Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:29

Excerpt #1, from The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells

…destroyed in the end. Every now and then people would glance nervously across the Wey, at the meadows towards Chertsey, but everything over there was still. Across the Thames, except just where the boats landed, everything was quiet, in vivid contrast with the Surrey side. The people who landed there from the boats went tramping off down the lane. The big ferryboat had just made a journey. Three or four soldiers stood on the lawn of the inn, staring and jesting at the fugitives, without offering to help. The inn was closed, as it was now within prohibited hours. “What’s that?” cried a boatman, and “Shut up, you fool!” said a man near me to a yelping dog. Then the sound came again, this time from the direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud—the sound of a gun. The fighting was beginning. Almost immediately unseen batteries across the river to our right, unseen because of the trees, took up the chorus, firing heavily one after the other. A woman screamed. Everyone stood arrested by the sudden stir of battle, near us and yet invisible to us. Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows feeding unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows motionless in the warm sunlight. “The sojers’ll stop ’em,” said a woman beside me, doubtfully. A haziness rose over the treetops….

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Excerpt #2, from The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties, by Richard Runciman Terry

…This was the most popular shanty for ‘sweating-up.’ There are many variants of it. The present version I learnt from Capt. John Runciman. In this shanty no attempt was ever made to sing the last word. It was always shouted. 30. PADDY DOYLE’S BOOTS This shanty differs from all others, as (a) it was sung tutti throughout; (b) it had only one verse, which was sung over and over again; and (c) it was used for one operation and one operation only, viz. bunting up the foresail or mainsail in furling. In this operation the canvas of the sail was folded intensively until it formed a smooth conical bundle. This was called a bunt, and a strong collective effort (at the word ‘boots’) was required to get it on to the yard. Although the same verse was sung over and over again, very occasionally a different text would be substituted, which was treated in the same manner. Capt. Whall gives two alternatives, which were sometimes used: ‘We’ll all drink brandy and gin,’ and– ‘We’ll all shave under the chin.’ Mr. Morley Roberts also told me that a variant in his ship was– ‘We’ll all throw dirt at the cook.’…

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Excerpt #3, from Classic French Course in English, by William Cleaver Wilkinson

…made interest enough with influential friends to get himself transferred from the Franciscans to the Benedictines, an order more favorable to studious pursuits. But neither among the Benedictines was this roistering spirit at ease. He left them irregularly, but managed to escape punishment for his irregularity. At last, after various vicissitudes of occupation, he settled down as curate of Meudon, where (the place, however, is doubtful, as also the date) in 1553 he died. He was past fifty years of age before he finished the work which has made him famous. This work is “The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel,” a grotesque and nondescript production, founded, probably, on some prior romance or traditionary tale of giants. The narrative of Rabelais is a tissue of adventures shocking every idea of verisimilitude, and serving only as a vehicle for the strange humor of the writer. The work is replete with evidences of Rabelais’s learning. It would be useless to attempt giving any abstract or analysis of a book which is simply a wild chaos of material jumbled together with little regard to logic, order, or method of whatever sort. We shall better represent its character by giving a few specimen extracts. Rabelais begins his romance characteristically. According as you understand him here, you judge the spirit of the whole work. Either he…

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Excerpt #4, from The King James Version of the Bible

…of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. 49:7 Thus saith the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the LORD that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee. 49:8 Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; 49:9 That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places. 49:10 They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them. 49:11 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted. 49:12 Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim….

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Excerpt #5, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

…at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake it had made. “He took me for his housemaid,” she said to herself as she ran. “How surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I am! But I’d better take him his fan and gloves—that is, if I can find them.” As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name “W. RABBIT,” engraved upon it. She went in without knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and gloves. “How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be going messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah’ll be sending me on messages next!” And she began fancying the sort of thing that would happen: “‘Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get ready for your walk!’ ‘Coming in a minute, nurse! But I’ve got to see that the mouse doesn’t get out.’ Only I don’t think,” Alice went on, “that they’d let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering people about like that!” By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a…

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Excerpt #6, from Hard Times, by Charles Dickens

…and back were as much too broad, as his legs were too short. He was dressed in a Newmarket coat and tight-fitting trousers; wore a shawl round his neck; smelt of lamp-oil, straw, orange-peel, horses’ provender, and sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort of Centaur, compounded of the stable and the play-house. Where the one began, and the other ended, nobody could have told with any precision. This gentleman was mentioned in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B. Childers, so justly celebrated for his daring vaulting act as the Wild Huntsman of the North American Prairies; in which popular performance, a diminutive boy with an old face, who now accompanied him, assisted as his infant son: being carried upside down over his father’s shoulder, by one foot, and held by the crown of his head, heels upwards, in the palm of his father’s hand, according to the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen may be observed to fondle their offspring. Made up with curls, wreaths, wings, white bismuth, and carmine, this hopeful young person soared into so pleasing a Cupid as to constitute the chief delight of the maternal part of the spectators; but in private, where his characteristics were a precocious cutaway coat and an extremely gruff voice, he became of the Turf, turfy. ‘By your leaves, gentlemen,’ said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, glancing round the room. ‘It was you, I believe, that were wishing to see Jupe!’…

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Excerpt #7, from Sketches New and Old, by Mark Twain

…tomahawk. If Mackenzie’s death can be proven by these, you can then go before the commission appointed to audit claims with some show of getting your bill under such headway that your children may possibly live to receive the money and enjoy it. But that man’s death must be proven. However, I may as well tell you that the government will never pay that transportation and those traveling expenses of the lamented Mackenzie. It may possibly pay for the barrel of beef that Sherman’s soldiers captured, if you can get a relief bill through Congress making an appropriation for that purpose; but it will not pay for the twenty-nine barrels the Indians ate.” “Then there is only a hundred dollars due me, and that isn’t certain! After all Mackenzie’s travels in Europe, Asia, and America with that beef; after all his trials and tribulations and transportation; after the slaughter of all those innocents that tried to collect that bill! Young man, why didn’t the First Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division tell me this?” “He didn’t know anything about the genuineness of your claim.” “Why didn’t the Second tell me? why didn’t the Third? why didn’t all those divisions and departments tell me?” “None of them knew. We do things by routine here. You have followed the routine and found out what you wanted to know. It is the best way….

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Excerpt #8, from The Voyage of the “Deutschland”, by Paul König

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Excerpt #9, from The School and Society, by John Dewey

…Again the child participates in the household occupations, and thereby gets habits of industry, order, and regard for the rights and ideas of others, and the fundamental habit of subordinating his activities to the general interest of the household. Participation in these household tasks becomes an opportunity for gaining knowledge. The ideal home would naturally have a workshop where the child could work out his constructive instincts. It would have a miniature laboratory in which his inquiries could be directed. The life of the child would extend out of doors to the garden, surrounding fields, and forests. He would have his excursions, his walks and talks, in which the larger world out of doors would open to him. Now, if we organize and generalize all of this, we have the ideal school. There is no mystery about it, no wonderful discovery of pedagogy or educational theory. It is simply a question of doing systematically and in a large, intelligent, and competent way what for various reasons can be done in most households only in a comparatively meager and haphazard manner. In the first place, the ideal home has to be enlarged. The child must be brought into contact with more grown people and with more children in order that there may be the freest and richest social life. Moreover, the occupations and relationships of the home environment are not specially selected for the growth of the child; the…

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Excerpt #10, from Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

…post; do not lose an hour, if you respect me. Let young Hawkins go at once to see his mother, with Redruth for a guard; and then both come full speed to Bristol. John Trelawney Postscript–I did not tell you that Blandly, who, by the way, is to send a consort after us if we don’t turn up by the end of August, had found an admirable fellow for sailing master–a stiff man, which I regret, but in all other respects a treasure. Long John Silver unearthed a very competent man for a mate, a man named Arrow. I have a boatswain who pipes, Livesey; so things shall go man-o’-war fashion on board the good ship HISPANIOLA. I forgot to tell you that Silver is a man of substance; I know of my own knowledge that he has a banker’s account, which has never been overdrawn. He leaves his wife to manage the inn; and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of old bachelors like you and I may be excused for…

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Excerpt #11, from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson

…A close observer might have gathered that the topic was distasteful; but the doctor carried it off gaily. “My poor Utterson,” said he, “you are unfortunate in such a client. I never saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies. O, I know he’s a good fellow—you needn’t frown—an excellent fellow, and I always mean to see more of him; but a hide-bound pedant for all that; an ignorant, blatant pedant. I was never more disappointed in any man than Lanyon.” “You know I never approved of it,” pursued Utterson, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic. “My will? Yes, certainly, I know that,” said the doctor, a trifle sharply. “You have told me so.” “Well, I tell you so again,” continued the lawyer. “I have been learning something of young Hyde.” The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very lips, and there came a blackness about his eyes. “I do not care to hear more,” said he. “This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop.” “What I heard was abominable,” said Utterson. “It can make no change. You do not understand my position,” returned the doctor, with a certain incoherency of manner. “I am painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very strange—a very strange one….

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Excerpt #12, from Phrases and Names, Their Origins and Meanings, by Trench H. Johnson

…America are the Democrats, whose political aims are above cliques or parties; therefore they refuse to be influenced by a “Caucus.” =Mulatto.= From the Spanish mulato, a mixed breed, through mulo, a mule, the offspring of a white and a Negro. =Mumm.= A strong German beer named after Christian Mumme, who first brewed it. =Mummer.= Slang for an actor. This old English term, derived from the German mumme, a mask, was applied to the performers in a Christmas masque or buffoonery. =Mummock.= An Americanism for handle, disarrange, or play with–e.g. “Don’t mummock things about.” The word is really obsolete provincial English for “maul.” =Munich.= From the German monchen, monks. On the spot where the city stands some monks built a warehouse for the salt which they obtained in the neighbourhood. In the twelfth century Henry the Lion made this Villa Minichen, as it was then called, into a mint, and a town grew up around it. =Munster Road.= From Munster House, the residence of Melesina Schulenberg, created Duchess of Munster by George II. =Munster Square.= In honour of the eldest son of William IV., created Earl of Munster….

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