Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:07

Excerpt #1, from The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

…possibly let you stand in front of that picture.” “You will some day, surely?” “Never.” “Well, perhaps you are right. And now good-bye, Dorian. You have been the one person in my life who has really influenced my art. Whatever I have done that is good, I owe to you. Ah! you don’t know what it cost me to tell you all that I have told you.” “My dear Basil,” said Dorian, “what have you told me? Simply that you felt that you admired me too much. That is not even a compliment.” “It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one’s worship into words.” “It was a very disappointing confession.” “Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn’t see anything else in the picture, did you? There was nothing else to see?” “No; there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn’t talk about worship. It is foolish. You and I are friends, Basil, and we must always remain so.” “You have got Harry,” said the painter sadly. “Oh, Harry!” cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter. “Harry spends his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is…

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Excerpt #2, from Ancient, Curious, and Famous Wills, by Virgil M. Harris

…himself and the fortune he had amassed, but if he entertained any malicious sentiments against those to whom he was obliged to leave what he could not take away with him, he seems to have been fully justified in the somewhat severe animadversions he has passed on some of his legatees. To a lady relative, who had been full of attentions for him, he left a broken cup, jeering her with the taunt that while she thought she was taking him in he was laughing in his sleeve at the grimace she would make when she found that it was he who had got all her little gifts, her smiles and favors out of her, knowing all the while that he had no intention of repaying them as she expected. “As for you,” he says at the end of the will, “you, my good and admirable valet, who have so long taken me for your dupe, you will now learn that it is you who have been mine; when at the conclusion of my dinner you thought I was applauding your economy and your zeal, in carefully putting together the remains of bottles of wine and keeping them for the next meal, it never occurred to you that I was well aware you took for your own use whole bottles. When you came with tearful eyes and coaxing voice to wait on me the moment I was suffering from any trifling indisposition, presenting to me my tisanes with an assumed air of condolence and anxiety, you little thought how my instinct,…

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Excerpt #3, from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne

…over the whole world. —Now you see, brother Toby, he would say, looking up, “that christian names are not such indifferent things;”——had Luther here been called by any other name but Martin, he would have been damn’d to all eternity——Not that I look upon Martin, he would add, as a good name——far from it——’tis something better than a neutral, and but a little——yet little as it is you see it was of some service to him. My father knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as the best logician could shew him——yet so strange is the weakness of man at the same time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life but make use of it; and it was certainly for this reason, that though there are many stories in Hafen Slawkenbergius’s Decades full as entertaining as this I am translating, yet there is not one amongst them which my father read over with half the delight——it flattered two of his strangest hypotheses together——his NAMES and his NOSES.——I will be bold to say, he might have read all the books in the Alexandrian Library, had not fate taken other care of them, and not have met with a book or passage in one, which hit two such nails as these upon the head at one stroke.] The two universities of Strasburg were hard tugging at this affair of Luther’s navigation. The Protestant doctors had demonstrated, that he…

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Excerpt #4, from A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

…incarnation of hate, of vengeance and of death. The man himself, for such I may call him, was fully fifteen feet in height and, on Earth, would have weighed some four hundred pounds. He sat his mount as we sit a horse, grasping the animal’s barrel with his lower limbs, while the hands of his two right arms held his immense spear low at the side of his mount; his two left arms were outstretched laterally to help preserve his balance, the thing he rode having neither bridle or reins of any description for guidance. And his mount! How can earthly words describe it! It towered ten feet at the shoulder; had four legs on either side; a broad flat tail, larger at the tip than at the root, and which it held straight out behind while running; a gaping mouth which split its head from its snout to its long, massive neck. Like its master, it was entirely devoid of hair, but was of a dark slate color and exceeding smooth and glossy. Its belly was white, and its legs shaded from the slate of its shoulders and hips to a vivid yellow at the feet. The feet themselves were heavily padded and nailless, which fact had also contributed to the noiselessness of their approach, and, in common with a multiplicity of legs, is a characteristic feature of the fauna of Mars. The highest type of man and one other animal, the only mammal existing on Mars, alone have…

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Excerpt #5, from A Humorous History of England, by Charles Harrison

…Another National Debt we owe To Iron Jelloids which the foe Depression’s worries keep at bay And drive our nervous fears away. Bill of Rights The ‘Bill of Rights,’ a Charter grand, 1689 In sixteen-eight-nine frees this land From all encroachments of the Crown Hoi Polloi are no longer down. Queen Anne Good Queen Anne we know is dead; 1702-1714 She reigned twelve years but it is said ‘Mrs. Morley,’ Marlborough’s wife Ruled her more than half her life. Marlborough This was the Duke of Marlborough’s day, Who beat the French in every fray; Known for his famous victories At Blenheim and at Ramillies. In seventeen-seven by statute passed English and Scotch unite at last; ‘One coinage and one Parliament’ Both Nations ever since content. About this time, so runs the story,…

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Excerpt #6, from Legends of the Gods, by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge

…do what he ought to do for his lord, notwithstanding that I am the Lord and the Creator. [FN#190] He was the “builder of men, maker of the gods, the Father who was from the beginning, the maker of things which are, the creator of things which shall be, the source of things which exist, Father of fathers, Mother of mothers, Father of the fathers of the gods and goddesses, lord of created things, maker of heaven, earth, Tuat, water and mountains” (Lanzone, Dizionario, p. 957). “I am [he] who created himself, Nu, the Great [God], who came into being at the beginning, [and] Hapi, who riseth according to his will, in order to give health to him that laboureth for me. I am the Director and Guide of all men at their seasons, the Most Great, the Father of the Gods, Shu, the Great One, the Chief of the Earth. The two halves of the sky (i.e., the East and the West) are as a habitation below me. A lake of water hath been poured out for me, [namely,] Hap (i.e., the Nile), which embraceth the field-land, and his embrace provideth the [means of] life for”21 every nose (i.e., every one), according to the extent of his embrace of the field-land. With old age [cometh] the condition of weakness. I will make Hap (i.e., the Nile) rise for thee, and [in] no year shall [he] fail, and he shall spread himself out in rest upon every land. Green plants and herbs and trees shall bow beneath [the weight of]…

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Excerpt #7, from Argonaut stories, by Jerome Hart

…in the fifth or sixth row of those who stood round Sam Lee was Wau Shun, watching the blood that welled from the mouth of the dying man and prevented speech. After Wau Shun had seen the corpse of his brother-highbinder laid out on a slab at the morgue, he treated himself to a couple of jorums of “hot-Scotch,” and sought his den in Cum Cook Alley. Lighting a dim candle, he proceeded to barricade himself, and to conceal his light, by means of a coverlet that was held in its place, on his side of the door, by iron bars that crossed and recrossed each other. When all was snug, he drew from an inner pocket the roll of papers given to him by Lee Toy, which set forth the names of the several highbinders who belonged to his “tong,” the various loppings accomplished by their “hatchets,” and, in a special supplement, the instigations to certain notorious crimes by their master-mind, Quong Lung. Lighting a brazier, he tore out his own record from the writing, and committed it to the flames. But that which related to Quong Lung he placed in a receptacle cunningly concealed in the threshold of the door. Then, extinguishing his light, he sallied forth with the rest of Lee…

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Excerpt #8, from History of the World War: An Authentic Narrative of the World’s Greatest War

…In that operation, 152 square miles of territory and 72 villages were captured outright. For the reduction of the German defenses and for the creeping barrage preceding the American advance, more than 1,500,000 shells were fired by the artillery. Approximately 100,000 detail maps and 40,000 photographs prepared largely from aerial observations, were issued for the guidance of the artillery and the infantry. These maps and photographs detailed all the natural and artificial defenses of the entire salient. More than 5,000 miles of telephone wire was laid by American engineers immediately preceding the attack, and as the Americans advanced on the morning of the battle, September 12, 1918, 6,000 telephone instruments were connected with this wire. Ten thousand men were engaged in operating the hastily constructed telephone system; 3,000 carrier pigeons supplemented this work. During the battle American airplanes swept the skies clear of enemy air-craft and signaled instructions to the artillery, besides attacking the moving infantry, artillery and supply trains of the enemy. So sure were the Americans of their success that moving-picture operators took more than 10,000 feet of moving picture film showing the rout of the Germans. Four thousand eight hundred trucks carried food, men and munitions into the lines. Miles of American railroads, both of standard and narrow gauge, carrying American-made equipment, assisted in the…

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Excerpt #9, from History for ready reference, Volume 1 (of 6), A

…or two members, are present. Article 26. The representations respecting employments, and other important acts, excepting those of a diplomatic and military nature, properly so called, shall be referred to the council by him who is one of the members in the department charged with it, who shall accordingly draw up the resolution adopted in council. Article 27. If any member of council is prevented from appearing, and referring the affairs which belong to his peculiar department, he shall be replaced in this office by one of the others appointed to this purpose, either by the king, if personally present, and if not, by him who has precedence in the council, jointly with the other members composing it. Should several of these be prevented from appearing, so that only one half of the ordinary number is present, the other employed in the offices shall in like manner have right to sit in council; and in that event it shall be afterwards referred to the king, who decides if they ought to continue to exercise this office. {570}…

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Excerpt #10, from On the Anzac trail: Being extracts from the diary of a New Zealand sapper, by Anzac

…of Valetta. Before we could get in, however, we were shoo’d off by the Powers that Be. We didn’t seem to be the party they wanted, so we had to hit back to the old trail. Apart from wishing to see the place and getting a chance to stretch my legs, I had a personal interest in paying it a visit, as a great-uncle of mine, who had been a fleet-surgeon during the Crimean War, lay buried in the naval cemetery in Valetta. However, it wasn’t to be. The weather all through the Mediterranean remained as near perfect as they make it, hence seasickness was a thing of the past. We had the usual boat-drills, fire alarms and so forth. At that time there were no submarines down south, so we travelled with all lights going, both aloft and below. What with sea games, boxing, concerts, and cards the time passed quickly. Likewise our money. Faro and Crown and Anchor were the favourite card games; you could lose your partable cash fairly slickly at either. I have seen more than one pound resting on the turn of a single card. I reckon Colonials are to a man born gamblers, so it wasn’t surprising that our available capital should be “floating”—in more ways than one. However, some one introduced a roulette table, and our cash soon floated all one way, the “bank” taking no risks and the “limit” being strictly enforced. Needless to say, the bank was never broken—but I fancy the wheel was….

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Excerpt #11, from The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe

…this, I must leave it just there where I found it, and not be able to launch it into the water? One would have thought I could not have had the least reflection upon my mind of my circumstances while I was making this boat, but I should have immediately thought how I should get it into the sea; but my thoughts were so intent upon my voyage over the sea in it, that I never once considered how I should get it off the land: and it was really, in its own nature, more easy for me to guide it over forty-five miles of sea than about forty-five fathoms of land, where it lay, to set it afloat in the water. I went to work upon this boat the most like a fool that ever man did who had any of his senses awake. I pleased myself with the design, without determining whether I was ever able to undertake it; not but that the difficulty of launching my boat came often into my head; but I put a stop to my inquiries into it by this foolish answer which I gave myself—“Let me first make it; I warrant I will find some way or other to get it along when it is done.” This was a most preposterous method; but the eagerness of my fancy prevailed, and to work I went. I felled a cedar-tree, and I question much whether Solomon ever had such a one for the building of the Temple of Jerusalem; it was five feet ten inches diameter at the lower part…

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Excerpt #12, from Seven O’Clock Stories, by Robert Gordon Anderson

…Who could they be talking about? Then they went through the gate. “Be very quiet,” said Mother as they entered the door, “and you’ll see the end of another true fairy story.” So they tiptoed in. There in a bed lay Mrs. Brown, looking very happy. And curled up in her arm she had–well, what do you think she had? A little sleeping baby! Like the little Orioles Baby had been born just a few days ago. “That,” said Mother, “is the prettiest fairy story of all.” And the children thought so too. There–we’ve finished just in time. We hear the Little Clock. There goes his silver tongue now. Good-night! Sweet Dreams. ELEVENTH NIGHT MOTHER HEN AND ROBBER HAWK Jehosophat and Marmaduke were whispering together. “Let’s try it,” said Jehosophat. “An’ see what happens,” added Marmaduke. So they tiptoed into the House of the White Wyandottes and placed the big duck’s eggs in with the smaller eggs under the setting hen. Mother Hen did not like that, oh no!…

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