Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:39

Excerpt #1, from A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, by William Smith

…likewise points which were determined by the tribes in later times. The inferior magistrates elected by the tribes are:–the triumviri capitales, triumviri monetales, the curatores viarum, decemviri litibus judicandis, tribuni aerarii, magistri vicorum et pagorum, praefecti annonae, duumviri navales, quinqueviri muris turribusque reficiendis, triumviri coloniae deducendae, triumviri, quatuorviri, &c., mensarii, and lastly, after the Domitian law, B.C. 104, also the members of colleges of priests. The pontifex maximus had been elected by the people from an earlier time. 2. The legislative power of the comitia tributa was at first very insignificant, for all they could do was to make regulations concerning the local affairs of the tribes. But after a time, when the tribes began to be the real representatives of the people, matters affecting the whole people also were brought before them by the tribunes, which, framed as resolutions, were laid before the senate, where they might either be sanctioned or rejected. This practice of the tributa comitia gradually acquired for them the right of taking the initiative in any measure, or the right of originating measures, until, in B.C. 449, this right was recognised and sanctioned by a law of L. Valerius Publicola and M. Horatius Barbatus. This law gave to the decrees passed by the tribes the power of a real lex, binding upon the…

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Excerpt #2, from You no longer count, by René Boylesve

…who knew my husband?" What was it that kept her from uttering it? She could not have told how it was, but she had not so much as pronounced her husband’s name. A weight had seemed to be crushing her during the whole time. She had felt overwhelmed by the new horror. The worst was that when at last she reached home she felt ashamed to weep for her own sorrow. The fact also that all that human flesh had been ravaged for the same cause; that of those unhappy ones who were groaning, not one thought of blaming the cause; and that other fact that one part of humanity, upright and able, was bending with help over the other, gasping part, forced her to gather up her disordered thoughts and in the midst of her confusion to exclaim: “Something is changed!” That evening, at six o’clock, instead of wandering about the streets in heavy sadness, she went, as Mme. de Calouas had begged her to do, to evening prayer at the Chapel of the Orphanage, in which the Red Cross was now installed. It was a convent chapel, reserved for nuns, the public being admitted only behind a sort of screen of carved wood, through which could be seen the orderly rows of Sisters and orphans, the altar and the lights. She found herself in the midst of valid soldiers; that is to say, such as by one means or another could move from place to…

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Excerpt #3, from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau

…much they have reaped. Who would live there where a body can never think for the barking of Bose? And O, the housekeeping! to keep bright the devil’s door-knobs, and scour his tubs this bright day! Better not keep a house. Say, some hollow tree; and then for morning calls and dinner-parties! Only a woodpecker tapping. O, they swarm; the sun is too warm there; they are born too far into life for me. I have water from the spring, and a loaf of brown bread on the shelf.—Hark! I hear a rustling of the leaves. Is it some ill-fed village hound yielding to the instinct of the chase? or the lost pig which is said to be in these woods, whose tracks I saw after the rain? It comes on apace; my sumachs and sweet-briers tremble.—Eh, Mr. Poet, is it you? How do you like the world to-day? Poet. See those clouds; how they hang! That’s the greatest thing I have seen to-day. There’s nothing like it in old paintings, nothing like it in foreign lands,—unless when we were off the coast of Spain. That’s a true Mediterranean sky. I thought, as I have my living to get, and have not eaten to-day, that I might go a-fishing. That’s the true industry for poets. It is the only trade I have learned. Come, let’s along. Hermit. I cannot resist. My brown bread will soon be gone. I will go with you gladly soon, but I am just concluding a serious meditation. I…

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Excerpt #4, from Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

…ending in vowels; and there is a simplicity in the turn of some of the phrases which have been translated to me that pleased and interested me. In the country the farmers use the thou and thee; and they do not acquire the polite plurals of the towns by meeting at market. The not having markets established in the large towns appears to me a great inconvenience. When the farmers have anything to sell they bring it to the neighbouring town and take it from house to house. I am surprised that the inhabitants do not feel how very incommodious this usage is to both parties, and redress it; they, indeed, perceive it, for when I have introduced the subject they acknowledged that they were often in want of necessaries, there being no butchers, and they were often obliged to buy what they did not want; yet it was the custom, and the changing of customs of a long standing requires more energy than they yet possess. I received a similar reply when I attempted to persuade the women that they injured their children by keeping them too warm. The only way of parrying off my reasoning was that they must do as other people did; in short, reason on any subject of change, and they stop you by saying that “the town would talk.” A person of sense, with a large fortune to ensure respect, might be very useful here, by inducing them to treat their children and manage their sick properly, and eat food dressed in a simpler manner–the example, for instance, of a count’s lady….

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Excerpt #5, from Poirot Investigates, by Agatha Christie

…Our meal was hardly a cheerful one. The floor was left to Dr. Tosswill, who discoursed at length upon Egyptian antiquities. Just as we were preparing to retire to rest, Sir Guy caught Poirot by the arm and pointed. A shadowy figure was moving amidst the tents. It was no human one: I recognized distinctly the dog-headed figure I had seen carved on the walls of the tomb. My blood literally froze at the sight. “Mon Dieu!” murmured Poirot, crossing himself vigorously. “Anubis, the jackal-headed, the god of departing souls.” “Some one is hoaxing us,” cried Dr. Tosswill, rising indignantly to his feet. “It went into your tent, Harper,” muttered Sir Guy, his face dreadfully pale. “No,” said Poirot, shaking his head, “into that of the Dr. Ames.” The doctor stared at him incredulously; then, repeating Dr. Tosswill’s words, he cried: “Some one is hoaxing us. Come, we’ll soon catch the fellow.” He dashed energetically in pursuit of the shadowy apparition. I followed him, but, search as we would, we could find no trace of any living soul having passed that way. We returned, somewhat disturbed in mind, to find Poirot taking energetic measures, in…

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Excerpt #6, from The History of the 33rd Divisional Artillery, in the War, 1914 to 1918.

…On April 28th the battle was again resumed on a grand scale. The 12th Division assaulted on the front of the batteries, this time with the 3rd Division on the right and the 34th on the left; at 4.25 A.M. the infantry attack was launched under cover of a very heavy artillery barrage, the objectives being those portions of Bayonet and Rifle trenches which still lay in the hands of the enemy. Three minutes after the attack began the enemy put down a light barrage of 10·5 cm. and 77 mm. shells, which became heavier on Bayonet Trench itself at about 7.30 A.M., but generally speaking the hostile artillery fire was slight. In the main the enemy appeared to depend upon his machine guns to ward off attacks, and in this he was fairly successful. Mist and smoke shell rendered observation very difficult, but by six o’clock the objective was reported to have been gained; from here, however, machine-gun fire began to tell and, although the right battalion of the brigade covered by the 33rd Divisional Artillery advanced according to plan, and was reported to have reached the second objective, the left battalion was held up by machine guns and could not advance. At half-past six in the morning a smoke barrage was put down along the south bank of the Scarpe to try and help the left battalion, while at the same time the field howitzers turned on to the troublesome machine guns. All day long the batteries kept up a protective barrage in front…

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Excerpt #7, from The Terror: A Mystery, by Arthur Machen

…his heart with wild amazement and a touch of terror. He had been staring upward into the sky, and, about to speak to Remnant, he had let his eyes drop for an instant. He looked down towards the trees in the garden, and saw with utter astonishment that one had changed its shape in the few hours that had passed since the setting of the sun. There was a thick grove of ilexes bordering the lowest terrace, and above them rose one tall pine, spreading its head of sparse, dark branches dark against the sky. As Lewis glanced down over the terraces he saw that the tall pine tree was no longer there. In its place there rose above the ilexes what might have been a greater ilex; there was the blackness of a dense growth of foliage rising like a broad and far-spreading and rounded cloud over the lesser trees. Here, then was a sight wholly incredible, impossible. It is doubtful whether the process of the human mind in such a case has ever been analyzed and registered; it is doubtful whether it ever can be registered. It is hardly fair to bring in the mathematician, since he deals with absolute truth (so far as mortality can conceive absolute truth); but how would a mathematician feel if he were suddenly confronted with a two-sided triangle? I suppose he would instantly become a raging madman; and Lewis, staring wide-eyed and wild-eyed at a…

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Excerpt #8, from The Story of King Arthur and his Knights, by Howard Pyle

…stood as fast as the iron in which it was planted. And after that first assay he tried three times more, but still he was altogether unable to move the blade in the iron. Then, after that he had thus four times made assay, he ceased his endeavor and came down from that place. And he was filled with great anger and indignation that he had not succeeded in his endeavor. [Sidenote: Sundry others make assay and fail.] And after King Lot there came his brother-in-law, King Urien of Gore, and he also made assay in the same wise as King Lot had done. But neither did he succeed any better than that other king. And after King Urien there came King Fion of Scotland, and after King Fion there came King Mark of Cornwall, and after King Mark there came King Ryence of North Wales, and after King Ryence there came King Leodegrance of Cameliard, and after him came all those other kings and dukes before numerated, and not one of all these was able to move the blade. And some of these high and mighty lords were filled with anger and indignation that they had not succeeded, and others were ashamed that they had failed in that undertaking before the eyes of all those who looked upon them. But whether they were angry or whether they were ashamed it in no wise helped their case. Now when all the kings and dukes had thus failed in that adventure, the…

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Excerpt #9, from Principles of Geology, by Sir Charles Lyell

…their surfaces marked with the most delicate lines and streaks. Long leaves, also, are attached in many instances to the trunks or branches;[162] and leaves, we know, in general, are soon destroyed when steeped in water, although ferns will retain their forms after an immersion of many months.[163] It seems fair to presume, that most of the coal-plants grew upon the same land which supplied materials for the sandstones and conglomerates of the strata in which they are imbedded. The coarseness of the particles of many of these rocks attests that they were not borne from very remote localities, and that there was land therefore in the vicinity wasting away by the action of moving waters. The progress also of modern discovery has led to the very general admission of the doctrine that beds of coal have for the most part been formed of the remains of trees and plants that grew on the spot where the coal now exists; the land having been successively submerged, so that a covering of mud and sand was deposited upon accumulations of vegetable mater. That such has been the origin of some coal-seams is proved by the upright position of fossil trees, both in Europe and America, in which the roots terminate downwards in beds of coal.[164] To return, therefore, from this digression,–the flora of the coal appears to indicate a uniform and mild temperature in the air, while the fossils of the contemporaneous mountain-limestone, comprising abundance…

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Excerpt #10, from At the Earth’s Core, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

…line. As it was I must have walked for a great distance since I ate four times and slept twice before I reached the sea, but at last I did so, and my pleasure at the sight of it was greatly enhanced by the chance discovery of a hidden canoe among the bushes through which I had stumbled just prior to coming upon the beach. I can tell you that it did not take me long to pull that awkward craft down to the water and shove it far out from shore. My experience with Ja had taught me that if I were to steal another canoe I must be quick about it and get far beyond the owner’s reach as soon as possible. I must have come out upon the opposite side of the island from that at which Ja and I had entered it, for the mainland was nowhere in sight. For a long time I paddled around the shore, though well out, before I saw the mainland in the distance. At the sight of it I lost no time in directing my course toward it, for I had long since made up my mind to return to Phutra and give myself up that I might be once more with Perry and Ghak the Hairy One. I felt that I was a fool ever to have attempted to escape alone, especially in view of the fact that our plans were already well formulated to make a break for freedom together. Of course I realized that the chances of the success of our proposed venture were slim…

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Excerpt #11, from The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

…is the closest conjoined, and imbued, and identified, so to speak, with the spirit whereof it is the instrument.” “Then I need ask no further,” said the clergyman, somewhat hastily rising from his chair. “You deal not, I take it, in medicine for the soul!” “Thus, a sickness,” continued Roger Chillingworth, going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption,—but standing up, and confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark, and misshapen figure,—“a sickness, a sore place, if we may so call it, in your spirit, hath immediately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame. Would you, therefore, that your physician heal the bodily evil? How may this be, unless you first lay open to him the wound or trouble in your soul?” “No!—not to thee!—not to an earthly physician!” cried Mr. Dimmesdale, passionately, and turning his eyes, full and bright, and with a kind of fierceness, on old Roger Chillingworth. “Not to thee! But if it be the soul’s disease, then do I commit myself to the one Physician of the soul! He, if it stand with his good pleasure, can cure; or he can kill! Let him do with me as, in his justice and wisdom, he shall see good. But who art thou, that meddlest in this matter?—that dares thrust himself between the sufferer and his God?”…

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Excerpt #12, from Everybody’s Book of Luck, by Anonymous

…“He loves me”; at the second, “He loves me not.” These sentences are repeated alternately until the flower is deprived of all its petals. Whichever sentence was uttered last describes “his” affections. THE IVY.– Ivy, ivy, I thee pluck, And in my bosom, I thee put. The first young man who speaks to me My own true lover he shall be. [Illustration: No. 22.] THE HAWTHORN OR MAY.–Once upon a time, every porch was decorated with a branch of May to avert the evil eye and prevent witchcraft, but the idea has been departed from, and now it is regarded as a harbinger of ill-luck, and is rarely brought inside a house. THE MISTLETOE.–From very ancient times, this plant has been regarded with curious veneration. Probably it gained special fame, in the first instance, owing to the peculiar manner in which it grew. The Druids looked upon it as a plant possessing marvelous properties, and they esteemed nothing in the world more sacred than it. They gathered it when the moon was just six days old because the moon was then thought to be at its greatest power. This done, they sacrificed two young bullocks which were milk-white. After that, the mistletoe was cut into…

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