Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:54

Excerpt #1, from The Anabasis of Alexander, by Arrian

…especially as he had already advanced further than their country. For this reason they were caught more easily off their guard. Many of them, however, escaped into the mountains, which in their land are very lofty and craggy, thinking that Alexander would not penetrate to these at any rate. But when he was approaching them even here, they sent envoys to surrender both the people and their land to him. He pardoned them, and appointed Autophradates, whom he had also recently placed over the Tapurians, viceroy over them. Returning to the camp, from which he had started to invade the country of the Mardians, he found that the Grecian mercenaries of Darius had arrived, accompanied by the envoys from the Lacedaemonians who were on an embassy to king Darius. The names of these men were, Callicratidas, Pausippus, Monimus, Onomas, and Dropides, a man from Athens. These were arrested and kept under guard; but he released the envoys from the Sinopeans,[478] because these people had no share in the commonwealth of the Greeks; and as they were in subjection to the Persians, they did not seem to be doing anything unreasonable in going on an embassy to their own king. He also released the rest of the Greeks who were serving for pay with the Persians before the peace and alliance which had been made by the Greeks with the Macedonians. He likewise released Heraclides, the ambassador from the Chalcedonians[479] to Darius. The rest he ordered to serve in his…

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Excerpt #2, from Uncle Wiggily’s Travels, by Howard Roger Garis

…“It looks very nice in there,” thought the rabbit. “Perhaps it is the opening of a circus tent. I’m going in, for I haven’t seen a show in some time. And, maybe, my friend, the elephant, will be in there.” Uncle Wiggily was just going to hop into the funny red opening that had the sign on it, when a little ant came crawling along, carrying a small loaf of bread. “Hello, Uncle Wiggily,” said the ant. “Where are you going?” “I am going inside this red circus tent,” said the rabbit. “Won’t you come in with me? I’ll buy you a ticket.” “Oh, never go in there–don’t you do it!” cried the ant, and she got so excited that she nearly dropped her loaf of bread. “That is not a circus tent; it is only the skillery-scalery-tailery alligator, and he has opened his mouth wide hoping some one will come in, so he can have a meal. Don’t go in.” “I won’t,” said Uncle Wiggily, quickly as he hopped away, and then he took up a stone and tossed it into the red mouth of the scalery-tailery-wailery alligator. The alligator shut his jaws very quickly, thinking he had something good to eat, but he only bit on the stone, and he was so angry that he lashed out with his tail and nearly knocked over a hickory-nut tree. Then the ant crawled home, and Uncle Wiggily hopped on out of danger and…

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Excerpt #3, from Much Ado about Nothing, by William Shakespeare

…SECOND WATCH. Call up the right Master Constable. We have here recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth. FIRST WATCH. And one Deformed is one of them: I know him, a’ wears a lock. CONRADE. Masters, masters! …SECOND WATCH. You’ll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you. CONRADE. Masters,— FIRST WATCH. Never speak: we charge you let us obey you to go with us. BORACHIO. We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken up of these men’s bills. CONRADE. A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we’ll obey you. [Exeunt.] Scene IV. A Room in Leonato’s House….

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Excerpt #4, from An Ideal Husband, by Oscar Wilde

…MASON. Lord Goring. [Enter LORD GORING. Thirty-four, but always says he is younger. A well-bred, expressionless face. He is clever, but would not like to be thought so. A flawless dandy, he would be annoyed if he were considered romantic. He plays with life, and is on perfectly good terms with the world. He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives him a post of vantage.] SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Good evening, my dear Arthur! Mrs. Cheveley, allow me to introduce to you Lord Goring, the idlest man in London. MRS. CHEVELEY. I have met Lord Goring before. LORD GORING. [Bowing.] I did not think you would remember me, Mrs. Cheveley. MRS. CHEVELEY. My memory is under admirable control. And are you still a bachelor? LORD GORING. I . . . believe so. MRS. CHEVELEY. How very romantic! LORD GORING. Oh! I am not at all romantic. I am not old enough. I leave romance to my seniors. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Lord Goring is the result of Boodle’s Club, Mrs. Cheveley. MRS. CHEVELEY. He reflects every credit on the institution….

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Excerpt #5, from The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

…breath. Then she crept across the room, and as she drew nearer the light attracted the boy’s attention and he turned his head on his pillow and stared at her, his gray eyes opening so wide that they seemed immense. [Illustration: “‘WHO ARE YOU?–ARE YOU A GHOST?’”–Page 157] “Who are you?” he said at last in a half-frightened whisper. “Are you a ghost?” “No, I am not,” Mary answered, her own whisper sounding half frightened. “Are you one?” He stared and stared and stared. Mary could not help noticing what strange eyes he had. They were agate gray and they looked too big for his face because they had black lashes all round them. “No,” he replied after waiting a moment or so. “I am Colin.” “Who is Colin?” she faltered. “I am Colin Craven. Who are you?” “I am Mary Lennox. Mr. Craven is my uncle.” “He is my father,” said the boy. “Your father!” gasped Mary. “No one ever told me he had a boy! Why didn’t they?” “Come here,” he said, still keeping his strange eyes fixed on her with an anxious expression….

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Excerpt #6, from The Voyage of the “Deutschland”, by Paul König

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Excerpt #7, from The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells

…description. “Way!” my brother heard voices crying. “Make way!” It was like riding into the smoke of a fire to approach the meeting point of the lane and road; the crowd roared like a fire, and the dust was hot and pungent. And, indeed, a little way up the road a villa was burning and sending rolling masses of black smoke across the road to add to the confusion. Two men came past them. Then a dirty woman, carrying a heavy bundle and weeping. A lost retriever dog, with hanging tongue, circled dubiously round them, scared and wretched, and fled at my brother’s threat. So much as they could see of the road Londonward between the houses to the right was a tumultuous stream of dirty, hurrying people, pent in between the villas on either side; the black heads, the crowded forms, grew into distinctness as they rushed towards the corner, hurried past, and merged their individuality again in a receding multitude that was swallowed up at last in a cloud of dust. “Go on! Go on!” cried the voices. “Way! Way!” One man’s hands pressed on the back of another. My brother stood at the pony’s head. Irresistibly attracted, he advanced slowly, pace by pace, down the lane. Edgware had been a scene of confusion, Chalk Farm a riotous tumult, but…

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Excerpt #8, from Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post, by Thomas Rainey

…must go by the Cunard line to England, and thence by English steamers to the British Channel, the Baltic, the White Sea, the Mediterranean, Egypt, Constantinople, or the Black Sea. Those to places along the coast of Africa and to the Cape of Good Hope are dependent on the same English packet transit. For our communication with China, India, Australia, the East-Indies generally, and the Islands of the Pacific, we are entirely and slavishly dependent, as usual, on Great Britain. Instead of sending our letters and passengers direct from Panamá or San Francisco to Honolulu, Hong Kong, Shanghae, Macáo, Calcutta, Ceylón, Bombáy, Madrás, Sydney, Melbourne, Batavia, the Mauritius, and the Gulf of Mozambique, by a short trunk line of our own steamers, and from its terminus only, by the British lines, they now go first to England, as a slavish matter of course, then across the Continent or through the Mediterranean to Egypt, thence by land to the Red Sea, and thence to China and the East-Indies; or from England by her steam lines around the Cape of Good Hope to Australia and the East-Indies; or by slow and uncertain sailing packets direct from our own country, either around Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope. It is evident to every reflecting man who has given the subject any attention, that all of these lines of communication would be very desirable, and very highly profitable to our people at large; and that the latter and that…

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Excerpt #9, from The Book of Hallowe’en, by Ruth Edna Kelley

…stick burned to ashes. “I tell ye the story this chill Hallowe’en, For it suiteth the spirit-eve.” COXE: Hallowe’en. To induce prophetic dreams the wood-and-water test was tried in England also. “Last Hallow Eve I looked my love to see, And tried a spell to call her up to me. With wood and water standing by my side I dreamed a dream, and saw my own sweet bride.” GAY: Pastorals. Though Hallowe’en is decidedly a country festival, in the seventeenth century young gentlemen in London chose a Master of the Revels, and held masques and dances with their friends on this night. In central and southern England the ecclesiastical side of Hallowtide is stressed. Bread or cake has till recently (1898) been as much a part of Hallowe’en preparations as plum pudding at Christmas. Probably this originated from an autumn baking of bread from the new grain. In Yorkshire each person gets a triangular seed-cake, and the evening…

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Excerpt #10, from The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties, by Richard Runciman Terry

…This was the most popular shanty for ‘sweating-up.’ There are many variants of it. The present version I learnt from Capt. John Runciman. In this shanty no attempt was ever made to sing the last word. It was always shouted. 30. PADDY DOYLE’S BOOTS This shanty differs from all others, as (a) it was sung tutti throughout; (b) it had only one verse, which was sung over and over again; and (c) it was used for one operation and one operation only, viz. bunting up the foresail or mainsail in furling. In this operation the canvas of the sail was folded intensively until it formed a smooth conical bundle. This was called a bunt, and a strong collective effort (at the word ‘boots’) was required to get it on to the yard. Although the same verse was sung over and over again, very occasionally a different text would be substituted, which was treated in the same manner. Capt. Whall gives two alternatives, which were sometimes used: ‘We’ll all drink brandy and gin,’ and– ‘We’ll all shave under the chin.’ Mr. Morley Roberts also told me that a variant in his ship was– ‘We’ll all throw dirt at the cook.’…

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Excerpt #11, from Planet of Sand, by Murray Leinster

…be easy to make terms with the life which held other life so cheaply. With the planet’s only source of power now guarded, matters looked less bright than before. But after they had reached the icecap, and when they slanted down out of the airlessness to the spot which was their home because their seeds had been planted there–as they dived down for a landing, their real situation appeared. There was a colossal object with many pairs of legs moving back and forth over the little space where their food plants sprouted. In days, those plants would have yielded food. They wouldn’t yield food now. Their garden was being trampled to nothingness by a multilegged machine of a size comparable to the other machine which had chased them on the grid. It was fifty feet high from ground to top, and had a round, tanklike body all of twenty feet in diameter. Round projections at one end looked like eyes. It moved on multiple legs which trampled in orderly confusion. It stamped the growing plants to pulped green stuff in the polar sand. It went over and over and over the place where the food necessary for the humans’ survival had promised to grow. It stamped and stamped: It destroyed all hope of food. And it destroyed all hope. Because, as Stan drove the skid down to see the machine more clearly, it stopped in its stamping. It swung about to face him, with a…

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Excerpt #12, from The Odyssey, by Homer

…the armour that is in the house and hide it in the strong store room. Make some excuse when the suitors ask you why you are removing it; say that you have taken it to be out of the way of the smoke, inasmuch as it is no longer what it was when Ulysses went away, but has become soiled and begrimed with soot. Add to this more particularly that you are afraid Jove may set them on to quarrel over their wine, and that they may do each other some harm which may disgrace both banquet and wooing, for the sight of arms sometimes tempts people to use them. But leave a sword and a spear apiece for yourself and me, and a couple of oxhide shields so that we can snatch them up at any moment; Jove and Minerva will then soon quiet these people. There is also another matter; if you are indeed my son and my blood runs in your veins, let no one know that Ulysses is within the house—neither Laertes, nor yet the swineherd, nor any of the servants, nor even Penelope herself. Let you and me exploit the women alone, and let us also make trial of some other of the men servants, to see who is on our side and whose hand is against us.” “Father,” replied Telemachus, “you will come to know me by and by, and when you do you will find that I can keep your counsel. I do not think, however, the plan you propose will turn out well for either of us. Think it over. It will take us a long time to go the round of the farms…

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