Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:40

Excerpt #1, from The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, by Selma Lagerlöf

…satisfied with little–can thrive up there. One understands best how poor and dry it is there, when one sees how small the field-plots are, that are ploughed up from the forest lands; and how many little cabins the people build for themselves; and how far it is between the churches. But on the middle step there is better soil, and it does not lie bound down under such severe cold, either. This one can see at a glance, since the trees are both higher and of finer quality. There you’ll find maple and oak and linden and weeping-birch and hazel trees growing, but no cone-trees to speak of. And it is still more noticeable because of the amount of cultivated land that you will find there; and also because the people have built themselves great and beautiful houses. On the middle step, there are many churches, with large towns around them; and in every way it makes a better and finer appearance than the top step. "But the very lowest step is the best of all. It is covered with good rich soil; and, where it lies and bathes in the sea, it hasn’t the slightest feeling of the Småland chill. Beeches and chestnut and walnut trees thrive down here; and they grow so big that they tower above the church-roofs. Here lie also the largest grain-fields; but the people have not only timber and farming to live upon, but they are also occupied with fishing and trading and seafaring. For this reason you will find the most costly residences and the prettiest churches here;…

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Excerpt #2, from The Pirates Own Book, by Charles Ellms

…Capt. Gilbert ascended the scaffold, he passed over to where the apparently lifeless Boyga was seated in the chair, and kissed him. Addressing his followers, he said, “Boys, we are going to die; but let us be firm, for we are innocent.” To Mr. Peyton, the interpreter, he said, “I die innocent, but I’ll die like a noble Spaniard. Good bye, brother.” The Marshal having read the warrant for their execution, and stated that de Soto was respited sixty and Ruiz thirty days, the ropes were adjusted round the necks of the prisoners, and a slight hectic flush spread over the countenance of each; but not an eye quailed, nor a limb trembled, not a muscle quivered. The fatal cord was now cut, and the platform fell, by which the prisoners were launched into eternity. After the execution was over, Ruiz, who was confined in his cell, attracted considerable attention, by his maniac shouts and singing. At one time holding up a piece of blanket, stained with Boyga’s blood, he gave utterance to his ravings in a sort of recitative, the burden of which was–“This is the red flag my companions died under!” After the expiration of Ruiz’ second respite, the Marshal got two surgeons of the United States Navy, who understood the Spanish language, to attend him in his cell; they, after a patient examination pronounced his madness a counterfeit, and his insanity a hoax. Accordingly, on the morning of Sept. 11th, the Marshal, in company with a Catholic priest…

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Excerpt #3, from Studying the short story, by J. Berg Esenwein

…72. Bill is puffing and blowing but there is a look of ineffable peace and growing content on his rose-pink features. 73. “Bill,” says I, “there isn’t any heart disease in your family, is there?” 74. “No,” says Bill, “nothing chronic except malaria and accidents. Why?” 75. “Then you might turn around,” says I, “and have a look behind you.” [Sidenote: Suggestion.] [Sidenote: Straight delineation. The former is the better art.] [Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.] 76. Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately and that we would get the ransom and be off with it by midnight if old Dorset fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced up enough to give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a Japanese war with him as soon as he felt a little better. [Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT.] 77. I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being caught by counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional…

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Excerpt #4, from Essays of a Biologist, by Julian Huxley

…and this has meant, from the objective, purely biological standpoint, the possibility of summing-up ever more and more power and fine adjustment of response in the present, in the single act.[6] The first main function of the improved adjustor mechanism was to make ever more complicated actions possible; but this again tended speedily to a limit. The next step was to make it possible for the past to act in the present. Through associative memory, present behaviour is modified by past experience. What this has meant to organisms can be realized if we reflect that certain terms which can justly be applied to a mammal or a bird have no real meaning if applied to lower forms. If we speak of a cunning wolf or a wary crow, we imply that their life has taught them new qualities; but it is nonsense to talk of a cunning crab, and, though we might properly ascribe wariness to a trout, I would not like to speak of a wary Amoeba. In the same way we can justifiably say that one dog is affectionate, another intelligent: but to speak of an affectionate earthworm or an intelligent snail has no more proper significance than it would be to say that a dog was intellectual or religious. Quickness of learning then became of importance; but so long as the faculty of generalizing is absent, associative memory, although liberating organisms from the prison of a fixed and inherited…

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Excerpt #5, from Nonsense Books, by Edward Lear

…Mr. Spikky said, “How kind, Dear, you are, to speak your mind! All your life I wish you luck! You are, you are, a lovely duck! Witchy witchy witchy wee, Twitchy witchy witchy bee, Tikky tikky tee! IV.”I was also sad, and thinking, When one day I saw you winking, And I heard you sniffle-snuffle, And I saw your feathers ruffle: To myself I sadly said, ‘She’s neuralgia in her head! That dear head has nothing on it! Ought she not to wear a bonnet?’ Witchy kitchy kitchy wee, Spikky wikky mikky bee, Chippy wippy chee! V. "Let us both fly up to town:…

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Excerpt #6, from Don Juan, by Baron George Gordon Byron Byron

…Which all who saw it follow’d, wrong or right. But certes matters took a different face; There was enthusiasm and much applause, The fleet and camp saluted with great grace, And all presaged good fortune to their cause. Within a cannon-shot length of the place They drew, constructed ladders, repair’d flaws In former works, made new, prepared fascines, And all kinds of benevolent machines. ’Tis thus the spirit of a single mind Makes that of multitudes take one direction, As roll the waters to the breathing wind, Or roams the herd beneath the bull’s protection; Or as a little dog will lead the blind, Or a bell-wether form the flock’s connection By tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual; Such is the sway of your great men o’er little. The whole camp rung with joy; you would have thought That they were going to a marriage feast (This metaphor, I think, holds good as aught, Since there is discord after both at least):…

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Excerpt #7, from The Principles of the Art of Conversation, by J. P. Mahaffy

…through the rooms and talking in succession to all sorts and conditions of men. If on the one hand the people addressed are sure to be flattered by such attention, and therefore responsive and anxious to be pleased, on the other there is no social duty which gives more scope for all the mental and moral perfections already enumerated, and therefore there is no more certain test of conversational ability. For here the talk is not really with many at a time, nor again is it the conversation with one person, in which the main element is the sustaining of interest for a considerable time; it is a series of brief successive dialogues, in which the two great difficulties of conversation, the starting of it and the breaking off, are perpetually recurring. The speaker is even debarred from the use of any fixed formula or method of overcoming these difficulties, for the people addressed will be sure to compare notes, and will reject as insincere any politenesses which are administered according to a formula, however graceful it may appear. Here then, if anywhere, the art must consist in concealing the art. But let none imagine that art has no place here. A sympathetic nature, which readily apprehends the interests of other minds, is not more useful to the great man or woman than a careful previous study of the company, who they are, what they have done, what the distinction or the hobby of each of them may be. Nothing is easier than to acquire such information from…

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Excerpt #8, from Norman Ten Hundred, by A. Stanley Blicq

…In the Field no man has actual possession of shirt, sock, or under-garments. These are all given in at each visitation to the baths and others issued in return. Your shirt thrown over to you by the C.Q.M.S. might be somewhat decrepit and holey or might have some resemblance to a new one. You might have two odd socks or (if you were among the bevy of schemers) two or three pairs would be in your possession–illegally. Parades were detestable. They had imagined that England was the training camp for these operations. In France they had expectation of fighting and resting, NOT marching up and down with occasional halts, while the Platoon Officer furtively asks his sergeant what order he must give next. The pivot round which all parades manoeuvre is always with the Regimental Sergeant-Major (the main function of all R.S.M.’s is to walk round with a big stick). He, an old Regular, despite the iron discipline so candidly hated, was withall a staunch supporter of fair play for the ranker, a tartar on parade, and feared more by the junior N.C.O.’s than the very inhabitor of lower regions. An N.C.O. (Non-Commissioned Officer) is an individual whose main talent lies in the ability to bawl out orders at men one yard distant in a voice having a hundred yards range. The possessors of some subtle…

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Excerpt #9, from The Art of War, by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi

…misfortune. 10. Reduce the hostile chiefs by inflicting damage on them; and make trouble for them, and keep them constantly engaged; hold out specious allurements, and make them rush to any given point. 11. The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. 12. There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general: (1) Recklessness, which leads to destruction; (2) cowardice, which leads to capture; (3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults; (4) a delicacy of honour which is sensitive to shame; (5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble. 13. These are the five besetting sins of a general, ruinous to the conduct of war. 14. When an army is overthrown and its leader slain, the cause will surely be found among these five dangerous faults. Let them be a subject of meditation. IX. THE ARMY ON THE MARCH…

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Excerpt #10, from Einstein and the universe: A popular exposition of the famous theory, by Nordmann

…a sort of Relativity in the second degree, of which neither the philosophers nor the classic physicists had dreamed. Spatial relations themselves are relative, in a space which is already relative. In the case of our Pullman car and the two pegs which mark its length when it is stationary, an observer situated in the carriage would find the distance between the two pegs shortened as he passes them. The coach would seem to him longer than the distance between the pegs. I who remain beside the pegs observe the contrary. Yet I have no means of proving to the passenger that he is wrong. I see quite plainly that the ray of light which comes from the back peg runs behind the coach, and has therefore, relatively to it, a speed of less than 186,000 miles a second. I know that this is the reason for the passenger’s error, but I have no means of convincing him that he is wrong. He will always say, and rightly: “I have measured the speed at which this ray reaches me, and I have found it 186,000 miles a second.” Each of us is really right. In very rapid motion a square would seem to the observer a rectangle; a circle would appear to be an ellipse. If the earth travelled some thousands of times faster round the sun, we should see it elongated, like a giant lemon suspended in the heavens. If an aviator could fly at a fantastic speed over Trafalgar Square, in the direction of the…

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Excerpt #11, 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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Excerpt #12, from Famous Adventures and Prison Escapes of the Civil War, by Basil Wilson Duke et al.

…to intercept him there. If these troops lined the railroad and were judiciously posted, he knew it would be extremely difficult to elude them or cut his way through them. He believed that if he could pass this ordeal safely, the success of the expedition would be assured, unless the river should be so high that the boats would be able to transport troops to intercept him at the upper fords. After remaining at Harrison two or three hours, and sending detachments in the direction of Hamilton, he moved with the entire column on the Hamilton road. But as soon as he was clear of the town, he cut the telegraph-wires–previously left intact with the hope that they might be used to convey intelligence of his apparent movement toward Hamilton–and, turning across the country, gained the direct road to Cincinnati. He hoped that, deceived by his demonstrations at Harrison, the larger part of the troops at Cincinnati would be sent to Hamilton, and that it would be too late to recall them when his movement toward Cincinnati was discovered. He trusted that those remaining would be drawn into the city, under the impression that he meant to attack, leaving the way clear for his rapid transit. He has been criticized for not attempting the capture of Cincinnati, but he had no mind to involve his handful of wearied men in a labyrinth of streets. We felt very much more at home amid rural surroundings. But if he had taken Cincinnati,…

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