Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:55

Excerpt #1, from Tales of the Air Mail Pilots, by Burt M. McConnell

…easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away–you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. START: FULL LICENSE THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license. Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works 1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #2, from Right Ho, Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

…the red and expecting Civilisation to take a toss at any moment had caused Uncle Tom, who always looked a bit like a pterodactyl with a secret sorrow, to take on a deeper melancholy. The Bassett was a silent bread crumbler. Angela might have been hewn from the living rock. Tuppy had the air of a condemned murderer refusing to make the usual hearty breakfast before tooling off to the execution shed. And as for Gussie Fink-Nottle, many an experienced undertaker would have been deceived by his appearance and started embalming him on sight. This was the first glimpse I had had of Gussie since we parted at my flat, and I must say his demeanour disappointed me. I had been expecting something a great deal more sparkling. At my flat, on the occasion alluded to, he had, if you recall, practically given me a signed guarantee that all he needed to touch him off was a rural setting. Yet in this aspect now I could detect no indication whatsoever that he was about to round into mid-season form. He still looked like a cat in an adage, and it did not take me long to realise that my very first act on escaping from this morgue must be to draw him aside and give him a pep talk. If ever a chap wanted the clarion note, it looked as if it was this Fink-Nottle. In the general exodus of mourners, however, I lost sight of him, and,…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #3, from The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

…with me, Jurgis?” “I’ve no place to go,” said Jurgis, sadly. “Neither have I,” replied the other, laughing lightly. “But we’ll wait till we get out and see.” In the Bridewell Jurgis met few who had been there the last time, but he met scores of others, old and young, of exactly the same sort. It was like breakers upon a beach; there was new water, but the wave looked just the same. He strolled about and talked with them, and the biggest of them told tales of their prowess, while those who were weaker, or younger and inexperienced, gathered round and listened in admiring silence. The last time he was there, Jurgis had thought of little but his family; but now he was free to listen to these men, and to realize that he was one of them—that their point of view was his point of view, and that the way they kept themselves alive in the world was the way he meant to do it in the future. And so, when he was turned out of prison again, without a penny in his pocket, he went straight to Jack Duane. He went full of humility and gratitude; for Duane was a gentleman, and a man with a profession—and it was remarkable that he should be willing to throw in his lot with a humble workingman, one who had even been a beggar and a tramp. Jurgis could not see what help he could be to him; but he did not understand…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #4, from The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides

…garrison. After speaking to the captains of companies on the subject, and failing to persuade either the generals or the soldiers, he remained inactive with the rest from stress of weather; until the soldiers themselves wanting occupation were seized with a sudden impulse to go round and fortify the place. Accordingly they set to work in earnest, and having no iron tools, picked up stones, and put them together as they happened to fit, and where mortar was needed, carried it on their backs for want of hods, stooping down to make it stay on, and clasping their hands together behind to prevent it falling off; sparing no effort to be able to complete the most vulnerable points before the arrival of the Lacedaemonians, most of the place being sufficiently strong by nature without further fortifications. Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians were celebrating a festival, and also at first made light of the news, in the idea that whenever they chose to take the field the place would be immediately evacuated by the enemy or easily taken by force; the absence of their army before Athens having also something to do with their delay. The Athenians fortified the place on the land side, and where it most required it, in six days, and leaving Demosthenes with five ships to garrison it, with the main body of the fleet hastened on their voyage to Corcyra and Sicily….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #5, from The Grenadier Guards in the Great War of 1914 to 1918, Vol. 3 of 3, by Ponsonby

…Lieut. R. S. Challands No. 3 Company. Lieut. W. A. Pembroke " " 2nd Lieut. N. P. Andrews " " Lieut. H. Freeman-Greene No. 4 Company. 2nd Lieut. L. F. A. d’Erlanger " " 2nd Lieut. C. A. Fitch " " Capt. W. Lindsay, R.A.M.C. Medical Officer. Capt. the Rev. C. Venables Chaplain. [Sidenote: Nov. 5.] At 2.15 A.M. the Battalion moved out from Villers Pol with intervals of thirty yards between platoons, and marched to La Buvette cross-roads, where a halt was made, and the Lewis guns were taken off the limbers. Directed by two guides from the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, the Battalion made its way across country to a bridge, where a long halt was made to find the Headquarters of the 3rd Battalion Grenadiers–no easy matter in the dark. The Battalion eventually managed to get into position close behind the front line posts. No. 2 Company, under Lieutenant Kennaway, was on the right and in touch with the 2/20th London Regiment from the Sixty-second Division; No. 3 Company, under Lieutenant Challands, on the left in touch with the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards; No. 4 Company, under Lieutenant Freeman-Greene,…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #6, from Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, by Lewis Carroll

…I’ve offended it again!" for the mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went. So she called softly after it: “mouse dear! Do come back again, and we won’t talk about cats and dogs any more, if you don’t like them!” When the mouse heard this, it turned and swam slowly back to her: its face was quite pale, (with passion, Alice thought,) and it said in a trembling low voice “let’s get to the shore, and then I’ll tell you my history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.” It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite full of birds and animals that had fallen into it. There was a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore. [Illustration] Chapter II [Illustration] They were indeed a curious looking party that assembled on the bank–the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them–all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. The first question of course was, how to get dry:…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #7, from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving

…murmur of his pupils’ voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy summer’s day, like the hum of a beehive; interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of menace or command, or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Ichabod Crane’s scholars certainly were not spoiled. I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their subjects; on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than severity; taking the burden off the backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little tough wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called “doing his duty by their parents;” and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that “he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he had to live.”…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #8, from Around the World with Josiah Allen’s Wife, by Marietta Holley

…One place in Bombay I liked first rate, a hospital for dumb animals, it is kep’ by a sect called the Jains. Sick animals of all kinds are cared for: horses, cows, dogs, cats, rats and I spoze any ailin’ creeter from a mouse up to a elephant is nursed with tender care. Sez Josiah, “No matter what her creed is, Samantha, that Jane is a good creeter and is doin’ a great work, I would send the old mair here in a minute if she wuz took with consumption or janders or anythin’, if it wuzn’t so fur, and I’d tell Jane jest how much I thought on her for her goodness.” Sez I, “Josiah, it is a sect, not a female.” But he wouldn’t gin in and talks about Jane a sight now when he recalls about the horrers of vivisection or when he sees animals abused and horses driv too hard and overloaded–he always sez: “I would like to have Jane see that, I guess Jane would put a stop to that pretty lively.” Well, it shows Josiah’s good heart. The Hindus have several temples in Bombay. One of the great days is the Festival of the Serpents. Snake charmers bring to this place the deadly snakes which are then fed to propitiate them, by the priests, I spoze. Oh, how Miss Meechim went on about the idee of worshippin’ snakes, and…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #9, from Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda

…average life of sixty years. Any apparent insurrection of bodily or cerebral cells toward Emperor Soul, manifesting as disease or depression, is due to no disloyalty among the humble citizens, but to past or present misuse by man of his individuality or free will, given to him simultaneous with a soul, and revocable never. Identifying himself with a shallow ego, man takes for granted that it is he who thinks, wills, feels, digests meals, and keeps himself alive, never admitting through reflection (only a little would suffice!) that in his ordinary life he is naught but a puppet of past actions (karma) and of nature or environment. Each man’s intellectual reactions, feelings, moods, and habits are circumscribed by effects of past causes, whether of this or a prior life. Lofty above such influences, however, is his regal soul. Spurning the transitory truths and freedoms, the KRIYA YOGI passes beyond all disillusionment into his unfettered Being. All scriptures declare man to be not a corruptible body, but a living soul; by KRIYA he is given a method to prove the scriptural truth. “Outward ritual cannot destroy ignorance, because they are not mutually contradictory,” wrote Shankara in his famous CENTURY OF VERSES. "Realized knowledge alone destroys ignorance. . . . Knowledge cannot spring up by any other means than inquiry. ’Who am I? How…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #10, from Tanks in the Great War, 1914 to 1918, by J. F. C. Fuller

…By the end of September, on account of signalling equipment being obtained, it was possible to carry out training on much better lines than heretofore. This was fortunate, for it enabled intensive signalling training to be carried out prior to the battle of Cambrai. During this battle a much more complete system of signals was attempted, and wireless signalling proved invaluable in keeping in touch with rear headquarters and also in sending orders forward. On the first day of this battle a successful experiment in laying telegraph cable from a tank was carried out, five tons of cable being towed forward by means of sledges, the tank carrying 120 poles, exchanges, telephones, and sundry apparatus from our front line to the town of Marcoing. The signalling experiences gained during the battle of Cambrai proved of great value, the most important being that it became apparent that it was next to useless to attempt to collect information from the front of the battle line. Even if this information could be collected, and it was most difficult to do so, it was so local and ephemeral in importance as to confuse rather than to illuminate those who received it. Collecting points about 600 yards behind the fighting tanks were found to be generally the most suitable places for establishing wireless and visual signalling stations….

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #11, from The Art of Conversation: Twelve Golden Rules, by Josephine Turck Baker

…they undertake to tell. Why! Some persons can not make the simplest statement without exaggerating the facts. For instance, if one undertakes to give the price of a garment or of some furniture, the amount paid is always increased in the telling of the story; and so with the narration of trivial events–the speaker will enlarge his statements until he presents a distorted picture to the mental vision of the listener. The exaggeration of facts should certainly be avoided; and a person can overcome this tendency in himself, if, when he finds that he is making a misstatement, he will correct himself, and give a true version. For example, if he finds that he is fixing the cost of a possession at five dollars, when it should be four dollars and fifty cents, he can correct the error without even betraying his intention to falsify. By doing this, he gradually trains himself to adhere to facts; for, while the price of the article may be a matter of small consequence, it is a matter of far more importance that the person who has the habit shall correct his tendency to misstate facts. So again, when one is narrating an incident in one’s experience, the same strict adherence to the facts should be observed. In this way a person establishes a reputation for veracity. We all have friends in whose statements we place no reliance, simply because we know that they invariably exaggerate every fact that…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

Excerpt #12, from Winnie the Pooh, by A. A. Milne

…“What?” said Rabbit. “Fifteen.” “Fifteen what?” “Your family.” “What about them?” Pooh rubbed his nose and said that he thought Rabbit had been talking about his family. “Did I?” said Rabbit carelessly. “Yes, you said—-” “Never mind, Pooh,” said Piglet impatiently. “The question is, What are we to do about Kanga?” “Oh, I see,” said Pooh. “The best way,” said Rabbit, “would be this. The best way would be to steal Baby Roo and hide him, and then when Kanga says, ‘Where’s Baby Roo?’ we say, ‘Aha!’” “Aha!” said Pooh, practising. “Aha! Aha! … Of course,” he went on, “we could say ‘Aha!’ even if we hadn’t stolen Baby Roo.” “Pooh,” said Rabbit kindly, “you haven’t any brain.” “I know,” said Pooh humbly. "We say ‘Aha!’ so that Kanga knows that we know where Baby Roo is. ‘Aha!’ means ’We’ll tell you where Baby Roo is, if you promise to go…

More: Read or Listen on IA →

A production of Friendlyskies.net