Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:33

Excerpt #1, from The Mark of Zorro, by Johnston McCulley

…He greeted his excellency with carefully chosen words, bowed over his hand, and then took the chair the governor was kind enough to indicate. “Don Diego Vega,” the governor said, “I am doubly glad that you have called upon me to-day, for in these times a man who holds high office would know his friends.” “I should have called sooner, but I was away from my house at the time you arrived,” Don Diego said. “You contemplate remaining long in Reina de Los Angeles, excellency?” “Until this highwayman, known as Señor Zorro, is either slain or taken,” the governor said. “By the saints! Am I never to hear the last of that rogue?” Don Diego cried. “I have heard of nothing else for these many days. I go to spend an evening with a fray, and in comes a crowd of soldiers chasing this Señor Zorro. I repair to the hacienda of my father to get me peace and quiet, and along comes a crowd of caballeros seeking news of Señor Zorro.” “These be turbulent times! A man whose nature inclines him to music and the poets has no right to exist in the present age!” “It desolates me that you have been annoyed,” the governor said, laughing. "But I hope to have the fellow soon, and so put an end to that particular annoyance. Captain Ramón has sent for his big sergeant…

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Excerpt #2, from Simple Sabotage Field Manual, by United States. Office of Strategic Services

…(d) Oil and Lubrication (1) See 5 b. (2) (b). (2) Squeeze lubricating pipes with pincers or dent them with hammers, so that the flow of oil is obstructed. (e) Cooling Systems (1) See 5 b (2) (c). (f) Gasoline and Oil Fuel (1) See 5 b (2) (d). (g) Electric Motors (1) See 5 b (2) (e) and (f). (h) Boilers (1) See 5 b (2) (h). (2) After inspection put heavy oil or tar in the engines’ boilers, or put half a kilogram of soft soap into the water in the tender. (i) Brakes and Miscellaneous (1) Engines should run at high speeds and use brakes excessively at curves and on downhill grades. (2) Punch holes in air-brake valves or water supply pipes. (3) In the last car of a passenger train or or a front car of a freight, remove the wadding from a journal box and replace it with oily rags….

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Excerpt #3, from War and Peace, by graf Leo Tolstoy

…and the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable space, seemed suddenly—like an arrow piercing the earth—to remain fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life. BOOK NINE: 1812 CHAPTER I From the close of the year 1811 an intensified arming and concentrating of the forces of Western Europe began, and in 1812 these forces—millions of men, reckoning those transporting and feeding the army—moved from the west eastwards to the Russian frontier, toward which since 1811 Russian forces had been similarly drawn. On the twelfth of June, 1812, the forces of Western Europe crossed the Russian frontier and war began, that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and to human nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money, burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not…

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Excerpt #4, from Astounding Stories of Super

…For four hours after sunrise Bell worked desperately. With the few and inadequate tools in the plane he took apart the oiling system of the motor. It was in duplicate, of course, like all modern air engines, and there were three magnetos, and double spark plugs. Bell drained the crankcase beneath a sun that grew more and more hot and blistering, catching the oil in a gasoline can that he was able to empty into the main tanks. He washed out innumerable small oil pipes with gasoline, and flushed out the crankcase itself, and had at the end of his working as many small scraps of metal as would half fill a thimble. He showed then to Paula. “And the stars in their courses fought against Sisera,” he quoted dryly. “Any one of these, caught in just the right place, would have let us down into the jungle last night.” She smiled up at him. “But they didn’t.” “No…. God loves the Irish,” said Bell. “What’s that thing?” Paula was fishing, sitting on a fallen tree in the cloud of smoke from a smudge fire Bell had built for her. She was wearing the oily flying suit he had found in the shed with the plane, and had torn strips from her discarded dress to make a fishing line. The hook was made out of the stiff wire handle of one of the extra gasoline tins. "Hook and…

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Excerpt #5, from The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas

…wishes to know on what day it will suit you to walk in the forest? Tomorrow, at the Hôtel Field of the Cloth of Gold, a lackey in black and red will wait for your reply.” “Oh!” said D’Artagnan, “this is rather warm; it appears that Milady and I are anxious about the health of the same person. Well, Planchet, how is the good Monsieur de Wardes? He is not dead, then?” “No, monsieur, he is as well as a man can be with four sword wounds in his body; for you, without question, inflicted four upon the dear gentleman, and he is still very weak, having lost almost all his blood. As I said, monsieur, Lubin did not know me, and told me our adventure from one end to the other.” “Well done, Planchet! you are the king of lackeys. Now jump onto your horse, and let us overtake the carriage.” This did not take long. At the end of five minutes they perceived the carriage drawn up by the roadside; a cavalier, richly dressed, was close to the door. The conversation between Milady and the cavalier was so animated that D’Artagnan stopped on the other side of the carriage without anyone but the pretty soubrette perceiving his presence. The conversation took place in English—a language which D’Artagnan could not understand; but by the accent the young man plainly saw that…

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Excerpt #6, from The Grand Inquisitor, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

…there anything more unbearable to the human race than personal freedom! Dost Thou see these stones in the desolate and glaring wilderness? Command that these stones be made bread–and mankind will run after Thee, obedient and grateful like a herd of cattle. But even then it will be ever diffident and trembling, lest Thou should take away Thy hand, and they lose thereby their bread! Thou didst refuse to accept the offer for fear of depriving men of their free choice; for where is there freedom of choice where men are bribed with bread? Man shall not live by bread alone–was Thine answer. Thou knewest not, it seems, that it was precisely in the name of that earthly bread that the terrestrial spirit would one day rise against, struggle with, and finally conquer Thee, followed by the hungry multitudes shouting: “Who is like unto that Beast, who maketh fire come down from heaven upon the earth!” Knowest Thou not that, but a few centuries hence, and the whole of mankind will have proclaimed in its wisdom and through its mouthpiece, Science, that there is no more crime, hence no more sin on earth, but only hungry people? “Feed us first and then command us to be virtuous!” will be the words written upon the banner lifted against Thee–a banner which shall destroy Thy Church to its very foundations, and in the…

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Excerpt #7, from The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories, by P. G. Wodehouse

…Katie went back to Genevieve, and Genevieve was simply horrid. Cold and haughty, a beautiful iceberg of dudgeon, she refused to speak a single word during the whole long journey back to Sixth Avenue. And Katie, whose tender heart would at other times have been tortured by this hostility, leant back in her seat, and was happy. Her mind was far away from Genevieve’s frozen gloom, living over again the wonderful happenings of the afternoon. Yes, it had been a wonderful afternoon, but trouble was waiting for her in Sixth Avenue. Trouble was never absent for very long from Katie’s unselfish life. Arriving at the little bookshop, she found Mr Murdoch, the glazier, preparing for departure. Mr Murdoch came in on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to play draughts with her grandfather, who was paralysed from the waist, and unable to leave the house except when Katie took him for his outing in Washington Square each morning in his bath-chair. Mr Murdoch welcomed Katie with joy. ‘I was wondering whenever you would come back, Katie. I’m afraid the old man’s a little upset.’ ‘Not ill?’ ’Not ill. Upset. And it was my fault, too. Thinking he’d be interested, I read him a piece from the paper where I seen about these English…

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Excerpt #8, from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson

…means of escape on which he placed a sure dependence. The lawyer liked this letter well enough; it put a better colour on the intimacy than he had looked for; and he blamed himself for some of his past suspicions. “Have you the envelope?” he asked. “I burned it,” replied Jekyll, “before I thought what I was about. But it bore no postmark. The note was handed in.” “Shall I keep this and sleep upon it?” asked Utterson. “I wish you to judge for me entirely,” was the reply. “I have lost confidence in myself.” “Well, I shall consider,” returned the lawyer. “And now one word more: it was Hyde who dictated the terms in your will about that disappearance?” The doctor seemed seized with a qualm of faintness; he shut his mouth tight and nodded. “I knew it,” said Utterson. “He meant to murder you. You had a fine escape.” “I have had what is far more to the purpose,” returned the doctor solemnly: “I have had a lesson—O God, Utterson, what a lesson I have had!” And he covered his face for a moment with his hands. On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had a word or two with Poole. “By the bye,” said he, “there was a letter handed in to-day: what was…

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Excerpt #9, from The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, by Selma Lagerlöf

…out what had become of the goosey-gander. He smuggled himself quickly into the box and concealed himself as well as he could under the anemones and colt’s-foot. He was hardly hidden before the young man picked the box up, hung it around his neck, and slammed down the cover. Then the teacher came back, and said that they had been given permission to enter the castle. At first he conducted them no farther than the courtyard. There he stopped and began to talk to them about this ancient structure. He called their attention to the first human beings who had inhabited this country, and who had been obliged to live in mountain-grottoes and earth-caves; in the dens of wild beasts, and in the brushwood; and that a very long period had elapsed before they learned to build themselves huts from the trunks of trees. And afterward how long had they not been forced to labour and struggle, before they had advanced from the log cabin, with its single room, to the building of a castle with a hundred rooms–like Vittskövle! It was about three hundred and fifty years ago that the rich and powerful built such castles for themselves, he said. It was very evident that Vittskövle had been erected at a time when wars and robbers made it unsafe in Skåne. All around the castle was a deep trench filled with…

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Excerpt #10, from Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, by John Wesley Powell

…portion of Minnesota in which the investigations were made; a few of them, also, were not identified by the preceptors, as they were out of season. It is interesting to note in this list the number of infusions and decoctions which are, from a medical and scientific standpoint, specific remedies for the complaints for which they are recommended. It is probable that the long continued intercourse between the Ojibwa and the Catholic Fathers, who were tolerably well versed in the ruder forms of medication, had much to do with improving an older and purely aboriginal form of practicing medical magic. In some of the remedies mentioned below there may appear to be philosophic reasons for their administration, but upon closer investigation it has been learned that the cure is not attributed to a regulation or restoration of functional derangement, but to the removal or even expulsion of malevolent beings–commonly designated as bad Man´idōs–supposed to have taken possession of that part of the body in which such derangement appears most conspicuous. Further reference to the mythic properties of some of the plants employed will be made at the proper time. Although the word Mashki kiwa´buⁿ–medicine broth–signifies liquid medical preparations, the term is usually employed in a general sense to pertain to the entire materia medica; and in addition to the alleged…

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Excerpt #11, from Rounding up the Raider: A Naval Story of the Great War, by Percy F. Westerman

…up by the shells that exploded on either side; but before the cruiser could get in another effective shot the raider was lost in the mist. Von Riesser guessed, and rightly, that the cat was out of the bag, otherwise the cruiser would not have hoisted that peremptory demand to heave-to. He realized that his position was a hazardous one. Thousands of miles from a friendly port, sought by perhaps a score of British cruisers, and, moreover, running short of coal, the Pelikan stood a very small chance of dropping anchor in East African waters, except as a prize. On the other hand, Fate, in the guise of the mist, had dealt kindly with the Pelikan. For the rest of the day she steamed westward. Down below the firemen toiled like Trojans, shovelling coal into the glowing furnaces. On deck the crew worked hard, clearing away the debris left by the British cruiser’s shells. The wireless staff were busy “jamming” the numerous messages thrown out from various vessels, that were converging on the monitor and her escort for the purpose of cutting off the audacious Pelikan. About an hour before sunset the mist cleared. The sea was still calm, although high overhead the ragged and greasy clouds betokened the approach of a southerly gale. The setting sun, a ball of bright yellow, set in a pale greenish-yellow sky, threw its slanting rays…

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Excerpt #12, from The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins

…“Far from it—so far as I can see.” “When my mother was a girl, Rachel (it is no secret in the family), she had loved as you love—she had given her heart to a man who was unworthy of her. She married my father, respecting him, admiring him, but nothing more. Your own eyes have seen the result. Is there no encouragement in it for you and for me?” See Betteredge’s Narrative, chapter viii. “You won’t hurry me, Godfrey?” “My time shall be yours.” “You won’t ask me for more than I can give?” “My angel! I only ask you to give me yourself.” “Take me!” In those two words, she accepted him! He had another burst—a burst of unholy rapture this time. He drew her nearer and nearer to him till her face touched his; and then—No! I really cannot prevail upon myself to carry this shocking disclosure any farther. Let me only say, that I tried to close my eyes before it happened, and that I was just one moment too late. I had calculated, you see, on her resisting. She submitted. To every right-feeling person of my own sex, volumes could say no more. Even my innocence in such matters began to see its way to the end of…

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