Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:47

Excerpt #1, from The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James

…drop me and to accompany me without appearing to surround. They were never importunate and yet never listless. My attention to them all really went to seeing them amuse themselves immensely without me: this was a spectacle they seemed actively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer. I walked in a world of their invention—they had no occasion whatever to draw upon mine; so that my time was taken only with being, for them, some remarkable person or thing that the game of the moment required and that was merely, thanks to my superior, my exalted stamp, a happy and highly distinguished sinecure. I forget what I was on the present occasion; I only remember that I was something very important and very quiet and that Flora was playing very hard. We were on the edge of the lake, and, as we had lately begun geography, the lake was the Sea of Azof. Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the other side of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. The way this knowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing in the world—the strangest, that is, except the very much stranger in which it quickly merged itself. I had sat down with a piece of work—for I was something or other that could sit—on the old stone bench which overlooked the pond; and in this position I began to take in with certitude, and yet without direct vision, the presence, at a distance, of a third person….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #2, 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.”…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #3, from Rocks and Their Origins, by Grenville A. J. Cole

…Nagelfluh conglomerates of the north side of the Swiss Alps are often formed of pebbles of the far older Mesozoic limestones. Similar conglomerates, cemented by calcium carbonate, are now being formed in the river-beds of the limestone karstland of Hercegovina. Limestone, however, as a rule goes to pieces before the buffetings sustained by mixed rocks on a shore. Even if it survives for a time in gravels, percolating waters ultimately dissolve it, and only a porous skeleton, formed of its impurities, remains. LIMESTONES DEPOSITED FROM SOLUTION Though calcium carbonate is far less soluble than calcium sulphate, large quantities are carried invisibly, owing to the presence of carbon dioxide, in river waters, and thus accumulate in inland seas that have no outlet except by evaporation. Here Calcareous Tufa may be deposited as a crust upon the shores and on the growing islets, as the water shrinks away, and before the more soluble gypsum and rock-salt can separate out. Hot springs of volcanic origin, like the Sprudel of Karlsbad in Bohemia, may deposit calcium carbonate as the water cools and is relieved from pressure. At Karlsbad, little grains of granite, or of the minerals of granite, serve as centres, and encrusting layers are formed round them, until pea-like bodies are produced. These become cemented together, giving rise to the well-known freshwater _pisolitic…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #4, from With Lawrence in Arabia, by Lowell Thomas

…of Arabia to Sultan Ibn Saud of Nejd. At one time Nuri Shalaan wanted an armorer. He captured Ibn Bani of Hail, Ibn Rashid’s armorer, the most skilled man of his craft in Arabia, and put him in prison with his own smith, Ibn Zarih. He gave them both forges and tools and declared that they should languish in prison until Ibn Zarih could make swords and daggers that could not be distinguished from those of Ibn Bani. They sweated and worked and the forges were kept burning until late every night, and finally, after many weeks, Ibn Zarih produced a wonderful dagger with an edge that could almost cut the wind. Nuri was satisfied; he released his two prisoners and sent Ibn Bani back to his country with rich presents. Nuri Shalaan was an old man of seventy when the Arab revolution broke out. He was always ambitious and determined to be a leader. Thirty years ago he killed his two brothers and made himself chief of the tribe. He ruled his people with a rod of iron, and they were practically the only Bedouins who obeyed orders. If they fail him he has their heads cut off; but in spite of his cruelty his followers all admire and are proud of him. Most Arab sheiks talk like magpies, but Nuri remains silent in the tribal council and settles everything with a few final clean-cut words of decision. Until the end of the war he had preferred tent life to…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #5, from The Sea

…ARKADINA. Good-bye, all! We shall meet again next summer if we live. [The maid servant, JACOB, and the cook kiss her hand] Don’t forget me. [She gives the cook a rouble] There is a rouble for all three of you. THE COOK. Thank you, mistress; a pleasant journey to you. JACOB. God bless you, mistress. SHAMRAEFF. Send us a line to cheer us up. [TO TRIGORIN] Good-bye, sir. ARKADINA. Where is Constantine? Tell him I am starting. I must say good-bye to him. [To JACOB] I gave the cook a rouble for all three of you. All go out through the door on the right. The stage remains empty. Sounds of farewell are heard. The maid comes running back to fetch the basket of plums which has been forgotten. TRIGORIN comes back. TRIGORIN. I had forgotten my cane. I think I left it on the terrace. [He goes toward the door on the right and meets NINA, who comes in at that moment] Is that you? We are off. NINA. I knew we should meet again. [With emotion] I have come to an irrevocable decision, the die is cast: I am going on the stage. I am deserting my father and abandoning everything. I am beginning life anew. I am going, as you are, to Moscow. We shall meet there. TRIGORIN. [Glancing about him] Go to the Hotel Slavianski Bazar. Let me know as soon as you get there. I shall be at the Grosholski House in…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #6, from The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study of Biological Philosophy, by Ernst Haeckel

…forms and functions, when we have a sociological knowledge of the various classes that compose it, and the laws of their association and division of labor; and when we have made an anthropological study of the nature of the persons who have united, under the same laws, for the formation of a community and are distributed in its various classes. The familiar arrangement of these classes, and the settling of the rank in the mass and the governing body, show us how this complex social organism is built up step by step. But we have to look in the same way on the cell-state, which is made up from the separate individualities in human society or in the kingdom of the tissue-animals, or the branches in the kingdom of the tissue-plants. Their complex organism, composed of various organs and tissues, can only be understood when we are acquainted with their constituent elements, the cells, and the laws according to which these elementary organisms unite to form cell-communities and tissues, and are in turn modified in the divers organs in the division of labor. We must, therefore, first establish the scale of the morphonta, and the laws of their association and ergonomy, according to which the several stages or conditions of morphological individuality build on each other. Three such stages may be at once distinguished: (1) the cell (or, more correctly, the plastid), (2) the person (animal) or branch…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #7, from Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall

…things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion. So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach. I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that morning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the time from church-going. I walked homeward, thinking what I would do with Bartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this;—I would put certain calm questions to him the next morning, touching his history, etc., and if…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #8, from The Swedish Fairy Book, by Klara Stroebe, George Hood, and Frederick Herman Martens

…one of the greatest nobles to seat himself in the bridal chair in the prince’s place, which he did. But the very moment the priest began to pray, the two wings of the church portal quickly flew open, and a tall, strong, handsome man with flashing eyes, royally clad, came in, stepped up to the bridal chair, thrust his proxy out so hastily that he nearly fell, and cried: “This is my place! Now, priest, speak the blessing!” While the blessing was spoken the prince became quiet again, and then greeted his parents and the whole court with joy, and before all embraced his wife, who now for the first time ventured to take a good look at him. Thenceforward the prince was like any other human being, and in the end he inherited his father’s kingdom, and became a great and world-renowned ruler, beloved by his subjects, and adored by his wife. They lived long and happily, and their descendants are still the rulers of the land over which he reigned. NOTE “First Born, First Wed” is a purely Swedish, and decidedly characteristic treatment of a similar motive of redemption. (From the mss. collection of Hyltén-Cavallius and Stephens, communicated by Dr. v. Sydow-Lund). XIII THE LAME DOG…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #9, from Biology, by Edmund B. Wilson

…Belfast address, where he declared himself driven by an intellectual necessity to cross the boundary line of the experimental evidence and to discern in non-living matter, as he said, the promise and potency of every form and quality of terrestrial life. This intellectual necessity was created by a conviction of the continuity and consistency of natural phenomena, which is almost inseparable from the scientific attitude towards nature. But Tyndall’s words stood after all for a confession of faith, not for a statement of fact; and they soared far above the terra firma of the actual evidence. At the present day we too may find ourselves logically driven to the view that living things first arose as a product of non-living matter. We must fully recognize the extraordinary progress that has been made by the chemist in the artificial synthesis of compounds formerly known only as the direct products of living protoplasm. But it must also be admitted that we are still wholly without evidence of the origin of any living thing, at any period of the earth’s history, save from some other living thing; and after more than two centuries Redi’s aphorism omne vivum e vivo retains to-day its full force. It is my impression therefore that the time has not yet come when hypotheses regarding a different origin of life can be considered as practically useful. If I have the temerity to ask your attention to the fundamental…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #10, from Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy, by Bernard Shaw

…was preceded by a very convincing demonstration that the artist never catches the point of view of the common man on the question of sex, because he is not in the same predicament. I first prove that anything I write on the relation of the sexes is sure to be misleading; and then I proceed to write a Don Juan play. Well, if you insist on asking me why I behave in this absurd way, I can only reply that you asked me to, and that in any case my treatment of the subject may be valid for the artist, amusing to the amateur, and at least intelligible and therefore possibly suggestive to the Philistine. Every man who records his illusions is providing data for the genuinely scientific psychology which the world still waits for. I plank down my view of the existing relations of men to women in the most highly civilized society for what it is worth. It is a view like any other view and no more, neither true nor false, but, I hope, a way of looking at the subject which throws into the familiar order of cause and effect a sufficient body of fact and experience to be interesting to you, if not to the play-going public of London. I have certainly shown little consideration for that public in this enterprise; but I know that it has the friendliest disposition towards you and me as far as it has any consciousness of our existence, and quite understands that what I write for you must pass at a considerable height over its simple romantic head. It will take my books…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #11, from Pygmalion, by Bernard Shaw

…PICKERING [much alarmed] Oh! but you’re coming back to Wimpole Street, aren’t you? You’ll forgive Higgins? HIGGINS [rising] Forgive! Will she, by George! Let her go. Let her find out how she can get on without us. She will relapse into the gutter in three weeks without me at her elbow. Doolittle appears at the centre window. With a look of dignified reproach at Higgins, he comes slowly and silently to his daughter, who, with her back to the window, is unconscious of his approach. PICKERING. He’s incorrigible, Eliza. You won’t relapse, will you? LIZA. No: Not now. Never again. I have learnt my lesson. I don’t believe I could utter one of the old sounds if I tried. [Doolittle touches her on her left shoulder. She drops her work, losing her self-possession utterly at the spectacle of her father’s splendor] A—a—a—a—a—ah—ow—ooh! HIGGINS [with a crow of triumph] Aha! Just so. A—a—a—a—ahowooh! A—a—a—a—ahowooh ! A—a—a—a—ahowooh! Victory! Victory! [He throws himself on the divan, folding his arms, and spraddling arrogantly]. DOOLITTLE. Can you blame the girl? Don’t look at me like that, Eliza. It ain’t my fault. I’ve come into money. LIZA. You must have touched a millionaire this time, dad. DOOLITTLE. I have. But I’m dressed something special today. I’m going…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #12, from Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

…was never so beaten with anything in my life: but you must e’en take it as a gift of God; though it’s as dark almost as if it came from the devil.” We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy’s head I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, black-haired child; big enough both to walk and talk: indeed, its face looked older than Catherine’s; yet when it was set on its feet, it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand. I was frightened, and Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for? What he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad? The master tried to explain the matter; but he was really half dead with fatigue, and all that I could make out, amongst her scolding, was a tale of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb, in the streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and inquired for its owner. Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at once, than run into vain expenses there: because he was determined he would not leave it as he found it. Well, the conclusion was, that my mistress grumbled herself calm; and Mr. Earnshaw told me to wash it, and give it clean things, and let it sleep…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

A production of Friendlyskies.net