Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:09

Excerpt #1, from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson

…A close observer might have gathered that the topic was distasteful; but the doctor carried it off gaily. “My poor Utterson,” said he, “you are unfortunate in such a client. I never saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies. O, I know he’s a good fellow—you needn’t frown—an excellent fellow, and I always mean to see more of him; but a hide-bound pedant for all that; an ignorant, blatant pedant. I was never more disappointed in any man than Lanyon.” “You know I never approved of it,” pursued Utterson, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic. “My will? Yes, certainly, I know that,” said the doctor, a trifle sharply. “You have told me so.” “Well, I tell you so again,” continued the lawyer. “I have been learning something of young Hyde.” The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very lips, and there came a blackness about his eyes. “I do not care to hear more,” said he. “This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop.” “What I heard was abominable,” said Utterson. “It can make no change. You do not understand my position,” returned the doctor, with a certain incoherency of manner. “I am painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very strange—a very strange one….

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Excerpt #2, from Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora Ozaki

…will to dig up the earth and to pat it into shape. “All right,” said Kintaro, “I will look on while you all wrestle with each other. I shall give a prize to the one who wins in each round.” “What fun! we shall all try to get the prize,” said the bear. The deer, the monkey and the hare set to work to help the bear raise the platform on which they were all to wrestle. When this was finished, Kintaro cried out: “Now begin! the monkey and the hare shall open the sports and the deer shall be umpire. Now, Mr. Deer, you are to be umpire!” “He, he!” answered the deer. “I will be umpire. Now, Mr. Monkey and Mr. Hare, if you are both ready, please walk out and take your places on the platform.” Then the monkey and the hare both hopped out, quickly and nimbly, to the wrestling platform. The deer, as umpire, stood between the two and called out: “Red-back! Red-back!” (this to the monkey, who has a red back in Japan). “Are you ready?” Then he turned to the hare: “Long-ears! Long-ears! are you ready?” Both the little wrestlers faced each other while the deer raised a leaf on high as signal. When he dropped the leaf the monkey and the hare…

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Excerpt #3, from The Pirates’ Who’s Who, by Philip Gosse

…cut an innocent throat. He only had one hand, and used to fire his piece with great skill, laying the barrel on his stump, and drawing the trigger with his right hand. In all the American “plantations” there were rewards offered for him alive or dead. The end of this “penny-dreadful” pirate is unrecorded, but was probably a violent one, as this type of pirate seldom, if ever, died in his bed. JOHNSON, ISAAC. One of Captain Quelch’s crew. Tried for piracy at the Star Tavern at Boston in 1704. JOHNSON, JACOB. Taken prisoner by Captain Roberts out of the King Solomon, he joined the pirates. JOHNSON, JOHN, or JAYNSON. Born “nigh Lancaster.” Taken out of the King Solomon. One of Roberts’s crew. Hanged in 1722 at the age of 22. JOHNSON, MARCUS. One of Captain Roberts’s crew. Hanged in 1722. Stated in his death warrant to be a native of Smyrna. Died at the age of 21. JOHNSON, ROBERT….

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Excerpt #4, 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 #5, from Curiosities of Human Nature, by Samuel G. Goodrich

…of maidenly modesty. As for Boone, he was incurably wounded by her, whose eyes he had shined, and as he was remarkable for the backwoods’ attribute of never being beaten out of his track, he ceased not to woo, until he gained the heart of Rebecca Bryan. In a word, he courted her successfully, and they were married." Boone removed with his wife to the head waters of the Yadkin, where he remained for several years, engaged in the quiet pursuits of a husbandman. But in process of time, the country was settled around him, and the restraints of orderly society became established. These were disagreeable to his love of unbounded liberty, and he began to think of seeking a new home in the yet unoccupied wilderness. Having heard an account of Kentucky from a man by the name of Finley, who had made an expedition thither, he determined to explore the country. Accordingly, in 1769, he set out with four associates, and soon, bidding adieu to the habitations of man, plunged into the boundless forest. They ascended and crossed the Alleganies, and at last stood on the western summit of the Cumberland Ridge. What a scene opened before them!–the illimitable forest, as yet unbroken by civilized man, and occupied only by savage beasts and more savage men. Yet it bore the marks of the highest fertility. Trees of every form, and touched with every shade of verdure, rose to an unwonted height on every side. In the…

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Excerpt #6, from Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Jonathan Swift

…management of our treasury; the valour and achievements of our forces, by sea and land. I computed the number of our people, by reckoning how many millions there might be of each religious sect, or political party among us. I did not omit even our sports and pastimes, or any other particular which I thought might redound to the honour of my country. And I finished all with a brief historical account of affairs and events in England for about a hundred years past. This conversation was not ended under five audiences, each of several hours; and the king heard the whole with great attention, frequently taking notes of what I spoke, as well as memorandums of what questions he intended to ask me. When I had put an end to these long discourses, his majesty, in a sixth audience, consulting his notes, proposed many doubts, queries, and objections, upon every article. He asked, “What methods were used to cultivate the minds and bodies of our young nobility, and in what kind of business they commonly spent the first and teachable parts of their lives? What course was taken to supply that assembly, when any noble family became extinct? What qualifications were necessary in those who are to be created new lords: whether the humour of the prince, a sum of money to a court lady, or a design of strengthening a party opposite to the public interest, ever happened to be the motive in those…

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Excerpt #7, from The Heroes; Or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children, by Charles Kingsley

…the other in her arms, and leaped from a cliff into the sea, and was changed into a dolphin, such as you have seen, which wanders over the waves for ever sighing, with its little one clasped to its breast. But the people drove out King Athamas, because he had killed his child; and he roamed about in his misery, till he came to the Oracle in Delphi. And the Oracle told him that he must wander for his sin, till the wild beasts should feast him as their guest. So he went on in hunger and sorrow for many a weary day, till he saw a pack of wolves. The wolves were tearing a sheep; but when they saw Athamas they fled, and left the sheep for him, and he ate of it; and then he knew that the oracle was fulfilled at last. So he wandered no more; but settled, and built a town, and became a king again. But the ram carried the two children far away over land and sea, till he came to the Thracian Chersonese, and there Helle fell into the sea. So those narrow straits are called ‘Hellespont,’ after her; and they bear that name until this day. Then the ram flew on with Phrixus to the north-east across the sea which we call the Black Sea now; but the Hellens call it Euxine. And at last, they say, he stopped at Colchis, on the steep Circassian coast; and there Phrixus married Chalciope, the daughter of Aietes the king; and offered the ram in sacrifice; and Aietes nailed the ram’s fleece to a beech, in…

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Excerpt #8, from Psychology and Social Practice, by John Dewey

…When men derive their moral ideals and laws from custom, they also realize them through custom; but when they are in any way divorced from habit and tradition, when they are consciously proclaimed, there must be some substitute for custom as an organ of execution. We must know the method of their operation and know it in detail. Otherwise the more earnestly we insist upon our categorical imperatives, and upon their supreme right of control, the more flagrantly helpless we are as to their actual domination. The fact that conscious, as distinct from customary, morality and psychology have had a historic parallel march is just the concrete recognition of the necessary equivalence between ends consciously conceived, and interest in the means upon which the ends depend. We have the same reality stated twice over: once as value to be realized, and once as mechanism of realization. So long as custom reigns, as tradition prevails, so long as social values are determined by instinct and habit, there is no conscious question as to the method of their achievement, and hence no need of psychology. Social institutions work of their own inertia, they take the individual up into themselves and carry him along in their own sweep. The individual is dominated by the mass life of his group. Institutions and the customs attaching to them take care of society both as to its ideals and its methods. But when once the values come to consciousness, when once a…

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Excerpt #9, from The Satyricon — Complete, by Petronius Arbiter

…calling for a bowl of wine, Dama spoke up, “A day’s nothing at all: it’s night before you can turn around, so you can’t do better than to go right to the dining-room from your bed. It’s been so cold that I can hardly get warm in a bath, but a hot drink’s as good as an overcoat: I’ve had some long pegs, and between you and me, I’m a bit groggy; the booze has gone to my head.” CHAPTER THE FORTY-SECOND. Here Seleucus took up the tale. “I don’t bathe every day,” he confided, “a bath uses you up like a fuller: water’s got teeth and your strength wastes away a little every day; but when I’ve downed a pot of mead, I tell the cold to suck my cock! I couldn’t bathe today anyway, because I was at a funeral; dandy fellow, he was too, good old Chrysanthus slipped his wind! Why, only the other day he said good morning’ to me, and I almost think I’m talking to him now! Gawd’s truth, we’re only blown-up bladders strutting around, we’re less than flies, for they have some good in them, but we’re only bubbles. And supposing he had not kept to such a low diet! Why, not a drop of water or a crumb of bread so much as passed his lips for five days; and yet he joined the majority! Too many doctors did away with him, or rather, his time had come, for a doctor’s not good for anything except for a consolation to your mind! He was well carried out, anyhow, in the very bed he slept in during his lifetime. And he was…

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Excerpt #10, from The Chemistry of Plant Life, by Roscoe Wilfred Thatcher

…successfully duplicated in vitro in the laboratory. Assuming, then, that formaldehyde is the first photosynthetic product in the process of the production of carbohydrates from water and carbon dioxide, the simple empirical equation for this transformation would be H_{2}O + CO_{2} = CH_{2}O + O_{2}. It is apparent, however, that the process is not so simple as this hypothetical reaction would indicate, as water and carbon dioxide can hardly be conceived to react together in any such simple way as this. Various theories as to the exact nature of the steps through which the chemical combinations proceed have been advanced. A discussion of the experimental evidence upon which these are based and of the conclusions which seem to be justified from these experimental studies is presented below. The only value which may be attached to the empirical equation just presented is that it does accurately represent the facts that a volume of oxygen, equal to that of the carbon dioxide consumed in the process, is liberated and that formaldehyde is the synthetical product of the reactions involved. It should be noted, in this connection, that formaldehyde is a powerful plant poison and that few, if any, plant tissues can withstand the toxic effect of this substance when it is present in any considerable concentration. Hence, it is necessary to this whole conception of the…

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Excerpt #11, from Poems, by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, by Emily Dickinson

…You there, I here, With just the door ajar That oceans are, And prayer, And that pale sustenance, Despair! XIII. RENUNCIATION. There came a day at summer’s full Entirely for me; I thought that such were for the saints, Where revelations be. The sun, as common, went abroad, The flowers, accustomed, blew, As if no soul the solstice passed That maketh all things new. The time was scarce profaned by speech; The symbol of a word Was needless, as at sacrament The wardrobe of our Lord. Each was to each the sealed church,…

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Excerpt #12, from The call of Cthulhu, by H. P. Lovecraft

…possess it. On November 1st, 1907, there had come to New Orleans police a frantic summons from the swamp and lagoon country to the south. The squatters there, mostly primitive but good-natured descendants of Lafitte’s men, were in the grip of stark terror from an unknown thing which had stolen upon them in the night. It was voodoo, apparently, but voodoo of a more terrible sort than they had ever known; and some of their women and children had disappeared since the malevolent tom-tom had begun its incessant beating far within the black haunted woods where no dweller ventured. There were insane shouts and harrowing screams, soul-chilling chants and dancing devil-flames; and, the frightened messenger added, the people could stand it no more. So a body of twenty police, filling two carriages and an automobile, had set out in the late afternoon with the shivering squatter as a guide. At the end of the passable road they alighted, and for miles splashed on in silence through the terrible cypress woods where day never came. Ugly roots and malignant hanging nooses of Spanish moss beset them, and now and then a pile of dank stones or fragments of a rotting wall intensified by its hint of morbid habitation a depression which every malformed tree and every fungous islet combined to create. At length the squatter settlement, a miserable huddle of huts, hove in…

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