Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:37

Excerpt #1, from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories, by Chekhov, by Chekhov

…“These cards aren’t yours,” said Petya, turning round. “Natalya gave them me.” “You are telling fibs, you are telling fibs, you horrid boy!” said Zaikin, growing more and more irritated. “You are always telling fibs! You want a whipping, you horrid little pig! I will pull your ears!” Petya leapt up, and craning his neck, stared fixedly at his father’s red and wrathful face. His big eyes first began blinking, then were dimmed with moisture, and the boy’s face began working. “But why are you scolding?” squealed Petya. “Why do you attack me, you stupid? I am not interfering with anybody; I am not naughty; I do what I am told, and yet . . . you are cross! Why are you scolding me?” The boy spoke with conviction, and wept so bitterly that Zaikin felt conscience-stricken. “Yes, really, why am I falling foul of him?” he thought. “Come, come,” he said, touching the boy on the shoulder. “I am sorry, Petya . . . forgive me. You are my good boy, my nice boy, I love you.” Petya wiped his eyes with his sleeve, sat down, with a sigh, in the same place and began cutting out the queen. Zaikin went off to his own room. He stretched himself on the sofa, and putting his hands behind his head, sank into thought. The boy’s tears had softened his anger, and by degrees the oppression on his liver grew less. He felt nothing but…

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Excerpt #2, from The Critique of Pure Reason, by Immanuel Kant

…devices of the pure understanding and the delusions which thence arise, as it would always distinguish to what faculty of cognition each conception properly belonged. Every conception, every title, under which many cognitions rank together, may be called a logical place. Upon this is based the logical topic of Aristotle, of which teachers and rhetoricians could avail themselves, in order, under certain titles of thought, to observe what would best suit the matter they had to treat, and thus enable themselves to quibble and talk with fluency and an appearance of profundity. Transcendental topic, on the contrary, contains nothing more than the above-mentioned four titles of all comparison and distinction, which differ from categories in this respect, that they do not represent the object according to that which constitutes its conception (quantity, reality), but set forth merely the comparison of representations, which precedes our conceptions of things. But this comparison requires a previous reflection, that is, a determination of the place to which the representations of the things which are compared belong, whether, to wit, they are cogitated by the pure understanding, or given by sensibility. Conceptions may be logically compared without the trouble of inquiring to what faculty their objects belong, whether as noumena, to the…

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Excerpt #3, from Boswell’s Life of Johnson, by James Boswell

…wisdom. The vehicle which he chose was that of a periodical paper, which he knew had been, upon former occasions, employed with great success. The Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, were the last of the kind published in England, which had stood the test of a long trial; and such an interval had now elapsed since their publication, as made him justly think that, to many of his readers, this form of instruction would, in some degree, have the advantage of novelty. A few days before the first of his Essays came out, there started another competitor for fame in the same form, under the title of The Tatler Revived, which I believe was ‘born but to die.’ Johnson was, I think, not very happy in the choice of his title, The Rambler, which certainly is not suited to a series of grave and moral discourses; which the Italians have literally, but ludicrously translated by Il Vagabondo; and which has been lately assumed as the denomination of a vehicle of licentious tales, The Rambler’s Magazine. He gave Sir Joshua Reynolds the following account of its getting this name: ‘What MUST be done, Sir, WILL be done. When I was to begin publishing that paper, I was at a loss how to name it. I sat down at night upon my bedside, and resolved that I would not go to sleep till I had fixed its title. The Rambler seemed the best that occurred, and I took it.’ With what devout and conscientious sentiments this paper was undertaken,…

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Excerpt #4, from Gladiator, by Philip Wylie

…He shook hands with them. Mrs. Shayne went to an automobile. Her husband invited Hugo to a café. Over the wine he became suddenly less dignified, more human, and almost pathetic. “Tell me about him, Danner. I loved that kid once, you know.” Hugo found himself unexpectedly moved. The man was so eager, so strangely happy. He stroked his white moustache and turned away moist eyes. So Hugo told him. He talked endlessly of the trenches and the dark wet nights and the fire that stabbed through them. He invented brave sorties for his friend, tripled his accomplishments, and put gaiety and wit in his mouth. The father drank every syllable as if he was committing the whole story to memory as the text of a life’s solace. At last he was crying. “That was the Tom I knew,” Hugo said softly. “And that was the Tom I dreamed and hoped and thought he would become when he was a little shaver. Well, he did, Danner.” “A thousand times he did.” Ralph Jordan Shayne blew his nose unashamedly. He thought of his patiently waiting wife. “I’ve got to go, I suppose. This has been more than kind of you, Mr. Danner–Lieutenant Danner. I’m glad–more glad than I can say–that you were there. I understand from the major that you’re no small shakes in this army yourself.” He smiled deferentially….

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Excerpt #5, from Short Story Writing: An Art or a Trade?, by N. Bryllion Fagin

…We know that the end of a story marks an emphatic place which leaves the greatest impression upon the reader’s mind; it is, rhetorically, a strategic point, and therefore we concentrate all our surprises, our jugglery, our uplift message and our disposition upon this point. We want the reader to go away smiling, or pleasantly startled, or, if we write for the conventionally unconventional publication, unpleasantly satisfied. The fact that a writer after having set his characters in motion and allowing them to act and react upon the various forces of the plot, to mold and be molded, has no power over the ending other than that of guiding the threads of his story–characters, motives and circumstances–to the end they are logically bound for, is as yet obscure among us. We are associating the ending with its impressions upon the reader, with its gallery value–rather than with the soul of the story. As Mr. Carl Van Doren, former literary editor of The Nation and now of The Century has expressed it: “According to all the codes of the more serious kinds of fiction, the unwillingness–or the inability–to conduct a plot to its legitimate ending implies some weakness in the artistic character.”[26] This weakness that Mr. Van Doren refers to in reality arises from our very conception of the function of fiction and the motives that govern its birth. In a majority of cases the prime motive for writing…

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Excerpt #6, from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

…few days, was probably as great an object of her curiosity as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth, Dovedale, or the Peak. Elizabeth was excessively disappointed; she had set her heart on seeing the Lakes, and still thought there might have been time enough. But it was her business to be satisfied—and certainly her temper to be happy; and all was soon right again. With the mention of Derbyshire there were many ideas connected. It was impossible for her to see the word without thinking of Pemberley and its owner. “But surely,” said she, “I may enter his county with impunity, and rob it of a few petrified spars without his perceiving me.” The period of expectation was now doubled. Four weeks were to pass away before her uncle and aunt’s arrival. But they did pass away, and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, with their four children, did at length appear at Longbourn. The children, two girls of six and eight years old, and two younger boys, were to be left under the particular care of their cousin Jane, who was the general favourite, and whose steady sense and sweetness of temper exactly adapted her for attending to them in every way—teaching them, playing with them, and loving them….

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Excerpt #7, from Diary of Anna Green Winslow, a Boston School Girl of 1771, by Anna Green Winslow

…(or rather she with me) upon a perticular matter, which you shall know in its place. How strangely industrious I have been this week, I will inform you with my own hand–at present, I am so dilligent, that I am oblig’d to use the hand & pen of my old friend, who being near by is better than a brother far off. I dont forgit dear little John Henry so pray mamma, dont mistake me. Dec^r 28th.–Last evening a little after 5 o’clock I finished my shift. I spent the evening at Mr. Soley’s. I began my shift at 12 o’clock last monday, have read my bible every day this week & wrote every day save one. Dec^r 30th.–I return’d to my sewing school after a weeks absence, I have also paid my compliments to Master Holbrook.[23] Yesterday between meetings my aunt was call’d to Mrs. Water’s[13] & about 8 in the evening Dr. Lloyd[24] brought little master to town (N.B. As a memorandum for myself. My aunt stuck a white sattan pincushin[25] for Mrs Waters.[13] On one side, is a planthorn with flowers, on the reverse, just under the border are, on one side stuck these words, Josiah Waters, then follows on the end, Dec^r 1771, on the next side & end are the words, Welcome little Stranger.) Unkle has just come in & bro’t one from me. I mean, unkle is just come in with a letter from Papa in his hand (& none for me) by way of Newbury. I am glad to hear that…

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Excerpt #8, from A Week at Waterloo in 1815, by Lady Magdalene De Lancey

…I said no more, but quietly went to the parlour and remained waiting–such an immediate effect had his steady good sense on my fevered mind. I overheard him say, “No, do not at present; she is not fit for it.” I was alarmed, and ran out; but I saw a lady retreating, and I was grateful to him. We left Antwerp between eight and nine, and had the same difficulties to encounter; but the road was not quite so much blocked up. General M’Kenzie said he would ride after us in an hour, in case we should be detained; he also sent a dragoon before, to order horses. When we were near Vilvorde, the driver attempted to pass a waggon, but the soldier who rode beside it would not move one inch to let us pass. The waggons kept possession of the chaussée the whole way, and we had to drive on the heavy road at the side. My servant got off the seat to endeavour to lead the horses past. This provoked the soldier, and a dispute began. I was alarmed, and desired the servant to get upon the carriage again, which he did. A Prussian officer, enraged at our attempting to pass the waggon he was guarding, drew his sword, and made several cuts at the servant’s legs, but did not reach him. He was preparing to get down again, but I looked from the opposite window and commanded him to sit still, and not to answer a word; or else to quit the carriage altogether. The driver now made a dash past the waggon,…

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Excerpt #9, from Legends That Every Child Should Know; a Selection of the Great Legends of All Times

…As to the children of Lir, they went back toward their old place in the Maoil, and they stopped there till the time they had to spend in it, was spent. And then Fionnuala said: “The time is come for us to leave this place. And it is to Irrus Domnann we must go now,” she said, “after our three hundred years here. And indeed there will be no rest for us there, or any standing ground, or any shelter from the storms. But since it is time for us to go, let us set out on the cold wind, the way we will not go astray.” So they set out in that way, and left Sruth na Maoile behind them, and went to the point of Irrus Domnann, and there they stopped, and it is a life of misery and a cold life they led there. And one time the sea froze about them that they could not move at all, and the brothers were lamenting, and Fionnuala was comforting them, for she knew there would help come to them in the end. And they stayed at Irrus Domnann till the time they had to spend there was spent. And then Fionnuala said: “The time is come for us to go back to Sidhe Fionnachaidh, where our father is with his household and with all our own people.” “It pleases us well to hear that,” they said. So they set out flying through the air lightly till they came to Sidhe Fionnachaidh; and it is how they found the place, empty before them, and…

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Excerpt #10, from Don Juan, by Baron George Gordon Byron Byron

…I know its mighty empire now allures Much flattery—even Voltaire’s, and that ’s a pity. For me, I deem an absolute autocrat Not a barbarian, but much worse than that. And I will war, at least in words (and—should My chance so happen—deeds), with all who war With Thought;—and of Thought’s foes by far most rude, Tyrants and sycophants have been and are. I know not who may conquer: if I could Have such a prescience, it should be no bar To this my plain, sworn, downright detestation Of every depotism in every nation. It is not that I adulate the people: Without me, there are demagogues enough, And infidels, to pull down every steeple, And set up in their stead some proper stuff. Whether they may sow scepticism to reap hell, As is the Christian dogma rather rough, I do not know;—I wish men to be free As much from mobs as kings—from you as me. The consequence is, being of no party,…

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Excerpt #11, from French Idioms and Proverbs, by de V. Payen

…Comme dit l’autre = As the saying is. [Or: Comme on dit.] Nous parlions de choses et d’autres = We were speaking of different things. C’est tout un ou tout autre = It is either one thing or the other. L’un vaut l’autre = One is as bad as the other. Il en sait bien d’autres = He knows more than one trick. C’est une autre paire de manches = That is quite another thing; That is a horse of another colour. Il n’en fait pas d’autres = That is always the way with him; He is at it again. Allez conter cela à d’autres = Tell that to the marines. [Often shortened to “À d’autres.”] Nous autres Anglais sommes très réservés = We English are very reserved. [“Nous autres ignorants estions perdus si ce livre ne nous eust relevé du bourbier.” MONTAIGNE, Essais, ii. 4, speaking of Amyot’s translation of Plutarch.] *Autres temps, autres mœurs = Manners change with the times. J’en ai vu bien d’autres = I have outlived worse things than…

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Excerpt #12, from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbott Abbott

…wanting, it is true, some promulgators of paradoxes who maintain that there is no necessary connection between geometrical and moral Irregularity. “The Irregular”, they say, “is from his birth scouted by his own parents, derided by his brothers and sisters, neglected by the domestics, scorned and suspected by society, and excluded from all posts of responsibility, trust, and useful activity. His every movement is jealously watched by the police till he comes of age and presents himself for inspection; then he is either destroyed, if he is found to exceed the fixed margin of deviation, or else immured in a Government Office as a clerk of the seventh class; prevented from marriage; forced to drudge at an uninteresting occupation for a miserable stipend; obliged to live and board at the office, and to take even his vacation under close supervision; what wonder that human nature, even in the best and purest, is embittered and perverted by such surroundings!” All this very plausible reasoning does not convince me, as it has not convinced the wisest of our Statesmen, that our ancestors erred in laying it down as an axiom of policy that the toleration of Irregularity is incompatible with the safety of the State. Doubtless, the life of an Irregular is hard; but the interests of the Greater Number require that it shall be hard. If a man with a triangular front…

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