Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:53

Excerpt #1, from The Invasion of India, by Alexander the Great as described, by Arrian, Q. Curtius

…boasted to have certain memorials of Dionysos. So he went, it is said, to Mount Mêros with the companion cavalry and the body of foot-guards, and found that the mountain abounded with ivy and laurel and umbrageous groves of all manner of trees, and that it had also chases supplied with game of every description. The Macedonians, to whom the sight of the ivy was particularly welcome, as it was the first they had seen for a long time (there being no ivy in the land of the Indians, even where they have the vine), are said to have set themselves at once to weave ivy chaplets, and, accoutred as they were, to have crowned themselves with these, chanting the while hymns to Dionysos and invoking the god by his different names.[72] Alexander, they say, offered while there sacrifice to Dionysos and feasted with his friends. Some even go so far as to allege, if any one cares to believe such things, that many of his courtiers, Macedonians of no mean rank, while invoking Dionysos, and wreathed with ivy crowns, were seized with the inspiration of the god, raised in his honour shouts of Evoi, and revelled like Bacchanals celebrating the orgies. Chapter III—How Eratosthenes views the legends concerning Heraklês and Dionysos—Alexander crosses the Indus Any one who hears these stories is free to believe them or disbelieve them as he chooses. For my own part, I do not altogether agree with…

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Excerpt #2, from A Study in Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle

…such occasions, Lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek and her bright, happy eyes, showed only too clearly that her young heart was no longer her own. Her honest father may not have observed these symptoms, but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the man who had won her affections. It was a summer evening when he came galloping down the road and pulled up at the gate. She was at the doorway, and came down to meet him. He threw the bridle over the fence and strode up the pathway. “I am off, Lucy,” he said, taking her two hands in his, and gazing tenderly down into her face; “I won’t ask you to come with me now, but will you be ready to come when I am here again?” “And when will that be?” she asked, blushing and laughing. “A couple of months at the outside. I will come and claim you then, my darling. There’s no one who can stand between us.” “And how about father?” she asked. “He has given his consent, provided we get these mines working all right. I have no fear on that head.” “Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it all, there’s no more to be said,” she whispered, with her cheek against his broad breast. “Thank God!” he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her. “It is…

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Excerpt #3, from Mr. Standfast, by John Buchan

…They were the same all but one, and that one had a bold variation, for it contained four of the sentences used in the ordinary English advertisement. This struck me as fishy, and I started to write a letter to Macgillivray pointing out what seemed to be a case of trading with the enemy, and advising him to get on to Mr Gussiter’s financial backing. I thought he might find a Hun syndicate behind him. And then I had another notion, which made me rewrite my letter. I went through the papers again. The English ones which contained the advertisement were all good, solid, bellicose organs; the kind of thing no censorship would object to leaving the country. I had before me a small sheaf of pacifist prints, and they had not the advertisement. That might be for reasons of circulation, or it might not. The German papers were either Radical or Socialist publications, just the opposite of the English lot, except the Grosse Krieg. Now we have a free press, and Germany has, strictly speaking, none. All her journalistic indiscretions are calculated. Therefore the Boche has no objection to his rags getting to enemy countries. He wants it. He likes to see them quoted in columns headed “Through German Glasses”, and made the text of articles showing what a good democrat he is becoming. As I puzzled over the subject, certain conclusions began to form in my…

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Excerpt #4, from Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post, by Thomas Rainey

…Great Britain, and see the gradual, unfaltering progress that she has made from year to year, since 1833; increasing the mail facilities and the sums paid for them by constant accretion based on system, rather than by any spasmodic legislation, or the ruling caprices of the moment. These improvements have not come all in a mass, or in any one year. Neither have they been abandoned at times of financial embarrassment, or commercial depression. At such periods they have been as regularly fostered as in the times of the most flush prosperity; and have ever been properly considered one of the prime agents and necessities for restoring commerce to its normal condition and a safe equilibrium. The transmarine service, which cost but £583,793, or $2,918,965, per annum until 1850,[G] now costs £1,062,797, or $5,333,985; within a fraction of double the sum. While the increase has not been slow, it has been steady and systematic, just as it was necessary to meet the wants of British commerce throughout the world. The language of the Hon. Senator Rusk on this subject, in his Report made to the Senate, Sep. 18th, 1850, found in Senate Ex. Doc. No. 50, 1st Session of 32d Congress, in Special Rep. Secretary of the Navy, 1852, is forcible and worthy of remembrance. He says: [G] See Second Report, Steam Communication with India, 1851. Appendix,…

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Excerpt #5, from Lakeland Words, by Bryham Kirkby

…and gills), and to give a penny away spoiled a set. HACK—A pick axe. HACK-UP—To tear up with a pick axe. HACKT—Chipt, crackt. Mi hands is o’ hackt wi’ t’ frost wind. HAGSTOCK—A block to chop wood on. HAILE or HAYLE—The handle of a plough. HARDHEEDS—A flower resembling that of a thistle. HARDLINS—Scarcely. HACK-AN’-HEW—A bit o’ craft wi’ a scythe, rivin ’t up bi t’ riuts. HACK-AN’-HASSLE—T’ siam wi’ a razor. Is ta shaven, er thoo’s skinnen mi? That’s hack an’ hassle. HACK-DYKES—Ta mow aback o’ t’ dykes, whar t’ machine cart git tul. Lads mainly git t’ job o’ hackin dykes, an’ doesn’t it mak men o’ them when they stan up ta whet? HACKER—Stutter. HALE—Whole; healthy; sound. It’s a riut grown ’un is this. Hoo’s thi faddur? Hale an’ hearty. HALLAN—A partition; a place walled off. HANTEL—Supply; quantity. Tak a hantel o’ hay wi’ tha fer t’ hoggs. HAPSHA-RAPSHA—How-scrow; ham-sam; hap-hazard. HAVEY-SCAVEY—All in a mess. Throw them in havey-scavey….

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Excerpt #6, from A history of Canada, 1763 to 1812, by Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas

…western shore of the lake. The place was about five miles south of Plattsburg, about twenty-five miles south of what is now the boundary line of Canada, and a little less than fifty miles to the north of Crown Point. The strait between the island and the mainland is about a mile wide, and across it was the American line of battle. The English had the superiority in numbers and, as the result of the first day’s fighting, being carried to the south of the enemy’s ships, were at the close of the day drawn up in line to intercept their retreat. At night, however, Arnold, bold and skilful as ever, found a passage through and sailed off to the south, hotly pursued by Carleton’s squadron. On the 13th fighting began again, and ended with the capture or destruction of twelve American vessels, out of a total of fifteen, over 100 prisoners being taken including the second in command to Arnold. Crown Point was set on fire and abandoned by the Americans, and on the 14th Carleton wrote from his ship off that place reporting his success. In his dispatch he expressed doubts whether anything further could be done at that late season of the year, and he subsequently came to the conclusion that an attack on Ticonderoga, which was held by a strong force under Gates, must be postponed till the following spring. Nor did he think it prudent to occupy Crown Point, which…

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Excerpt #7, from Argonaut stories, by Jerome Hart

…she spoke a good word for our people.” “And we’ll take it out of their hides when the time comes,” said one of the soldiers, snapping his jaws together, which resolution the regiment unanimously adopted. Even the chaplain refrained from chiding when he heard of it. He knew his flock. There being no way of finding out anything about the girl, a fund was quickly collected and arrangements made for the funeral. Several hundred soldiers followed the hearse to the cemetery at El Paco. The regimental chaplain read the regulation burial service, while the men stood with bared heads. They placed at the head of the freshly made mound a plain board that read: FOUND IN THE PASIG. After the last soldier had gone, a cowering thing walked unsteadily up to the grave, and, kneeling beside it, laid down a cluster of green leaves. “By God! I did love her. I did,” he muttered, continuously. He drew a pencil from his pocket and scratched her name on the board: “Simplicia.” And his youth was buried there. THE GREAT EUCHRE BOOM By Charles Fleming Embree…

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Excerpt #8, from Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen

…to her; but I know your friendship for me will make you pleased to hear such a good account of myself and my dear Edward, after all the troubles we have went through lately, therefore will make no more apologies, but proceed to say that, thank God! though we have suffered dreadfully, we are both quite well now, and as happy as we must always be in one another’s love. We have had great trials, and great persecutions, but however, at the same time, gratefully acknowledge many friends, yourself not the least among them, whose great kindness I shall always thankfully remember, as will Edward too, who I have told of it. I am sure you will be glad to hear, as likewise dear Mrs. Jennings, I spent two happy hours with him yesterday afternoon, he would not hear of our parting, though earnestly did I, as I thought my duty required, urge him to it for prudence sake, and would have parted for ever on the spot, would he consent to it; but he said it should never be, he did not regard his mother’s anger, while he could have my affections; our prospects are not very bright, to be sure, but we must wait, and hope for the best; he will be ordained shortly; and should it ever be in your power to recommend him to any body that has a living to bestow, am very sure you will not forget us, and dear Mrs. Jennings too, trust she will speak a good word for us to Sir John, or Mr. Palmer, or any friend that may be able to assist us.—Poor Anne was much…

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Excerpt #9, from Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde, by Oscar Wilde

…chanced to visit them; pageants, by the way, which were considered so important that large prints were made of them and published–a fact which is a proof of the general interest at the time in matters of such kind.–The Truth of Masks. THE ART OF ARCHAEOLOGY Indeed archaeology is only really delightful when transfused into some form of art. I have no desire to underrate the services of laborious scholars, but I feel that the use Keats made of Lempriere’s Dictionary is of far more value to us than Professor Max Muller’s treatment of the same mythology as a disease of language. Better Endymion than any theory, however sound, or, as in the present instance, unsound, of an epidemic among adjectives! And who does not feel that the chief glory of Piranesi’s book on Vases is that it gave Keats the suggestion for his ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’? Art, and art only, can make archaeology beautiful; and the theatric art can use it most directly and most vividly, for it can combine in one exquisite presentation the illusion of actual life with the wonder of the unreal world. But the sixteenth century was not merely the age of Vitruvius; it was the age of Vecellio also. Every nation seems suddenly to have become interested in the dress of its neighbours. Europe began to investigate its own clothes, and the amount of books published on national costumes is quite extraordinary. At…

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Excerpt #10, from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

…even this be a feint that will increase your triumph by affording a wider scope for your revenge?” “How is this? I thought I had moved your compassion, and yet you still refuse to bestow on me the only benefit that can soften my heart, and render me harmless. If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing, of whose existence every one will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am now excluded.” I paused some time to reflect on all he had related, and the various arguments which he had employed. I thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence, and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him. His power and threats were not omitted in my calculations: a creature who could exist in the ice caves of the glaciers, and hide himself from pursuit among the ridges of inaccessible precipices, was a being possessing faculties it would be vain to cope with. After a long pause of reflection, I concluded, that…

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Excerpt #11, from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1, by Edgar Allan Poe

…“At a quarter-past eight, being no longer able to draw breath without the most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to adjust around the car the apparatus belonging to the condenser. This apparatus will require some little explanation, and your Excellencies will please to bear in mind that my object, in the first place, was to surround myself and cat entirely with a barricade against the highly rarefied atmosphere in which I was existing, with the intention of introducing within this barricade, by means of my condenser, a quantity of this same atmosphere sufficiently condensed for the purposes of respiration. With this object in view I had prepared a very strong perfectly air-tight, but flexible gum-elastic bag. In this bag, which was of sufficient dimensions, the entire car was in a manner placed. That is to say, it (the bag) was drawn over the whole bottom of the car, up its sides, and so on, along the outside of the ropes, to the upper rim or hoop where the net-work is attached. Having pulled the bag up in this way, and formed a complete enclosure on all sides, and at bottom, it was now necessary to fasten up its top or mouth, by passing its material over the hoop of the net-work—in other words, between the net-work and the hoop. But if the net-work were separated from…

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Excerpt #12, from The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

…inside the garden really never quite died away. He looked as if he were made of flesh instead of ivory or wax. They saw the robin carry food to his mate two or three times, and it was so suggestive of afternoon tea that Colin felt they must have some. “Go and make one of the men servants bring some in a basket to the rhododendron walk,” he said. “And then you and Dickon can bring it here.” It was an agreeable idea, easily carried out, and when the white cloth was spread upon the grass, with hot tea and buttered toast and crumpets, a delightfully hungry meal was eaten, and several birds on domestic errands paused to inquire what was going on and were led into investigating crumbs with great activity. Nut and Shell whisked up trees with pieces of cake and Soot took the entire half of a buttered crumpet into a corner and pecked at and examined and turned it over and made hoarse remarks about it until he decided to swallow it all joyfully in one gulp. The afternoon was dragging toward its mellow hour. The sun was deepening the gold of its lances, the bees were going home and the birds were flying past less often. Dickon and Mary were sitting on the grass, the tea-basket was re-packed ready to be taken back to the house, and Colin was lying against his cushions with his heavy locks pushed back from his…

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