Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:32

Excerpt #1, from On the Trail of the Space Pirates, by Carey Rockwell

…“Pal, I’ve been waiting for this a long time!” “Yah,” the man answered, “me too!” Then he looked at Tom closely. “Say, I’ve never seen you around here before!” “I just got in on the supply ship last week. They kept me in the tower for a while,” Tom replied. “Oh, well,” said the man, “they ain’t keepin’ anybody there anymore!” “Come on you guys,” snarled a heavy-set man in the air lock above them. “We ain’t got all day!” Tom looked up, and without being told, he felt he was looking into the face of Bull Coxine. And when the other prisoner spoke, he was certain. “Yeah, Bull,” said the man. “Comin’, comin’!” He reached up and Bull grabbed his outstretched hand. When Bull pulled, the man literally leaped through the air into the air lock. “All right, space crawler,” roared Bull to Tom, “you’re next!” The big man stuck out his hand. Tom gulped. For one desperate second he thought of turning and running away. “Well?” growled Bull. “You coming or ain’t cha?” “You’re blasted right I’m coming,” said Tom. “This is one time the Solar Guard is taking it on the chin. And, crawler, am I happy to see it!” He grabbed Bull’s hand and was lifted as easily as if he had been a feather. Coxine dropped him on the deck and turned away without a word…

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Excerpt #2, from From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan, by H. P. Blavatsky

…carvings. Before it stands the “lion column,” so-called from the four lions carved as large as nature, and seated back to back, at its base. Over the principal entrance, its sides covered with colossal male and female figures, is a huge arch, in front of which three gigantic elephants are sculptured in relief, with heads and trunks that project from the wall. The shape of the temple is oval. It is 128 feet long and forty-six feet wide. The central space is separated on each side from the aisles by forty-two pillars, which sustain the cupola-shaped ceiling. Further on is an altar, which divides the first dome from a second one which rises over a small chamber, formerly used by the ancient Aryan priests for an inner, secret altar. Two side passages leading towards it come to a sudden end, which suggests that, once upon a time, either doors or wall were there which exist no longer. Each of the forty-two pillars has a pedestal, an octagonal shaft, and a capital, described by Fergusson as “of the most exquisite workmanship, representing two kneeling elephants surmounted by a god and a goddess.” Fergusson further says that this temple, or chaitya, is older and better preserved than any other in India, and may be assigned to a period about 200 years B.C., because Prinsep, who has read the inscription on the Silastamba pillar, asserts that the lion pillar was the gift of Ajmitra Ukasa, son of Saha Ravisobhoti, and another inscription shows that…

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Excerpt #3, from Not that it Matters, by A. A. Milne

…Representative" promptly calls upon “the well-known Lepidopterist” to ask what HE thinks about it. But if he be of an established reputation, then his professional opinion is no longer sought. What the world is eager for now is to be told his views on Sunday Games, the Decadence of the Theatre or Bands in the Parks. The modern advertising provides a new scale of values. No doubt Mr. Pelman offers his celebrated hundred guineas’ fee equally to all his victims, but we may be pretty sure that in his business- like brain he has each one of them nicely labelled, a Gallant Soldier being good for so much new business, a titled Man of Letters being good for slightly less; and that real Fame is best measured by the number of times that one’s unbiased views on Pelmanism (or Tonics or Hair-Restorers) are considered to be worth reprinting. In this matter my friend Mandragon is doing nicely. For a suitable fee he is prepared to attribute his success to anything in reason, and his confession of faith can count upon a place in every full-page advertisement of the mixture, and frequently in the odd half-columns. I never quite understand why a tonic which has tightened up Mandragon’s fibres, or a Mind-Training System which has brought General Blank’s…

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Excerpt #4, from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, by Charlotte Brontë

…one like a fostering sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when they are married? I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest woman the sun shines on.” I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester’s project of marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when I first discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a man unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice of a wife; but the longer I considered the position, education, &c., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood. All their class held these principles: I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom. It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of the advantages to the husband’s own happiness offered by this plan convinced me that there must be arguments against its general adoption of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all the world would act as I wished to act. But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to my master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a…

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Excerpt #5, from The Collected Works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 10 (of 12), by William Hazlitt

…of the Italian language. It was divided into two principal dialects:—the Provençal Romanesque, spoken in all the provinces to the south of the Loire, which had been originally conquered by the Visigoths and the Burgundians; and the Walloon Romanesque, in the provinces to the north of the Loire, where the Franks had the ascendant. The political divisions remained conformable to this first division of nations and languages. In spite of the independence of the great feudatories, northern France always formed one political body; the inhabitants of the different provinces met in the same national assemblies, and in the same armies. Southern France, on its side, after having been the inheritance of some of the successors of Charlemagne, had been raised, in 879, to the rank of an independent kingdom, by Bozon, who was crowned at Nantes, under the title of King of Arles or of Provence; and who subjected to his domination Provence, Dauphiny, Savoy, the Lyonese, and some counties of Burgundy. The title of kingdom gave place, in 943, to that of earldom, under Bozon II., without the dismemberment of Provence, or its separation from the House of Burgundy, of which Bozon I. had been the founder. This house was extinguished in 1092, in the person of Gillibert, who left two daughters only, between whom he divided his states. One, Faydide, married Alphonso, Count of Toulouse; and the other, Douce, married Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona. The union of…

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Excerpt #6, from English as she is spoke; or, a jest in sober earnest, by Carolino and Fonseca

…It is the arsnehal, the spectacle’s hall, the cusiom-house and the Purse. We are going too see the others monuments such that the public pawnbroker’s office, the plants garden’s the money office’s, the library. To inform oneself of a person. How is that gentilman who you did speak by and by. Is a German. Tongh he is German, he speak so much well italyan, french, Spanish, and english, that among the Italyans, they believe him Italyan, he speak the frenche as the Frenches himselves. The Spanishesmen belie ve him Spanishing, and the Englishes, Englisman. It is difficult to enjoy well so much several langages. For to ride a horse. Here is a horse who have a bad looks. Give me another; I will not that. He not sail know to march, he is pursy, he is foundered. Don’t you are ashamed to give me a jade as like? he is undshoed, he is with nails up; it want to lead to the farrier. Your pistols are its loads? No; I forgot to buy gun-powder and balls. Let us prick. Go us more fast never I was seen a so much bad beast; she will not nor to…

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Excerpt #7, from Latin for Beginners, by Benjamin L. D’Ooge

…amāret amārent amārētur amārentur PERFECT amāverim amāverimus amātus, {sim amātī, {sīmus amāveris amāveritis -a, -um {sīs -ae, -a {sītis amāverit amāverint {sit {sint PLUPERFECT amāvissem amāvissēmus amātus, {essem amātī, {essēmus amāvissēs amāvissētis -a, -um {essēs -ae, -a {essētis amāvisset amāvissent {esset {essent IMPERATIVE PRESENT amā, love thou amāre, be thou loved amāte, love ye amāminī, be ye loved FUTURE amātō, thou shalt love amātor, thou shalt be loved amātō, he shall love amātor, he shall be loved amātōte, you shall love —- amantō, they shall love amantor, they shall be loved INFINITIVE Pres. amāre, to love amārī, to be loved Perf. amāvisse, amātus, -a, -um esse,…

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Excerpt #8, from Weather, Crops, and Markets. Vol. 2, No. 6, by Anonymous

…with 22.10¢ at the close of the previous week and 10.81¢ for the corresponding day last year. The decline in October future contracts on the New York Cotton Exchange amounted to 38 points, and on the New Orleans Cotton Exchange to 39 points. October future contracts on the Liverpool Cotton Association closed at 12.24d. per lb. on July 28, compared with 12.59d. at the close of the previous week and 8.39d. for the corresponding day last year. The volume of spot sales as reported by the cotton exchanges in the 10 designated markets was somewhat larger than the previous week, amounting to 29,057 bales, compared with 26,939 bales the previous week and 29,715 bales for the corresponding period in 1921. The total sales reported by the exchanges in the 10 designated spot markets from Aug. 1 to July 29 amounted to 3,361,605 bales, compared with 3,303,552 bales for the corresponding period last season. Dullness was reported to have developed in the dry goods trade, but with little change in the price levels as compared with those of the previous week. Closing Future Prices for July 29 and for the Corresponding Days in 1921 and 1920. ─────────┬─────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────── Month. │ New York. │ New Orleans….

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Excerpt #9, from Ivanhoe: A Romance, by Walter Scott

…and perhaps his nocturnal potations, prevented from recognising accents which were tolerably familiar to him—“Wend on your way, in the name of God and Saint Dunstan, and disturb not the devotions of me and my holy brother.” “Mad priest,” answered the voice from without, “open to Locksley!” “All’s safe—all’s right,” said the hermit to his companion. “But who is he?” said the Black Knight; “it imports me much to know.” “Who is he?” answered the hermit; “I tell thee he is a friend.” “But what friend?” answered the knight; “for he may be friend to thee and none of mine?” “What friend?” replied the hermit; “that, now, is one of the questions that is more easily asked than answered. What friend?—why, he is, now that I bethink me a little, the very same honest keeper I told thee of a while since.” “Ay, as honest a keeper as thou art a pious hermit,” replied the knight, “I doubt it not. But undo the door to him before he beat it from its hinges.” The dogs, in the meantime, which had made a dreadful baying at the commencement of the disturbance, seemed now to recognise the voice of him who stood without; for, totally changing their manner, they scratched and whined at the door, as if interceding for his admission….

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Excerpt #10, from Home Life in Colonial Days, by Alice Morse Earle

…feed for horses nor food for themselves, but both classes of teamsters carried coarse mattresses and blankets, which they spread side by side, and row after row, on the bar-room floor of the tavern at which they “put up.” Their horses when unharnessed fed from long troughs hitched to the wagon-pole. The wagons that plied between the Delaware and the small city of Pittsburgh were called Pitt-teams. The life of the Conestoga wagon did not end even with the establishment of railroads in the Eastern states; farther and farther west it penetrated, ever chosen by emigrants and travellers to the frontiers; and at last in its old age it had an equal career of usefulness as the “prairie-schooner,” in which vast numbers of families safely crossed the prairies of our far West. The white tilts of the wagons thus passed and repassed till our own day. Four-wheeled wagons were but little used in New England till after the War of 1812. Two-wheeled carts and sleds carried inland freight, which was chiefly transported over the snow in the winter. The Conestoga wagon of the past century was far ahead of anything in England at that date; indeed Mr. C. W. Ernst, the best authority I know on the subject, says we had in every way far better traffic facilities at that time than England. In other ways we excelled. Though Finlay found many defects in the postal service in 1773, he also found the…

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Excerpt #11, from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum

…castle of the Wicked Witch and the Emerald City. When the four travelers went in search of the Witch she had seen them coming, and so sent the Winged Monkeys to bring them to her. It was much harder to find their way back through the big fields of buttercups and yellow daisies than it was being carried. They knew, of course, they must go straight east, toward the rising sun; and they started off in the right way. But at noon, when the sun was over their heads, they did not know which was east and which was west, and that was the reason they were lost in the great fields. They kept on walking, however, and at night the moon came out and shone brightly. So they lay down among the sweet smelling yellow flowers and slept soundly until morning—all but the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. The next morning the sun was behind a cloud, but they started on, as if they were quite sure which way they were going. “If we walk far enough,” said Dorothy, “I am sure we shall sometime come to some place.” But day by day passed away, and they still saw nothing before them but the scarlet fields. The Scarecrow began to grumble a bit. “We have surely lost our way,” he said, “and unless we find it again in time to reach the Emerald City, I shall never get my brains.” “Nor I my heart,” declared the Tin Woodman. “It seems to me I can…

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Excerpt #12, from Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War, by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

…consequently this is the province in which he has been exceptionally and successfully active. It will be recalled that in the Japanese investiture of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese war, thousands of lives were expended upon the retention and assault of 203 Metre Hill. It was the most blood-stained spot upon the whole of the Eastern Asiatic battlefield. General Nogi threw thousands after thousands of his warriors against this rampart while the Russians defended it no less resolutely. It was captured and re-captured; in fact, the fighting round this eminence was so intense that it appeared to the outsider to be more important to both sides than even Port Arthur itself. Yet if General Nogi had been in the possession of a single aeroplane or dirigible it is safe to assert that scarcely one hundred Japanese or Russian soldiers would have met their fate upon this hill. Its value to the Japanese lay in one sole factor. The Japanese heavy guns shelling the harbour and the fleet it contained were posted upon the further side of this eminence and the fire of these weapons was more or less haphazard. No means of directing the artillery upon the vital points were available; 203 Metre Hill interrupted the line of sight. The Japanese thereupon resolved to capture the hill, while the Russians, equally appreciative of the obstruction it offered to their enemy, as…

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