Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:53

Excerpt #1, from French Idioms and Proverbs, by de V. Payen

…*A dure enclume marteau de plume = The strokes of adversity find the wise man unmoved. [“Impavidum ferient ruinae.” HORACE, Odes, iii. 3.] Endroit Frapper au bon endroit = To touch the right spring; To hit the right nail on the head; To hit the mark; To touch the spot. Endimancher Des gens endimanchés = Folk rigged out in their Sunday best. Enfant Des enfants perdus (military) = A forlorn hope. Un enfant terrible = A child who tells awkward truths. [Gavarni, the caricaturist, published a series of sketches in 1865 under the title of “Les Enfants Terribles.”] Elle a deux enfants du premier lit = She has two children by her first husband. C’est un enfant de la balle = He is his father’s son; He follows the profession of his father. (See Balle.) C’est bien l’enfant de sa mère = He is the very image of his mother. Faire l’enfant = To behave childishly (on purpose)….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #2, from The Grenadier Guards in the Great War of 1914 to 1918, Vol. 3 of 3, by Ponsonby

…Babs posts, but was repulsed with several killed and wounded, leaving two machine-guns in our hands. Throughout the day the enemy maintained a heavy harassing fire, and in the evening again attempted a bombing attack on Beatty and Babs posts, but with the same result. The following day the shelling decreased considerably, and inter-company relief was carried out. First Lieutenant W. B. Evans, U.S.A.M.O.R.C., and Captain the Rev. J. O. Venables, in addition to 27 other ranks, were gassed on the 13th, and every day there were a number of men killed, wounded, and gassed. On the 15th the following letter from Brigadier-General W. S. Osborn, 5th Infantry Brigade, was received by Brigadier-General Follett: The 5th Infantry Brigade much appreciates the support given them on their left by the 1st Batt. Grenadier Guards in Beatty Post and Alban Trench. The counter-attack repulsed by Grenadier Guardsmen would have fallen on their weakened Companies. A captured map showed the Hun main line running down Hunt Avenue with outposts in Slag Avenue, and the counter-attack was evidently made to gain this resistance line. Will you please thank Colonel Lord Gort from me on behalf of the 5th I.B. The week preceding the attack on Premy Chapel was uneventful, and…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #3, from Direct Conversion of Energy, by William R. Corliss

…of the flow of charged particles as current. The nuclear battery shown in Figure 13 performs this trick. A central rod is coated with an electron-emitting radioisotope (a beta-emitter; say, strontium-90). The high-velocity electrons emitted by the radioisotope cross the gap between the cylinders and are collected by a simple metallic sleeve and sent to the load. Simple, but why don’t space charge effects prevent the electrons from crossing the gap as they do in the thermionic converter? The answer lies in the fact that the nuclear electrons have a million times more kinetic energy than those boiled off the thermionic converter’s emitter surface. Consequently, they are too powerful to be stopped by any space charge in the narrow gap. Nuclear batteries are simple and rugged. They generate only microamperes of current at 10,000 to 100,000 volts. [Illustration: Figure 13 A NUCLEAR BATTERY The nuclear battery depends upon the emission of charged particles from a surface coated with a radioisotope. The particles are collected on another surface.] ENERGY OUT INSULATOR LAYER OF BETA-EMITTING RADIOISOTOPE VACUUM…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

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

…very often good clothes, in which they could disport themselves when on shore. But they had peculiar customs and manners, and although they were willing to buy as much as the French traders had to sell, they could not be prevailed upon to pay their bills. A pirate is not the sort of a man who generally cares to pay his bills. When he gets goods in any way, he wants them charged to him, and if that charge includes the features of robbery and murder, he will probably make no objection. But as for paying good money for what is received, that is quite another thing. That this was the state of feeling on the island of Tortuga was discovered before very long by the French mercantile agents, who then applied to the mother country for assistance in collecting the debts due them, and a body of men, who might be called collectors, or deputy sheriffs, was sent out to the island; but although these officers were armed with pistols and swords, as well as with authority, they could do nothing with the buccaneers, and after a time the work of endeavoring to collect debts from pirates was given up. And as there was no profit in carrying on business in this way, the mercantile agency was also given up, and its officers were ordered to sell out everything they had on hand, and come home. There was, therefore, a sale, for which cash payments were demanded, and there was a great bargain day on the island of Tortuga. Everything was disposed of,–the stock of merchandise on…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #5, from War and Peace, by graf Leo Tolstoy

…remembered long afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but for several days she sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in anything and only saying now and then, “Oh, why did he go away?” But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became her old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a child gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face. CHAPTER XXV During that year after his son’s departure, Prince Nicholas Bolkónski’s health and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Mary had two passions and consequently two joys—her nephew, little Nicholas, and religion—and these were the favorite subjects of the prince’s attacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would bring round to the superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting and spoiling of children. “You want to make him”—little Nicholas—“into an old maid like yourself! A pity! Prince Andrew wants a son and not an old maid,” he would say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess Mary’s presence…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #6, from Hard Times, by Charles Dickens

…‘I am sorry, sir,’ she returned; ‘but I know it is quite true. Yet I have tried hard, sir.’ ‘Yes,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘yes, I believe you have tried hard; I have observed you, and I can find no fault in that respect.’ ‘Thank you, sir. I have thought sometimes;’ Sissy very timid here; ‘that perhaps I tried to learn too much, and that if I had asked to be allowed to try a little less, I might have—’ ‘No, Jupe, no,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, shaking his head in his profoundest and most eminently practical way. ‘No. The course you pursued, you pursued according to the system—the system—and there is no more to be said about it. I can only suppose that the circumstances of your early life were too unfavourable to the development of your reasoning powers, and that we began too late. Still, as I have said already, I am disappointed.’ ‘I wish I could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your kindness to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, and of your protection of her.’ ‘Don’t shed tears,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Don’t shed tears. I don’t complain of you. You are an affectionate, earnest, good young woman—and—and we must make that do.’ ‘Thank you, sir, very much,’ said Sissy, with a grateful curtsey….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #7, from The Coral Island, by R. M. Ballantyne

…that he threatened her life. “Peterkin,” said Jack in a hoarse whisper, “have you got your knife?” “Yes,” replied Peterkin, whose face was pale as death. “That will do. Listen to me, and do my bidding quick.–Here is the small knife, Ralph. Fly, both of you, through the bush, cut the cords that bind the prisoners, and set them free! There! quick, ere it be too late!” Jack sprang up and seized a heavy but short bludgeon, while his strong frame trembled with emotion, and large drops rolled down his forehead. At this moment the man who had butchered the savage a few minutes before advanced towards the girl with his heavy club. Jack uttered a yell that rang like a death-shriek among the rocks. With one bound he leaped over a precipice full fifteen feet high, and before the savages had recovered from their surprise, was in the midst of them, while Peterkin and I dashed through the bushes towards the prisoners. With one blow of his staff Jack felled the man with the club; then turning round with a look of fury he rushed upon the big chief with the yellow hair. Had the blow which Jack aimed at his head taken effect, the huge savage would have needed no second stroke; but he was agile as a cat, and avoided it by springing to one side, while at the same time he swung his ponderous club at the head of his foe. It was now Jack’s turn to leap aside; and…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

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…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #9, from The Gravity Business, by James E. Gunn

…“And who spent it all trying to invent perpetual motion machines and longevity pills,” Joyce said bitterly, “and fixed it so we’d have to go searching for uranium and habitable worlds all through this deadly galaxy? You, Grampa!” “Well, now,” Grampa protested, “I got a little put away yet. You’ll be sorry when I’m dead and gone.” “You’re never going to die, Grampa,” Joyce said harshly. “Just before we left, you bought a hundred-year contract with that Life-Begins-At-Ninety longevity company.” “Well, now,” said Grampa, blinking, “how’d you find out about that? Well, now!” In confusion, he turned back to the pircuit and jabbed a button. Thirteen slim lights sprang on. “I’ll get you this time!” Four stretched and stood up. He looked curiously into the corner by the computer where Grampa’s chair stood. “You brought that pircuit from Earth, didn’t you? What’s the game?” Grampa looked up, obviously relieved to drop his act of intense concentration. “I’ll tell you, boy. You play against the pircuit, taking turns, and you can put out one, two or three lights. The player who makes the other one turn out the last light is the winner.” “That’s simple,” Four said without hesitation. “The winning strategy is to–”…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #10, from The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

…“Nick?” He asked again. “What?” “Want any?” “No … I just remembered that today’s my birthday.” I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade. It was seven o’clock when we got into the coupé with him and started for Long Island. Tom talked incessantly, exulting and laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan and me as the foreign clamour on the sidewalk or the tumult of the elevated overhead. Human sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind. Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat’s shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand. So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight. ———————————————————————— The young Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint beside the…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #11, from The Reign of Greed, by José Rizal

…the least thought of honor or the faintest twinge of shame. When the former owner returned and learned what had happened, when he saw his fields in another’s possession,–those fields that had cost the lives of his wife and daughter,–when he saw his father dumb and his daughter working as a servant, and when he himself received an order from the town council, transmitted through the headman of the village, to move out of the house within three days, he said nothing; he sat down at his father’s side and spoke scarcely once during the whole day. CHAPTER X WEALTH AND WANT On the following day, to the great surprise of the village, the jeweler Simoun, followed by two servants, each carrying a canvas-covered chest, requested the hospitality of Cabesang Tales, who even in the midst of his wretchedness did not forget the good Filipino customs–rather, he was troubled to think that he had no way of properly entertaining the stranger. But Simoun brought everything with him, servants and provisions, and merely wished to spend the day and night in the house because it was the largest in the village and was situated between San Diego and Tiani, towns where he hoped to find many customers. Simoun secured information about the condition of the roads and asked Cabesang Tales if his revolver was a sufficient protection against…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #12, from Second Treatise of Government, by John Locke

…other members of the society do the like. Sect. 131. But though men, when they enter into society, give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature, into the hands of the society, to be so far disposed of by the legislative, as the good of the society shall require; yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and property; (for no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse) the power of the society, or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther, than the common good; but is obliged to secure every one’s property, by providing against those three defects above mentioned, that made the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy. And so whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees; by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws; and to employ the force of the community at home, only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress foreign injuries, and secure the community from inroads and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end, but the peace, safety, and public good of the people. CHAPTER. X….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

A production of Friendlyskies.net