Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:43

Excerpt #1, from Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll

…down there? They can’t be bees—nobody ever saw bees a mile off, you know—” and for some time she stood silent, watching one of them that was bustling about among the flowers, poking its proboscis into them, “just as if it was a regular bee,” thought Alice. However, this was anything but a regular bee: in fact it was an elephant—as Alice soon found out, though the idea quite took her breath away at first. “And what enormous flowers they must be!” was her next idea. “Something like cottages with the roofs taken off, and stalks put to them—and what quantities of honey they must make! I think I’ll go down and—no, I won’t just yet,” she went on, checking herself just as she was beginning to run down the hill, and trying to find some excuse for turning shy so suddenly. “It’ll never do to go down among them without a good long branch to brush them away—and what fun it’ll be when they ask me how I like my walk. I shall say—‘Oh, I like it well enough—’” (here came the favourite little toss of the head), “‘only it was so dusty and hot, and the elephants did tease so!’” “I think I’ll go down the other way,” she said after a pause: “and perhaps I may visit the elephants later on. Besides, I do so want to get into the Third Square!” So with this excuse she ran down the hill and jumped over the first of the six little brooks….

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Excerpt #2, from The Diary of a Nobody, by George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith

…Mutlar, and she was the nicest, prettiest, and most accomplished girl he ever met. He loved her the moment he saw her, and if he had to wait fifty years he would wait, and he knew she would wait for him. Lupin further said, with much warmth, that the world was a different world to him now,—it was a world worth living in. He lived with an object now, and that was to make Daisy Mutlar—Daisy Pooter, and he would guarantee she would not disgrace the family of the Pooters. Carrie here burst out crying, and threw her arms round his neck, and in doing so, upset the glass of port he held in his hand all over his new light trousers. I said I had no doubt we should like Miss Mutlar when we saw her, but Carrie said she loved her already. I thought this rather premature, but held my tongue. Daisy Mutlar was the sole topic of conversation for the remainder of the day. I asked Lupin who her people were, and he replied: “Oh, you know Mutlar, Williams and Watts.” I did not know, but refrained from asking any further questions at present, for fear of irritating Lupin. NOVEMBER 6.—Lupin went with me to the office, and had a long conversation with Mr. Perkupp, our principal, the result of which was that he accepted a clerkship in the firm of Job Cleanands and Co., Stock and Share Brokers. Lupin told me, privately, it was an advertising firm, and he…

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Excerpt #3, from Curiosities of the Sky, by Garrett Putman Serviss

…drops vertically to the horizon and night rushes on like a wave of darkness, the Zodiacal Light shoots to the very zenith, its color is described as a golden tint, entirely different from the silvery sheen of the Milky Way. If I may venture again to refer to personal experiences and impressions, I will recall a view of the Zodiacal Light from the summit of the cone of Mt Etna in the autumn of the year 1896 (more briefly described in Astronomy with the Naked Eye). There are few lofty mountains so favorably placed as Etna for observations of this kind. It was once resorted to by Prof. George E. Hale, in an attempt to see the solar corona without an eclipse. Rising directly from sea-level to an elevation of nearly eleven thousand feet, the observer on its summit at night finds himself, as it were, lost in the midst of the sky. But for the black flanks of the great cone on which he stands he might fancy himself to be in a balloon. On the occasion to which I refer the world beneath was virtually invisible in the moonless night. The blaze of the constellations overhead was astonishingly brilliant, yet amid all their magnificence my attention was immediately drawn to a great tapering light that sprang from the place on the horizon where the sun would rise later, and that seemed to be blown out over the stars like a long, luminous veil. It was the finest view of the Zodiacal light that I had ever enjoyed – thrilling…

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Excerpt #4, from From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan, by H. P. Blavatsky

…I must not attempt to give a full description of these temples, as this subject must be worked out in a way quite impossible in a newspaper article. So I shall only note that here all the statues, idols, and carvings are ascribed to Buddhist ascetics of the first centuries after the death of Buddha. I wish I could content myself with this statement. But, unfortunately, messieurs les archeologues meet here with an unexpected difficulty, and a more serious one than all the difficulties brought on them by the inconsistencies of all other temples put together. In these temples there are more idols designated Buddhas than anywhere else. They cover the main entrance, sit in thick rows along the balconies, occupy the inner walls of the cells, watch the entrances of all the doors like monster giants, and two of them sit in the chief tank, where spring water washes them century after century without any harm to their granite bodies. Some of these Buddhas are decently clad, with pyramidal pagodas as their head gear; others are naked; some sit, others stand; some are real colossi, some tiny, some of middle size. However, all this would not matter; we may go so far as to overlook the fact of Gautama’s or Siddhartha-Buddha’s reform consisting precisely in his earnest desire to tear up by the roots the Brahmanical idol-worship. Though, of course, we cannot help remembering that his religion remained…

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Excerpt #5, from Around the World on a Bicycle Volume I, by Thomas Stevens

…their sheep; and as I go over to the spring, ostensibly to obtain a drink, but really to have a look at them, they both sneak off at my approach, like criminals avoiding one whom they suspect of being a detective. Take it all in all, I am satisfied that this neighborhood is a place that I have been fortunate in coming through in broad daylight; by moonlight it might have furnished a far more interesting item than the above. An hour after, I am gratified at obtaining my first glimpse of the Sea of Marmora off to the right, and in another hour I am disporting in the warm clear surf, a luxury that has not been within my reach since leaving Dieppe, and which is a thrice welcome privilege in this land, where the usual ablutions at mehanas consist of pouring water on the hands from a tin cup. The beach is composed of sand and tiny shells, the warm surf-waves are clear as crystal, and my first plunge in the Marmora, after a two months’ cycle tour across a continent, is the most thoroughly enjoyable bath I ever had; notwithstanding, I feel it my duty to keep a loose eye on some shepherds perched on a handy knoll, who look as if half inclined to slip down and examine my clothes. The clothes, with, of course, the revolver and every penny I have with me, are almost as near to them as to me, and always, after ducking my head under water, my first care is to take a precautionary glance in their direction. “Cursed is the mind that nurses suspicion,” someone has said; but under…

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Excerpt #6, from 13 Days: The Chronicle of an Escape from a German Prison, by John Alan Lyde Caunter

…eventually became a large affair with a librarian and a room to itself. Some prisoners managed to continue playing cards from their first days in prison until I left, and I suppose will continue to do so without ceasing until the day of their release. Personally, after the first year I spent in captivity I hated the sight of a card and played very seldom. The orchestra, from modest beginnings, grew into a really excellent institution. Most of the instruments were hired from the town of Crefeld. By dint of asking repeatedly, we persuaded the Germans to allow us to run a theatre, which also developed from an extremely crude state into what was really quite a respectable affair. The main difficulty with which our theatrical manager had to contend, was the lack of material for “girls” in the caste. However, practise and hard training turned out some passable ones in time. The French were more fortunate in this respect than the English. They are all born actors it seems, and they found two or three really excellent male “actresses.” The Russians also produced theatrical displays, but were not so persevering in that respect as the French and British. Periodically the camp used to be visited by German officers on leave…

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Excerpt #7, from Let’s Get Together, by Isaac Asimov

…could the humanoids pass our security provisions? How could they get together?" “But they are getting together! We’re helping them to do so. We’re ordering them to do so. Our scientists visit the other side, Breckenridge. They visit Them regularly. You made a point of how strange it was that no one in robotics did. Well, ten of those scientists are still there and in their place, ten humanoids are converging on Cheyenne.” “That’s a ridiculous guess.” “I think it’s a good one, Breckenridge. But it wouldn’t work unless we knew humanoids were in America so that we would call the conference in the first place. Quite a coincidence that you brought the news of the humanoids and suggested the conference and suggested the agenda and are running the show and know exactly which scientists were invited. Did you make sure the right ten were included?” “Dr. Lynn!” cried Breckenridge in outrage. He poised to rush forward. Lynn said, "Don’t move. I’ve got a blaster here. We’ll just wait for the scientists to get here one by one. One by one we’ll X-ray them. One by one, we’ll monitor them for radioactivity. No two will get together without being checked, and if all five hundred are clear, I’ll give you my blaster and surrender to you. Only I think we’ll find the ten…

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Excerpt #8, from The Subterranean World, by G. Hartwig

…among the buried articles. The extraordinary number of the mounds implies a long period during which a settled agricultural population, considerably advanced in the industrial arts, occupied the fertile valleys or the alluvial plains in the basin of the Mississippi, covered, since then, with vast forests, and tenanted by wild hunters without any traditionary connexion with their more civilised predecessors. The epoch when this people flourished, or the adverse circumstances which swept them away, are all equally unknown; but the age and nature of the trees found growing on some of their earthworks afford at least some data for estimating the minimum of time which must have passed since the mounds were abandoned. Trunks, displaying eight hundred rings of annual growth, have been cut down from them, and several generations of trees must have lived and died before the mounds could have been overspread with that variety of species which they supported when the white man first set foot in the valley of the Ohio. In a memoir on this subject, General Harrison, who was skilled in woodcraft, observes that ‘beyond all doubt no trees were allowed to grow so long as the earthworks were in use; and when they were forsaken, the ground, like all newly cleared ground in Ohio, would for a time be monopolised by one or two species of tree, such as the yellow locust and the black or white walnut. When the individuals which…

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Excerpt #9, from The Last Stroke: A Detective Story, by Lawrence L. Lynch

…your enemies and a fortune." “Impossible!” “I knew you would say that. But wait.” Ferrars rose abruptly. “I shall not see you again before we leave for New York,” he said, taking up his hat. “Come with me across the way, I must say good-bye to the ladies; they—-” “Do they understand?” “Yes.” Mrs. Myers and her two charges were pleasantly bestowed just across the street, in one of the cosy and tree-encircled cottages of the aristocratic little suburb, in which the party had found a retreat. And all three were still upon the broad piazza when the two men appeared. No other occupants of the house were visible, and before long Robert Brierly found that, by accident or design, the detective, Mrs. Myers, and Hilda, had withdrawn to the further end of the long veranda, and that Ruth Glidden had crossed to his side, and now stood before him, leaning lightly against a square pillar, and so near that he could not well rise without disturbing her charming pose. Before he could open his lips she was speaking. "Robert, don’t get up. Please do not. There is something I must say to you. I have seen the trouble, the anxiety in your face to-night. I know…

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Excerpt #10, from Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell

…with the whip, though I was fairly off. There had been a good deal of road-mending going on, and even where the stones were not freshly laid down there were a great many loose ones about. My driver was laughing and joking with the lady and the children, and talking about the country to the right and the left; but he never thought it worth while to keep an eye on his horse or to drive on the smoothest parts of the road; and so it easily happened that I got a stone in one of my fore feet. Now, if Mr. Gordon or John, or in fact any good driver, had been there, he would have seen that something was wrong before I had gone three paces. Or even if it had been dark a practiced hand would have felt by the rein that there was something wrong in the step, and they would have got down and picked out the stone. But this man went on laughing and talking, while at every step the stone became more firmly wedged between my shoe and the frog of my foot. The stone was sharp on the inside and round on the outside, which, as every one knows, is the most dangerous kind that a horse can pick up, at the same time cutting his foot and making him most liable to stumble and fall. Whether the man was partly blind or only very careless I can’t say, but he drove me with that stone in my foot for a good half-mile before he saw anything. By that time I was going so lame with the pain that at last he saw it, and called out, “Well, here’s a go! Why, they have sent…

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

…science to which genius or accident leads you. The whole volume of Nature lies open to your eye, and furnishes an infinite variety of entertainment. If I was sure that nature had given you such strong principles of taste and sentiment as would remain with you, and influence your future conduct, with the utmost pleasure would I endeavour to direct your reading in such a way as might form that taste to the utmost perfection of truth and elegance. “But when I reflect how easy it is to warm a girl’s imagination, and how difficult deeply and permanently to affect her heart; how readily she enters into every refinement of sentiment, and how easily she can sacrifice them to vanity or convenience;” I think I may very probably do you an injury by artificially creating a taste, which, if Nature never gave it you, would only serve to embarrass your future conduct.—I do not want to make you any thing: I want to know what Nature has made you, and to perfect you on her plan. I do not wish you to have sentiments that might perplex you: I wish you to have sentiments that may uniformly and steadily guide you, and such as your hearts so thoroughly approve, that you would not forego them for any consideration this world could offer. DRESS is an important article in female life. The love of dress is natural to you, and therefore it is proper and reasonable. Good sense will regulate your expence in it, and good taste will direct you to…

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Excerpt #12, from The Art of Conversation: Twelve Golden Rules, by Josephine Turck Baker

…story-telling. It seems to me that if one would entertain one’s friends now and then with a good story, it would enliven what would otherwise be a very dull occasion. She.–Story-tellers–good story-tellers–are probably born, not made; and yet, the person who is not especially gifted in this art, may succeed in entertaining his listeners, provided that he has wit enough to remember the “point,” and to couch his language so that the dénouement is not surmised, for surprise is an important element in the telling of a story. He.–Occasionally, I hear a good story, and one that I wish to remember, but I can never trust myself to repeat it for fear that I shall commit the flagrant sin of missing the “point”; and that omission would, of course, be unpardonable. She.–I think you might become a very successful reconteur, if you would give some attention to the art in question. Of course, the important thing to remember is, what are the essentials, to omit all unnecessary details, to keep the listener in suspense and, above all, not to omit the point. We can not all be Charles Lambs nor Sydney Smiths, but we can each have our little store of “funnycisms” from which to draw when the occasion is opportune, or the story relevant. He.–Well, I suppose we must decide that one must be a good listener…

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