Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:17

Excerpt #1, from The Principles of the Art of Conversation, by J. P. Mahaffy

…choosing your companion and seeking out the opportunity; but, on the contrary, two people of different sexes are often brought together and ordered (so to speak) to converse, for no other reason than the command of society. Thus a young man is introduced to a partner at a ball, or a man of soberer age is directed to take a lady down to dinner. Here, though the company is large, the conversation is really of the kind before us—a dialogue between two persons only, of different sexes, and often comparative strangers. There is no case more frequent where conversation is imperative, and where failures are common and conspicuous. It is bad enough to begin with truisms about the weather—an excusable exordium; it is far worse and more disgraceful to end with them, and positively many people get no further. And yet this failure is not from mere emptiness of mind. These very same people, young and old, could be brought into circumstances where almost any of them would be interesting—not a few of them eloquent. I have spent an evening shut up with a very unpromising commercial traveller in a remote country inn, and yet by trying honestly to find out what he knew and liked, succeeded in drawing from him a most interesting account of his experiences, first in tea-tasting, then in tea-selling to the Irish peasants in the remote glens of Donegal. What he told me was quite worthy to make an article in a good magazine. Yet a…

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Excerpt #2, from The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman

…stock-broker and realized forty-six thousand francs. Whatever Madame Imbert might have said about it, Arsène Lupin did not feel at home in the Imbert house. On the contrary, his position there was a peculiar one. He learned that the servants did not even know his name. They called him “monsieur.” Ludovic always spoke of him in the same way: “You will tell monsieur. Has monsieur arrived?” Why that mysterious appellation? Moreover, after their first outburst of enthusiasm, the Imberts seldom spoke to him, and, although treating him with the consideration due to a benefactor, they gave him little or no attention. They appeared to regard him as an eccentric character who did not like to be disturbed, and they respected his isolation as if it were a stringent rule on his part. On one occasion, while passing through the vestibule, he heard Madame Imbert say to the two gentlemen: “He is such a barbarian!” “Very well,” he said to himself, “I am a barbarian.” And, without seeking to solve the question of their strange conduct, he proceeded with the execution of his own plans. He had decided that he could not depend on chance, nor on the negligence of Madame Imbert, who carried the key of the safe, and who, on locking the safe, invariably scattered the letters forming the combination of the lock. Consequently,…

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Excerpt #3, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare

…PUCK. Through the forest have I gone, But Athenian found I none, On whose eyes I might approve This flower’s force in stirring love. Night and silence! Who is here? Weeds of Athens he doth wear: This is he, my master said, Despisèd the Athenian maid; And here the maiden, sleeping sound, On the dank and dirty ground. Pretty soul, she durst not lie Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy. Churl, upon thy eyes I throw All the power this charm doth owe; When thou wak’st let love forbid Sleep his seat on thy eyelid. So awake when I am gone; For I must now to Oberon. [Exit.] Enter Demetrius and Helena, running….

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Excerpt #4, from The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells

…sudden whirl of black smoke driving across the road hid him for a moment. I ran to my neighbour’s door and rapped to satisfy myself of what I already knew, that his wife had gone to London with him and had locked up their house. I went in again, according to my promise, to get my servant’s box, lugged it out, clapped it beside her on the tail of the dog cart, and then caught the reins and jumped up into the driver’s seat beside my wife. In another moment we were clear of the smoke and noise, and spanking down the opposite slope of Maybury Hill towards Old Woking. In front was a quiet sunny landscape, a wheat field ahead on either side of the road, and the Maybury Inn with its swinging sign. I saw the doctor’s cart ahead of me. At the bottom of the hill I turned my head to look at the hillside I was leaving. Thick streamers of black smoke shot with threads of red fire were driving up into the still air, and throwing dark shadows upon the green treetops eastward. The smoke already extended far away to the east and west—to the Byfleet pine woods eastward, and to Woking on the west. The road was dotted with people running towards us. And very faint now, but very distinct through the hot, quiet air, one heard the whirr of a machine-gun that was presently stilled, and an intermittent cracking of rifles. Apparently the Martians were setting fire to everything within range of…

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Excerpt #5, from Sketches New and Old, by Mark Twain

…One day an individual stranger at the camp him arrested with his box and him said: “What is this that you have them shut up there within?” Smiley said, with an air indifferent: “That could be a paroquet, or a syringe (ou un serin), but this no is nothing of such, it not is but a frog.” The individual it took, it regarded with care, it turned from one side and from the other, then he said: “Tiens! in effect!–At what is she good?” “My God!” respond Smiley, always with an air disengaged, “she is good for one thing, to my notice (à mon avis), she can batter in jumping (elle peut battre en sautant) all frogs of the county of Calaveras.” The individual retook the box, it examined of new longly, and it rendered to Smiley in saying with an air deliberate: “Eh bien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each frog.” (Je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu’aucune grenouille.) [If that isn’t grammar gone to seed, then I count myself no judge.–M. T.] “Possible that you not it saw not,” said Smiley, “possible that you–you comprehend frogs; possible that you not you there comprehend nothing; possible that you had of the experience, and possible that you not be but…

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Excerpt #6, from The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

…“Nick?” He asked again. “What?” “Want any?” “No … I just remembered that today’s my birthday.” I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade. It was seven o’clock when we got into the coupé with him and started for Long Island. Tom talked incessantly, exulting and laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan and me as the foreign clamour on the sidewalk or the tumult of the elevated overhead. Human sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind. Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat’s shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand. So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight. ———————————————————————— The young Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint beside the…

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Excerpt #7, from The Fifth Ace, by Isabel Ostrander

…too, I’ll admit that." “Do you want to try a little of it for me?” Willa asked. “An old Spanish woman disappeared early this morning from that house back on Second Place, and I want her found without delay. It’s she whom those other men are after; she used to live with her grandson, a hunchback, in that cottage upon the Parkway. There will be double wages in it for you while you’re working on it, and a thousand dollars reward if you find her and bring her to me.” She went on to describe Tia Juana, and Dan listened in rapt attention to every detail, fired with instant enthusiasm for the new job. “You leave it to me, Miss!” he announced confidently when she had finished. “I’ll get into that house to-morrow, one way or another, and have a talk with the landlady and the kid. I’ll soon find out if they know more than they’ve told. In the meantime, I’ll make the round of the hospitals to-night and have a look-in at headquarters to see if she’s turned up missing. Those fellers trailing us this afternoon don’t make it look as if they or the man they’re workin’ for could have got hold of her already and there’s a chance that she just wandered off, like, on her own hook. I’ll let you know the minute I’ve got a line on her. Wish I spoke her lingo!” "Oh, Tia Juana understands English well enough when she wants to, and…

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Excerpt #8, from Curious Punishments of Bygone Days, by Alice Morse Earle

…The trebuchet, or trebucket, was a stationary and simple form of a ducking machine consisting of a short post set at the water’s edge with a long beam resting on it like a see-saw; by a simple contrivance it could be swung round parallel to the bank, and the culprit tied in the chair affixed to one end. Then she could be swung out over the water and see-sawed up and down into the water. When this machine was not in use, it was secured to a stump or bolt in the ground by a padlock, because when left free it proved too tempting and convenient an opportunity for tormenting village children to duck each other. A tumbrel, or scold’s-cart, was a chair set on wheels and having very long wagon-shafts, with a rope attached to them about two feet from the end. When used it was wheeled into a pond backward, the long shafts were suddenly tilted up, and the scold sent down in a backward plunge into the water. When the ducking was accomplished, the tumbrel was drawn out of the water by the ropes. Collinson says in his History of Somersetshire, written in 1791: “In Shipton Mallet was anciently set up a tumbrel for the correction of unquiet women.” Other names for a like engine were gumstool and coqueen-stool. Many and manifold are the allusions to the ducking-stool in English literature. In a volume called Miscellaneous Poems, written by Benjamin West and published in 1780, is a descriptive poem entitled _The…

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Excerpt #9, from English Literature, by William J. Long

…artificial couplets of Johnson’s age, we turn suddenly to Cowper’s description of homely scenes, of woods and brooks, of plowmen and teamsters and the letter carrier on his rounds, we realize that we are at the dawn of a better day in poetry: He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spatter’d boots, strapp’d waist, and frozen locks: News from all nations lumbering at his back. True to his charge, the close-packed load behind, Yet careless what he brings, his one concern Is to conduct it to the destined inn, And, having dropped the expected bag, pass on. He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some; To him indifferent whether grief or joy. Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears that trickled down the writer’s cheeks Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, Or nymphs responsive, equally affect…

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Excerpt #10, from The Radio Amateur’s Hand Book, by A. Frederick Collins

…condenser and the other end of the secondary to the other post of the condenser. [Illustration: Fig. 52.–Regenerative Audio Frequency Amplifier Receiving Set.] Next bring a lead (wire) from the first post of the variable condenser over to the post of the first fixed condenser and connect the other post of the latter with the grid of the detector tube. Shunt 1/2 to 2 megohm grid leak resistance around the fixed condenser and then connect the second post of the variable condenser to one terminal of the detector tube filament. Run this wire on over and connect it with the first post of the second rheostat, the second post of which is connected with one terminal of the filament of the first amplifying tube; then connect the first post of the rheostat with one end of the secondary coil of the first audio frequency transformer, and the other end of this coil with the grid of the first amplifier tube. Connect the lead that runs from the second post of variable condenser to the first post of the third rheostat, the second post of which is connected with one terminal of the second amplifying tube; then connect the first post of the rheostat with one end of the secondary coil of the second audio frequency transformer and the other end of this coil with the grid of the second amplifier tube….

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Excerpt #11, from Clairvoyance and Occult Powers, by William Walker Atkinson

…that the ornament itself was an antique when the Egyptian had acquired it. In another case, I had the psychometrist describe in detail the animal life, and the physical phenomena, of the age in which a fossil had existed when alive–many thousands of years ago. In the proper place in this book, I will explain just how it is possible to penetrate the secrets of the past by psychometric vision–that is to say, the psychic laws making the same possible. Some of the most remarkable of recorded instances of this form of psychometry known to the Western world are those related in the works of a geologist named Denton, who some fifty years ago conducted a series of investigations into the phenomena of psychometry. His recorded experiments fill several volumes. Being a geologist, he was able to select the best subjects for the experiments, and also to verify and decide upon the accuracy of the reports given by the psychometrists. His wife, herself, was a gifted psychometrist, and it has been said of her, by good authority, that “she is able, by putting a piece of matter (whatever be its nature) to her head, to see, either with her eyes closed or open, all that the piece of matter, figuratively speaking, ever saw, heard, or experienced.” The following examples will give a good idea of the Denton experiments, which are typical of this class of psychometry. Dr. Denton gave the psychometrist a small fragment broken from a large…

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Excerpt #12, from Mr. Midshipman Easy, by Frederick Marryat

…You went on board of your own free will in woman’s clothes. Mr Easy’s orders were positive, and he obeyed them. It was his duty to sail as soon as the transport was ready. You may forward your complaint if you please, but, as a friend, I tell you that it will probably occasion your dismissal, for these kind of pranks are not understood at the Foreign Office. You may return to the transport, which, after she has touched at Mahon, will proceed again to Tetuan. The boat is alongside, sir." Mr Hicks, astonished at the want of respect, paid to a vice-consul, shoved his petticoats between his legs and went down the side amidst the laughter of the whole of the ship’s company. Our hero dined with the admiral, and was well received. He got his orders to sail that night for Minorca, and as soon as dinner was over he returned on board, where he found Captain Hogg very busy selling his porter–Gascoigne walking the deck in a brown study–and Mr Hicks solus abaft, sulking in his petticoats. As soon as they were clear of the boats, the Mary Ann hoisted her ensign and made sail, and as all the porter was not yet sold, Jack ordered up a bottle. Jack was much pleased with the result of his explanation with the admiral, and he felt that, for once, he had not only got into no scrape himself, but that he had prevented others. Gascoigne walked the deck…

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