Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:51

Excerpt #1, from My Adventures During the Late War, by Donat Henchy O’Brien

…one or two were even snoring. By the guard’s light, as they passed, I found that I had got into the bed of a servant, an American named Clarke. He was so intolerably intoxicated (they managed that night to get some snique, or brandy, smuggled in) that I was a long time before I could rouse him; and when he was awake, I had as much difficulty in making him understand who I was, and why I had got into his bed. I dreaded lest the stupefied fellow might utter some ejaculation that might expose everything. Fortunately, however, as soon as he was able to understand what I said, he desired me to cover my face, and assisted me to conceal myself as well as he could. It afterwards appeared that he had gone to bed fully aware of the part he was to play the next morning, and that he had got a little drunk to give him courage for his enterprise; and as in drunkenness a little always leads to more, he had at last got very drunk, under the delusion that he would recover himself before the time of decamping arrived. This is the common self-deception, I believe, of all incipient drunkards. On discovering that the first door had been opened, the commanding officer of the searching party said, with a sneer, “That he would give us weeks to get through the next;” meaning the ponderous, massive iron door which I have already described. On advancing a few paces, one of the guards proclaimed, with a horrid oath, that even the iron door had…

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Excerpt #2, from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum

…the journey, and there she saw the Golden Cap. She tried it on her own head and found that it fitted her exactly. She did not know anything about the charm of the Golden Cap, but she saw that it was pretty, so she made up her mind to wear it and carry her sunbonnet in the basket. Then, being prepared for the journey, they all started for the Emerald City; and the Winkies gave them three cheers and many good wishes to carry with them. Chapter XIV. The Winged Monkeys [Illustration] [Illustration] You will remember there was no road–not even a pathway–between the castle of the Wicked Witch and the Emerald City. When the four travellers went in search of the Witch she had seen them coming, and so sent the Winged Monkeys to bring them to her. It was much harder to find their way back through the big fields of buttercups and yellow daisies than it was being carried. They knew, of course, they must go straight east, toward the rising sun; and they started off in the right way. But at noon, when the sun was over their heads, they did not know which was east and which was west, and that was…

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Excerpt #3, from Why Men Fight: A method of abolishing the international duel, by Bertrand Russell

…was not to be won by an imperialist policy. But by our resistance we showed that we shared their standards. We, being in possession, became enamored of the status quo. The Germans were willing to make war to upset the status quo; we were willing to make war to prevent its being upset in Germany’s favor. So convinced were we of the sacredness of the status quo that we never realized how advantageous it was to us, or how, by insisting upon it, we shared the responsibility for the war. In a world where nations grow and decay, where forces change and populations become cramped, it is not possible or desirable to maintain the status quo for ever. If peace is to be preserved, nations must learn to accept unfavorable alterations of the map without feeling that they must first be defeated in war, or that in yielding they incur a humiliation. It is the insistence of legalists and friends of peace upon the maintenance of the status quo that has driven Germany into militarism. Germany had as good a right to an Empire as any other Great Power, but could only acquire an Empire through war. Love of peace has been too much associated with a static conception of international relations. In economic disputes we all know that whatever is vigorous in the wage-earning classes is opposed to “industrial peace,” because the existing distribution of wealth is felt to be unfair. Those who…

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Excerpt #4, from Appletons’ Popular Science Monthly, March 1899, by Various

…the military establishment.[3] All the rest is expenditure that should no more be intrusted to the Government–that is, subject to the application of political instead of business methods–than the expenditure of a household, or a farm, or a cotton mill, or an iron foundry. Even if it were a legitimate expenditure of the Government, it could not be collected nor expended without injustice. Tax laws have never been and never will be framed that will not permit some one to escape his share of the burdens of the community; and the heavier those burdens are, as they are constantly becoming to an alarming degree, the more desperate will be the effort to shirk them–the more lightly will they rest upon the dishonest and unworthy, and the more heavily upon the honest and worthy. Moreover, it has never been possible, and it never will be possible, to expend money by political methods without either waste or fraud, and most usually without both. Such a volume of legislation and taxation permits of the easy detection of the vital difference between the theory and practice of politics. According to the text-books and professors, politics is the science of government. In countries like the United States, where popular institutions prevail, the purpose of its study is the discovery and the application of the methods that shall enable all citizens, rich and poor, to share alike in the inestimable privilege…

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Excerpt #5, from The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson

…FACE [FEELS HIS POCKETS]. Full. SUB. You shall be emptied, Don, pumped and drawn Dry, as they say. FACE. Milked, in troth, sweet Don. SUB. See all the monsters; the great lion of all, Don. SUR. Con licencia, se puede ver a esta senora? SUB. What talks he now? FACE. Of the sennora. SUB. O, Don, This is the lioness, which you shall see Also, my Don. FACE. ’Slid, Subtle, how shall we do? SUB. For what? FACE. Why Dol’s employ’d, you know. SUB. That’s true. ’Fore heaven, I know not: he must stay, that’s all. FACE. Stay! that he must not by no means. SUB. No! why? FACE. Unless you’ll mar all. ’Slight, he will suspect it: And then he will not pay, not half so well. This is a travelled punk-master, and does know…

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Excerpt #6, from Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling

…when you find a Hedgehog you must drop him into the water and then he will uncoil, and when you catch a Tortoise you must scoop him out of his shell with your paw.’ And so that was all right, Best Beloved. One beautiful night on the banks of the turbid Amazon, Painted Jaguar found Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog and Slow-Solid Tortoise sitting under the trunk of a fallen tree. They could not run away, and so Stickly-Prickly curled himself up into a ball, because he was a Hedgehog, and Slow-Solid Tortoise drew in his head and feet into his shell as far as they would go, because he was a Tortoise; and so that was all right, Best Beloved. Do you see? ‘Now attend to me,’ said Painted Jaguar, ‘because this is very important. My mother said that when I meet a Hedgehog I am to drop him into the water and then he will uncoil, and when I meet a Tortoise I am to scoop him out of his shell with my paw. Now which of you is Hedgehog and which is Tortoise? because, to save my spots, I can’t tell.’ ‘Are you sure of what your Mummy told you?’ said Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog. ‘Are you quite sure? Perhaps she said that when you uncoil a Tortoise you must shell him out the water with a scoop, and when you paw a Hedgehog you must drop him on the shell.’ ‘Are you sure of what your Mummy told you?’ said Slow-and-Solid Tortoise. ‘Are you quite sure? Perhaps she said that when you water a…

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Excerpt #7, from Ox Team Days on the Oregon Trail, by Howard R. Driggs and Ezra Meeker

…left for cattle. In fact, the run on provisions for the gold rush was so great that at one time we were almost threatened with famine. Finally our cattle, mostly cows, were loaded in an open scow and taken in tow alongside the steamer, the Sea Bird, I think it was. [Illustration: A “shaker” used to wash out gold.] All went well enough until we arrived off the head of Whidby Island. Here a choppy sea from a light wind began slopping over the scow and evidently would sink us despite our utmost efforts at bailing. When the captain would slow down the speed of his steamer, all was well; but the moment greater power was applied, over the gunwales would come the water. The dialogue that ensued between the captain and me was more emphatic than elegant. He dared not risk letting go of us, however, or of running us under, for fear of incurring the risk of heavy damages. I would not consent to be landed. So about the twentieth of June we were set adrift in Bellingham Bay and, tired and sleepy, landed on the beach. Our cows must have feed, they must be milked, the milk must be marketed. There was no rest for us during another thirty-six hours. In fact, there was but little sleep for anybody on that beach at the time. Several ocean steamers had just dumped three thousand people on the beach, and there was still a scramble to find a place to build a house or stretch…

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Excerpt #8, from The Principles of Biology, Volume 2 (of 2), by Herbert Spencer

…greatest degrees, and increasing them, an established structure and an established habit may arise. And that they do in some way arise we have proof. The common Loach swallows air, which it afterwards discharges loaded with carbonic acid. From air thus swallowed the advantages that may be derived are of two kinds. In the first place, the fish is made specifically lighter, and the muscular effort needed to keep it from sinking is diminished–or, indeed, if the bubble is of the right size, is altogether saved. The contrast between the movements of a Goby, which, after swimming up towards the surface, falls rapidly to the bottom on ceasing its exertions, and the movements of a Trout, which remains suspended just balancing itself by slight undulations of its fins, shows how great an economy results from an internal float, to fishes which seek their food in mid-water or at the surface. Hence the habit of swallowing air having been initiated in the way described, we see why natural selection will, in certain fishes, aid modifications of the alimentary canal favouring its lodgment–modifications constituting air-sacs. In the second place, while from air thus lodged in air-sacs thus developed, the advantage will be that of flotation only if the air is infrequently changed or never changed, the advantage will be that of supplementary respiration if the air-sacs are from time to time…

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Excerpt #9, from The Foolish Dictionary, by Gideon Wurdz

…pictures, develops crops, liquidates the ice business and tans skins on the side. Profits by his daily rays and always has a shine. * * * * =SYMPATHY= [Illustration] Feeling for others; very noticeable in Blind Man’s Buff. * * * =SYNDICATE= A conspiracy to extend the modest business established by Captain Kidd. Fortune knocks only once at a man’s door–And she’s the worst Knocker in the world. T Brevity is the soul of wit–and the sole charm of of a bicycle skirt. =TAILOR= One who takes your measure on first sight, gives you a fit, sews you up and follows suit until paid. * * * * =TALK= A continuous performance playing daily and nightly engagements, with Woman as the star and Man confined in the Family Circle….

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Excerpt #10, from Vistas in Sicily, by Arthur Stanley Riggs

…wall. It is exactly the same as the door of a little carpenter shop alongside, with the single exception of an inscription in faded paint: Ristorante. [Illustration: “The red and tan ruin of the Greek Theater … But it is Ætna that makes Taormina.”] The greatest charm of the place is a garden, which rambles about partly on the level, partly down steep little banks, and then, in the rear, rolls up to a stone wall beyond which is one of the milky white roads of the country. It is crammed with the wildest sort of tangled climbing roses, tiny things the rich color of a Maréchal Niel but no bigger than a ten-cent piece; large red, yellow, pink and white roses; splendid geraniums, orange trees, lemons, medlars, almonds, stubby agaves, prickly pear, pink-flowered climbing cactus, and wonder of wonders, even a pair of apple trees! Ivy, numerous other vines and brilliant convolvulus riot about them all, while down the center runs a path under lemon-arches half smothered in rose bloom. Beside this walk is a trellis bower covered with thousands of the tiny yellow roses, and furnished with a marble-topped table and an iron chair–an ideal literary workshop. But alas! the village tinsmith evidently shared my prejudice in its favor. When I came out prepared to work he had already preëmpted it for his mechanical workshop, and was…

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Excerpt #11, from Phrases and Names, Their Origins and Meanings, by Trench H. Johnson

…each line, so called after Leoninus, a canon of St Victor in Paris midway in the twelfth century. =Let the Cat out of the Bag.= To disclose a trick unwittingly. The illusion is to a very old device at country fairs of selling a cat for a sucking pig. One pig only was exposed to view; all the others were supposed to be ready tied up for carrying away. If, on occasion, a purchaser insisted on untying the sack before paying for it, the cat leapt out, and the fraud was discovered. As to the other victims who had taken away theirs on trust, they were forced to admit, because their sack contained no sucking pig, that they had been “sucked in.” =Levant.= An Italian term for the Orient or East–i.e. all those parts of the Mediterranean eastward of Italy. The word is also used in the sense of to depart, and a defaulter was said to have levanted, or gone to the Levant. This was in allusion to the “Grand Tour” which all scions of the nobility were expected to make on reaching their majority. =Levee.= A French word applied to a royal reception, from lever, arising, because in former times such a function took place in the King’s bed-chamber at the hour of rising. =Levellers.= The primitive Radicals or Socialists of the time of Charles…

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Excerpt #12, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

…Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose— What made you so awfully clever?” “I have answered three questions, and that is enough,” Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!” “That is not said right,” said the Caterpillar. “Not quite right, I’m afraid,” said Alice, timidly; “some of the words have got altered.” “It is wrong from beginning to end,” said the Caterpillar decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes. The Caterpillar was the first to speak. “What size do you want to be?” it asked. “Oh, I’m not particular as to size,” Alice hastily replied; “only one doesn’t like changing so often, you know.” “I don’t know,” said the Caterpillar. Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper. “Are you content now?” said the Caterpillar. “Well, I should like to be a little larger, sir, if you wouldn’t mind,” said Alice: “three inches is such a wretched height to be.”…

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