Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:50

Excerpt #1, from Condemned as a Nihilist: A Story of Escape from Siberia, by G. A. Henty

…approximate guide. Once a month or so he had made a point of setting it. This he did by sticking up a pole and measuring the shadow it cast, knowing that this would be at its shortest at twelve o’clock. By this means he calculated that he was never more than half an hour wrong. The shore continued very flat, and once or twice they saw sand-banks stretching out a considerable distance. Sometimes both paddled, sometimes Godfrey steered only and Luka laid in his paddle. Three times in the course of the day the big canoe was pulled up, and Luka went on board and cooked a meal, the flat slab on which they lit their fire having been raised three or four inches above the bottom to keep it out of the water. Hitherto Godfrey had done all the steering when the boat was under sail, but he now instructed Luka. Little teaching was, indeed, needed, as the steering was done with the paddle, and Luka was accustomed to keeping the boat straight when paddling. He was, however, nervous with the sail, which was boomed straight out with a light spar Godfrey had cut for the purpose. However as the wind was dead aft there was no fear of this jibing so long as the boat’s course was kept true; this was rendered all the more easy by the steady drag of the boat astern. Twelve hours after starting Godfrey told Luka to lie down and sleep, as he intended that so long as they had favourable winds they should…

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Excerpt #2, from Mr. Punch’s History of the Great War, by Charles L. Graves

…For butter or for worse. It is reported that the Government’s standard suits for men’s wear will soon be available. One is occasionally tempted to hope that women’s costumes might be similarly standardised. [Illustration: THE COAT THAT DIDN’T COME OFF] The German Press announces the death of the notorious “Captain of Koepenick,” and the Cologne Gazette refers to him as “the only man who ever succeeded in making the German Army look ridiculous.” This is the kind of subtle flattery that the Hohenzollerns really appreciate. April, 1918. We have reached the darkest hours of the War and the clouds have not yet lifted, though the rate of the German advance has already begun to slow down. On the 11th the enemy broke through at Armentières and pushed their advantage till another wedge was driven into the British line. On the 12th Sir Douglas Haig issued his historic order: “With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at the critical moment.” The Amiens line being under fire, it was impossible to bring French reinforcements north in time to save Kemmel Hill and stave off the menace to the Channel ports. The tale of our losses is grievous, and for thousands and thousands of families…

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Excerpt #3, from The American Diary of a Japanese Girl, by Yoné Noguchi

…17th—I began to knit a gentleman’s stockings in wool. They will be a souvenir of this voyage. (I cannot keep a secret.) I tell you frankly that I designed them to be given to the gentleman who will be my future “beloved.” The wool is red, a symbol of my sanguine attachment. The stockings cannot be much larger than my own feet. I dislike large-footed gentlemen. 18th—My uncle asked if my great work of poetical inspiration was completed. “Uncle, I haven’t written a dozen lines yet. My ‘Lotos Eaters’ is to be equal in length to ‘The Lady of the Lake.’ Now, see, Oji San, mine has to be far superior to the laureate’s, not merely in quality, but in quantity as well. But I thought it was not the way of a sweet Japanese girl to plunder a garland from the old poet by writing in rivalry. Such a nice man Tennyson was!” I said. I smiled and gazed on him slyly. “So! You are very kind!” he jerked. 19th—I don’t think San Francisco is very far off now. Shall I step out of the ship and walk? Has the “Belgic” coal enough? I wonder how the sensible steamer can be…

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Excerpt #4, from Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, by Richard Morris

…556 Alle þis compayny of court com þe kyng nerre, For to counseyl þe kny3t, with care at her hert; [F] Þere wat3 much derue[1] doel driuen in þe sale, Þat so worthe as Wawan schulde wende on þat ernde, 560 To dry3e a delful dynt, & dele no more wyth bronde. Þe kny3t mad ay god chere, & sayde, “quat schuld I wonde, 564 [G] Of destines derf & dere, What may mon do bot fonde?” [Sidenote A: On All-hallows day Arthur makes a feast for his nephew’s sake.] [Sidenote B: After meat, Sir Gawayne thus speaks to his uncle:] [Sidenote C: "Now, liege lord, I ask leave of you,] [Sidenote D: for I am bound on the morn to seek the Green Knight."] [Sidenote E: Many nobles, the best of the court, counsel and comfort him.] [Sidenote F: Much sorrow prevails in the hall.] [Sidenote G: Gawayne declares that he has nothing to fear.] [Footnote 1: derne (?).] IV. [A] He dowelle3 þer al þat day, and dresse3 on þe morn,…

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Excerpt #5, from The Invasion of India, by Alexander the Great as described, by Arrian, Q. Curtius

…emergency. He at once seized Attalos and put him to death. Then suddenly marching southwards, he suppressed by skilful diplomacy the incipient rebellion of the Greek states. In the next place he turned his arms northwards, and, after much severe fighting, subjugated the barbarous tribes which lay between the frontiers of his kingdom and the Danube. Finally, he quelled in blood and desolation the revolt of Thebes, which had been prompted by a false rumour of his death. Having thus in a single year made himself a more powerful monarch than his father had ever been, he directed all his energies to complete the arrangements for the Persian expedition. The whole force which he collected for this purpose amounted to little more than 30,000 foot and 4500 horse. The empire which this comparatively insignificant force was destined to attack and overthrow was the greatest which the world had as yet seen, and had already subsisted for two hundred years. It had been founded by Cyrus the Great, and extended by his successors till it embraced all Asia from the shores of the Aegean and the Levant to the regions of the Jaxartes and the Indus. It was divided by the great belt of desert, which stretches almost continuously from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Aral, into two great sections which differed widely both in their physical aspect and the character of their inhabitants. The eastern tribes living amid mountains and deserts were rude, but distinguished for…

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Excerpt #6, from An Universal Dictionary of the Marine, by William Falconer

…less than ten. These are for the accommodation of the lieutenants, &c. Cutters of a ship, bateaux, are broader, deeper, and shorter than the barges and pinnaces; they are fitter for sailing, and are commonly employed in carrying stores, provisions, passengers, &c. to and from the ship. In the structure of this sort of boats, the lower-edge of every plank in the side over-lays the upper-edge of the plank below, which is called by shipwrights clinch-work. Yawls, canots, are something less than cutters, nearly of the same form, and used for similar services; they are generally rowed with six oars. The above boats more particularly belong to men of war; as merchant-ships seldom have more than two, viz. a long-boat and yawl: when they have a third, it is generally calculated for the countries to which they trade, and varies in its construction accordingly. Merchant-ships employed in the Mediterranean find it more convenient to use a lanch, which is longer, more flat-bottomed, and better adapted every way to the harbours of that sea than a long-boat. See LANCH. A wherry, diligence, is a light sharp boat, used in a river or harbour for carrying passengers from place to place. Punts, flette, are a sort of oblong flat-bottomed boats, nearly resembling floating stages; they are used by shipwrights and caulkers,…

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Excerpt #7, 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 #8, from Vistas in Sicily, by Arthur Stanley Riggs

…for the average person it is a good deal better to take along the sightseer’s snack the hotel puts up without extra cost–if you are living en pension–and eat it on the back porch. The Caffè serves “tea,” if you foolishly ask for it; but ink made from dried willow leaves is even less refreshing than the thin red country wine. Tea making is a fine art Sicily has yet to learn. However, the view from the rear veranda down the steep slope to the Bay of Trogilus more than compensates for the trivial discomforts of poor tea and iron chairs. Evidently the host is determined that his furniture shall not be numbered among the spoils of Sicily by the souvenir-hunting visitor. How those ancient Greeks did build for futurity! Deep down under the rocky plateau, at the cost of no one knows how many lives or what money, they carved two enormous aqueducts that gave old Syracuse to drink from distant mountain streams. No dynamite helped them tear out the adamantine channel; no greasy rock-drills worked by steam chattered and thumped down there in the dark where now one hears without seeing it, the water which still gurgles contentedly on its way to the sea. It is all hand work, and one is filled with admiration akin to awe as the eye follows the low, square limestone copings that mark the course of one of them across hill and vale and field, over the heights of the Epipolai down toward the harbor….

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Excerpt #9, from Science in Short Chapters, by W. Mattieu Williams

…also visited the Bridgewater Estate at Chat Moss, near Manchester, where so much has been done to bring the deep peat into cultivation, and he found the system that has been followed there for so many years to be like that described above, marl, however, being used in the place of lime.” At the time of my visit to Kylemore the hay crops were down and partly carried on the reclaimed bog-land above described. The contrast of its luxuriance with the dark and dreary desolation of the many estates I had seen during three summers’ wanderings through Ireland added further proof of the infamy of the majority of Irish landlords, by showing what Ireland would have been had they done their duty. AERIAL EXPLORATION OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. On our own hemisphere, and separated from our own coasts by only a few days’ journey on our own element, there remains a blank circle of unexplored country above 800 miles in diameter. We have tried to cross it, and have not succeeded. Nothing further need be said in reply to those who ask, “Why should we start another Arctic Expedition?” The records of previous attempts to penetrate this area of geographical mystery prove the existence of a formidable barrier of mountainous land, fringed by fjords or inlets, like those of Norway, some of which may be open, though much contracted northward, like the Vestfjord that…

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Excerpt #10, from Ivanhoe: A Romance, by Walter Scott

…roots, with the Spanish word Desdichado, signifying Disinherited. He was mounted on a gallant black horse, and as he passed through the lists he gracefully saluted the Prince and the ladies by lowering his lance. The dexterity with which he managed his steed, and something of youthful grace which he displayed in his manner, won him the favour of the multitude, which some of the lower classes expressed by calling out, “Touch Ralph de Vipont’s shield—touch the Hospitallers shield; he has the least sure seat, he is your cheapest bargain.” The champion, moving onward amid these well-meant hints, ascended the platform by the sloping alley which led to it from the lists, and, to the astonishment of all present, riding straight up to the central pavilion, struck with the sharp end of his spear the shield of Brian de Bois-Guilbert until it rung again. All stood astonished at his presumption, but none more than the redoubted Knight whom he had thus defied to mortal combat, and who, little expecting so rude a challenge, was standing carelessly at the door of the pavilion. “Have you confessed yourself, brother,” said the Templar, “and have you heard mass this morning, that you peril your life so frankly?” “I am fitter to meet death than thou art” answered the Disinherited Knight; for by this name the stranger had recorded himself in the books of the tourney….

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Excerpt #11, from The Collected Works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 10 (of 12), by William Hazlitt

…omitted. After observing that Sophocles lived to be upwards of ninety years of age, our philosophical German breaks out into the following mystic strain. ‘It would seem as if the Gods, in return for his dedicating himself at an early age to Bacchus as the giver of all joy, and the author of the cultivation of the human race, by the representation of tragical dramas for his festivals, had wished to confer immortality on him, so long did they delay the hour of his death; but, as this was impossible, they extinguished his life at least as gently as possible, that he might imperceptibly change one immortality for another—the long duration of his earthly existence for an imperishable name.’ p. 117. We cannot afford to enter into the detailed critique which M. Schlegel has here offered upon the several plays of this celebrated author. The following passage exhibits a more summary view of them. After mentioning the native sweetness for which he was so celebrated among his contemporaries, he observes— ‘Whoever is thoroughly imbued with the feeling of this property, may flatter himself that a sense for ancient art has arisen within him: for the lovers of the affected sentimentality of the present day would, both in the representation of bodily sufferings, and in the language and economy of the tragedies of Sophocles, find much of an insupportable…

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Excerpt #12, from Mirrors of Moscow, by Louise Stevens Bryant

…bit as great and important for me to remain an actress as it is for you in your world to remain a warrior or a diplomat.” Enver took his scolding in very good humor. Afterwards he told me that he had never liked this actress before. “Independence is a great thing in women. Our women lack it and many of them are just puppets on this account.” He was always extremely interested in American ideas and American opinions. He said he could never understand why Americans were so sentimental about Armenians. “Do they imagine that Armenians never kill Turks? That is indeed irony.” At the table he used to ask Mr. Vanderlip questions about his proposed Kamchatka concessions. Vanderlip, like many Californians, is rather violently anti-Japanese. His idea of having a naval base at Kamchatka amused Enver. He said Vanderlip was killing two birds with one stone, that he wished to manœuver the American Government into a war with Japan, prove himself a patriot, and at the same time protect his own interests and grow rich. “So that,” said Enver, “if it really came about–the next war would be for Vanderlip and should be known as ‘Vanderlip’s War.’” When I asked, “Would you be sorry to see America and Japan at war?” he replied, “Not if England was involved. Anything which tends to…

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