Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:16

Excerpt #1, from A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer

…Q. Why will the AIR SWELL, if the bladder be laid before the fire? A. Because the heat of the fire gets between the particles of air, and drives them further apart from each other; which causes the bladder to expand. Q. Why do unslit CHESTNUTS CRACK with a loud noise, when ROASTED? A. Chestnuts contain a great deal of air, which is expanded by the heat of the fire; and, as the thick rind prevents the air from escaping, it violently bursts through, slitting the rind, and making a great noise. Q. What occasions the loud CRACK or report which we hear? A. 1st–The sudden bursting of the rind makes a report, in the same way as a piece of wood or glass would do, if snapped in two: and 2ndly–The escape of hot air from the chestnut makes a report also, in the same way as gunpowder, when it escapes from a gun. Q. Why does the sudden BURSTING of the rind, or SNAPPING of a piece of wood, make a REPORT? A. As the attraction of the parts is suddenly overcome, a violent jerk is given to the air; this jerk produces rapid undulations in the air, which (striking upon the ear) give the brain the sensation of sound. Q. Why does the ESCAPE OF AIR from the chestnut, or the EXPLOSION of GUNPOWDER, produce a REPORT? A. Because a quantity of air (suddenly let loose) _pushes against the…

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Excerpt #2, from The Sea

…stage, do you hear me? NINA. It is the dream of my life, which will never come true. ARKADINA. Who knows? Perhaps it will. But let me present Monsieur Boris Trigorin. NINA. I am delighted to meet you. [Embarrassed] I have read all your books. ARKADINA. [Drawing NINA down beside her] Don’t be afraid of him, dear. He is a simple, good-natured soul, even if he is a celebrity. See, he is embarrassed himself. DORN. Couldn’t the curtain be raised now? It is depressing to have it down. SHAMRAEFF. [Loudly] Jacob, my man! Raise the curtain! NINA. [To TRIGORIN] It was a curious play, wasn’t it? TRIGORIN. Very. I couldn’t understand it at all, but I watched it with the greatest pleasure because you acted with such sincerity, and the setting was beautiful. [A pause] There must be a lot of fish in this lake. NINA. Yes, there are. TRIGORIN. I love fishing. I know of nothing pleasanter than to sit on a lake shore in the evening with one’s eyes on a floating cork. NINA. Why, I should think that for one who has tasted the joys of…

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Excerpt #3, from Raw Gold: A Novel, by Bertrand W. Sinclair

…torture to feet that were sadly galled by fruitless tramping around the Stone. When a man has grown up in the habit of mounting a horse to travel any distance over three hundred yards, a walk of twenty undulating miles over a network of bald ridges and yawning coulées makes him think that a sulphur-and-brimstone hereafter can’t possibly hold much discomfort that he hasn’t sampled. A cowpuncher in high-heeled riding-boots is handicapped for pedestrianism by both training and inclination–and that scarred and wrinkled portion of the Northwest is a mighty poor strolling-ground for any man. But we kept on, for the simple reason that there was nothing else we could do. MacRae wasted no breath in words. If the heat and the ungodly steepness of the hills and the luke-warm water that trickled along the creek channels ruffled his temper, he made no noise about it, only pressed doggedly toward Pend d’ Oreille. I daresay he thought I was attending to that part of it, registering a complaint for both of us. And if I didn’t rise to the occasion it was the fault of my limited vocabulary. I kept a stiff backbone for a while, but presently a futile rage against circumstances bubbled up and boiled over. I climbed each succeeding canyon wall oozing perspiration and profanity, and when the top was reached took fresh breath and damned the Northwest by sections in a large, fluent manner of speech. In time, however, the foolishness…

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Excerpt #4, from Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts, by Frank Richard Stockton

…notwithstanding his furiously dissenting voice it was determined to surrender, and when Mr. Rhett sailed up to the Royal James, intending to board her if the pirates still showed resistance, he found them ready to submit to terms and to yield themselves his prisoners. Thus ended the great sea-fight between the private gentlemen, and thus ended Stede Bonnet’s career. He and his men were taken to Charles Town, where most of the pirate crew were tried and executed. The green-hand pirate, who had wrought more devastation along the American coast than many a skilled sea-robber, was held in custody to await his trial, and it seems very strange that there should have been a public sentiment in Charles Town which induced the officials to treat this pirate with a certain degree of respect simply from the fact that his station in life had been that of a gentleman. He was a much more black-hearted scoundrel than any of his men, but they were executed as soon as possible while his trial was postponed and he was allowed privileges which would never have been accorded a common pirate. In consequence of this leniency he escaped and had to be retaken by Mr. Rhett. It was so long before he was tried that sympathy for his misfortunes arose among some of the tender-hearted citizens of Charles Town whose houses he would have pillaged and whose families he would have murdered if the exigencies of piracy had rendered such action desirable….

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Excerpt #5, from A United States Midshipman in Japan, by Yates Stirling

…can’t miss the Broadway accent when you hear it so far from home.” While O’Neil was yet carrying on his one-sided conversation the carriage had stopped, and the mafoo was knocking loudly at the door of a Japanese house in one of the less pretentious parts of the city. After the occupants of the house had gone through the usual formula to discover the identity of their unexpected visitors, the door was opened and the two sailors were asked to enter. “Is Sago in?” O’Neil asked the shy girl who was holding the lantern inside the dark little anteroom, where visitors were expected to remove their shoes before entering the house. She nodded, and in her high-pitched voice a summons was directed upward. “Sorry to drag you out this time of the evening, Sago,” O’Neil explained as, in answer to the girl’s call, the captain’s Japanese steward came down the stairs to meet them, “but we need your help, so I looked you up.” Sago’s sphinx-like face did not portray the surprise which O’Neil’s words might have been expected to cause. “Please come inside,” the steward urged. “I wish to introduce you to my cousin and his family.” O’Neil and Marley readily followed the steward, while curious Japanese of all ages appeared mysteriously from many directions to gaze upon…

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Excerpt #6, from A United States Midshipman in Japan,, by Yates Stirling

…is the closest conjoined, and imbued, and identified, so to speak, with the spirit whereof it is the instrument.” “Then I need ask no further,” said the clergyman, somewhat hastily rising from his chair. “You deal not, I take it, in medicine for the soul!” “Thus, a sickness,” continued Roger Chillingworth, going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption,—but standing up, and confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark, and misshapen figure,—“a sickness, a sore place, if we may so call it, in your spirit, hath immediately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame. Would you, therefore, that your physician heal the bodily evil? How may this be, unless you first lay open to him the wound or trouble in your soul?” “No!—not to thee!—not to an earthly physician!” cried Mr. Dimmesdale, passionately, and turning his eyes, full and bright, and with a kind of fierceness, on old Roger Chillingworth. “Not to thee! But if it be the soul’s disease, then do I commit myself to the one Physician of the soul! He, if it stand with his good pleasure, can cure; or he can kill! Let him do with me as, in his justice and wisdom, he shall see good. But who art thou, that meddlest in this matter?—that dares thrust himself between the sufferer and his God?”…

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Excerpt #7, from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1, by Edgar Allan Poe

…from the corners of ten thousand mouths, and a shout, which could be compared to nothing but the roaring of Niagara, resounded long, loudly, and furiously, through all the environs of Rotterdam. The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From behind the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of cloud already mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open area of blue space, a queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid substance, so oddly shaped, so whimsically put together, as not to be in any manner comprehended, and never to be sufficiently admired, by the host of sturdy burghers who stood open-mouthed below. What could it be? In the name of all the vrows and devils in Rotterdam, what could it possibly portend? No one knew, no one could imagine; no one—not even the burgomaster Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk—had the slightest clew by which to unravel the mystery; so, as nothing more reasonable could be done, every one to a man replaced his pipe carefully in the corner of his mouth, and cocking up his right eye towards the phenomenon, puffed, paused, waddled about, and grunted significantly—then waddled back, grunted, paused, and finally—puffed again. In the meantime, however, lower and still lower toward the goodly…

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Excerpt #8, from Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo

…Will that become an Ionian or a Bœotian? Wait, currit rota, the Spirit of Paris, that demon which creates the children of chance and the men of destiny, reversing the process of the Latin potter, makes of a jug an amphora. CHAPTER V—HIS FRONTIERS The gamin loves the city, he also loves solitude, since he has something of the sage in him. Urbis amator, like Fuscus; ruris amator, like Flaccus. To roam thoughtfully about, that is to say, to lounge, is a fine employment of time in the eyes of the philosopher; particularly in that rather illegitimate species of campaign, which is tolerably ugly but odd and composed of two natures, which surrounds certain great cities, notably Paris. To study the suburbs is to study the amphibious animal. End of the trees, beginning of the roofs; end of the grass, beginning of the pavements; end of the furrows, beginning of the shops, end of the wheel-ruts, beginning of the passions; end of the divine murmur, beginning of the human uproar; hence an extraordinary interest. Hence, in these not very attractive places, indelibly stamped by the passing stroller with the epithet: melancholy, the apparently objectless promenades of the dreamer. He who writes these lines has long been a prowler about the barriers of…

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Excerpt #9, from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete, by Michel de Montaigne

…use, which is spoken of criminals when they find the judges in a good humour, gentle, and mild, Gaudeat de bonâ fortunâ ; “Let him rejoice in his good fortune;” for it is most certain that men’s judgments are sometimes more prone to condemnation, more sharp and severe, and at others more facile, easy, and inclined to excuse; he that carries with him from his house the pain of the gout, jealousy, or theft by his man, having his whole soul possessed with anger, it is not to be doubted but that his judgment will lean this way. That venerable senate of the Areopagites used to hear and determine by night, for fear lest the sight of the parties might corrupt their justice. The very air itself, and the serenity of heaven, will cause some mutation in us, according to these verses in Cicero:– Tales sunt hominnm mentes, quali pater ipse Jupiter auctiferâ lustravit lampade terras. “Men’s minds are influenc’d by th’ external air, Dark or serene, as days are foul or fair.” ‘Tis not only fevers, debauches, and great accidents, that overthrow our judgments,–the least things in the world will do it; and we are not to doubt, though we may not be sensible of it, that if a continued fever can overwhelm the soul, a tertian will in some proportionate measure alter it; if an apoplexy can stupefy and totally extinguish the sight of…

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Excerpt #10, from Emma, by Jane Austen

…“No, no,” said she, “you are quite unreasonable. It would be dreadful to be standing so close! Nothing can be farther from pleasure than to be dancing in a crowd—and a crowd in a little room!” “There is no denying it,” he replied. “I agree with you exactly. A crowd in a little room—Miss Woodhouse, you have the art of giving pictures in a few words. Exquisite, quite exquisite!—Still, however, having proceeded so far, one is unwilling to give the matter up. It would be a disappointment to my father—and altogether—I do not know that—I am rather of opinion that ten couple might stand here very well.” Emma perceived that the nature of his gallantry was a little self-willed, and that he would rather oppose than lose the pleasure of dancing with her; but she took the compliment, and forgave the rest. Had she intended ever to marry him, it might have been worth while to pause and consider, and try to understand the value of his preference, and the character of his temper; but for all the purposes of their acquaintance, he was quite amiable enough. Before the middle of the next day, he was at Hartfield; and he entered the room with such an agreeable smile as certified the continuance of the scheme. It soon appeared that he came to announce an improvement. “Well, Miss Woodhouse,” he almost immediately began, “your inclination…

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Excerpt #11, from The Myths and Fables of To Day, by Samuel Adams Drake

…the vessel. I find that some people are strongly impressed with the idea that the month or day on which they were born will prove to them a most critical one throughout their whole lives. Indeed, many strange coincidences of this sort have come to my notice. If a man has happened to have a run of bad luck, he will often tell you that it is because he was born under an unlucky star; if, on the other hand, he has been unusually prosperous, it is commonly said of him that he was born to good luck. So wags the world! As a fitting pendant to Jernegan’s gold-from-sea-water scheme, Mrs. Howe’s bank, and Miller’s syndicate, all fresh in the memory of everyone, comes the “lucky-box” humbug and its humiliating exposure, as I write. Upon the simple assurance that the possessor of this marvellous box (which could be carried in the pocket) would become instantly lucky, thousands were quickly sold, and the sale of more thousands was only stopped by the prompt intervention of the law! [Illustration] VI CHARMS AGAINST DISEASE “I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.”–Shakespeare. Under this heading we shall first call attention to those plants having…

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Excerpt #12, from History for ready reference, Volume 1 (of 6), A

…fell on the chancellor and the chaplains. … The chancellor was, in a manner, the secretary of state for all departments." William Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 11, section 121. {406} “In the reign of Edward I. we begin to perceive signs of the rise of the extraordinary or equitable jurisdiction of the Chancellor. The numerous petitions addressed to the King and his Council, seeking the interposition of the royal grace and favour either to mitigate the harshness of the Common Law or supply its deficiencies, had been in the special care of the Chancellor, who examined and reported upon them to the King. … At length, in 1348, by a writ or ordinance of the 22d year of Edward III. all such matters as were ‘of Grace’ were directed to be dispatched by the Chancellor or by the Keeper of the Privy Seal. This was a great step in the recognition of the equitable jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, as distinct from the legal jurisdiction of the Chancellor and of the Courts of Common Law; although it was not until the following reign that it can be said to have been permanently established.”…

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