Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:53

Excerpt #1, from The Fifth Ace, by Isabel Ostrander

…too, I’ll admit that." “Do you want to try a little of it for me?” Willa asked. “An old Spanish woman disappeared early this morning from that house back on Second Place, and I want her found without delay. It’s she whom those other men are after; she used to live with her grandson, a hunchback, in that cottage upon the Parkway. There will be double wages in it for you while you’re working on it, and a thousand dollars reward if you find her and bring her to me.” She went on to describe Tia Juana, and Dan listened in rapt attention to every detail, fired with instant enthusiasm for the new job. “You leave it to me, Miss!” he announced confidently when she had finished. “I’ll get into that house to-morrow, one way or another, and have a talk with the landlady and the kid. I’ll soon find out if they know more than they’ve told. In the meantime, I’ll make the round of the hospitals to-night and have a look-in at headquarters to see if she’s turned up missing. Those fellers trailing us this afternoon don’t make it look as if they or the man they’re workin’ for could have got hold of her already and there’s a chance that she just wandered off, like, on her own hook. I’ll let you know the minute I’ve got a line on her. Wish I spoke her lingo!” "Oh, Tia Juana understands English well enough when she wants to, and…

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Excerpt #2, from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbott Abbott

…Before I could utter a word of remonstrance, I felt a shooting pain in my inside, and a demoniacal laugh seemed to issue from within me. A moment afterwards the sharp agony had ceased, leaving nothing but a dull ache behind, and the Stranger began to reappear, saying, as he gradually increased in size, “There, I have not hurt you much, have I? If you are not convinced now, I don’t know what will convince you. What say you?” My resolution was taken. It seemed intolerable that I should endure existence subject to the arbitrary visitations of a Magician who could thus play tricks with one’s very stomach. If only I could in any way manage to pin him against the wall till help came! Once more I dashed my hardest angle against him, at the same time alarming the whole household by my cries for aid. I believe, at the moment of my onset, the Stranger had sunk below our Plane, and really found difficulty in rising. In any case he remained motionless, while I, hearing, as I thought, the sound of some help approaching, pressed against him with redoubled vigour, and continued to shout for assistance. A convulsive shudder ran through the Sphere. “This must not be,” I thought I heard him say: “either he must listen to reason, or I must have recourse to the last resource of civilization.” Then, addressing…

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Excerpt #3, from Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

…words. His very clothes seemed to partake of the hospitable nature of the wearer. They looked as if they were at ease, and liked to make him comfortable. His capacious waistcoat was suggestive of a large heart underneath. His rusty coat had a social air, and the baggy pockets plainly proved that little hands often went in empty and came out full. His very boots were benevolent, and his collars never stiff and raspy like other people’s. “That’s it!” said Jo to herself, when she at length discovered that genuine good will toward one’s fellow men could beautify and dignify even a stout German teacher, who shoveled in his dinner, darned his own socks, and was burdened with the name of Bhaer. Jo valued goodness highly, but she also possessed a most feminine respect for intellect, and a little discovery which she made about the Professor added much to her regard for him. He never spoke of himself, and no one ever knew that in his native city he had been a man much honored and esteemed for learning and integrity, till a countryman came to see him. He never spoke of himself, and in a conversation with Miss Norton divulged the pleasing fact. From her Jo learned it, and liked it all the better because Mr. Bhaer had never told it. She felt proud to know that he was an honored Professor in Berlin, though only a poor…

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Excerpt #4, from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

…says: “Good lan’! is dat you, honey? Doan’ make no noise.” It was Jim’s voice–nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was so glad to see me. He says: “Laws bless you, chile, I ‘uz right down sho’ you’s dead agin. Jack’s been heah; he say he reck’n you’s ben shot, kase you didn’ come home no mo’; so I’s jes’ dis minute a startin’ de raf’ down towards de mouf er de crick, so’s to be all ready for to shove out en leave soon as Jack comes agin en tells me for certain you is dead. Lawsy, I’s mighty glad to git you back again, honey.” I says: “All right–that’s mighty good; they won’t find me, and they’ll think I’ve been killed, and floated down the river–there’s something up there that ’ll help them think so–so don’t you lose no time, Jim, but just shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can.” I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in the middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, and judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn’t had a bite to eat since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage and greens–there ain’t nothing in the world so good…

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Excerpt #5, from Old Mines of Southern California, by Harold W. Fairbanks and William H. Storms

…took place after the deposition of the Tertiary strata. As far as my observation went the Tertiary beds on the east do not rise to meet the San Onofre range, as they would to a certain extent if it were present when they were deposited; on the contrary, they dip toward it. West of the range the ocean is bordered by very high cliffs of Quaternary clays, and in only two or three places do the Tertiary rocks outcrop. Small patches of sandstone outcrop near the road at the western foot of the mountains; they also dip west at a high angle. Many of the fragments at the northern end of the range show their derivation from a massive crystalline rock. The hornblende schists are generally garnetiferous. Blue glaucophane schists are also very common. South of Mission Viejo Creek, Orange County, there is an outcrop of rock, apparently in place, which greatly resembles these schists. Good outlines of these mountains, indicative of structure, can be seen to great advantage from the San Luis Rey Mission. On the west slope of the San Onofre Mountains, 4 miles north of Los Flores, is an outcrop of a garnetiferous hornblende schist, which certainly appears to be in place. This rises 10 feet above the side of a gulch, and is fully 20 feet across. One mile north and in line of strike with the last is another outcrop of similar rock, which is so large that it certainly seems that it must be in place. The only point north of the San Onofre where this breccia appears is at Arch Beach,…

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Excerpt #6, from The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

…the homage of a tear. Now and then a visitor wept, to be sure; but this slaughtering machine ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and of memory. One could not stand and watch very long without becoming philosophical, without beginning to deal in symbols and similes, and to hear the hog squeal of the universe. Was it permitted to believe that there was nowhere upon the earth, or above the earth, a heaven for hogs, where they were requited for all this suffering? Each one of these hogs was a separate creature. Some were white hogs, some were black; some were brown, some were spotted; some were old, some young; some were long and lean, some were monstrous. And each of them had an individuality of his own, a will of his own, a hope and a heart’s desire; each was full of self-confidence, of self-importance, and a sense of dignity. And trusting and strong in faith he had gone about his business, the while a black shadow hung over him and a horrid Fate waited in his pathway. Now suddenly it had swooped upon him, and had seized him by the leg. Relentless, remorseless, it was; all his protests, his screams, were nothing to it—it did its cruel will with him, as if his wishes, his feelings, had simply no existence at all; it cut his throat and watched him gasp out his life. And now was one to believe that there was…

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Excerpt #7, 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 #8, from Mental Radio, by Upton Sinclair

…Finally, I have obtained the publisher’s consent to reproduce the jacket design of a recent book, so that I may put Craig’s telepathy alongside it, and give you a laugh or two. Observe the jolly little tourists, and what they have turned into! And then the efforts of Craig’s subconscious mind at French. They taught it to her in a “finishing school” on Fifth Avenue, and you can see that it was finished before it began (Figs. 23, 23a). Yet another form of experiment invented itself under the pressure of necessity. Impossible to have such a witch-wife without trying to put her to use! [Illustration: Fig. 23] [Illustration: Fig. 23a] I have the habit of working out a chapter of a new book in my head, and writing down a few notes on a scrap of paper, and sticking it away in any place that is handy; then, next day, or whenever I am ready for work, it is gone, and there is the devil to pay. I wander about the house for an hour or two, trying to imagine where I can have put that scrap of paper, and reluctant to do the work all over again. On one occasion I searched every pocket, my desk, the trash-baskets, and then, deciding that I had dropped it outdoors, where I work with my typewriter, I figured the direction of the wind, and picked up all the…

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Excerpt #9, from The Writing of the Short Story, by Lewis Worthington Smith

…not felt some of the horror of it, and has not that feeling shown a tendency to innervate some of the muscles, has not your face shown some of the suffering which you have been studying, and have you not felt a tendency toward the muscular movements of one writhing in agony? Certainly, such motor impulses do result from certain kinds of visualization, and it need hardly be said that they are peculiarly effective in making us really alive with the emotion which inheres in the movement or the attitude which we see. If the gestures of a speaker are to be effective, they must seem natural to us; that is, they must be such as we would make if we were in that fashion attempting to express a similar emotion. Otherwise the motor suggestions of the words and the motor suggestion of the gestures may inhibit or neutralize each other, or at least produce a feeling of confusion. Halleck, in his “Education of the Central Nervous System,” says, “All states of consciousness contain a motor element.” When a visualization or an audition, as that of a sharp command, seems to have motor effects, we may add to the symbols of kind and degree of sensation the symbol x. =22. Inference in Literature.=–It was apparent in the visualization quoted from Stevenson that some of the impressions which we get from literature we get as inferences. Dust does not arise from a harrow so as to have the appearance of smoke on a windy day, and therefore we know…

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Excerpt #10, from The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe

…to sea as much as I could, resolving to speak with them if possible. With all the sail I could make, I found I should not be able to come in their way, but that they would be gone by before I could make any signal to them: but after I had crowded to the utmost, and began to despair, they, it seems, saw by the help of their glasses that it was some European boat, which they supposed must belong to some ship that was lost; so they shortened sail to let me come up. I was encouraged with this, and as I had my patron’s ancient on board, I made a waft of it to them, for a signal of distress, and fired a gun, both which they saw; for they told me they saw the smoke, though they did not hear the gun. Upon these signals they very kindly brought to, and lay by for me; and in about three hours; time I came up with them. They asked me what I was, in Portuguese, and in Spanish, and in French, but I understood none of them; but at last a Scotch sailor, who was on board, called to me: and I answered him, and told him I was an Englishman, that I had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors, at Sallee; they then bade me come on board, and very kindly took me in, and all my goods. It was an inexpressible joy to me, which any one will believe, that I was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable and almost hopeless condition as I was in; and I immediately offered all I had to…

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Excerpt #11, from Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, by Stephen Leacock

…over everybody. Some people sought it at the seaside, where nature had thrown out her broad plank walks and her long piers and her vaudeville shows. Others sought it in the heart of the country, where nature had spread her oiled motor roads and her wayside inns. Others, like the Newberrys, preferred to “rough it” in country residences of their own. Some of the people, as already said, went for business reasons, to avoid the suspicion of having to work all the year round. Others went to Europe to avoid the reproach of living always in America. Others, perhaps most people, went for medical reasons, being sent away by their doctors. Not that they were ill; but the doctors of Plutoria Avenue, such as Doctor Slyder, always preferred to send all their patients out of town during the summer months. No well-to-do doctor cares to be bothered with them. And of course patients, even when they are anxious to go anywhere on their own account, much prefer to be sent there by their doctor. “My dear madam,” Dr. Slyder would say to a lady who, as he knew, was most anxious to go to Virginia, “there’s really nothing I can do for you.” Here he spoke the truth. “It’s not a case of treatment. It’s simply a matter of dropping everything and going away. Now why don’t you go for a month or two to some quiet place, where you will simply do nothing?” (She never, as he knew, did anything, anyway.) "What do…

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Excerpt #12, from Astounding Stories, May, 1931, by Various

…“Master, Harl was in it. And the Princess Tina.” “Ah!” “And a stranger. A man–” “From 1935? Did they stop there?” “Master, yes. But they stopped again, I think, in that same night of 1777, where I did your bidding. Master, the man Major Atwood is–” “That is very good, Migul,” Tugh said hastily. Mary and I standing gazing at him, did not know then that Mary’s father had been murdered. And Tugh did not wish us to know it. “Very good, Migul.” He regarded us as though about to speak, but turned again to the Robot. “And so Tina’s cage follows us–as you hoped?” “Yes, Master. But now there is only Harl in it. He approached us very close a while in the past. He is alone.” “So?” Tugh glanced at the Time-dials. “Stop us where we planned. You remember–in one of those years when this space was the big forest glade.” * * * * * He fronted Mary and me. “You are patient, young sir. You do not speak.” His glittering black eyes held me. They were red-rimmed eyes, like those of a beast. He had a strangely repulsive face. His lips were…

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