Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:37

Excerpt #1, from The Story of King Arthur and his Knights, by Howard Pyle

…Now whiles they thus stood all together, there issued out from the castle the Lady Ettard and an exceedingly gay and comely Court of esquires and ladies, and these came across the meadow toward where Sir Pellias and the others stood. Then when Sir Pellias beheld that lady approach, he drew his misericordia and cut the thongs of his helmet, and took the helmet off of his head, and thus he went forward, bareheaded, for to meet her. [Sidenote: Sir Pellias greets the Lady Ettard in courteous wise.] But when he had come nigh to her he beheld that she was many times more beautiful than that image of her painted upon the ivory panel which he had aforetime beheld, wherefore his heart went forth unto her with a very great strength of liking. So therewith he kneeled down upon the grass and set his hands together palm to palm, before her, and he said: “Lady, I do very greatly crave thy forgiveness that I should thus have done battle against thy credit. For, excepting that I did that endeavor for my Queen, I would rather, in another case, have been thy champion than that of any lady whom I have ever beheld.” Now at that time Sir Pellias wore about his neck the collar of emeralds and opal stones and gold which the Lady of the Lake had given to him. Wherefore, when the Lady Ettard looked upon him, that necklace drew her heart unto him with very great enchantment. Wherefore she smiled upon…

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Excerpt #2, from Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens

…case he should?” “Hush, pray; there’s a good man!” rejoined the lady. “Wait quietly only one instant, while I speak to aunt.” With a footstep as soft and gentle as the voice, the speaker tripped away. She soon returned, with the direction that the wounded person was to be carried, carefully, upstairs to Mr. Giles’s room; and that Brittles was to saddle the pony and betake himself instantly to Chertsey: from which place, he was to despatch, with all speed, a constable and doctor. “But won’t you take one look at him, first, miss?” asked Mr. Giles, with as much pride as if Oliver were some bird of rare plumage, that he had skilfully brought down. “Not one little peep, miss?” “Not now, for the world,” replied the young lady. “Poor fellow! Oh! treat him kindly, Giles for my sake!” The old servant looked up at the speaker, as she turned away, with a glance as proud and admiring as if she had been his own child. Then, bending over Oliver, he helped to carry him upstairs, with the care and solicitude of a woman. CHAPTER XXIX. HAS AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF THE INMATES OF THE HOUSE, TO WHICH OLIVER RESORTED…

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Excerpt #3, from The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

…inside the garden really never quite died away. He looked as if he were made of flesh instead of ivory or wax. They saw the robin carry food to his mate two or three times, and it was so suggestive of afternoon tea that Colin felt they must have some. “Go and make one of the men servants bring some in a basket to the rhododendron walk,” he said. “And then you and Dickon can bring it here.” It was an agreeable idea, easily carried out, and when the white cloth was spread upon the grass, with hot tea and buttered toast and crumpets, a delightfully hungry meal was eaten, and several birds on domestic errands paused to inquire what was going on and were led into investigating crumbs with great activity. Nut and Shell whisked up trees with pieces of cake and Soot took the entire half of a buttered crumpet into a corner and pecked at and examined and turned it over and made hoarse remarks about it until he decided to swallow it all joyfully in one gulp. The afternoon was dragging toward its mellow hour. The sun was deepening the gold of its lances, the bees were going home and the birds were flying past less often. Dickon and Mary were sitting on the grass, the tea-basket was re-packed ready to be taken back to the house, and Colin was lying against his cushions with his heavy locks pushed back from his…

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Excerpt #4, from The Invasion of India, by Alexander the Great as described, by Arrian, Q. Curtius

…emergency. He at once seized Attalos and put him to death. Then suddenly marching southwards, he suppressed by skilful diplomacy the incipient rebellion of the Greek states. In the next place he turned his arms northwards, and, after much severe fighting, subjugated the barbarous tribes which lay between the frontiers of his kingdom and the Danube. Finally, he quelled in blood and desolation the revolt of Thebes, which had been prompted by a false rumour of his death. Having thus in a single year made himself a more powerful monarch than his father had ever been, he directed all his energies to complete the arrangements for the Persian expedition. The whole force which he collected for this purpose amounted to little more than 30,000 foot and 4500 horse. The empire which this comparatively insignificant force was destined to attack and overthrow was the greatest which the world had as yet seen, and had already subsisted for two hundred years. It had been founded by Cyrus the Great, and extended by his successors till it embraced all Asia from the shores of the Aegean and the Levant to the regions of the Jaxartes and the Indus. It was divided by the great belt of desert, which stretches almost continuously from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Aral, into two great sections which differed widely both in their physical aspect and the character of their inhabitants. The eastern tribes living amid mountains and deserts were rude, but distinguished for…

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Excerpt #5, from The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins

…possession on her birthday. Very well. Tell me which was the safest course for men in their position? To make their attempt on the Diamond while it was under the control of Mr. Franklin Blake, who had shown already that he could suspect and outwit them? Or to wait till the Diamond was at the disposal of a young girl, who would innocently delight in wearing the magnificent jewel at every possible opportunity? Perhaps you want a proof that my theory is correct? Take the conduct of the Indians themselves as the proof. They appeared at the house, after waiting all those weeks, on Miss Verinder’s birthday; and they were rewarded for the patient accuracy of their calculations by seeing the Moonstone in the bosom of her dress! When I heard the story of the Colonel and the Diamond, later in the evening, I felt so sure about the risk Mr. Franklin Blake had run (they would have certainly attacked him, if he had not happened to ride back to Lady Verinder’s in the company of other people); and I was so strongly convinced of the worse risk still, in store for Miss Verinder, that I recommended following the Colonel’s plan, and destroying the identity of the gem by having it cut into separate stones. How its extraordinary disappearance that night, made my advice useless, and utterly defeated the Hindoo plot—and how all further action on the part of the Indians was paralysed the next day by their confinement in prison as rogues and vagabonds—you…

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Excerpt #6, from The Boy’s Book of the Sea, by Eric Wood

…the pirates roamed the seas at their own sweet will and took toll of shipping, these tales of treasure have been told. Dotted about here and there are small islands where tradition has it that the pirates hid their hoards of gold, silver, and precious jewels, intending to come back for them at some future date; but, being caught and hauled to justice, they died with their secret unrevealed, and the treasure remained. Then someone was told–or perhaps imagined–that such-and-such an island held it, and expeditions would be fitted out to seek for the treasure, which, as time rolled on, grew in size and value till it assumed fabulous proportions. Of course, there are hidden treasures secreted by the old pirates, and there are, too, other hoards which it would be well worth while to salvage, if the exact places were known. One can go back as far as the reigns of Tiberius and Caligula and find mention of richly laden ships which foundered with all their treasure; two galleys, for instance, containing plate, gold, art treasures, and many jewels were lost in the Lake Nemi, and nothing has ever been recovered, although the lake at this spot is only little more than a hundred feet deep. Coming to a much later date, the seventeenth century, there is an authentic record of the recovery of a vast quantity of lost treasure which was lost off Hispaniola, when a great Spanish galleon went…

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Excerpt #7, from All the World Over: Interesting Stories of Travel, Thrilling Adventure and Home

…suddenly opened the door, and found herself confronted by one of the colts. She left Joel to settle matters with the colts, and made her way to Mrs. Marshall and Dolly, carrying the poor lady back to bed in her strong arms, as if she had been a baby. “Don’t you worry about Dolly, ma’am,” she said, confidently, “she’ll sleep it off, and come out all right, and I’ll just take off my things and do for you. I can stop as well as not; our house was burned up, and we just managed to save ourselves, so you see I ain’t got a smitch o’ work to do for myself.” “Your house burned! Oh, Sarah, how hard that is for you and Joel,” said Mrs. Marshall. “Yes’m, it’s a kind of a pity, and I’d got the nicest kind of a chicken pie ready for Thanksgivin’. We never see the fire till it was jest ketchin’ holt of us, and then we got on the colt and raced it down the gully to Dickerman’s pond ahead of the fire. We just made a go of it, and set there till mornin’. Says I, ‘Joel, it’s Thanksgivin’ day; be ye right down thankful?’ And Joel he looked at me and says, kind o’ solemn like, ‘Yes, I be!’ And so be I, ’cause we might ’a been burned in our bed, leastways I might, if Dolly hadn’t been so considerin’ as to let Joel come home.”…

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Excerpt #8, from A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, by William Smith

…likewise points which were determined by the tribes in later times. The inferior magistrates elected by the tribes are:–the triumviri capitales, triumviri monetales, the curatores viarum, decemviri litibus judicandis, tribuni aerarii, magistri vicorum et pagorum, praefecti annonae, duumviri navales, quinqueviri muris turribusque reficiendis, triumviri coloniae deducendae, triumviri, quatuorviri, &c., mensarii, and lastly, after the Domitian law, B.C. 104, also the members of colleges of priests. The pontifex maximus had been elected by the people from an earlier time. 2. The legislative power of the comitia tributa was at first very insignificant, for all they could do was to make regulations concerning the local affairs of the tribes. But after a time, when the tribes began to be the real representatives of the people, matters affecting the whole people also were brought before them by the tribunes, which, framed as resolutions, were laid before the senate, where they might either be sanctioned or rejected. This practice of the tributa comitia gradually acquired for them the right of taking the initiative in any measure, or the right of originating measures, until, in B.C. 449, this right was recognised and sanctioned by a law of L. Valerius Publicola and M. Horatius Barbatus. This law gave to the decrees passed by the tribes the power of a real lex, binding upon the…

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Excerpt #9, from The Principles of Biology, Volume 2 (of 2), by Herbert Spencer

…parasitaire que nous avons examinés, le parasite joue, par rapport à son hôte, absolument le même rôle que la glande génitale d’un type progénétique. Il détourne, pour sa propre subsistance, une partie des principes qui auraient servi au développement de l’animal. Aussi les effets produits sont-ils tout à fait de même ordre.” A phenomenon so anomalous as this, explicable upon the hypothesis set forth but not otherwise explicable, furnishes striking verification.] CHAPTER XI. INTERPRETATION AND QUALIFICATION. § 362. Considering the difficulties of inductive verification, we have, I think, as clear a correspondence between the à priori and à posteriori conclusions, as can be expected. The many factors co-operating to bring about the result in every case, are so variable in their absolute and relative amounts, that we can rarely disentangle the effect of each one, and have usually to be content with qualified inferences. Though in the mass organisms show us an unmistakable relation between great size and small fertility, yet special comparisons among them are nearly always partially vitiated by differences of structure, differences of nutrition, differences of expenditure. Though it is beyond question that the more complex…

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Excerpt #10, from Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study, by Grenville Kleiser

…see how much greater he has been than any of his competitors for fame and power. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. From “On Liberal Aims.” * * * * Let us never despair of our country. Actual evils can be mitigated; bad tendencies can be turned aside; the burdens of government can be diminished; productive industry will be renewed; and frugality will repair the waste of our resources. Then shall the golden days of the republic once more return, and the people become prosperous and happy, SAMUEL JONES TILDEN. From “Address on Administrative Reform.” * * * * Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which flesh is heir; had he reached that good old age to which his rigorous constitution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been permitted to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain of death come down but gradually, we should still have been smitten with a heavy grief and treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence; killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate, but because of his fidelity to Union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us and will be precious forever….

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Excerpt #11, from The Problems of Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell

…means as soon as we understand the universals involved, namely man and mortal. It is obviously unnecessary to have an individual acquaintance with the whole human race in order to understand what our proposition means. Thus the difference between an a priori general proposition and an empirical generalization does not come in the meaning of the proposition; it comes in the nature of the evidence for it. In the empirical case, the evidence consists in the particular instances. We believe that all men are mortal because we know that there are innumerable instances of men dying, and no instances of their living beyond a certain age. We do not believe it because we see a connexion between the universal man and the universal mortal. It is true that if physiology can prove, assuming the general laws that govern living bodies, that no living organism can last for ever, that gives a connexion between man and mortality which would enable us to assert our proposition without appealing to the special evidence of men dying. But that only means that our generalization has been subsumed under a wider generalization, for which the evidence is still of the same kind, though more extensive. The progress of science is constantly producing such subsumptions, and therefore giving a constantly wider inductive basis for scientific generalizations. But although this gives a greater degree of certainty, it does not give a different kind:…

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Excerpt #12, from The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

…were full of activity; cattle were being unloaded from the cars in the distance, and across the way the “beef-luggers” were toiling in the darkness, carrying two-hundred-pound quarters of bullocks into the refrigerator cars. Before the first streaks of daylight there came the crowding throngs of workingmen, shivering, and swinging their dinner pails as they hurried by. Jurgis took up his stand by the time-office window, where alone there was light enough for him to see; the snow fell so quick that it was only by peering closely that he could make sure that Ona did not pass him. Seven o’clock came, the hour when the great packing machine began to move. Jurgis ought to have been at his place in the fertilizer mill; but instead he was waiting, in an agony of fear, for Ona. It was fifteen minutes after the hour when he saw a form emerge from the snow mist, and sprang toward it with a cry. It was she, running swiftly; as she saw him, she staggered forward, and half fell into his outstretched arms. “What has been the matter?” he cried, anxiously. “Where have you been?” It was several seconds before she could get breath to answer him. “I couldn’t get home,” she exclaimed. “The snow—the cars had stopped.” “But where were you then?” he demanded. “I had to go home with a friend,” she panted—“with Jadvyga.”…

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