the short story, by J. Berg Esenwein

…was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. With him life was at best an uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the dealer. [Sidenote: First group of characters.] [Sidenote: First group of characters.] [Sidenote: Climax of first crisis.] [Sidenote: End of Introduction and groundwork.] 6. A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young woman familiarly known as “The Duchess”; another, who had gained the infelicitous title of “Mother Shipton”; and “Uncle Billy,” a suspected sluice-robber and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only, when the gulch which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was reached, the leader spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to return at the peril of their lives. [Sidenote: THIRD STAGE OF FIRST PLOT INCIDENT.] [Sidenote: Is “their” well used?] [Sidenote: Paragraph of character delineation.]…

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Excerpt #12, from The Airship “Golden Hind”, by Percy F. Westerman

…cat: ‘/home/marc/Dropbox/Marc/books/Unsorted/pgbooks-for-excerpts/The Airship Golden’: No such file or directory cat: ‘Hind by Percy F. Westerman-39488-0.txt’: No such file or directory

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