Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:15

Excerpt #1, from Our Knowledge Box; or, Old Secrets and New Discoveries., by Unknown

…in a few minutes dry it with a warm cloth, and afterwards wash with water. To Remove Dandruff.–Take a thimbleful of powdered refined borax, let it dissolve in a teacupful of water, first brush the head well, then wet a brush and apply it to the head. Do this every day for a week, and twice a week for a few times, and you will effectually remove the dandruff. To Make the Complexion Fair.–Take emulsion of bitter almonds, one pint; oxymuriate of quicksilver, two and a half grains; sal ammonia, one drachm. Use moderately for pimples, freckles, tanned complexions. Eau de Cologne–Cologne Water.–Oil of lavender, oil of bergamot, oil of lemon, oil of neroli, each one ounce; oil of cinnamon, half an ounce; spirit of rosemary, fifteen ounces; highly rectified spirits, eight pints. Let them stand fourteen days; then distil in a water bath. 2. Essential oils of bergamot, lemon, neroli, orange-peel and rosemary, each twelve drops; cardamon seeds, one drachm, rectified spirits, one pint. It improves by age. Eau de Rosieres.–Spirits of roses, 4 pints; spirits of jessamine, one pint; spirits of orange flowers, one pint; spirits of cucumber, two and a quarter pints; spirits of celery seed, two and a quarter pints; spirits of angelica root, two and three quarter pints; tincture of…

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Excerpt #2, from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, by William Shakespeare

…My lord, you do me shameful injury Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects. GLOUCESTER. You may deny that you were not the mean Of my Lord Hastings’ late imprisonment. RIVERS. She may, my lord; for- GLOUCESTER. She may, Lord Rivers? Why, who knows not so? She may do more, sir, than denying that: She may help you to many fair preferments And then deny her aiding hand therein, And lay those honours on your high desert. What may she not? She may-ay, marry, may she- RIVERS. What, marry, may she? GLOUCESTER. What, marry, may she? Marry with a king, A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too. Iwis your grandam had a worser match. QUEEN ELIZABETH. My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs. By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur’d….

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Excerpt #3, from Astounding Stories of Super

…subjects the reverse of pleasurable. “Listen!” said Bell suddenly. “You hear that whistle? It came on all at once!” Paula waited. The whistling noise went on. It was vaguely discordant, and it was monotonous, and it was more than a little irritating. Again it changed timbre, going up to the shrillest of squealings, and back nearly to its original sound an instant later. Bell began to paw over maps. The plane had been intended for flight over the vast distances of Brazil, and there was a small supply of condensed food and a sporting rifle and shells included in its equipment. Emergency landing fields are not exactly common in the back country of South America. “Here,” said Bell sharply. “Here is where we are. It must be where we are! No towns of any size nearby. No railroad. No boat route. Nothing! Nothing but jungle shown here!” * * * * * He frowned absorbedly over the problem. “What is it?” asked Paula. “Someone near,” said Bell briefly. "That’s another radio receiver, an old fashioned regenerative set, sensitive enough and reliable enough, but a nuisance to everyone but its owner–except when it’s a godsend,…

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Excerpt #4, from The Pursuit of the House Boat, by John Kendrick Bangs

…my earliest youth, when I used surreptitiously to remove the unsmoked ends of my father’s cigars and break them up, and, in hiding, smoke them in an old clay pipe which I had presented to me by an ancient sea-captain of my acquaintance, I have been interested in tobacco in all forms, even including these self-same despised unsmoked ends; for they convey to my mind messages, sentiments, farces, comedies, and tragedies which to your minds would never become manifest through their agency.” The company drew closer together and formed themselves in a more compact mass about the speaker. It was evident that they were beginning to feel an unusual interest in this extraordinary person, who had come among them unheralded and unknown. Even Shylock stopped calculating percentages for an instant to listen. “Do you mean to tell us,” demanded Shakespeare, “that the unsmoked stub of a cigar will suggest the story of him who smoked it to your mind?” “I do,” replied the stranger, with a confident smile. “Take this one, for instance, that I have picked up here upon the wharf; it tells me the whole story of the intentions of Captain Kidd at the moment when, in utter disregard of your rights, he stepped aboard your House-boat, and, in his usual piratical fashion, made off with it into unknown seas.” “But how do you know he smoked it?” asked Solomon, who deemed it the part of wisdom to be suspicious of the stranger….

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Excerpt #5, from Masters of the vortex, by E. E. Smith

…extrapolating the sigma curve to an ever-moving instant of time three and nine-tenths seconds—the flight-time of the bombs plus his own reaction time—ahead of the frantic pen-point of the chart. In his flitter, where he had required a nine- or ten-second prediction, he had always seized the first acceptable match that appeared. Now, however, needing only to extrapolate to less than four seconds, his technique was entirely different. He was now matching, from instant to instant, the predicted value of the curve against one or another of the twelve bombs lying in the firing chambers of heavy guns whose muzzles ringed the cruiser’s needle-sharp nose. And, as he had been doing ever since beginning to work with Joan and her mechanical brains, he was passing up match after match, waiting to see whether or not the current brain could deliver the goods. There had been a long succession of them—Alice, Betty, Candace, Deirdre, and so on. This one was Lulu, and it didn’t look as though she was any good, either. He waited a while longer, however; then fined down his figures and got ready to blast. The flight-time of the bomb, under present atmospheric conditions, would be three point five nine eight seconds, plus or minus point zero zero one. His reaction time was point zero eight nine. . . . “Storm!” Joan broke in sharply, “Can you hold up a minute.”…

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Excerpt #6, from The Naval War of 1812, by Theodore Roosevelt

…size and strength that could have stood against her in fair fight. As I have said, the Wasp was manned almost exclusively by Americans. James says they were mostly Irish; the reason he gives for the assertion being that Capt. Blakely spent the first 16 months of his life in Dublin. This argument is quite on a par with another piece of logic which I cannot resist noticing. The point he wishes to prove is that Americans are cowards. Accordingly, on p. 475: “On her capstan the Constitution now mounted a piece resembling 7 musket barrels, fixed together with iron bands. It was discharged by one lock, and each barrel threw 25 balls. * * * What could have impelled the Americans to invent such extraordinary implements of war but fear, down-right fear?” Then a little further on: “The men were provided with leather boarding-caps, fitted with bands of iron, * * * another strong symptom of fear!” Now, such a piece of writing as this is simply evidence of an unsound mind; it is not so much malicious as idiotic. I only reproduce it to help prove what I have all along insisted on, that any of James’ unsupported statements about the Americans, whether respecting the tonnage of the ships or the courage of the crews, are not worth the paper they are written on; on all points connected purely with the British navy, or which can be checked off by official documents or ships’ logs, or where there would be no particular object…

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Excerpt #7, from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

…over it. Then he says: “Well, den, I reck’n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain’t de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain’t ever had no dream b’fo’ dat’s tired me like dis one.” “Oh, well, that’s all right, because a dream does tire a body like everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me all about it, Jim.” So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must start in and “’terpret” it, because it was sent for a warning. He said the first towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but the current was another man that would get us away from him. The whoops was warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn’t try hard to make out to understand them they’d just take us into bad luck, ’stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of towheads was troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our business and didn’t talk back and aggravate them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn’t have no more trouble. It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it…

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Excerpt #8, from The Jest Book, by Mark Lemon

…son of Neptune replied that it was “because the rigging cost more than the hull.” MCCVII.–NO SACRIFICE. A LINEN-DRAPER having advertised his stock to be sold under prime cost, a neighbor observed that, “It was impossible, as he had never paid a farthing for it himself.” MCCVIII.–SHARP BOY. A MOTHER admonishing her son (a lad about seven years of age), told him he should never defer till to-morrow what he could do to-day. The little urchin replied, “Then, mother, let’s eat the remainder of the plum-pudding to-night.” MCCIX.–EARLY BIRDS OF PREY. A MERCHANT having been attacked by some thieves at five in the afternoon, said: “Gentlemen, you open shop early to-day.” MCCX.–JUDGMENT. JAMES THE SECOND, when Duke of York, made a visit to Milton the poet, and asked him, amongst other things, if he did not think the loss of his sight a judgment upon him for what he had written against his father, Charles the First. Milton answered, “If your Highness think my loss of sight a judgment upon me, what do you think of your father’s losing his head?”…

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Excerpt #9, from Right Ho, Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

…“But he’s betrothed.” “No longer, sir. Miss Bassett has severed the engagement.” “You don’t mean that?” “Yes, sir.” I wonder if you have noticed a rather peculiar thing about this chronicle. I allude to the fact that at one time or another practically everybody playing a part in it has had occasion to bury his or her face in his or her hands. I have participated in some pretty glutinous affairs in my time, but I think that never before or since have I been mixed up with such a solid body of brow clutchers. Uncle Tom did it, if you remember. So did Gussie. So did Tuppy. So, probably, though I have no data, did Anatole, and I wouldn’t put it past the Bassett. And Aunt Dahlia, I have no doubt, would have done it, too, but for the risk of disarranging the carefully fixed coiffure. Well, what I am trying to say is that at this juncture I did it myself. Up went the hands and down went the head, and in another jiffy I was clutching as energetically as the best of them. And it was while I was still massaging the coconut and wondering what the next move was that something barged up against the door like the delivery of a ton of coals. “I think this may very possibly be Mr. Fink-Nottle himself, sir,” said…

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Excerpt #10, from The Talking Horse, and Other Tales, by F. Anstey

…jumping up somewhere and wanting you to give the countersign. It isn’t like home, these holidays!’ ‘Perhaps,’ suggested Cecily, ‘it makes things safer, you know.’ ‘Duffer, Cis!’ cried Hilary, contemptuously, for Cecily had appointed herself professional peacemaker to the family, and her efforts were about as successful as such domestic offices ever are. ‘Look out!’ cried Hilary, presently; ‘they’re coming. Don’t let’s take the least notice of them. They hate that more than anything.’ From the shrubbery filed three boys, the first and tallest of whom wore an imposing dragoon’s helmet with a crimson plume, and carried a sabretache and crossbelts, and wore red caps like those of the French army; they carried guns on their shoulders. ‘Halt! ’Tention! Dis-miss!’ shouted the commanding officer, and the army broke off with admirable precision. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said the General considerately to the three girls; ‘the army is only out on fatigue duty.’ ‘Then wouldn’t the army like to sit down?’ suggested Hilary, forgetting all about her recent proposal. ‘Ah, you don’t understand,’ said General Tinling with some pity. ‘It’s a military term.’ He was a pale, puffy boy, with reddish hair and freckles, who was…

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Excerpt #11, from The Invasion of India, by Alexander the Great as described, by Arrian, Q. Curtius

…account of the sages: The Brachmans engage in public affairs, and attend the kings as counsellors; the rest are occupied in the study of nature. Kalânos belonged to the latter class. Women study philosophy with them, and all lead an ascetic life. Athênaios in his Gymnosophists (x. p. 437) quotes, like Plutarch, from Charês, the account of the drinking bout which followed the burning of Kalânos. He says that Alexander proposed the match on account of the bibulous propensities (philoinia) of the Indians. Other references to Kalânos are to be found in Ailianos, V. H. ii. 41 and v. 6; Lucian, De M. Pereg. 25; Cicero, Disp. Tusc. ii. 22, and De Divin. i. 23, 30. In the romance History of Alexander, by the Pseudo-Kallisthenes, six long chapters of Book iii. (11-17) are full of Kalânos, Mandanes, and the Brachmans. St. Ambrose wrote a work, De Bragmanibus, in which the two gymnosophists are frequently mentioned. KALLISTHENES was a native of Olynthos. He was brought up and educated by Aristotle, to whom he was related, and at whose recommendation he was permitted to accompany Alexander on his Asiatic expedition. He was deficient in tact and prudence, and exasperated the king by the freedom with which he censured him for adopting oriental customs, and especially for requiring Macedonians to perform the ceremony of adoration. When the…

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Excerpt #12, from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, by Charlotte Brontë

…make out a connection between the first words and the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a cough close behind me made me turn my head. I saw a girl sitting on a stone bench near; she was bent over a book, on the perusal of which she seemed intent: from where I stood I could see the title—it was “Rasselas;” a name that struck me as strange, and consequently attractive. In turning a leaf she happened to look up, and I said to her directly— “Is your book interesting?” I had already formed the intention of asking her to lend it to me some day. “I like it,” she answered, after a pause of a second or two, during which she examined me. “What is it about?” I continued. I hardly know where I found the hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial. “You may look at it,” replied the girl, offering me the book. I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were less taking than the title: “Rasselas” looked dull to my trifling taste; I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright variety…

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