Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:01

Excerpt #1, from Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare

…Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live. PRINCE. Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio. Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe? MONTAGUE. Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio’s friend; His fault concludes but what the law should end, The life of Tybalt. PRINCE. And for that offence Immediately we do exile him hence. I have an interest in your hate’s proceeding, My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding. But I’ll amerce you with so strong a fine That you shall all repent the loss of mine. I will be deaf to pleading and excuses; Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses. Therefore use none. Let Romeo hence in haste, Else, when he is found, that hour is his last. Bear hence this body, and attend our will. Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill….

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Excerpt #2, from The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study of Biological Philosophy, by Ernst Haeckel

…imperfect and crude methods of present chemistry, an elaborate chemical process the nature of which is not analytically known to us? However, the worthlessness of this sceptical objection is obvious: we can never claim that a natural process is supernatural because we cannot artificially reproduce it. XVI THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE Inorganic and organic evolution–Biogenesis and cosmogenesis–Mechanical evolution–Mechanics of phylogenesis–Theory of selection–Theory of idioplasm–Phyletic vital force–Theory of germ-plasm–Progressive heredity–Comparative morphology–Germ-plasm and hereditary matter–Theory of mutation–Zoological and botanical transformism–Neo-Lamarckism and Neo-Darwinism–Mechanics of ontogenesis–Biogenetic law–Tectogenetic ontogeny–Experimental evolution–Monism and biogeny. I fully explained in my General Morphology (1866) the profound importance of the science of evolution in relation to our monistic philosophy. A popular synopsis of this is given in my History of Creation, and is briefly repeated in the thirteenth chapter of the Riddle. I must refer the reader to these works, especially the latter, and confine myself here to a consideration of some of the…

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Excerpt #3, from Ulysses, by James Joyce

…That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare has no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts. Solemn. Hamlet, I am thy father’s spirit Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth. —Two apples a penny! Two for a penny! His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand. Australians they must be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them up with a rag or a handkerchief. Wait. Those poor birds. He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all from their heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel. Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them. They wheeled flapping weakly. I’m not going to throw any more. Penny quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and…

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Excerpt #4, from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

…over it. Then he says: “Well, den, I reck’n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain’t de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain’t ever had no dream b’fo’ dat’s tired me like dis one.” “Oh, well, that’s all right, because a dream does tire a body like everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me all about it, Jim.” So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must start in and “’terpret” it, because it was sent for a warning. He said the first towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but the current was another man that would get us away from him. The whoops was warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn’t try hard to make out to understand them they’d just take us into bad luck, ’stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of towheads was troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our business and didn’t talk back and aggravate them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn’t have no more trouble. It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it…

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Excerpt #5, from Emma, by Jane Austen

…I understand the sort of mind. Vigorous, decided, with sentiments to a certain point, not coarse. A better written letter, Harriet (returning it,) than I had expected.” “Well,” said the still waiting Harriet;—“well—and—and what shall I do?” “What shall you do! In what respect? Do you mean with regard to this letter?” “Yes.” “But what are you in doubt of? You must answer it of course—and speedily.” “Yes. But what shall I say? Dear Miss Woodhouse, do advise me.” “Oh no, no! the letter had much better be all your own. You will express yourself very properly, I am sure. There is no danger of your not being intelligible, which is the first thing. Your meaning must be unequivocal; no doubts or demurs: and such expressions of gratitude and concern for the pain you are inflicting as propriety requires, will present themselves unbidden to your mind, I am persuaded. You need not be prompted to write with the appearance of sorrow for his disappointment.” “You think I ought to refuse him then,” said Harriet, looking down. “Ought to refuse him! My dear Harriet, what do you mean? Are you in any doubt as to that? I thought—but I beg your pardon, perhaps I have been…

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

…commandant’s office sooner or later. The members of one party on being caught were actually complimented on their fine work by the Boches, who were full of joy naturally at having found the tunnel. For many months before we left Crefeld the Germans used to search the ground floor rooms and cellars daily. Not infrequently they would pay two or three visits to the cellars in one night. Their searching included tapping the walls, ceilings and floors for hollow places. Periodically a search for the earth excavated from these holes and hidden away, would lead to the Boches discovering many hundredweights of sand and rubble stowed away safely. Searches were sometimes made in our rooms for articles of contraband. Civilian clothes, and maps, compasses and various tools were the chief objects of interest to them. These searches on some occasions were extended to the persons of the prisoners, especially after an order forbidding the possession of real German money had been issued. Of course none of us liked being searched and we showed our searchers pretty clearly what we thought of the whole affair. I must say that the commandant did not order many searches and probably those that did occur were due to the orders of a superior. These searches were usually carried out by the under-officers and men of a different unit from that which guarded the camp, in order to…

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Excerpt #7, from The power and the glory, by Henry Kuttner

…crushing weight of that suddenly ponderable air. Even above his own deafness and the shriek of the unnatural wind in the room he heard the scream of riven marble. And the weight upon him lessened a little. He could see again. He could see the great block of stone uprooted with jagged edges from the broken floor at the foot of Brann’s dais. It seemed to tear itself free, to leap into the air of its own volition—to hurtle toward Brann’s curtains as if Brann’s castle itself had suddenly turned upon him with great jagged stone fangs. In his brain Miller could feel the tremendous, concentrated effort of Llesi’s teleportation, balancing the marble weapon and guiding it on its course. The weight upon him ceased abruptly. The release was so sudden that the congested blood drained from Miller’s brain and for an instant the great room swam before him. In that moment of faltering the hurtling marble fragment faltered too and Llesi and Miller together struggled with the faintness of Miller’s overtaxed brain. * * * * * Brann seized the opening that brief hesitation gave him. He could not stop the flying weapon but he could block it. . . . A broken segment of the marble steps flew up in the path of the oncoming boulder, grated against it, deflected its course….

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Excerpt #8, from The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

…for “the quality,” and notably for my Lord Antony, kept his marked disapproval of the young foreigner in check. “Nay, but this is England, you abandoned young reprobate,” interposed Lord Antony with a laugh, “and do not, I pray, bring your loose foreign ways into this most moral country.” Lord Antony had already sat down at the head of the table with the Comtesse on his right. Jellyband was bustling round, filling glasses and putting chairs straight. Sally waited, ready to hand round the soup. Mr. Harry Waite’s friends had at last succeeded in taking him out of the room, for his temper was growing more and more violent under the Vicomte’s obvious admiration for Sally. “Suzanne,” came in stern, commanding accents from the rigid Comtesse. Suzanne blushed again; she had lost count of time and of place whilst she had stood beside the fire, allowing the handsome young Englishman’s eyes to dwell upon her sweet face, and his hand, as if unconsciously, to rest upon hers. Her mother’s voice brought her back to reality once more, and with a submissive “Yes, Mama,” she too took her place at the supper table. CHAPTER IV. THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL They all looked a merry, even a happy party, as they sat round the…

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Excerpt #9, from History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year

…the Guadalquivir. A demonstration by the allies in the Isla de Leon arrested the march of these French troops for a moment, but on the 14th eight thousand men under generals Godinot and Semélé advanced upon St. Roque and Algeziras. The inhabitants of those places immediately fled to the green island, and Ballesteros took refuge under Gibraltar, where his flanks were covered by the gun-boats of the place. The garrison was too weak to assist him with men, and thus cooped up, he lived upon the resources of the place, while efforts were therefore made to draw off the French by harassing their flanks. The naval means were not sufficient to remove his whole army to another quarter, but seven hundred were transported to Manilba, where the Serranos and some Partidas had assembled on the left of the French, and at the same time twelve hundred British troops with four guns, under colonel Skerrett, and two thousand Spaniards, under Copons, sailed from Cadiz to Tarifa to act upon the French right. Copons was driven back by a gale of wind, but Skerrett arrived the 17th. The next day Godinot sent a detachment against him, but the sea-road by which it marched was so swept with the guns of the Tuscan frigate, aided by the boats of the Stately, that the French after losing some men returned. Then Godinot and Semélé being in dispute, and without provisions, retreated; they were followed by Ballesteros’…

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Excerpt #10, from Macbeth, by William Shakespeare

…Ghost rises again. To all, and him, we thirst, And all to all. LORDS. Our duties, and the pledge. MACBETH. Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with! LADY MACBETH. Think of this, good peers, But as a thing of custom: ’tis no other, Only it spoils the pleasure of the time. MACBETH. What man dare, I dare: Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The arm’d rhinoceros, or th’ Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble: or be alive again, And dare me to the desert with thy sword;…

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Excerpt #11, from Masters of the vortex, by E. E. Smith

…extrapolating the sigma curve to an ever-moving instant of time three and nine-tenths seconds—the flight-time of the bombs plus his own reaction time—ahead of the frantic pen-point of the chart. In his flitter, where he had required a nine- or ten-second prediction, he had always seized the first acceptable match that appeared. Now, however, needing only to extrapolate to less than four seconds, his technique was entirely different. He was now matching, from instant to instant, the predicted value of the curve against one or another of the twelve bombs lying in the firing chambers of heavy guns whose muzzles ringed the cruiser’s needle-sharp nose. And, as he had been doing ever since beginning to work with Joan and her mechanical brains, he was passing up match after match, waiting to see whether or not the current brain could deliver the goods. There had been a long succession of them—Alice, Betty, Candace, Deirdre, and so on. This one was Lulu, and it didn’t look as though she was any good, either. He waited a while longer, however; then fined down his figures and got ready to blast. The flight-time of the bomb, under present atmospheric conditions, would be three point five nine eight seconds, plus or minus point zero zero one. His reaction time was point zero eight nine. . . . “Storm!” Joan broke in sharply, “Can you hold up a minute.”…

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Excerpt #12, from Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War, by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

…weight consistent with the maximum of strength policy is carried out. Moreover the manufacture of component parts is facilitated and accelerated to a remarkable degree by the use of metal, while the tasks of fitting and repairing are notably expedited by the practice of standardisation. Germany is also manifesting commendable enterprise in the perfection of light powerful motors for these dynamic machines. The latest types of explosion-motors range from 100 to 150 horse-power; the advantages of these are obvious. Upon the outbreak of hostilities the French possessed an enormous number and variety of aeroplanes and this aerial fleet had been brought to a high standard of organisation. The aerial fleet is sub-divided into squadrons called “escadrilles,” each of which comprises six machines and pilots. These units are kept up to strength, wastage being made up from reserves, so as to maintain the requisite homogeneity. But ere the war had been in progress many weeks an official order was issued forbidding the employment of the Bleriot, Deperdussin, Nieuport, and R.E.P. monoplanes. Those which received official approval included the Caudron, Henry, and Maurice Farman, Morane-Saulnier, and Voisin machines. This drastic order came somewhat as a thunderbolt, and the reason for the decree has not been satisfactorily revealed. Suffice to say that in…

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