Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

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Excerpt #1, from The Myths and Fables of To Day, by Samuel Adams Drake

…Highway,” that is to say, the lawfully laid out public road, she thereby cleared herself from any old indebtedness. As amazing as it may seem, several such cases are recorded in New England, the formalities observed differing somewhat in different localities. It is considered unlucky to get married before breakfast. “If you marry in Lent, You will live to repent.” May is considered an unlucky month to be married in. “Marry in May, And you’ll rue the day.” To remove an engagement or wedding ring from the finger is also a bad omen.[17] To lose either of them, or to have them broken on the finger, also denotes misfortune. It is extremely unlucky for either the bride or groom to meet a funeral when on their way to be married. It is an unlucky omen for the church clock to strike during the performance of a marriage ceremony, as it is said to portend the death of one of the contracting parties before the year is out. [Illustration] IX OF EVIL OMENS…

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Excerpt #2, from The Pursuit of the House Boat, by John Kendrick Bangs

…my earliest youth, when I used surreptitiously to remove the unsmoked ends of my father’s cigars and break them up, and, in hiding, smoke them in an old clay pipe which I had presented to me by an ancient sea-captain of my acquaintance, I have been interested in tobacco in all forms, even including these self-same despised unsmoked ends; for they convey to my mind messages, sentiments, farces, comedies, and tragedies which to your minds would never become manifest through their agency.” The company drew closer together and formed themselves in a more compact mass about the speaker. It was evident that they were beginning to feel an unusual interest in this extraordinary person, who had come among them unheralded and unknown. Even Shylock stopped calculating percentages for an instant to listen. “Do you mean to tell us,” demanded Shakespeare, “that the unsmoked stub of a cigar will suggest the story of him who smoked it to your mind?” “I do,” replied the stranger, with a confident smile. “Take this one, for instance, that I have picked up here upon the wharf; it tells me the whole story of the intentions of Captain Kidd at the moment when, in utter disregard of your rights, he stepped aboard your House-boat, and, in his usual piratical fashion, made off with it into unknown seas.” “But how do you know he smoked it?” asked Solomon, who deemed it the part of wisdom to be suspicious of the stranger….

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Excerpt #3, from Rilla of Ingleside, by L. M. Montgomery

…have written them anything half so wonderful and exquisite. Kenneth was not the son of a famous novelist for nothing. He “had a way” of expressing things in a few poignant, significant words that seemed to suggest far more than they uttered, and never grew stale or flat or foolish with ever so many scores of readings. Rilla went home from Rainbow Valley as if she flew rather than walked. But such moments of uplift were rare that autumn. To be sure, there was one day in September when great news came of a big Allied victory in the west and Susan ran out to hoist the flag–the first time she had hoisted it since the Russian line broke and the last time she was to hoist it for many dismal moons. “Likely the Big Push has begun at last, Mrs. Dr. dear,” she exclaimed, “and we will soon see the finish of the Huns. Our boys will be home by Christmas now. Hurrah!” Susan was ashamed of herself for hurrahing the minute she had done it, and apologized meekly for such an outburst of juvenility. “But indeed, Mrs. Dr. dear, this good news has gone to my head after this awful summer of Russian slumps and Gallipoli setbacks.” “Good news!” said Miss Oliver bitterly. "I wonder if the women whose men have been killed for it will call it good news. Just because our own men are not on that part of the front we are rejoicing as if the…

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Excerpt #4, from Uncle Wiggily’s Travels, by Howard Roger Garis

…Wiggily. So he covered them all up warmly with the feathers that lined the nest, and then he hopped down and went limping around on his crutch to find them something to eat. Pretty soon he came to a little brook, and as he looked down into it he saw something shining, all gold and red and green and blue and yellow. “Why, I do declare, if here isn’t the end of the rainbow!” exclaimed the old gentleman rabbit, as he saw all the pretty colors. He rubbed his eyes with his paw, to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, but the colors were surely enough there, down under water. “No wonder the giant couldn’t find the pot of gold, it was down in the water,” spoke the rabbit. “But I’ll get it, and then my fortune will be made. Oh, how glad I am!” Well, Uncle Wiggily reached his paw down and made a grab for the red and green and gold and yellow thing, but to his surprise, instead of lifting up a pot of gold, he lifted up a squirming, wiggling sunfish. “Oh, my!” exclaimed the rabbit in surprise. “I should say yes! Two Oh mys and another one!” gasped the fish. “Oh, please put me back in the water again. The air out on land is too strong for me. I can’t breathe. Please, Uncle Wiggily, put me back.” “I thought you were a pot of gold,” said the rabbit, sadly. “I’m always getting fooled. But never mind. I’ll put you in the water.”…

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Excerpt #5, from Legends of the City of Mexico, by Thomas A. Janvier

…and the heavy carrying; all the quarries around the City he crammed full of stone-cutters; every mason was set to work at wall-laying; every carpenter to making the doors and the windows; every brick-yard to making the tiles for the roof and the floors; every blacksmith to making the locks and the hinges and the window-gratings and the balcony rails. And in the midst of his swarms of laborers Don Juan himself worked harder than all of them put together; and was everywhere at once among them urging them to hurry and to hurry; and to any one of them who showed even the slightest sign of lagging there came from Don Juan’s mouth a berating volleying of scorpions and snakes and toads! In very truth, Señor, such was Don Juan’s raging energy that he was as a frenzied person. But it was a frenzy that had no real madness in it: because everything that he did and that he made to be done was directed by a most sensible discretion–so that not a moment of time nor the turn of a hand was wasted, and in every single instant the building grew and grew. And the upshot of it all was that he accomplished just what he had made his whole soul up he would accomplish: within the six months that Doña Sara had given him to do his work in, he did do it–and even with a little time to spare. Three full days before the last of his six months was ended the Aduana was…

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Excerpt #6, from The Aztec Treasure

…instinct in his blood aroused, that filled his soul with awe. Certainly there was no suggestion of awe in Young’s demeanor towards the statue. With a monkey-like quickness, that I would not have given his stout legs and heavy body credit for, he climbed upon the altar and plumped himself down on the head of the figure almost in a moment. But again he was disappointed, for the idol did not stir. As we examined it closely we perceived that its fixedness was not unreasonable; for the figure, and the altar on which it rested, were one solid mass of rock that itself was a part of the cliff–left standing here when the niche around it was hollowed out. A very prodigious piece of stone-cutting all this was, and as I contemplated it I was filled with admiration of the skill of them who had achieved it. But Young came down from the idol moodily; and he said that the way these people had of playing tricks on travellers, by making Mullinses that didn’t tip when they ought to tip, was quite of a piece with their putting their treasure where it couldn’t be got at without a diving-bell. Behind the altar the niche was cut into the cliff so far that the depths of it in the waning daylight were dusky with heavy shadows; indeed, so dense were these that Young came near to breaking his bones by falling into a little hole in the floor, that was the less easily seen because it was hidden behind a jutting mass of rock. But he caught the rock in…

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Excerpt #7, from You no longer count, by René Boylesve

…“It’s frightful, frightful,” exclaimed Odette. She had seen and nursed most grievously wounded soldiers; but unconsciously a sort of convention had been established in her mind by which nothing that she saw, or that happened in the hospital at Surville, should move her. This first result of the war which had faced her elsewhere than at Surville, and under another aspect, impressed her almost intolerably. On the other hand, Simone had become accustomed to the dramatic scenes which at times occur in Paris, where everything is perhaps all the more sad because the war drama is close at hand, aping normal life. This juxtaposition of the manners of a time of peace and these shadows of the pit which mingle with the life of every day, more like a prolonged dream than like reality, produce surprising effects upon reflective minds. Simone de Prans, who for a time had taken up work in a model hospital, an American hospital, was no longer a nurse. That was no longer done. “What about our good Rose?” asked Odette. "Rose Misson has arranged her life. She has resolved not to yield to things; she has been too much teased about her old husband, always going about in his automobile. Neither Rose nor her husband is disturbed by that; he remains on his seat; she dresses, visits the shops as in former times and receives the few friends who are not indignant because her…

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Excerpt #8, from Modern Essays, by Harry Morgan Ayres et al.

…real affection and humor. You will find it cropping out many times in his verses. The Irish problem as it is reflected in this country is not always clearly understood. Ireland, in the minds of our poets, is a mystical land of green hills, saints and leprechauns, and its political problems are easy. Joyce Kilmer was born in New Brunswick in 1886; studied at Rutgers College and Columbia University; taught school; worked on the staff of the Standard Dictionary; passed through phases of socialism and Anglicanism into the Catholic communion, and joined the Sunday staff of the New York Times in 1913. He was killed fighting in France in 1918. This sketch is taken from the second of the three volumes in which Robert Cortes Holliday, his friend and executor, has collected Joyce Kilmer’s work. We had hiked seventeen miles that stormy December day–the third of a four days’ journey. The snow was piled high on our packs, our rifles were crusted with ice, the leather of our hob-nailed boots was frozen stiff over our lamed feet. The weary lieutenant led us to the door of a little house in a side street. “Next twelve men,” he said. A dozen of us dropped out of the ranks and dragged ourselves over the threshold. We tracked snow and mud over a spotless stone floor. Before an open fire stood Madame and the three…

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Excerpt #9, from Simple Sabotage Field Manual, by United States. Office of Strategic Services

…(1) While loading or unloading, handle cargo carelessly in order to cause damage. Arrange the cargo so that the weakest and lightest crates and boxes will be at the bottom of the hold, while the heaviest ones are on top of them. Put hatch covers and tarpaulins on sloppily, so that rain and deck wash will injure the cargo. Tie float valves open so that storage tanks will overflow on perishable goods. (9) Communications (a) Telephone (1) At office, hotel and exchange switch boards delay putting enemy calls through, give them wrong numbers, cut them off “accidentally,” or forget to disconnect them so that the line cannot be used again. (2) Hamper official and especially military business by making at least one telephone call a day to an enemy headquarters; when you get them, tell them you have the wrong number. Call military or police offices and make anonymous false reports of fires, air raids, bombs. (3) In offices and buildings used by the enemy, unscrew the earphone of telephone receivers and remove the diaphragm. Electricians and telephone repair men can make poor connections and damage insulation so…

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Excerpt #10, from The Story of King Arthur and his Knights, by Howard Pyle

…Accalon of Gaul and I am knight in good worship of King Arthur’s Court.” But when King Arthur heard this he made great outcry and he said, “How is this? Know you who I am?” And Sir Accalon said, “Nay, I know you not.” Then King Arthur said, “I am King Arthur who am thy master.” And upon this he took off his helmet and Sir Accalon knew him. And when Sir Accalon beheld King Arthur he swooned away and lay like one dead upon the ground, and King Arthur said, “Take him hence.” Then when those who were there were aware who King Arthur was, they burst over the barriers and ran toward him with great outcry of pity. And King Arthur would have left this place but upon that he also swooned away because of the great issue of blood that had come from him, wherefore all those who were round about took great sorrow, thinking that he was dying, wherefore they bewailed themselves without stint. Then came Vivien out into that field and she said, “Let me have him, for I believe that I shall be able to cure his hurts.” So she commanded that two litters should be brought and she placed King Arthur in one of the litters and she placed Sir Accalon in the other, and she bore them both away to a priory of nuns that was at no great distance from that place. [Sidenote: Vivien healeth King Arthur.] So when Vivien had come there she searched the wounds of King Arthur and bathed them with a very precious balsam, so that they immediately began…

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Excerpt #11, from Sketches New and Old, by Mark Twain

…trouble about this exasperating imaginary accident. I have read this absurd item over and over again, with all its insinuating plausibility, until my head swims; but I can make neither head nor tail of it. There certainly seems to have been an accident of some kind or other, but it is impossible to determine what the nature of it was, or who was the sufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I feel compelled to request that the next time anything happens to one of Mr. Bloke’s friends, he will append such explanatory notes to his account of it as will enable me to find out what sort of an accident it was and whom it happened to. I had rather all his friends should die than that I should be driven to the verge of lunacy again in trying to cipher out the meaning of another such production as the above. A MEDIEVAL ROMANCE [written about 1868] CHAPTER I THE SECRET REVEALED. It was night. Stillness reigned in the grand old feudal castle of Klugenstein. The year 1222 was drawing to a close. Far away up in the tallest of the castle’s towers a single light glimmered. A secret council was being held there. The stern old lord of Klugenstein sat in a chair of state meditating. Presently he said, with a tender accent:…

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Excerpt #12, from Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman, by Thomas Hardy

…kindly. “Mother asked me to come,” Tess continued; “and, indeed, I was in the mind to do so myself likewise. But I did not think it would be like this. I came, sir, to tell you that we are of the same family as you.” “Ho! Poor relations?” “Yes.” “Stokes?” “No; d’Urbervilles.” “Ay, ay; I mean d’Urbervilles.” “Our names are worn away to Durbeyfield; but we have several proofs that we are d’Urbervilles. Antiquarians hold we are,—and—and we have an old seal, marked with a ramping lion on a shield, and a castle over him. And we have a very old silver spoon, round in the bowl like a little ladle, and marked with the same castle. But it is so worn that mother uses it to stir the pea-soup.” “A castle argent is certainly my crest,” said he blandly. “And my arms a lion rampant.” “And so mother said we ought to make ourselves beknown to you—as we’ve lost our horse by a bad accident, and are the oldest branch o’ the family.” “Very kind of your mother, I’m sure. And I, for one, don’t regret her…

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