Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:31

Excerpt #1, from Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman, by Thomas Hardy

…seen sooner; and I won’t come.” “Then good morning, my four months’ cousin—good-bye!” He leapt up lightly, arranged the reins, and was gone between the tall red-berried hedges. Tess did not look after him, but slowly wound along the crooked lane. It was still early, and though the sun’s lower limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet. There was not a human soul near. Sad October and her sadder self seemed the only two existences haunting that lane. As she walked, however, some footsteps approached behind her, the footsteps of a man; and owing to the briskness of his advance he was close at her heels and had said “Good morning” before she had been long aware of his propinquity. He appeared to be an artisan of some sort, and carried a tin pot of red paint in his hand. He asked in a business-like manner if he should take her basket, which she permitted him to do, walking beside him. “It is early to be astir this Sabbath morn!” he said cheerfully. “Yes,” said Tess. “When most people are at rest from their week’s work.” She also assented to this. “Though I do more real work to-day than all the week besides.”…

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Excerpt #2, from Wild Animals I Have Known, by Ernest Thompson Seton

…fifty yards of the door. He evidently came alone this time, for I found but one trail next morning, and he had galloped about in a reckless manner that was very unusual with him. I had half expected this, and had set a number of additional traps about the pasture. Afterward I found that he had indeed fallen into one of these, but, such was his strength, he had torn himself loose and cast it aside. I believed that he would continue in the neighborhood until he found her body at least, so I concentrated all my energies on this one enterprise of catching him before he left the region, and while yet in this reckless mood. Then I realized what a mistake I had made in killing Blanca, for by using her as a decoy I might have secured him the next night. I gathered in all the traps I could command, one hundred and thirty strong steel wolf-traps, and set them in fours in every trail that led into the canyon; each trap was separately fastened to a log, and each log was separately buried. In burying them, I carefully removed the sod and every particle of earth that was lifted we put in blankets, so that after the sod was replaced and all was finished the eye could detect no trace of human handiwork. When the traps were concealed I trailed the body of poor Blanca over each place, and made of it a drag that circled all about the ranch, and finally I took off one of her paws and made…

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Excerpt #3, from History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year

…intercepted, or carelessly delayed, it was not until the 8th of April, that the duke of Dalmatia was assured of his departure for Salamanca. On the other hand Lord Wellington’s operations were so rapidly pushed forward, that Soult cannot be censured for false calculations. No general could suspect that such an outwork as the Picurina, would be taken by storm without being first battered; still less that Badajos, with its lofty walls, its brave garrison, and its celebrated governor, would in like manner be carried before the counterscarp was blown in, and the fire of the defences ruined. In fine, no man accustomed to war could have divined the surpassing resolution and surpassing fortune also, of the British general and his troops; neither is it impertinent to observe here, that as the French never use iron ordnance in a siege, their calculations were necessarily formed upon the effect of brass artillery, which is comparatively weak and slow: with brass guns the breaches would have been made three days later. The fall of Badajos may therefore be traced partly to the Russian war, which drew fifteen thousand men from the army of the south, partly to the irresolution of Marmont, who did neither execute the emperor’s plan nor his own; finally, to the too great extent of…

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Excerpt #4, from Appletons’ Popular Science Monthly, March 1899, by Various

…more important modern languages and literatures. But in such institutions these subjects usually hold only a subordinate place. It can hardly be denied that generally throughout the country, even although the literary side of education still maintains its pre-eminence in our public schools and universities, it is losing ground, and that every year it occupies less of the attention of students of science. The range of studies which the science examinations demand is always widening, while the academic period within which these studies must be crowded undergoes no extension. Those students, therefore, who, whether from necessity or choice, have taken their college education in science, naturally experience no little difficulty in finding time for the absolutely essential subjects required for their degrees. Well may they declare that it is hopeless for them to attempt to engage in anything more, and especially in anything that will not tell directly on their places in the final class lists. With the best will in the world, and with even, sometimes, a bent for literary pursuits, they may believe themselves compelled to devote their whole time and energies to the multifarious exactions of their science curriculum. Such a result of our latest reformation in education may be unavoidable, but it is surely matter for regret. A training in science…

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Excerpt #5, from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories, by Chekhov, by Chekhov

…“There is a wind, though. . . . Brrr!” said Samoylenko. “There must be a pretty stiff storm on the sea now! You are not going off at a nice time, Koyla.” “I’m not afraid of sea-sickness.” “That’s not the point. . . . I only hope these rascals won’t upset you. You ought to have crossed in the agent’s sloop. Where’s the agent’s sloop?” he shouted to the boatmen. “It has gone, Your Excellency.” “And the Customs-house boat?” “That’s gone, too.” “Why didn’t you let us know,” said Samoylenko angrily. “You dolts!” “It’s all the same, don’t worry yourself . . .” said Von Koren. “Well, good-bye. God keep you.” Samoylenko embraced Von Koren and made the sign of the cross over him three times. “Don’t forget us, Kolya. . . . Write. . . . We shall look out for you next spring.” “Good-bye, deacon,” said Von Koren, shaking hands with the deacon. “Thank you for your company and for your pleasant conversation. Think about the expedition.” “Oh Lord, yes! to the ends of the earth,” laughed the deacon. “I’ve…

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Excerpt #6, from Planet of the Damned, by Harry Harrison

…“Headquarters of the army. Since the whole thing will be blown up in another day, I guess I can tell you it’s the only camp we have. All the cars, men and weapons are based there. And Hys. He’s the man in charge. Tomorrow it will be all gone–along with this cursed planet. What’s your business with us?” “Shouldn’t I be telling Hys that?” “Suit yourself.” Satisfied with the instrument search, the driver kicked the car to life again and churned on across the desert. “But we’re a volunteer army and we have no secrets from each other. Just from the fools at home who are going to kill this world.” There was a bitterness in his words that he made no attempt to conceal. “They fought among themselves and put off a firm decision so long that now they are forced to commit murder.” “From what I had heard, I thought that it was the other way around. They call your Nyjord army terrorists.” “We are. Because we are an army and we’re at war. The idealists at home only understood that when it was too late. If they had backed us in the beginning we would have blown open every black castle on Dis, searched until we found those bombs. But that would have meant wanton destruction and death. They wouldn’t consider that. Now they are going to kill everyone, destroy everything.” He flicked on the…

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Excerpt #7, from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World, by Verne

…Everything through Electricity “SIR,” CAPTAIN NEMO SAID, showing me the instruments hanging on the walls of his stateroom, “these are the devices needed to navigate the Nautilus. Here, as in the lounge, I always have them before my eyes, and they indicate my position and exact heading in the midst of the ocean. You’re familiar with some of them, such as the thermometer, which gives the temperature inside the Nautilus; the barometer, which measures the heaviness of the outside air and forecasts changes in the weather; the humidistat, which indicates the degree of dryness in the atmosphere; the storm glass, whose mixture decomposes to foretell the arrival of tempests; the compass, which steers my course; the sextant, which takes the sun’s altitude and tells me my latitude; chronometers, which allow me to calculate my longitude; and finally, spyglasses for both day and night, enabling me to scrutinize every point of the horizon once the Nautilus has risen to the surface of the waves.” “These are the normal navigational instruments,” I replied, “and I’m familiar with their uses. But no doubt these others answer pressing needs unique to the Nautilus. That dial I see there, with the needle moving across it—isn’t it a pressure gauge?” “It is indeed a pressure gauge. It’s placed in contact with the water, and it indicates the outside pressure on our hull, which in turn gives…

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Excerpt #8, from Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora Ozaki

…Then she set to work to make the winter clothes for the three of them. She set up her simple wooden spinning-wheel and spun the thread before she began to weave the stuffs. In the intervals of her work she directed the little girl’s games and taught her to read the old stories of her country. Thus did the wife find consolation in work during the lonely days of her husband’s absence. While the time was thus slipping quickly by in the quiet home, the husband finished his business and returned. It would have been difficult for any one who did not know the man well to recognize him. He had traveled day after day, exposed to all weathers, for about a month altogether, and was sunburnt to bronze, but his fond wife and child knew him at a glance, and flew to meet him from either side, each catching hold of one of his sleeves in their eager greeting. Both the man and his wife rejoiced to find each other well. It seemed a very long time to all till—the mother and child helping—his straw sandals were untied, his large umbrella hat taken off, and he was again in their midst in the old familiar sitting-room that had been so empty while he was away. As soon as they had sat down on the white mats, the father opened a bamboo basket that he had brought in with him, and took out a beautiful doll and a lacquer box full of cakes….

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Excerpt #9, from Uncle Wiggily’s Adventures, by Howard Roger Garis

…“Yes, of course I want you,” replied the dog. “Then I guess I’ve got to go!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he looked for his crutch and valise. “I guess this is the end of my fortune-hunting. Goodbye everybody!” And he felt so badly that two big tears rolled down his ears–I mean his eyes. Well, he bravely walked out of the door, and as he did so the dog-soldier, with the gun, exclaimed: “Ah, here you are at last! Now hurry up, Uncle Wiggily, or we’ll be late for the parade!” And, would you believe it? that dog was good, kind, old Percival, who used to be in a circus. And of course he wouldn’t hurt the rabbit gentleman for anything. Percival just put his gun to his shoulder, and said: “Come on, we’ll get in the parade now.” “Parade? What parade?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Oh my! how you frightened me!” “Why the Decoration Day parade,” answered Percival. "To-day is the day when we put flowers on the soldiers’ graves, and remember them for being so brave as to go to war. All old soldiers march in the parade, and so do all their friends. I’m going to march, and I’m going to put flowers on a lot of soldiers’ graves. I happened to remember that you were once in the war, so I came for you. I didn’t mean to scare you. You were in the war,…

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Excerpt #10, from Famous Modern Ghost Stories, by Dorothy Scarborough et al.

…sleeves–all through the discreditable proceedings we knew with whom we were dealing, murderer and coward that he was!" But nothing of this did Mr. King say. With his better light he was trying to penetrate the mystery of the man’s death. That he had not once moved from the corner where he had been stationed; that his posture was that of neither attack nor defense; that he had dropped his weapon; that he had obviously perished of sheer horror of something that he saw–these were circumstances which Mr. King’s disturbed intelligence could not rightly comprehend. Groping in intellectual darkness for a clew to his maze of doubt, his gaze, directed mechanically downward in the way of one who ponders momentous matters, fell upon something which, there, in the light of day and in the presence of living companions, affected him with terror. In the dust of years that lay thick upon the floor–leading from the door by which they had entered, straight across the room to within a yard of Manton’s crouching corpse–were three parallel lines of footprints–light but definite impressions of bare feet, the outer ones those of small children, the inner a woman’s. From the point at which they ended they did not return; they pointed all one way. Brewer, who had observed them at the same moment, was leaning forward in an attitude of rapt attention, horribly pale….

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Excerpt #11, from Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery

…substitute. A white lily was not obtainable just then, but the effect of a tall blue iris placed in one of Anne’s folded hands was all that could be desired. “Now, she’s all ready,” said Jane. “We must kiss her quiet brows and, Diana, you say, ‘Sister, farewell forever,’ and Ruby, you say, ‘Farewell, sweet sister,’ both of you as sorrowfully as you possibly can. Anne, for goodness sake smile a little. You know Elaine ‘lay as though she smiled.’ That’s better. Now push the flat off.” The flat was accordingly pushed off, scraping roughly over an old embedded stake in the process. Diana and Jane and Ruby only waited long enough to see it caught in the current and headed for the bridge before scampering up through the woods, across the road, and down to the lower headland where, as Lancelot and Guinevere and the King, they were to be in readiness to receive the lily maid. For a few minutes Anne, drifting slowly down, enjoyed the romance of her situation to the full. Then something happened not at all romantic. The flat began to leak. In a very few moments it was necessary for Elaine to scramble to her feet, pick up her cloth of gold coverlet and pall of blackest samite and gaze blankly at a big crack in the bottom of her barge through which the water was literally pouring. That sharp stake at the landing had torn off the strip of batting nailed on the flat. Anne…

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Excerpt #12, from The Story of the Barbary Corsairs, by J. D. Jerrold Kelley and Stanley Lane

…for which the smaller galleots and brigantines were particularly destined, the descents upon the Spanish coasts was to some degree obstructed by the final expulsion of the last of the Moors from Andalusia in 1610.[66] That stroke deprived the Corsairs of the ready guides and sympathisers who had so often helped them to successful raids, and larger vessels and more fighting men were needed if such descents were to be continued. Moreover, the Barbary rovers were ambitious to contend with their old enemies for golden treasure on the Spanish main itself; the science of navigation was fast developing; and they felt themselves as equal to venturing upon long cruises as any European nation. Now a long cruise is impossible in a galley, where you have some hundreds of rowers to feed, and where each pound of biscuit adds to the labour of motion; but sails have no mouths, and can carry along a great weight of provisions without getting tired, like human arms. So sails triumphed over oars. The day of the galley was practically over, and the epoch of the ship had dawned. As early as 1616 Sir Francis Cottington reported to the Duke of Buckingham that the sailing force of Algiers was exciting general alarm in Spain: "The strength and boldness of the Barbary pirates is now grown to that height, both in the ocean and the Mediterranean seas, as I have never known anything to have wrought a greater sadness and distraction in…

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