Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:25

Excerpt #1, from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, by Thomas Jefferson

…can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written Constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution–certainly would if such a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. MUST Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority…

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Excerpt #2, from Recollections and impressions of James A. McNeill Whistler, by Arthur Jerome Eddy

…* * * * The wave of impressionism which submerged all Paris in the very midst of his career left him unaffected,–for his art was an older and truer impressionism, an impressionism that did not depend upon the size of brushes or the consistency of pigments. A visitor once said to him: “Mr. Whistler, it seems to me you do not use some of those very expensive and brilliant colors which are in vogue nowadays.” “No.” And he diligently worked away at his palette. “I can’t afford to,–they are so apt to spoil the picture.” “But they are effective.” “For how long? A year, or a score of years, perhaps; but who can tell what they will be a century or five centuries hence. The old masters used simple pigments which they ground themselves. I try to use what they used. After all, it is not so much what one uses as the way it is used.” … * * * * Much of the foregoing argument concerning the Americanism of Whistler and his art may seem to be contradicted by his own express utterances. For did he not say in his “Ten o’Clock”? “Listen! There never was an artistic period.”…

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Excerpt #3, from The Grand Inquisitor, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

…Evil? Nothing seems more seductive in his eyes than freedom of conscience, and nothing proves more painful. And behold! instead of laying a firm foundation whereon to rest once for all man’s conscience, Thou hast chosen to stir up in him all that is abnormal, mysterious, and indefinite, all that is beyond human strength, and has acted as if Thou never hadst any love for him, and yet Thou wert He who came to “lay down His life for His friends!” Thou hast burdened man’s soul with anxieties hitherto unknown to him. Thirsting for human love freely given, seeking to enable man, seduced and charmed by Thee, to follow Thy path of his own free-will, instead of the old and wise law which held him in subjection, Thou hast given him the right henceforth to choose and freely decide what is good and bad for him, guided but by Thine image in his heart. But hast Thou never dreamt of the probability, nay, of the certainty, of that same man one day rejected finally, and controverting even Thine image and Thy truth, once he would find himself laden with such a terrible burden as freedom of choice? That a time would surely come when men would exclaim that Truth and Light cannot be in Thee, for no one could have left them in a greater perplexity and mental suffering than Thou has done, lading them with so many cares and…

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Excerpt #4, from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, by David Hume

…idea in our imagination. This influence of the will we know by consciousness. Hence we acquire the idea of power or energy; and are certain, that we ourselves and all other intelligent beings are possessed of power. This idea, then, is an idea of reflection, since it arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and on the command which is exercised by will, both over the organs of the body and faculties of the soul. 52. We shall proceed to examine this pretension; and first with regard to the influence of volition over the organs of the body. This influence, we may observe, is a fact, which, like all other natural events, can be known only by experience, and can never be foreseen from any apparent energy or power in the cause, which connects it with the effect, and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other. The motion of our body follows upon the command of our will. Of this we are every moment conscious. But the means, by which this is effected; the energy, by which the will performs so extraordinary an operation; of this we are so far from being immediately conscious, that it must for ever escape our most diligent enquiry. For first; is there any principle in all nature more mysterious than the union of soul with body; by which a supposed spiritual substance acquires such an influence over a material one, that the most refined…

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Excerpt #5, from From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan, by H. P. Blavatsky

…carvings. Before it stands the “lion column,” so-called from the four lions carved as large as nature, and seated back to back, at its base. Over the principal entrance, its sides covered with colossal male and female figures, is a huge arch, in front of which three gigantic elephants are sculptured in relief, with heads and trunks that project from the wall. The shape of the temple is oval. It is 128 feet long and forty-six feet wide. The central space is separated on each side from the aisles by forty-two pillars, which sustain the cupola-shaped ceiling. Further on is an altar, which divides the first dome from a second one which rises over a small chamber, formerly used by the ancient Aryan priests for an inner, secret altar. Two side passages leading towards it come to a sudden end, which suggests that, once upon a time, either doors or wall were there which exist no longer. Each of the forty-two pillars has a pedestal, an octagonal shaft, and a capital, described by Fergusson as “of the most exquisite workmanship, representing two kneeling elephants surmounted by a god and a goddess.” Fergusson further says that this temple, or chaitya, is older and better preserved than any other in India, and may be assigned to a period about 200 years B.C., because Prinsep, who has read the inscription on the Silastamba pillar, asserts that the lion pillar was the gift of Ajmitra Ukasa, son of Saha Ravisobhoti, and another inscription shows that…

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Excerpt #6, from Argot and Slang, by Albert Barrère

…=DUBOIS=, Rêves de Vieillesse ou le Départ de Pipelet. PIPELETTE, f. (general), the wife of a concierge or doorkeeper. Termed also Madame Pipelet. See PIPELET. Vous n’connaissez pas ma concierge, La nommée Madam’ Benoiton, Une grand’ sèch’ longu’ comm’ un cierge Et sourd’ comm’ un bonnet d’coton. Si malheureus’ment j’m’attarde, C’est l’diable pour la réveiller. Pendant deux heur’s je mont’ la garde, D’vant la porte et j’ai beau crier: Ous-qu’est ma pip’, ous-qu’est ma pip’, ous-qu’est ma pip’lette? =A. BEN ET H. D’HERVILLE.= PIPER (familiar and popular), to smoke, or “to blow a cloud.” Il me semble qu’on a pipé ici.–=GAVARNI.= (Thieves’) Piper, to catch. Comprend-on après cela qu’un homme qui changeait si fréquemment de nom … ait été se loger … sous le nom de Mahossier qui lui avait servi à piper sa victime?–=CANLER.= Piper un pègre, to apprehend a thief, “to smug a prig.” The different…

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Excerpt #7, from The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

…turned over the pages, his eye fell on the poem about the hand of Lacenaire, the cold yellow hand “du supplice encore mal lavée,” with its downy red hairs and its “doigts de faune.” He glanced at his own white taper fingers, shuddering slightly in spite of himself, and passed on, till he came to those lovely stanzas upon Venice: Sur une gamme chromatique, Le sein de perles ruisselant, La Vénus de l’Adriatique Sort de l’eau son corps rose et blanc. Les dômes, sur l’azur des ondes Suivant la phrase au pur contour, S’enflent comme des gorges rondes Que soulève un soupir d’amour. L’esquif aborde et me dépose, Jetant son amarre au pilier, Devant une façade rose, Sur le marbre d’un escalier. How exquisite they were! As one read them, one seemed to be floating down the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city, seated in a black gondola with silver prow and trailing curtains. The mere lines looked to him like those straight lines of turquoise-blue that follow one as…

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Excerpt #8, from A Sub and a Submarine: The Story of H.M. Submarine R19 in the Great War

…impact steps had been taken to ascertain if any damage had been done to the hull. Not a leak was to be found. The for’ard diving-planes or horizontal rudders were intact and in perfect working order; while, on testing the twin bow torpedo-tubes, both were found to be undamaged. Evidently R19 had not struck her opponent an end-on blow, otherwise the covers of the tubes would have been buckled or burst from their hinges. At the moment of impact U129 had submerged sufficiently to allow her opponent to strike a glancing blow with her forefoot–enough to crack the deck-plates of the ill-starred unterseeboot. Eager to convey this gratifying report to his skipper, Fordyce went on deck. As he emerged through the circular man-hole a burst of cheering greeted his ears. He was just in time to see a long trailing cloud of fire-tipped smoke plunging towards the water at a distance of less than a couple of miles to leeward. It was the Zeppelin. Whether by the submarine’s gun-fire or by an accident it would never be known–but in any case the result was the same–the air-ship had caught fire in mid-air. For some seconds she blazed furiously–the whole of the after part of the envelope being hidden in fire and smoke–without showing any appreciable signs of falling. Then, with appalling suddenness, she buckled in two, and…

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Excerpt #9, from The Airship “Golden Hind”, by Percy F. Westerman

…cat: ‘/home/marc/Dropbox/Marc/books/Unsorted/pgbooks-for-excerpts/The Airship Golden’: No such file or directory cat: ‘Hind by Percy F. Westerman-39488-0.txt’: No such file or directory

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

…follow a straight line from one point to another if there is a hill between them. Whatever path we take, it will be curved. But amongst the various possible paths which lead from one point to the other on the farther side of the hill, there is one—and only one, as a rule—which is shorter than any of the others, as we could prove by means of a tape. This shortest path, the only one of its kind, is what is called the geodetical of the surface covered. In the same way no vessel can go in a straight line if it is sailing from Lisbon to New York. It must follow a curved path, because the earth is round. But amongst the possible curved paths there is a privileged one which is shorter than the others: the one which follows the direction of the great circle of the earth. In going from Lisbon to New York, though they are nearly in the same latitude, vessels are careful not to head straight westward, in the direction of the parallels. They sail a little to the north-west, so that when they reach New York they come from the north-east, having followed pretty closely a terrestrial great circle. On our globe, as on all spheres, the geodetical, the shortest route between two points, is the arc of a great circle passing through the two points. Now the “Interval” of two points in the four-dimensional universe precisely represents the geodetical, the minimum path of progress…

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Excerpt #11, from Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens

…her way. Suddenly she arose; and hurrying on, in a direction quite opposite to that in which Sikes was awaiting her returned, quickened her pace, until it gradually resolved into a violent run. After completely exhausting herself, she stopped to take breath: and, as if suddenly recollecting herself, and deploring her inability to do something she was bent upon, wrung her hands, and burst into tears. It might be that her tears relieved her, or that she felt the full hopelessness of her condition; but she turned back; and hurrying with nearly as great rapidity in the contrary direction; partly to recover lost time, and partly to keep pace with the violent current of her own thoughts: soon reached the dwelling where she had left the housebreaker. If she betrayed any agitation, when she presented herself to Mr. Sikes, he did not observe it; for merely inquiring if she had brought the money, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, he uttered a growl of satisfaction, and replacing his head upon the pillow, resumed the slumbers which her arrival had interrupted. It was fortunate for her that the possession of money occasioned him so much employment next day in the way of eating and drinking; and withal had so beneficial an effect in smoothing down the asperities of his temper; that he had neither time nor inclination to be very critical…

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Excerpt #12, from The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins

…subject of the inquiry I am conducting here. You detected the turn that inquiry was really taking, yesterday. Naturally enough, in your position, you are shocked and distressed. Naturally enough, also, you visit your own angry sense of your own family scandal upon Me.” “What do you want?” Mr. Franklin broke in, sharply enough. “I want to remind you, sir, that I have at any rate, thus far, not been proved to be wrong. Bearing that in mind, be pleased to remember, at the same time, that I am an officer of the law acting here under the sanction of the mistress of the house. Under these circumstances, is it, or is it not, your duty as a good citizen, to assist me with any special information which you may happen to possess?” “I possess no special information,” says Mr. Franklin. Sergeant Cuff put that answer by him, as if no answer had been made. “You may save my time, sir, from being wasted on an inquiry at a distance,” he went on, “if you choose to understand me and speak out.” “I don’t understand you,” answered Mr. Franklin; “and I have nothing to say.” “One of the female servants (I won’t mention names) spoke to you privately, sir, last night.” Once more Mr. Franklin cut him short; once more Mr. Franklin answered, “I have nothing to say.”…

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