Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:38

Excerpt #1, from Against the Grain, by J.K. Huysmans

…others. What a monotonous storehouse of fields and trees! What a banal agency of mountains and seas! There is not one of her inventions, no matter how subtle or imposing it may be, which human genius cannot create; no Fontainebleau forest, no moonlight which a scenic setting flooded with electricity cannot produce; no waterfall which hydraulics cannot imitate to perfection; no rock which pasteboard cannot be made to resemble; no flower which taffetas and delicately painted papers cannot simulate. There can be no doubt about it: this eternal, driveling, old woman is no longer admired by true artists, and the moment has come to replace her by artifice. Closely observe that work of hers which is considered the most exquisite, that creation of hers whose beauty is everywhere conceded the most perfect and original–woman. Has not man made, for his own use, an animated and artificial being which easily equals woman, from the point of view of plastic beauty? Is there a woman, whose form is more dazzling, more splendid than the two locomotives that pass over the Northern Railroad lines? One, the Crampton, is an adorable, shrill-voiced blonde, a trim, gilded blonde, with a large, fragile body imprisoned in a glittering corset of copper, and having the long, sinewy lines of a cat. Her…

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Excerpt #2, from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, by Charlotte Brontë

…populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less romantic. The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two hours; at last he turned in his seat and said— “You’re noan so far fro’ Thornfield now.” Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly ascended a drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed from one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went in. “Will you walk this way, ma’am?” said the girl; and I followed her across a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable picture presented itself to my view. A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair…

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Excerpt #3, from Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare

…And yet I would it were to give again. ROMEO. Would’st thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love? JULIET. But to be frank and give it thee again. And yet I wish but for the thing I have; My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite. I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu. [Nurse calls within.] Anon, good Nurse!—Sweet Montague be true. Stay but a little, I will come again. [Exit.] ROMEO. O blessed, blessed night. I am afeard, Being in night, all this is but a dream, Too flattering sweet to be substantial. Enter Juliet above. JULIET. Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed….

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Excerpt #4, from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources

…power to serve me, have I ever paid a compliment at the expense of truth.= Burns. =To nurse the flowers, to root up the weeds, is the business of the gardener.= Bodenstedt. =To obey is the best grace of woman.= Lewis 40 Morris. =To one thing at one time.= Chancellor Thurlow. =To open your windows be ever your care.= Pr. =To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence.= Schopenhauer. =To overcome evil with good is good, to resist evil by evil is evil.= Mahomet. =To pass through a bustling crowd with its restless= 45 =excitement is strange but salutary. All go crossing and recrossing one another, and yet each finds his way and his object. In so great a crowd and bustle one feels himself perfectly calm and solitary.= Goethe. =To persevere / In obstinate condolement, is a course / Of impious stubbornness; ’tis unmanly grief: / It shows a will most incorrect…

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Excerpt #5, from The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins

…I was obliged to turn my face from her. “Don’t ask me!” I said. “Have I suffered as you have suffered? What right have I to decide?” “I used to think of him,” she pursued, dropping her voice and moving closer to me, “I used to think of him when Percival left me alone at night to go among the Opera people. I used to fancy what I might have been if it had pleased God to bless me with poverty, and if I had been his wife. I used to see myself in my neat cheap gown, sitting at home and waiting for him while he was earning our bread–sitting at home and working for him and loving him all the better because I had to work for him–seeing him come in tired and taking off his hat and coat for him, and, Marian, pleasing him with little dishes at dinner that I had learnt to make for his sake. Oh! I hope he is never lonely enough and sad enough to think of me and see me as I have thought of HIM and see HIM!” As she said those melancholy words, all the lost tenderness returned to her voice, and all the lost beauty trembled back into her face. Her eyes rested as lovingly on the blighted, solitary, ill-omened view before us, as if they saw the friendly hills of Cumberland in the dim and threatening sky. “Don’t speak of Walter any more,” I said, as soon as I could control myself. "Oh, Laura, spare us both the wretchedness of talking of him…

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Excerpt #6, from Poirot Investigates, by Agatha Christie

…“What is that, my friend?” “The other diamond,” I said, lowering my voice. “Miss Marvell’s.” “Eh bien, what of it?” “Don’t you see?” His unusual obtuseness annoyed me. What had happened to his usually keen wits? “They’ve got one, now they’ll go for the other.” “Tiens!” cried Poirot, stepping back a pace and regarding me with admiration. “But your brain marches to a marvel, my friend! Figure to yourself that for the moment I had not thought of that! But there is plenty of time. The full of the moon, it is not until Friday.” I shook my head dubiously. The full of the moon theory left me entirely cold. I had my way with Poirot, however, and we departed immediately, leaving behind us a note of explanation and apology for Lord Yardly. My idea was to go at once to the Magnificent, and relate to Miss Marvell what had occurred, but Poirot vetoed the plan, and insisted that the morning would be time enough. I gave in rather grudgingly. In the morning Poirot seemed strangely disinclined to stir out. I began to suspect that, having made a mistake to start with, he was singularly loath to proceed with the case. In answer to my…

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Excerpt #7, from Great Britain and the American Civil War, by Ephraim Douglass Adams

…“insult and injury thought to be endured,” but he recognized in the next few days that a slow shift was taking place in the British temper and regretted the violence of American utterances. December 12, he wrote to his son in America: “It has given us here an indescribably sad feeling to witness the exultation in America over an event which bids fair to be the final calamity in this contest….” Great Britain “is right in principle and only wrong in point of consistency. Our mistake is that we are donning ourselves in her cast-off suit, when our own is better worth wearing[443].” His secretarial son was more vehement: “Angry and hateful as I am of Great Britain, I still can’t help laughing and cursing at the same time as I see the accounts of the talk of our people. What a bloody set of fools they are! How in the name of all that’s conceivable could you suppose that England would sit quiet under such an insult. We should have jumped out of our boots at such a one[444].” The British Cabinet members were divided in sentiments of hope or pessimism as to the outcome, and were increasingly anxious for an honourable escape from a possible situation in which, if they trusted the observations of Lyons, they might find themselves aiding a slave as against a free State. On November 29, Lyons had written a long account of the changes taking place in Northern feeling as regards slavery. He thought it very probable that the issue of emancipation would soon be…

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Excerpt #8, from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, by William Shakespeare

…SOMERSET. Away, away, good William de la Pole! We grace the yeoman by conversing with him. WARWICK. Now, by God’s will, thou wrong’st him, Somerset; His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence, Third son to the third Edward, King of England. Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root? PLANTAGENET. He bears him on the place’s privilege, Or durst not for his craven heart say thus. SOMERSET. By Him that made me, I’ll maintain my words On any plot of ground in Christendom. Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge, For treason executed in our late king’s days? And by his treason stand’st not thou attainted, Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry? His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood; And till thou be restor’d thou art a yeoman. PLANTAGENET. My father was attached, not attainted; Condemn’d to die for treason, but no traitor; And that I’ll prove on better men than Somerset, Were growing time once ripened to my will. For your partaker Pole, and you yourself,…

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Excerpt #9, from Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Life, by Knox

…of my ears for a pair of lappets, and proposed fur socks to be worn under the stockings. When the accumulated result of his labors was piled upon the floor of my room, I was alarmed at its size, and wondered if it could ever be packed in a single sleigh. Out of a bit of sable skin a lady acquaintance constructed a mitten for my nose, to be worn when the temperature was lowest. It was not an improvement to one’s personal appearance though very conducive to comfort. To travel by peraclodnoi (changing the vehicle at every station) is bad enough in summer but ten times bad in winter. To turn out every two or three hours with the thermometer any distance below zero, and shift baggage and furs from one sleigh to another is an absolute nuisance. Yery few persons travel by peraclodnoi in winter, and one does not find many sleighs at the post stations from the fact that they are seldom demanded. Nearly all travelers buy their sleighs before starting, and sell them when their journeys are ended. I surveyed the Irkutsk market and found several sleighs ‘up’ for sale. Throughout Siberia a sleigh manufactured at Kazan is preferred, it being better made and more commodious than its rivals. My attention was called to several vehicles of local manufacture but my friends advised me not to try them. I sought a Kazanski kibitka and with the aid of an intelligent isvoshchik succeeded in finding one. Its…

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Excerpt #10, from History of the World War: An Authentic Narrative of the World’s Greatest War

…part of their front line system to the enemy. Notwithstanding this the men of the Second Canadian Division at St. Eloi fought quite as nobly as had their brothers of the First Division just a year before, at the glorious battle of Ypres, a few miles farther north. But it was a bitter experience. The lesson of failure is as necessary in the education of a nation as that of success. On June 2d and 3d, the Third Canadian Division, which then occupied part of the line in the Ypres salient, including Hooge and Sanctuary Wood, was smothered by an artillery bombardment unprecedented in length and intensity. Trenches melted into irregular heaps of splintered wood, broken sand bags and mangled bodies. Fighting gallantly the men of this division fell in large numbers, where they stood. The best infantry in the world is powerless against avalanches of shells projected from greatly superior numbers of guns. The Canadian trenches were obliterated, not captured. By this time Britain had thoroughly learned her lesson, and now countless shells and guns were pouring into France from Great Britain where thousands of factories, new and old, toiled night and day, under the inspiring energy of Mr. Lloyd George. On June 13th, in a terrific counter-attack, the Canadians in turn blasted the Huns from the trenches taken from them a few days before….

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Excerpt #11, from The Prose Tales of Alexander Pushkin, by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

…Everything seemed quiet within. I made my way to my own quarters and found Savelitch grieving about my absence. The news of my being set at liberty filled him with unutterable joy. “Thanks be to Thee, Almighty God!” said he, making the sign of the cross. “At daybreak to-morrow we will leave the fortress and go wherever God will direct us. I have prepared something for you; eat it, my little father, and then rest yourself till the morning, as if you were in the bosom of Christ.” I followed his advice and, having eaten with a good appetite, I fell asleep upon the bare floor, worn out both in body and mind. [Footnote 1: The small wardrobe, with glass doors, in which the sacred images are kept, and which forms a domestic altar.] [Footnote 2: The first false Demetrius, the Perkin Warbeck of Russia. The real Demetrius was the son of Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV.), and is generally believed to have been assassinated by order of Boris Godunoff, a nobleman of Tartar origin, who was afterwards elected Czar. Otrepieff’s story was that his physician had pretended to comply with the orders of Boris, but had substituted the son of a serf for him. Being supported in his claims by the Poles, the pretender succeeded in gaining the throne, but his partiality for everything Polish…

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Excerpt #12, from Science in Short Chapters, by W. Mattieu Williams

…considerable quantity of earth and stones adhering to their roots: this explains the upright position of the trees in the lake. Such trees falling into water of sufficient depth to enable them to turn over must sink root downwards, or float in an upright position, according to the quantity of adhering soil. The difference of depth would tend to a more rapid penetration of water in the lower parts, where the pressure would be greatest, and thus the upright or oblique position of many of the floating trunks would be maintained till they absorbed sufficient water to sink altogether. It is generally assumed that fossil trees which are found in an upright position have grown on the spot where they are found. The facts I have stated show that this inference is by no means necessary, not even when the roots are attached and some soil is found among them. In order to account for the other surroundings of these fossil trees a very violent hypothesis is commonly made, viz., that the soil on which they grew sank down some hundreds of feet without disturbing them. This demands a great strain upon the scientific imagination, even in reference to the few cases where the trees stand perpendicular. As the majority slope considerably the difficulty is still greater. I shall presently show how trees like those immersed in Aachensee may have become, and are now becoming, imbedded in rocks similar to those of the Coal Measures….

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