Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:30

Excerpt #1, from Anthem, by Ayn Rand

…and falling and rising around us, and flinging their green sprays high to the treetops. The trees parted before us, calling us forward. The forest seemed to welcome us. We went on, without thought, without care, with nothing to feel save the song of our body. We stopped when we felt hunger. We saw birds in the tree branches, and flying from under our footsteps. We picked a stone and we sent it as an arrow at a bird. It fell before us. We made a fire, we cooked the bird, and we ate it, and no meal had ever tasted better to us. And we thought suddenly that there was a great satisfaction to be found in the food which we need and obtain by our own hand. And we wished to be hungry again and soon, that we might know again this strange new pride in eating. Then we walked on. And we came to a stream which lay as a streak of glass among the trees. It lay so still that we saw no water but only a cut in the earth, in which the trees grew down, upturned, and the sky lay at the bottom. We knelt by the stream and we bent down to drink. And then we stopped. For, upon the blue of the sky below us, we saw our own face for the first time. We sat still and we held our breath. For our face and our body were beautiful. Our face was not like the faces of our brothers,…

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Excerpt #2, from The Influence of the Stars: A book of old world lore, by Rosa Baughan

…influence of Jupiter. Long fingers, knotty at the joints and with square tips, show reasoning power and taste for science. Persons with these fingers are always in harmony with progress and have little or no veneration and are, therefore, never stirred by associations; with the antiquity of Catholicism, its mystical and somewhat sensuous worship, its celibate priesthood and golden aureole of saints and martyrs, persons having these fingers have no sympathy. If they belong to any fixed creed (and their logical powers are rather against this) they prefer Protestantism–or its offshoot, Dissent–where their real deity, Reason, is permitted full sway. These people love–with all the force of their nature–the study of history, jurisprudence, mathematics and the exact sciences. They are naturally clever at calculation and have much sense of order. Such fingers show the influence of Saturn, but not when most dignified; Saturn when most exalted gives mysticism, but then the fingers are not knotted at the joints and the tips are always spatulated. Fingers that are shorter than the palm and with spatulated tips, show sensuality in love and materialism in all things, energy, love of field sports and indomitable courage. Such fingers indicate the influence of Mars at birth….

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Excerpt #3, from Persuasion, by Jane Austen

…luckily Mary did not much attend to their having passed close by him in their earlier walk, but she would have felt quite ill-used by Anne’s having actually run against him in the passage, and received his very polite excuses, while she had never been near him at all; no, that cousinly little interview must remain a perfect secret. “Of course,” said Mary, “you will mention our seeing Mr Elliot, the next time you write to Bath. I think my father certainly ought to hear of it; do mention all about him.” Anne avoided a direct reply, but it was just the circumstance which she considered as not merely unnecessary to be communicated, but as what ought to be suppressed. The offence which had been given her father, many years back, she knew; Elizabeth’s particular share in it she suspected; and that Mr Elliot’s idea always produced irritation in both was beyond a doubt. Mary never wrote to Bath herself; all the toil of keeping up a slow and unsatisfactory correspondence with Elizabeth fell on Anne. Breakfast had not been long over, when they were joined by Captain and Mrs Harville and Captain Benwick; with whom they had appointed to take their last walk about Lyme. They ought to be setting off for Uppercross by one, and in the meanwhile were to be all together, and out of doors as long as they could….

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Excerpt #4, from Trouble on Titan, by Henry Kuttner

…reel Udell sent in. It’s magnificent theater. The tragedy of the Zonals—one of the biggest epics the System ever saw. They used to be highly civilized at one time, historians think, but something wrecked their brains. “They’re decadent now, little better than animals. If I can film the rest of Sons of Titan, we’ll have something really big—Grass and Chang and Dust all rolled into one. If I can figure out how to make the Zonals act. “They acted for Udell—magnificently. They lived their roles. And that’s what’s so mysterious, Kathleen. The Zonals aren’t really smart enough to come in out of the rain.” “Could it have been faked?” the girl asked. “No,” Von Zorn said decisively. “No question of robots. Udell made ace actors out of—of sub-idiots. The question is how?” “Same way you did with that new crooner you’re starring, maybe,” Quade said rather sardonically. He was examining a slip of paper. “I picked this up in Udell’s ship—it’s a list of supplies he planned to get in Hollywood on the Moon. That’s probably why he came back from Titan—he ran out of some things he needed. Let’s see. Why did he want neo-curare?” “What’s that?” Von Zorn asked….

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Excerpt #5, from Curiosities of the Sky, by Garrett Putman Serviss

…was remarkable for being ``continuous,’’ like that of the nebula itself. A continuous spectrum is supposed to represent a body, or a mass, which is either solid or liquid, or composed of gas under great pressure. In January, 1892, a new star was suddenly seen in the constellation Auriga. It never rose much above the fourth magnitude, but it showed a peculiar spectrum containing both bright and dark lines of hydrogen. But a bewildering surprise was now in store; the world was to behold at the opening of the twentieth century such a celestial spectacle as had not been on view since the times of Tycho and Kepler. Before daylight on the morning of February 22, 1901, the Rev. Doctor Anderson, of Edinburgh, an amateur astronomer, who had also been the first to see the new star in Auriga, beheld a strange object in the constellation Perseus not far from the celebrated variable star Algol. He recognized its character at once, and immediately telegraphed the news, which awoke the startled attention of astronomers all over the world. When first seen the new star was no brighter than Algol (less than the second magnitude), but within twenty-four hours it was ablaze, outshining even the brilliant Capella, and far surpassing the first magnitude. At the spot in the sky where it appeared nothing whatever was visible on the night before its coming. This is known…

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Excerpt #6, from Tales of an Old Sea Port, by Wilfred Harold Munro

…for himself a stately mansion, on a little hill always spoken of by Bristol people as “The Mount,” in which his descendants continued to reside until its destruction by fire a few years ago. Inevitably he came to take a leading part in political matters. For almost thirty years he represented his native town in the Rhode Island Legislature, laying aside the gavel of the Speaker of that body in 1821 to become a member of the United States Senate. As a Senator his immense business experience made him the recognized authority in commercial matters. He was a strong “protectionist” and was the first in the Senate to propose the “drawback” system which has since been so largely adopted in the United States and elsewhere. He was one of the few Senators, perhaps the only one from New England, who were accustomed to ride to Washington in their own coaches. Happily this relic of the luxury of a hundred years ago still remains in the possession of a descendant of Mark Anthony De Wolf, Colonel Samuel Pomeroy Colt of Bristol. Mr. De Wolf’s life at Washington was not pleasing to him. The progress of Congressional legislation was too slow for his active mind, and his constantly increasing business demanded all of his attention. He therefore resigned from the United States Senate long before his term expired and joyfully resumed his old position as a representative of Bristol…

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Excerpt #7, from The Valley of the Moon, by Jack London

…good; but the places they mentioned were always a long way off. One thing she did glean from them, and that was that the district she and Billy were passing through was “small-farmer” country in which labor was rarely hired, and that when it was it generally was Portuguese. The farmers themselves were unfriendly. They drove by Billy and Saxon, often with empty wagons, but never invited them to ride. When chance offered and Saxon did ask questions, they looked her over curiously, or suspiciously, and gave ambiguous and facetious answers. “They ain’t Americans, damn them,” Billy fretted. “Why, in the old days everybody was friendly to everybody.” But Saxon remembered her last talk with her brother. “It’s the spirit of the times, Billy. The spirit has changed. Besides, these people are too near. Wait till we get farther away from the cities, then we’ll find them more friendly.” “A measly lot these ones are,” he sneered. “Maybe they’ve a right to be,” she laughed. “For all you know, more than one of the scabs you’ve slugged were sons of theirs.” “If I could only hope so,” Billy said fervently. “But I don’t care if I owned ten thousand acres, any man hikin’ with his blankets might be just as good a man as me, an’ maybe better, for all I’d know. I’d give ’m the benefit of the doubt, anyway.”…

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Excerpt #8, from Ten Months in a German Raider: A prisoner of war aboard the Wolf, by Cameron

…The Wolf and the Hitachi now steamed to the southernmost group of the Maldive Islands, arriving there on September 27th. The vessels tied up alongside of each other and coal and cargo were transferred from the Hitachi to the Wolf. The cargo of the Hitachi Maru was valued at over a million and a half pounds sterling, chiefly copper, tin, rubber, thousands of tons of silk, tea and hides. It always seemed uncanny to me that these “deep-sea vultures” seemed to be able to capture a vessel loaded with any particular kind of cargo they wanted. About a month before this capture, I heard the officers talking among themselves and one of them remarked, “Now the next ship we get should be loaded with copper and rubber and tin.” Sure enough the Hitachi had what they wanted. It seemed a pity to me to see the thousands of bales of silk goods, ladies’ blouses and silk kimonos being dumped from one hold to another and trampled on. When the Hitachi was finally sunk there were a couple of thousand tons of expensive Japanese lingerie and other ladies’ wear and miscellaneous department store merchandise sunk with her. The mermaids must have had “some” bargain sale. It was the intention of Nerger to pick up, if possible, a vessel that could furnish him with enough coal to take both the Hitachi and Wolf back to Germany. At this time there was a lot of talk…

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Excerpt #9, from A Week at Waterloo in 1815, by Lady Magdalene De Lancey

…grave(40) on Tuesday, the 4th of July. The burying-ground is in a sweet, quiet, retired spot. A narrow path leads to it from the road. It is quite out of sight among the fields, and no house but the grave-digger’s cottage is near. Seeing my interest in that grave, he begged me to let him plant roses round it, and promised I should see it nicely kept when I returned. I am pleased that I saw the grave and the stone; for there were nearly forty other new graves, and not another stone. At eleven o’clock that same day, I set out for England. That day, three(41) months before, I was married. M. De L. NOTES TO LADY DE LANCEY’S NARRATIVE Most of the following notes have been compiled by Mr T.W. Brogden, of the Middle Temple, to whom I take this opportunity of expressing my indebtedness for his assistance in the preparation of this volume, and for his kindness in seeing the book through the press, during my absence in Canada. EDITOR. (1) "On Thursday the 15th June we had spent a particularly happy morning. My dear husband gave me many interesting anecdotes of his former life, and I traced in every one some trait of his amiable and…

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Excerpt #10, from The power and the glory, by Henry Kuttner

…a hundred feet above the crag-bordered stream at the cliffs bottom! Panic struck him. Then Tsi’s reassuring thought said, “You are safe. This is teleportation.” He scarcely heard. An age-old instinctive fear chilled his middle. For a million years men have been afraid of falling. He could not now control that fear. Slowly he began to drop. He lost sight of Tsi and the golden trees and then of the water-wall. Under him the stream broadened. He sank down at an angle—and felt solid ground beneath his feet. There was silence except for the whispering murmur of the stream. CHAPTER III The World That Couldn’t Be Miller sat down on a rock and held his head in his hands. His thoughts were swimming. Cold, fresh air blew against his cheeks and he raised his face to meet that satisfying chill. It seemed to rouse him. He began to realize that he had been half asleep during the interview with Tsi, as though the mists of his slumber had still blanketed his senses. Otherwise he would scarcely have accepted this miraculous business. Or was there another reason? He felt a desperate impulse to see Tsi again. She could answer his…

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Excerpt #11, from Direct Conversion of Energy, by William R. Corliss

…starts out with heat must ultimately waste some of that energy (Figure 3). [Illustration: Figure 3 A typical heat engine showing heat input, useful power output, and the unavoidable waste heat that must be rejected to the environment. A pressure-volume diagram is shown underneath for a closed gas-turbine cycle. Circled numbers correspond. The energy produced is represented by the shaded area. Similar diagrams can be made for all heat engines as an aid in studying their performance.] A TYPICAL HEAT ENGINE HEAT IN… HEAT SOURCE REACTOR, BOILER ELECTRICITY OUT ENERGY CONVERTER PUMP FLUID PIPE RADIATOR WASTE HEAT OUT PRESSURE-VOLUME DIAGRAM HEAT IN…

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Excerpt #12, from Astounding Stories of Super

…For four hours after sunrise Bell worked desperately. With the few and inadequate tools in the plane he took apart the oiling system of the motor. It was in duplicate, of course, like all modern air engines, and there were three magnetos, and double spark plugs. Bell drained the crankcase beneath a sun that grew more and more hot and blistering, catching the oil in a gasoline can that he was able to empty into the main tanks. He washed out innumerable small oil pipes with gasoline, and flushed out the crankcase itself, and had at the end of his working as many small scraps of metal as would half fill a thimble. He showed then to Paula. “And the stars in their courses fought against Sisera,” he quoted dryly. “Any one of these, caught in just the right place, would have let us down into the jungle last night.” She smiled up at him. “But they didn’t.” “No…. God loves the Irish,” said Bell. “What’s that thing?” Paula was fishing, sitting on a fallen tree in the cloud of smoke from a smudge fire Bell had built for her. She was wearing the oily flying suit he had found in the shed with the plane, and had torn strips from her discarded dress to make a fishing line. The hook was made out of the stiff wire handle of one of the extra gasoline tins. "Hook and…

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