Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:54

Excerpt #1, from Against the Grain, by J.K. Huysmans

…An icy wind swept past, accelerated the crazy flight of the snow, and reversed the color order. The heraldic tapestry of heaven returned, became a true ermine, a white flecked with black, in its turn, by the specks of darkness dispersed among the flakes. He closed the window. This abrupt transition from torrid warmth to cold winter affected him. He crouched near the fire and it occurred to him that he needed a cordial to revive his flagging spirits. He went to the dining room where, built in one of the panels, was a closet containing a number of tiny casks, ranged side by side, and resting on small stands of sandal wood. This collection of barrels he called his mouth organ. A stem could connect all the spigots and control them by a single movement, so that once attached, he had only to press a button concealed in the woodwork to turn on all the taps at the same time and fill the mugs placed underneath. The organ was now open. The stops labelled flute, horn, celestial voice, were pulled out, ready to be placed. Des Esseintes sipped here and there, enjoying the inner symphonies, succeeded in procuring sensations in his throat analogous to those which music gives to the ear….

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Excerpt #2, from The Sky Detectives; Or, How Jack Ralston Got His Man, by Ambrose Newcomb

…Atlanta, where some other lads we helped to pinch are doin’ time.” “Well, if you keep on as you’ve started, Perk, we’ll flatten the whole gang like pancakes—they’ve stacked up against a new sort of revenue dog when they started a shooter of your calibre on the trail. First you smashed their searchlight, and then sent a chuck of lead into the gas tank that broke up the game. That’s the kind of a pinch hitter you are, partner; and right now I want to congratulate you on such dandy marksmanship.” “Lay off that stuff, Jack—nothin’ but great luck fetched the bacon home for this lad. But me, I’m shakin’ hands with myself ’cause I had that hunch a bear gun mightn’t be such a bad thing to tote along on a trip that’s goin’ to carry us across the border, an’ into Old Mex, like as not; where the greasers are sometimes tough nuts an’ hard to handle they tell me. ’Spose we’ll run across them two hill billies again, partner?” “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if we did,” replied the pilot, leveling off at a three thousand foot ceiling, and still heading due southwest. “Like as not they’ve got plenty of ready cash along; and after having been so cleverly upset in their calculations, due to your beating them silly with a barrage of hot lead, they’ll be hot to wipe out their disgrace. Oh! yes, we’re going to run up against that foxey pair again before the book is closed for keeps.”…

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Excerpt #3, from The Tempest, by William Shakespeare

…Like poison given to work a great time after, 105 Now ’gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you, That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly, And hinder them from what this ecstasy May now provoke them to. Adr. Follow, I pray you. [Exeunt. Notes: III, 3. 2: ache] ake F2 F3 F4. akes F1. 3: forth-rights] F2 F3 F4. fourth rights F1. 8: flatterer] F1. flatterers F2 F3 F4. 17: Prospero above] Malone. Prosper on the top Ff. See note (XIV). 20: were] F1 F2 F3. are F4. 26: ’tis true] to ’t Steevens conj. did lie] lied Hanmer. 29: islanders] F2 F3 F4. islands F1. 32: gentle-kind] Theobald. gentle, kind Ff. gentle kind Rowe. 36: muse] F1 F2 F3. muse, F4. muse; Capell. 48: of five for one] Ff. on five for one Theobald. of one for five Malone, (Thirlby conj.) See note (XV). 49-51: I will … past] Mason conjectured that these lines formed a rhyming couplet….

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Excerpt #4, from The Invasion of 1910, with a full account of the siege of London, by Le Queux

…Pier–gazed at them in utter bewilderment. “At the first moment of alarm the East Yorkshire Volunteers hurried on their uniforms and assembled at their regimental headquarters for orders. There were, of course, no regular troops in the town, but the Volunteers soon obtained their arms and ammunition, and after being formed, marched down Heddon road to the Alexandra Dock. “On every side was the greatest commotion, already bordering upon panic. Along Spring Bank, the Hessle road, the Anlaby road, and all the thoroughfares converging into Queen Victoria Square, came crowds of all classes eager to see for themselves and learn the truth of the startling rumour. The whole riverside was soon black with the excited populace, but to the astonishment of everyone the motley craft sailed on, taking no notice of us and becoming fewer and fewer, until ships appeared through the grey bank of fog only at intervals. “One thing was entirely clear. The enemy, whoever they might be, had destroyed all our means of appealing for help, for we could not telephone to the military at York, Pontefract, Richmond, or even to the regimental district headquarters at Beverley. They had gone on to Goole, but would they turn back and attack us? “The cry was that if they meant to seize Goole they would also seize Hull! Then the terrified crowd commenced to collect timber and iron from…

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Excerpt #5, from The Old East Indiamen, by E. Keble Chatterton

…merrie meeting in this world, if it be his good will and pleasure. “The passage to the East India lieth in 62½ degrees, by the North West on the America side. Your very loving friend, “JAMES LANCASTER.” Such was the brief, matter-of-fact, intensely practical letter which he indited—the very letter which we should have expected from a leader of this type. He succeeded presently in getting it put aboard the Hector, with the order to her captain to proceed. Night came on and when the morning broke Lancaster little expected to find his “chummy ship” still by his side. But he had forgotten that the Hector’s commander was a man like himself, and being a real good fellow he declined to leave a friend in distress, even though it was disobeying the orders of his admiral. So with excellent seamanship the Hector was kept at a reasonable distance from the Dragon, determined to stand by. Meanwhile the Dragon’s carpenter had got to work again and the rudder had been repaired. As if to encourage them, the weather after two or three days began to get better, and the sea to go down. The admiral therefore made a signal ordering the Hector to come nearer. This she did, and then her master, Sander Cole by name, was able to come aboard the flagship, bringing with him the best swimmer in the ship, and the best divers. These men were of the greatest…

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Excerpt #6, from Planet of Sand, by Murray Leinster

…He cut away a flap of metal from the swelling. He tossed it away with his space-gloved hands. His suit-flash illuminated the hollow within. There was a motor inside, and it was remarkably familiar, though not a motor such as men made for the purpose of turning things. There was a shaft. There were four slabs of something that looked like graphite, rounded to fit the shaft. That was all. No coils. No armature. No sign of magnets. Men used this same principle, but for a vastly different purpose. Men used the reactive thrust of allotropic graphite against an electric current in their space ships. The Bowdoin-Hall field made such a thrust incredibly efficient, and it was such graphite slabs that drove the Stallifer–though these were monsters weighing a quarter of a ton apiece, impossible for the skid to lift. Insulated cables led to the slabs in wholly familiar fashion. The four cables joined to two and vanished in the seemingly solid girders which formed all the giant grid. Almost without hope, Stan slashed through two cables with his torch. He dragged out the recharging cable of the skid. He clipped the two ends to the two cut cables. They sparked! Then he stared. The meter of the skid showed current flowing into its power bank. An amazing amount of current. In minutes, the power-storage needle stirred from its pin. In a quarter of an hour it showed half-charge. Then a creaking began all…

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Excerpt #7, from Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana

…third mate. One file was of all the Boston Transcripts for the month of August, 1835, and the rest were about a dozen Daily Advertisers and Couriers, of different dates. After all, there is nothing in a strange land like a newspaper from home. Even a letter, in many respects, is nothing, in comparison with it. It carries you back to the spot, better than anything else. It is almost equal to clairvoyance. The names of the streets, with the things advertised, are almost as good as seeing the signs; and while reading “Boy lost!” one can almost hear the bell and well-known voice of “Old Wilson,” crying the boy as “strayed, stolen, or mislaid!” Then there was the Commencement at Cambridge, and the full account of the exercises at the graduating of my own class. A list of all those familiar names, (beginning as usual with Abbot, and ending with W., ) which, as I read them over, one by one, brought up their faces and characters as I had known them in the various scenes of college life. Then I imagined them upon the stage, speaking their orations, dissertations, colloquies, etc., with the gestures and tones of each, and tried to fancy the manner in which each would handle his subject, *****, handsome, showy, and superficial; *****, with his strong head, clear brain, cool self-possession; *****, modest, sensitive, and underrated; *****, the mouth-piece of the debating clubs, noisy, vaporous, and democratic; and so following. Then I could…

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Excerpt #8, from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete, by Michel de Montaigne

…are afraid of; and seeing we have nothing in us that is stable, they say that a too brisk and vigorous perfection of health must be abated by art, lest our nature, unable to rest in any certain condition, and not having whither to rise to mend itself, make too sudden and too disorderly a retreat; and therefore prescribe wrestlers to purge and bleed, to qualify that superabundant health), or else a repletion of evil humours, which is the ordinary cause of sickness. States are very often sick of the like repletion, and various sorts of purgations have commonly been applied. Some times a great multitude of families are turned out to clear the country, who seek out new abodes elsewhere and encroach upon others. After this manner our ancient Franks came from the remotest part of Germany to seize upon Gaul, and to drive thence the first inhabitants; so was that infinite deluge of men made up who came into Italy under the conduct of Brennus and others; so the Goths and Vandals, and also the people who now possess Greece, left their native country to go settle elsewhere, where they might have more room; and there are scarce two or three little corners in the world that have not felt the effect of such removals. The Romans by this means erected their colonies; for, perceiving their city to grow immeasurably populous, they eased it of the most unnecessary people, and sent them to inhabit and cultivate the lands conquered by them; sometimes also they purposely maintained wars with…

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Excerpt #9, from The Grenadier Guards in the Great War of 1914 to 1918, Vol. 3 of 3, by Ponsonby

…13521 Hopkins, A. 13406 Hopkins, J. 16279 Hopkins, R. 12398 Hopkins, S. 15683 Hopkinson, W. 19856 Horler, H. 25509 Horn, W. G. 16814 Horne, F. G. 19673 Horne, J. L. 18550 Horrocks, E. 18552 Horrocks, F. 21266 Horrocks, F. 23569 Horrocks, H. E. 17381 Horton, A. 18086 Hotson, W. E. 19321 Hough, F. 20100 Houghton, J. 25523 Houghton, R. 24454 Howard, E. 22666 Howard, F. J. 26050 Howarth, C. W….

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Excerpt #10, from Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

…“Well, well,” I cried, “after all, we needn’t trouble ourselves; for listen, Miss,—and mind, I’ll keep my word,—if you attempt going to Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton, and, unless he allow it, the intimacy with your cousin must not be revived.” “It has been revived,” muttered Cathy, sulkily. “Must not be continued, then,” I said. “We’ll see,” was her reply, and she set off at a gallop, leaving me to toil in the rear. We both reached home before our dinner-time; my master supposed we had been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no explanation of our absence. As soon as I entered I hastened to change my soaked shoes and stockings; but sitting such a while at the Heights had done the mischief. On the succeeding morning I was laid up, and during three weeks I remained incapacitated for attending to my duties: a calamity never experienced prior to that period, and never, I am thankful to say, since. My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me, and cheer my solitude; the confinement brought me exceedingly low. It is wearisome, to a stirring active body: but few have slighter reasons for complaint than I had. The moment Catherine left Mr. Linton’s room she…

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Excerpt #11, from Letters of a Radio

…scientists had recommended. To-day, therefore, an ampere is defined by law. To tell when an ampere of current is flowing requires the use of two silver plates and a solution of silver nitrate. Silver nitrate has molecules made up of one atom of silver combined with a group of atoms called “nitrate.” You remember that the molecule of copper sulphate, discussed in our third letter, was formed by a copper atom and a group called sulphate. Nitrate is another group something like sulphate for it has oxygen atoms in it, but it has three instead of four, and instead of a sulphur atom there is an atom of nitrogen. When silver nitrate molecules go into solution they break up into ions just as copper sulphate does. One ion is a silver atom which has lost one electron. This electron was stolen from it by the nitrate part of the molecule when they dissociated. The nitrate ion, therefore, is formed by a nitrogen atom, three oxygen atoms, and one extra electron. If we put two plates of silver into such a solution nothing will happen until we connect a battery to the plates. Then the battery takes electrons away from one plate and gives electrons to the other. Some of the atoms in the plate which the battery is robbing of electrons are just like the silver ions which are moving around in the solution. That’s why they can go out into the solution and play with the nitrate…

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Excerpt #12, from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, by William Shakespeare

…With other graces weigh’d. MALCOLM. But I have none: the king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness, Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, I have no relish of them; but abound In the division of each several crime, Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, Uproar the universal peace, confound All unity on earth. MACDUFF. O Scotland, Scotland! MALCOLM. If such a one be fit to govern, speak: I am as I have spoken. MACDUFF. Fit to govern? No, not to live.—O nation miserable, With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter’d,…

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