Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:35

Excerpt #1, from The Story of the Great War, Volume 1, by Churchill, Miller, and Reynolds

…ultimatum which England did not answer. Then the Boer War broke out. For our purposes it is not necessary to consider its details. It suffices to state that it lasted until April, 1902. For almost three years the brave Boers fought against almost impossible odds. Again and again they defeated the English, but finally they succumbed to the British Empire’s inexhaustible resources in men and money, and on May 31, 1902, they were forced to accept England’s terms for surrender which cost them their independence. Indeed, as early as September 1, 1900, the South African Republic was annexed, and on October 25, Transvaal became an English colony. In its international aspect the Boer War cost England temporarily the friendship of many nations, who resented the ruthlessness with which they carried on war, and ridiculed the lack of efficiency which was so noticeable during the early stages of the war. Relations with Germany became especially strained as a result of the strong pro-Boer sentiment which was evident throughout the German Empire, and which found even official expression in a much-discussed telegram of the German Emperor to President Krueger. Although the Boer War cost England much in lives, money, and prestige, its gain far overshadowed its cost. By it Great Britain won the richest gold-producing mines and the most wonderful diamond…

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Excerpt #2, from In Great Waters: Four Stories, by Thomas A. Janvier

…close over beyond a still sea and a sun-bright sky a storm is cooking up that will kill him if it can. And even when he feels the coming of it–if he be well to seaward, or if he be tempted by the fish being plenty and by the bareness of his own pockets to hold on in the face of it–he must have more in his head than any coast pilot has if he is to win home to Yarmouth Harbour or to Lowestoft Roads. For God in his cruelty has set more traps to kill seafarers off this easterly outjut of England, I do believe, than He has set anywhere else in all the world: there being from Covehithe Ness northward to the Winterton Overfalls nothing but a maze of deadly shoals–all cut up by channels in which there is no sea-room–that fairly makes you queazy to think about when you are coming shoreward in a northeast gale. And as if that were not enough to make sure of man-food for the fishes, the currents that swirl and play among these shoals are up to some fresh wickedness with every hour of the tide-run and with every half shift of wind. Whether you make in for Yarmouth by Hemesby Hole to the north, or by the Hewett Channel to the south, or split the difference by running through Caister Road, it is all one: twisting about the Overfalls and the Middle Cross Sand and the South Scroby, there the currents are. What they will be doing with you, or how they will be doing it, you can’t even make a good guess at; all that you can know for certain…

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Excerpt #3, from Under the White Ensign: A Naval Story of the Great War, by Percy F. Westerman

…“The Two-Step, I fancy,” replied Webb. “It looks to me as if the U-boat’s periscope is trained in that direction.” Quickly the guns were manned. A warning signal, “’Ware submarine on your port bow”, was sent to the tramp. The suppressed excitement grew as the Portchester Castle drew nearer to her as yet unsuspecting foe. M’Bride was on the bridge at the time. Deliberately he delayed the order to open fire. The gun-layer could, he knew, easily knock away that pole-like object, but that was not enough. The U-boat, even when deprived of her “eyes”, could dive and seek shelter until the danger had passed. Not until the submarine showed herself above the surface could a “knock-out” blow be delivered, unless the Portchester Castle could approach and ram her antagonist before the latter had time to submerge to a sufficient depth. “Look!” exclaimed Osborne. “She’s actually going to attempt to ram. Well, of all the cool cheek!” The Lieutenant was correct in his assertion, for the plucky tramp, starboarding helm, was bearing down upon the vertical spar that denoted the presence of the otherwise hidden danger. This manoeuvre interested Webb hardly at all. His attention was centred upon the periscope. For some time he had been keeping it…

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Excerpt #4, from Raw Gold: A Novel, by Bertrand W. Sinclair

…and high water had held them, for we could see the white-sheeted wagons and a blur of cattle by the cottonwood grove where Hank Rowan had made his last stand. Presently we crossed the trail made by the string of wagons; it was fresh; made that morning, I judged. A little farther, on a line between the Crossing and the Spring, Piegan pulled up again, and this time the cause of his halting needed no explanation. The bunch had stopped and tarried there a few minutes, as the jumbled hoof-marks bore witness, and the track of two horses led away toward Ten Mile Spring. “Darn it all!” Piegan grumbled. “Now, what d’yuh reckon’s the meanin’ uh that? Them two has lit straight for where Baker’s layout was camped this mornin’. What for? Are they pullin’ out uh the country with the coin? Or are they lookin’ for you fellers?” “Well”–MacRae thought a moment–"considering the care they’ve taken to cover up their movements, I don’t see what other object they could have in view but making a smooth getaway. They’ve worked it nicely all around. You know that if there was anything they wanted they weren’t taking any risk by going to any freight camp. We’re the only men in the country that know why they are pulling out this way–and they know that we daren’t go in and report it, because they’ve managed to put us on the dodge. They have reason to be sure that headquarters wouldn’t for a minute listen to a yarn like we’d have to tell–they’d have time to…

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Excerpt #5, from The Voyage of the “Deutschland”, by Paul König

…cat: ‘/home/marc/Dropbox/Marc/books/Unsorted/pgbooks-for-excerpts/The Voyage of the Deutschland by Paul König-pg45922.txt’: No such file or directory

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Excerpt #6, from Great Britain and the American Civil War, by Ephraim Douglass Adams

…construed as an engagement to interfere in the unhappy dissensions now prevailing in the United States; an interference which would be contrary to Her Majesty’s public declarations, and would be a reversal of the policy which Her Majesty has deliberately sanctioned[249]." Thus the negotiation closed. Seward in declining to accept the proposed declaration gave varying reasons in his instructions to Adams, in London, and to Dayton, in Paris, for an exactly similar declaration had been insisted upon by France, but he did not argue the question save in generalities. He told Dayton that the supposed possible “intervention” which Great Britain and France seemed to fear they would be called upon to make was exactly the action which the United States desired to forestall, and he notified Adams that he could not consent since the proposed Declaration “would be virtually a new and distinct article incorporated into the projected convention[250].” The first formal negotiation of the United States during the Civil War, and of the new American Minister in London, had come to an inglorious conclusion. Diplomats and Foreign Secretaries were, quite naturally, disturbed, and were even suspicious of each others’ motives, but the public, not at the moment informed save on the American offer and the result, paid little attention to these “inner circle” controversies[251]….

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Excerpt #7, from Old Mines of Southern California, by Harold W. Fairbanks and William H. Storms

…bedded lie along the flanks of the mountains both east and west of the creek. An interesting series of rocks is exposed up Cold Water Cañon. This cañon has been eroded near the northern termination of the granitic portion of the Santa Ana Mountains. The first rock exposed is a micaceous diorite, decomposed to a great depth, but very tough when fresh. This is followed by syenite. A mile up the cañon, near the western edge of this rock and wholly inclosed in it, is a small mass of jasper schist and a lenticular body of semi-crystalline limestone. No traces of fossils were found in it. West of the syenite is another diorite dike. Then follows banded jaspery rocks, sometimes verging on micaceous felsite or quartzites. There are also some slates, and all are often greatly contorted; strike north to northeast. North of the cañon these rocks extend to the summit, while south the Santiago Peak, the highest of the range, and the ridges leading up to it from the east, consist of a coarse quartzose granite, with but little if any triclinic feldspar. A variety of dikes occur near the summit north of the cañon, among them hornblende porphyry, porphyritic granite, and syenite. Fossils were found on the ridge leading up to the summit, north of Cold Water Cañon. They occur in a grayish rock, apparently a fine micaceous felsite. They are poorly preserved, on account of the extreme degree of metamorphism to which the rocks have been subjected. The rocks have…

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Excerpt #8, from The Best British Short Stories of 1922, by Stacy Aumonier et al.

…towards the close of the second month. Then one evening she was distrait; one evening, critical; one night, cold; then she had a dinner and dance engagement at the Savoy. Then he knew that his time had come. He waited up for her. He had the gas fire lighted in the tiny sitting-room, and little sugary cakes and wine on the table; and the gas fire lighted in the bedroom to warm it for her, and the bed turned down, and her nightgown and slippers, so frail, warming before the fire. But he knew. In the early dawn her key clicked in the lock, and she came in, followed by a man. He was pale, sensual, moneyed, fashionable. Charlie got up stoutly; but he was already beaten. The Jew looked at him, and turned to Kitty. “I told you,” she said, stammering a little, “I told you how it was. By to-morrow … I told you….” “I’ll come again, to-morrow, then,” said the man very meaningly, “fetch you out—-” “At eight,” she nodded firmly. He kissed her on the mouth, while Charlie stood looking at them with eyes that seemed to stare themselves out of his head, turned and went out….

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Excerpt #9, from Argonaut stories, by Jerome Hart

…first-mate–well–his people on the other side of the continent lived a different sort of life, went in for another and more conventional style of thing. So did the people of the girl he had meant to make mistress of his beautiful sugar plantation. He had been in love with her since his school-days at home–pretty much ever since he could remember, so far as that went. But it had obviously been out of the question to expect her to marry a deck-hand. He had stopped writing to her before long. It had been better for her. As for himself–it didn’t matter much. His own life was very thoroughly spoiled, anyway. And the girl had married–a man of her own sort, which he himself had ceased to be. He owed all that to Stanwood. He owed a good deal to Stanwood. He had always intended to pay it some day, too–at the first chance that should present itself. Was this the chance? Perhaps. Evidently wrong-doing had not prospered Stanwood. He had probably come out with that degraded, dirty gang, in that “lanch” which stunk of bilge water and other filth beyond a white man’s stomach almost, for no other reason than to get an opportunity to stow, or to ask a passage up–as Marsden himself had been obliged to ask five years before. He would not try it now, of course. He had nerve enough for about anything, but hardly enough for that. He would have to wait at…

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Excerpt #10, from A Border Ruffian, by Thomas A. Janvier

…everything that the present occasion required. He seemed to have been sent from heaven direct. In twenty minutes Mr. Smith was asking for him at his hotel. “Mr. Livingstone? Mr. Livingstone is out.” “Did he leave any word as to when he would come in?” “Yes, sir. He said that a gentleman might call, and to say that he certainly would be back at six, and would not go out again to-night.” Mr. Smith looked at his watch–it was 5:30. Had there been any uncertainty as to Livingstone’s return, he would have waited. But it was clear that he was coming back to dine at his hotel, and to spend the evening there. A note, therefore, could be trusted to do the business, and by writing, instead of waiting, Mr. Smith would save half an hour; moreover, if he waited, he would not have time to make the mayonnaise. Probably it is only in Philadelphia that it ever occurs nowadays to the master of a feast to dress the salad; which, doubtless, is the reason why a better salad is served at certain dinner-tables in Philadelphia than at any other dinner-tables in the whole world. The thought of the mayonnaise settled the matter. Mr. Smith hastily wrote an account of the trying situation, and concluded his note with a solemn demand upon “dear old Van” to fill the vacant place, “in the holy name of the class of ’68, and for love of your old classmate, R. Smith.”…

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Excerpt #11, from Principles of politeness, and of knowing the world, by Chesterfield

…domestic misfortunes better than we do. BUT you are sometimes in very different circumstances, that equally require the restraints of religion. The natural vivacity, and perhaps the natural vanity of your sex, are very apt to lead you into a dissipated state of life, that deceives you, under the appearance of innocent pleasure; but which in reality wastes your spirits, impairs your health, weakens all the superior faculties of your minds, and often sullies your reputations. Religion by checking this dissipation and rage for pleasure, enables you to draw more happiness, even from those very sources of amusement, which when too frequently applied to, are often productive of satiety and disgust. RELIGION is rather a matter of sentiment than reasoning. The important and interesting articles of faith are sufficiently plain. Fix your attention on these, and do not meddle with controversy. If you get into that, you plunge into a chaos, from which you will never be able to extricate yourselves. It spoils the temper, and, I suspect, has no good effect on the heart. AVOID all books, and all conversation, that tend to shake your faith on those great points of religion which should serve to regulate your conduct, and on which your hopes of future and eternal happiness depend. NEVER indulge yourselves in ridicule on religious subjects; nor give…

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Excerpt #12, from Meditations, by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

…are but leaves. And they also that shall follow, in whose memories the names of men famous after death, is preserved, they are but leaves neither. For even so is it of all these worldly things. Their spring comes, and they are put forth. Then blows the wind, and they go down. And then in lieu of them grow others out of the wood or common matter of all things, like unto them. But, to endure but for a while, is common unto all. Why then shouldest thou so earnestly either seek after these things, or fly from them, as though they should endure for ever? Yet a little while, and thine eyes will be closed up, and for him that carries thee to thy grave shall another mourn within a while after. XXXV. A good eye must be good to see whatsoever is to be seen, and not green things only. For that is proper to sore eyes. So must a good ear, and a good smell be ready for whatsoever is either to be heard, or smelt: and a good stomach as indifferent to all kinds of food, as a millstone is, to whatsoever she was made for to grind. As ready therefore must a sound understanding be for whatsoever shall happen. But he that saith, O that my children might live! and, O that all men might commend me for whatsoever I do! is an eye that seeks after green things; or as teeth, after that which is tender. XXXVI. There is not any man that is so happy in his death, but that some of those that are by him when he dies, will be ready to rejoice at his…

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