Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:39

Excerpt #1, from Hawaiian Folk Tales, by Thomas G. Thrum

…to his home at Puuloa was like the flight of a bird. The spoils and trophies of this battle he disposed of as before. The two young women, Kalelealuaka’s wives, turned the nozzle of the water-gourd downward, as they were bidden, and continued to press it into the water, in the vain hope that it might rise and fill their container, until the noonday sun began to pour his rays directly upon their heads; but no water entered their calabash. Then the younger sister proposed to the elder to fill the calabash in the usual way, saying that Kalelealuaka would not know the difference. This they did, and returned home. Kalelealuaka would not drink of the water, declaring that it had been dipped up. At this the younger wife laughed furtively; the elder broke forth and said: “It is due to the slowness of the way you told us to employ in getting the water. We are not accustomed to the menial office of fetching water; our father treated us delicately, and a man always fetched water for us, and we always used to see him pour the water into the gourd with the nozzle turned up, but you trickily ordered us to turn the nozzle down. Your exactions are heartless.” Thus the women kept complaining until, by and by, the tramp of the returning soldiers was heard, who were boasting of the great deeds of Keinohoomanawanui. The King, however, said: "I do not believe a word of…

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Excerpt #2, from Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases, by Grenville Kleiser

…undignified and futile uneasiness and apprehension uneducated and inexperienced unfamiliar and distant unfettered and vigorous unforced and unchecked unfortunate and unparalleled unfounded and incredible ungracious and reluctant unhappiness and discomfort unique and original unity and completeness unjust and ungrateful unlimited and absolute unnatural and harmful unobserved and unsuspected unobtrusive and tactful unparalleled and inexhaustible unpleasant and bewildering unpopular and unimpressive unprecedented and objectionable…

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Excerpt #3, from The Story of the Great War, Volume 1, by Churchill, Miller, and Reynolds

…not to dissipate their own. Thus Germany would supply Turkey with officers, and all her munitions, but she would not risk an army on the other side of Bulgaria with a long line of communications threatened by the Allies from Saloniki and Dedeagatch. The approach of the spring of 1916 found them facing much the same problem as in the spring of 1915. Despite the territory they had gained, to ask for peace was to imply that their economic situation was weaker and their casualties heavier than they were willing to admit. Even if their economic situation was strong and the reserves plentiful, any suggestion that they were ready for negotiations must convince the Allies that they were reaching the end of their resources. There could be no doubt of Russia’s immense reserves of men. It was only a question with her as to whether or not she could make them into an efficient army properly equipped and supplied, and whether or not she would be able to maintain her organization and railway facilities and sufficient forces at the actual fighting front to strike a successful blow against her enemies. On the western front there had been an enormous accession of munitions during the winter, while the British new army with two million men yet to go under fire was gradually getting its rifles…

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Excerpt #4, from Mr. Punch’s Golf Stories, by J. A. Hammerton

…perswade ’im to put it back. ’E drove wiv that niblick, and ’e played ’is many shots through the green wiv it. And the way that thick strong niblick eat into the turf was enuff to brake the ’art of ’Enery Wilks. We moved slowly forward, leaving be’ind us a line of crewel deep kassims, which nuthink wouldn’t fill up. And ’is stile of bunker play was equilly distrucktive. ’Is noshun of getting out was to distroy the wall of the bunker wiv reppeated blows, and then to force ’is ball throo the rewings. I wouldn’t ’ave belleeved that meer wood and iron could ’ave done the work that that one German niblick did wivout turning an ’air. ’E only smiled ’is slow smile when Mister Brellett or meself venchured a remmonstrance, and ’e would never pick up ’is ball. ’E persevered wiv each ’ole until at last ’e ’ad pushed the ball into the tin, and then ’e would turn and pat my ’ead wiv ’is large ’and. After the fust time I jenerally dodged, and once ’e turned and patted Mister Brellett’s ’ead by accerdent. Like most litterry jents, the latter is rather touchy, and there was neerly trouble; but some’ow, thanks to Mister Schwabstein’s apparent onconshusness of offense, it was erverted. At the thirteenth ’ole Mister Brellett was five up. Mister Schwabstein put down a new ball, wiv a sort of groan, and pulled it wiv ’is niblick right rarnd into the rough. For a long two minnutes we ’unted ’igh and…

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Excerpt #5, from The philosophy of biology, by James Johnstone

…to the organism, at least not with the generality in which it applies to physical systems. Why? Not because the conception is unsound, or because the physico-chemical reactions that occur in material of the organism are of a different order from those that occur in inorganic systems–they are of the same order. The second law of energetics is subject to limitations, and it is because it is applied to organic happenings without regard to these limitations that it does not describe the activities of the organism as well as it describes those of inorganic nature. What, then, are these limitations? We note in the first place that the laws of thermodynamics apply to bodies of a certain range of size; or at least the possibility of mathematical investigation (on which, of course, all depends) is limited to “differential elements” of mass, energy, and time. We cannot apply mathematical analysis to bodies, or time-intervals of “finite size,” since the methods of the differential and integral calculus would not strictly be applicable. But molecules are so small (1 cubic centimetre of a gas may contain about 5.4 × 10^{19} of them) that even such a minute part of a body, or liquid, or gas as approximates to the infinitesimally small dimensions required by the calculus, contains an enormous number of molecules. Obviously we cannot investigate the individual molecules. Even if…

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Excerpt #6, from Desert Dust, by Edwin L. Sabin

…silhouette. While through the interstices between the buildings I might see other structures, ranging from those of tolerable size to simple wall tents and makeshift shacks, eerily shadowed. The noise had, if anything, redoubled. To the exclamations, the riotous shouts and whoops, the general gay vociferations and the footsteps of a busy people, the harangues of the barkers, the more distant puffing and shrieking of the locomotives at the railroad yards, the hammering where men and boys worked by torchlight, and now and then a revolver shot, there had been added the inciting music of stringed instruments, cymbals, and such–some in dance measures, some solo, while immediately at hand sounded the shuffling stamp of waltz, hoe-down and cotillion. Night at Benton plainly had begun with a gusto. It stirred one’s blood. It called–it summoned with such a promise of variety, of adventure, of flotsam and jetsam and shuttlecock of chances, that I, a youth with twenty-one dollars and a half at disposal, all his clothes on his back, a man’s weapon at his belt, and an appointment with a lady as his future, forgetful of past and courageous in present, strode confidently, even recklessly down, as eager as one to the manners of the country born. The mysterious allusions to the Big Tent now piqued me. It was a rendezvous, popular, I deemed, and respectable, as assured. An amusement place, judging by the talk; superior, undoubtedly, to other resorts that I…

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Excerpt #7, from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, by Thomas Jefferson

…but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered–that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope–fervently do we pray–that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on…

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Excerpt #8, from Middlemarch, by George Eliot

…fatal to Dorothea. Has he ever persisted in anything except from contradiction? In knowledge he has always tried to be showy at small cost. In religion he could be, as long as it suited him, the facile echo of Dorothea’s vagaries. When was sciolism ever dissociated from laxity? I utterly distrust his morals, and it is my duty to hinder to the utmost the fulfilment of his designs.” The arrangements made by Mr. Casaubon on his marriage left strong measures open to him, but in ruminating on them his mind inevitably dwelt so much on the probabilities of his own life that the longing to get the nearest possible calculation had at last overcome his proud reticence, and had determined him to ask Lydgate’s opinion as to the nature of his illness. He had mentioned to Dorothea that Lydgate was coming by appointment at half-past three, and in answer to her anxious question, whether he had felt ill, replied,—“No, I merely wish to have his opinion concerning some habitual symptoms. You need not see him, my dear. I shall give orders that he may be sent to me in the Yew-tree Walk, where I shall be taking my usual exercise.” When Lydgate entered the Yew-tree Walk he saw Mr. Casaubon slowly receding with his hands behind him according to his habit, and his head bent forward. It was a lovely afternoon; the leaves from the lofty…

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Excerpt #9, from Why Men Fight: A method of abolishing the international duel, by Bertrand Russell

…And when the means of offense exist, even though their original purpose may have been defensive, the temptation to use them is likely, sooner or later, to prove overwhelming. In this way the very measures which promoted security within the borders of the State promote insecurity elsewhere. It is of the essence of the State to suppress violence within and to facilitate it without. The State makes an entirely artificial division of mankind and of our duties toward them: towards one group we are bound by the law, towards the other only by the prudence of highwaymen. The State is rendered evil by its exclusions, and by the fact that, whenever it embarks upon aggressive war, it becomes a combination of men for murder and robbery. The present system is irrational, since external and internal anarchy must be both right or both wrong. It is supported because, so long as others adopt it, it is thought the only road to safety, and because it secures the pleasures of triumph and dominion, which cannot be obtained in a good community. If these pleasures were no longer sought, or no longer possible to obtain, the problem of securing safety from invasion would not be difficult. Apart from war, the modern great State is harmful from its vastness and the resulting sense of individual helplessness. The citizen who is out of sympathy with the aims of the State, unless he is a man of very…

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Excerpt #10, from A Study in Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle

…“Pretty things! fine things!” cried the little girl enthusiastically, holding up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we goes back to home I’ll give them to brother Bob.” “You’ll see prettier things than them soon,” said the man confidently. “You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though–you remember when we left the river?” “Oh, yes.” “Well, we reckoned we’d strike another river soon, d’ye see. But there was somethin’ wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin’, and it didn’t turn up. Water ran out. Just except a little drop for the likes of you and–and—-” “And you couldn’t wash yourself,” interrupted his companion gravely, staring up at his grimy visage. “No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender, he was the fust to go, and then Indian Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then, dearie, your mother.” “Then mother’s a deader too,” cried the little girl dropping her face in her pinafore and sobbing bitterly. “Yes, they all went except you and me. Then I thought there was some chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over my shoulder and we tramped it together. It don’t seem as though we’ve improved matters….

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Excerpt #11, from French Idioms and Proverbs, by de V. Payen

…*A dure enclume marteau de plume = The strokes of adversity find the wise man unmoved. [“Impavidum ferient ruinae.” HORACE, Odes, iii. 3.] Endroit Frapper au bon endroit = To touch the right spring; To hit the right nail on the head; To hit the mark; To touch the spot. Endimancher Des gens endimanchés = Folk rigged out in their Sunday best. Enfant Des enfants perdus (military) = A forlorn hope. Un enfant terrible = A child who tells awkward truths. [Gavarni, the caricaturist, published a series of sketches in 1865 under the title of “Les Enfants Terribles.”] Elle a deux enfants du premier lit = She has two children by her first husband. C’est un enfant de la balle = He is his father’s son; He follows the profession of his father. (See Balle.) C’est bien l’enfant de sa mère = He is the very image of his mother. Faire l’enfant = To behave childishly (on purpose)….

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Excerpt #12, from King’s Cutters and Smugglers 1700

…the further statement that “some of the commanders of the cruisers in the service of the Revenue endeavour to shun these ships, and thereby avoid attending them through their station.” On Christmas Eve of 1784 the Customs Commissioners sent word to all the ports saying that they suspected that there were a good many vessels and boats employed in smuggling which were thus liable to forfeiture. Therefore, within forty-eight hours from the receipt of this information sent by letter, a close and vigorous search was to be made by the most active and trusty officers at each port into every bay, river, creek, and inlet within the district of each port, as well as all along the coast, so as to discover and seize such illegal vessels and boats. And if there were any boats quartered within the neighbourhood of each port, timely notice of the day and hour of the intended search was to be sent by the Collector and Controller in confidence to the commanding officer only, that he might hold his soldiers in readiness. Yet, again the Board exhorted the Revenue officers "to exert yourselves to the utmost of your power … and as it is very probable that the places where such boats and vessels are kept may be known to the officers who have long resided at your port, you are to acquaint such officers that if they value their characters or employments, or have any regard to the solemn oath they took at…

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