Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:52

Excerpt #1, from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum

…“Come along, Toto,” she said, “we will go to the Emerald City and ask the great Oz how to get back to Kansas again.” She closed the door, locked it, and put the key carefully in the pocket of her dress. And so, with Toto trotting along soberly behind her, she started on her journey. There were several roads near by, but it did not take her long to find the one paved with yellow brick. Within a short time she was walking briskly toward the Emerald City, her silver shoes tinkling merrily on the hard, yellow roadbed. The sun shone bright and the birds sang sweet and Dorothy did not feel nearly as bad as you might think a little girl would who had been suddenly whisked away from her own country and set down in the midst of a strange land. [Illustration] She was surprised, as she walked along, to see how pretty the country was about her. There were neat fences at the sides of the road, painted a dainty blue color, and beyond them were fields of grain and vegetables in abundance. Evidently the Munchkins were good farmers and able to raise large crops. Once in a while she would pass a house, and the people came out to look at her and bow low as she went by; for everyone knew she had been the means of destroying the wicked witch and setting them free from bondage. The houses of the…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #2, from Contemporary One

…[The FORMER POOR MAN grunts in irritation and turns his back on her. VAIN WOMAN. I cannot hear a word that is said to me. No one seems to want me around, and I am not invited out any more. I have the feeling that people are making fun of me instead of praising my beauty. Oh, it is dreadful to be deaf. [Getting hysterical.] I want the Judge to take away this deafness. I would rather have my wrinkles. [IMP shakes his head in pretended sympathy, saying: “Too bad, too bad.” [She misunderstands and cries out. VAIN WOMAN. Has the Judge given away my wrinkles? I want them back. I want my very own wrinkles, too. Wrinkles are distinguished-looking. [Beginning to sob.] I don’t want to be deaf any longer. IMP. [Running over to the FORMER POOR MAN.] Say, this lady feels very bad. Can’t you cheer her up a little? FORMER POOR MAN. [Who is still rocking back and forth with his own misery, looks up at IMP in disgust.] Cheer–her–up! Me? What’s the joke? [The VAIN WOMAN walks to the curtained door, looks in as if seeking something, then returns to a chair, where she sits, weeping softly….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #3, from Arms and the Man, by Bernard Shaw

…seen him yet. Perhaps I can help you to settle about the regiments. SERGIUS…. (protesting). My dear madam, impossible: you— CATHERINE. (stopping him playfully). You stay here, my dear Sergius: there’s no hurry. I have a word or two to say to Paul. (Sergius instantly bows and steps back.) Now, dear (taking Petkoff’s arm), come and see the electric bell. PETKOFF. Oh, very well, very well. (They go into the house together affectionately. Sergius, left alone with Raina, looks anxiously at her, fearing that she may be still offended. She smiles, and stretches out her arms to him.) (Exit R. into house, followed by Catherine.) SERGIUS…. (hastening to her, but refraining from touching her without express permission). Am I forgiven? RAINA. (placing her hands on his shoulder as she looks up at him with admiration and worship). My hero! My king. SERGIUS….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #4, from Famous Adventures and Prison Escapes of the Civil War, by Basil Wilson Duke et al.

…20, on the first range, was occupied by Colonel R.C. Morgan, a brother of General Morgan. That cell had been prepared for General Morgan by opening a hole to the chamber, and when the hour for locking up came, General Morgan stepped into Cell 21, and Colonel Morgan into General Morgan’s cell in the second range. The guard did not discover the exchange, as General Morgan and Colonel Morgan were of about the same physical proportions, and each stood with his back to the cell door when it was being locked. At intervals of two hours every night, beginning at eight, the guards came around to each cell and passed a light through the grating to see that all was well with the prisoners. The approach of the guard was often so stealthily made that a knowledge of his presence was first had by seeing him at the door of the cell. To avoid a surprise of this kind we sprinkled fine coal along in front of the cells, walking upon which would give us warning. By a singular coincidence that might have been a fatality, on the day we had determined upon for the escape General Morgan received a letter from Lexington, Kentucky, begging and warning him not to attempt to escape, and by the same mail I received a letter from a member of my family saying that it was rumored and generally believed at home that I had escaped. Fortunately these letters did not put the officials on their guard. We ascertained from the paper we had…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #5, from Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy, by Bernard Shaw

…TANNER. Are you sure of that? You stopped my telling you about my adventures; but how do you know that you stopped the adventures? ANN. Do you mean to say that you went on in the same way with other girls? TANNER. No. I had enough of that sort of romantic tomfoolery with Rachel. ANN. [unconvinced] Then why did you break off our confidences and become quite strange to me? TANNER. [enigmatically] It happened just then that I got something that I wanted to keep all to myself instead of sharing it with you. ANN. I am sure I shouldn’t have asked for any of it if you had grudged it. TANNER. It wasn’t a box of sweets, Ann. It was something you’d never have let me call my own. ANN. [incredulously] What? TANNER. My soul. ANN. Oh, do be sensible, Jack. You know you’re talking nonsense. TANNER. The most solemn earnest, Ann. You didn’t notice at that time that you were getting a soul too. But you were. It was not for nothing that you suddenly found you had a moral duty to chastise and reform Rachel. Up to that time you had traded pretty extensively in being a…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #6, from The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

…of torturing children, and children only. To all other types of humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like cultivated and humane Europeans; but they are very fond of tormenting children, even fond of children themselves in that sense. It’s just their defenselessness that tempts the tormentor, just the angelic confidence of the child who has no refuge and no appeal, that sets his vile blood on fire. In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden—the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain, the demon of diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney disease, and so on. “This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of cruelty—shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn’t ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child’s groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can’t even understand what’s done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #7, from Short Stories for High Schools, by Rosa Mary Redding Mikels

…Joe—everybody, I thing—mais, hof course, not if they not have been christen’. Even I thing some niggers will go.” “Jools,” said the parson, stopping in his walk—“Jools, I don’t want to lose my niggah.” “You will not loose him. With Baptiste he cannot ged loose.” But Colossus’s master was not reassured. “Now,” said he, still tarrying, “this is jest the way; had I of gone to church——” “Posson Jone’,” said Jules. “What?” “I tell you. We goin’ to church!” “Will you?” asked Jones, joyously. “Allons, come along,” said Jules, taking his elbow. They walked down the Rue Chartres, passed several corners, and by and by turned into a cross street. The parson stopped an instant as they were turning and looked back up the street. “W’at you lookin’?” asked his companion. “I thought I saw Colossus,” answered the parson, with an anxious face; “I reckon ’twa’n’t him, though.” And they went on. The street they now entered was a very quiet one. The eye of any chance passer would have been at once drawn to a broad, heavy, white brick…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #8, from The King in Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers

…bedclothes, soft and fine as lace, trailed to the polished floor. He lifted the candle above his head. A handkerchief lay at his feet. It was faintly perfumed. He turned toward the windows. In front of them was a canapé and over it were flung, pell-mell, a gown of silk, a heap of lace-like garments, white and delicate as spiders’ meshes, long, crumpled gloves, and, on the floor beneath, the stockings, the little pointed shoes, and one garter of rosy silk, quaintly flowered and fitted with a silver clasp. Wondering, he stepped forward and drew the heavy curtains from the bed. For a moment the candle flared in his hand; then his eyes met two other eyes, wide open, smiling, and the candle-flame flashed over hair heavy as gold. She was pale, but not as white as he; her eyes were untroubled as a child’s; but he stared, trembling from head to foot, while the candle flickered in his hand. At last he whispered: “Sylvia, it is I.” Again he said, “It is I.” Then, knowing that she was dead, he kissed her on the mouth. And through the long watches of the night the cat purred on his knee, tightening and relaxing her padded claws, until the sky paled above the Street of the Four Winds. THE STREET OF THE FIRST SHELL…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #9, from Uncle Wiggily’s Adventures, by Howard Roger Garis

…“Yes, of course I want you,” replied the dog. “Then I guess I’ve got to go!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he looked for his crutch and valise. “I guess this is the end of my fortune-hunting. Goodbye everybody!” And he felt so badly that two big tears rolled down his ears–I mean his eyes. Well, he bravely walked out of the door, and as he did so the dog-soldier, with the gun, exclaimed: “Ah, here you are at last! Now hurry up, Uncle Wiggily, or we’ll be late for the parade!” And, would you believe it? that dog was good, kind, old Percival, who used to be in a circus. And of course he wouldn’t hurt the rabbit gentleman for anything. Percival just put his gun to his shoulder, and said: “Come on, we’ll get in the parade now.” “Parade? What parade?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Oh my! how you frightened me!” “Why the Decoration Day parade,” answered Percival. "To-day is the day when we put flowers on the soldiers’ graves, and remember them for being so brave as to go to war. All old soldiers march in the parade, and so do all their friends. I’m going to march, and I’m going to put flowers on a lot of soldiers’ graves. I happened to remember that you were once in the war, so I came for you. I didn’t mean to scare you. You were in the war,…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #10, from The Best British Short Stories of 1922, by Stacy Aumonier et al.

…walked up and down the kitchen, busy with some final work of the night. A confused murmur came from another corner; but I could not distinguish the words: The dock rats were apparently discussing something. Again that ripple of sound ascended the stairs, but this time there was an added note of apprehension. It broke very faintly but pitifully, before dying away to the sound of light footsteps. Half a dozen stairs were pressed, then came a stumble and a girlish “A-ah.” She recovered herself as the hateful voice from behind said, “Aw ri’, m’dear,” and older, surer feet felt the stairs and pushed on behind the girl. Through the veiling canvas and the old walls I seemed to see the pair ascending. A few seconds more, and a slight farm rounded the jamb of the door. The girl’s eyes blinked in the walled twilight of the room. She hesitated on the threshold, but only for a second. The touch of a following frame impelled her forward. Her uncertain foot caught against a bed leg and a white hand gripped the steadying rail. Long-nailed claws laced themselves in the fingers of her other hand and the old woman half drew, half twisted her into sitting down on the edge of the bed. They began to talk quietly. I examined them more closely…. The old crone still played the part of ancient childhood, mumbling words of little import and obscenely fingering the girl’s arms, head, and waist. Some instinct led her to veil her eyes from the girl, for…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #11, from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

…discovered them. Felix soon learned that the treacherous Turk, for whom he and his family endured such unheard-of oppression, on discovering that his deliverer was thus reduced to poverty and impotence, became a traitor to good feeling and honour, and had quitted Italy with his daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money to aid him, as he said, in some plan of future maintenance. “Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix, and rendered him, when I first saw him, the most miserable of his family. He could have endured poverty, and when this distress had been the meed of his virtue, he would have gloried in it: but the ingratitude of the Turk, and the loss of his beloved Safie, were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable. The arrival of the Arabian now infused new life into his soul. “When the news reached Leghorn, that Felix was deprived of his wealth and rank, the merchant commanded his daughter to think no more of her lover, but to prepare to return with him to her native country. The generous nature of Safie was outraged by this command; she attempted to expostulate with her father, but he left her angrily, reiterating his tyrannical mandate. “A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter’s apartment, and told her hastily, that he had reason to believe that his residence at Leghorn…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #12, from A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

…flanked us on either side. Every one but myself—men, women, and children—were heavily armed, and at the tail of each chariot trotted a Martian hound, my own beast following closely behind ours; in fact, the faithful creature never left me voluntarily during the entire ten years I spent on Mars. Our way led out across the little valley before the city, through the hills, and down into the dead sea bottom which I had traversed on my journey from the incubator to the plaza. The incubator, as it proved, was the terminal point of our journey this day, and, as the entire cavalcade broke into a mad gallop as soon as we reached the level expanse of sea bottom, we were soon within sight of our goal. On reaching it the chariots were parked with military precision on the four sides of the enclosure, and half a score of warriors, headed by the enormous chieftain, and including Tars Tarkas and several other lesser chiefs, dismounted and advanced toward it. I could see Tars Tarkas explaining something to the principal chieftain, whose name, by the way, was, as nearly as I can translate it into English, Lorquas Ptomel, Jed; jed being his title. I was soon appraised of the subject of their conversation, as, calling to Sola, Tars Tarkas signed for her to send me to him. I had by this time mastered the intricacies of walking under Martian conditions, and…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

A production of Friendlyskies.net