Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:41

Excerpt #1, from The call of Cthulhu, by H. P. Lovecraft

…molded in his sleep the form of the dreaded Cthulhu. March 23rd the crew of the Emma landed on an unknown island and left six men dead; and on that date the dreams of sensitive men assumed a heightened vividness and darkened with dread of a giant monster’s malign pursuit, whilst an architect had gone mad and a sculptor had lapsed suddenly into delirium! And what of this storm of April 2nd–the date on which all dreams of the dank city ceased, and Wilcox emerged unharmed from the bondage of strange fever? What of all this–and of those hints of old Castro about the sunken, star-born Old Ones and their coming reign; their faithful cult and their mastery of dreams? Was I tottering on the brink of cosmic horrors beyond man’s power to bear? If so, they must be horrors of the mind alone, for in some way the second of April had put a stop to whatever monstrous menace had begun its siege of mankind’s soul. * * * * * That evening, after a day of hurried cabling and arranging, I bade my host adieu and took a train for San Francisco. In less than a month I was in Dunedin; where, however, I found that little was known of the strange cult-members who had lingered in the old sea taverns. Waterfront scum was far too common for special mention; though there was vague talk about one inland trip these mongrels had made, during…

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Excerpt #2, from Latin for Beginners, by Benjamin L. D’Ooge

…amāret amārent amārētur amārentur PERFECT amāverim amāverimus amātus, {sim amātī, {sīmus amāveris amāveritis -a, -um {sīs -ae, -a {sītis amāverit amāverint {sit {sint PLUPERFECT amāvissem amāvissēmus amātus, {essem amātī, {essēmus amāvissēs amāvissētis -a, -um {essēs -ae, -a {essētis amāvisset amāvissent {esset {essent IMPERATIVE PRESENT amā, love thou amāre, be thou loved amāte, love ye amāminī, be ye loved FUTURE amātō, thou shalt love amātor, thou shalt be loved amātō, he shall love amātor, he shall be loved amātōte, you shall love —- amantō, they shall love amantor, they shall be loved INFINITIVE Pres. amāre, to love amārī, to be loved Perf. amāvisse, amātus, -a, -um esse,…

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Excerpt #3, from Mazes and Labyrinths: A General Account of Their History and Development

…underworld.) A writer on this tribe of Indians has described another game played by them which seems to have much in common with that mentioned above. It is called Tculikwikut, and is played with rings and darts, count being kept by means of little stones which are moved along a series of small holes arranged in the sand in the form of a whorl, starting from a centre called Tcunni Ki, “the Council House.” [Illustration: FIG. 131.–Indian Labyrinth Figure from Eighteenth-century Spanish Manuscript. (After Cotton.)] If it could be shown that these games were associated with the labyrinth figure in those regions before the date of the Spanish invasion of Mexico we should be forced to conclude either that, by an extraordinary coincidence, the figure became evolved independently in the Old World and the New, or that in both it had a common origin of astounding antiquity. However, there is a probability that it was introduced to the Indians by the early Spaniards, with whom it would have been a familiar symbol. The only other ancient Indian pictograph of labyrinthine type so far discovered appears to be that on a pebble found by Dr. Fewkes in 1919 in a ruin known as “Square Tower House,” in Mesa Verde National Park. This, it will be seen (Fig. 132), bears no likeness to the conventional design, but is merely an asymmetrical meandering groove somewhat similar in appearance to the braided…

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Excerpt #4, from Seven Short Plays, by Lady Gregory

…the neighbours at Curranroe. Mike McInerney: My joy you are! It is well you earned me! Let me up out of this! (He sits up and spreads out the clothes and tries on coat.) That now is a good frieze coat … and a hat in the fashion … (He puts on hat.) Michael Miskell: (Alarmed.) And is it going out of this you are, Mike McInerney? Mike McInerney: Don’t you hear I am going? To Curranroe I am going. Going I am to a place where I will get every good thing! Michael Miskell: And is it to leave me here after you you will? Mike McInerney: (In a rising chant.) Every good thing! The goat and the kid are there, the sheep and the lamb are there, the cow does be running and she coming to be milked! Ploughing and seed sowing, blossom at Christmas time, the cuckoo speaking through the dark days of the year! Ah, what are you talking about? Wheat high in hedges, no talk about the rent! Salmon in the rivers as plenty as turf! Spending and getting and nothing scarce! Sport and pleasure, and music on the strings! Age will go from me and I will be young again. Geese and turkeys for the hundreds and drink for the whole world! Michael Miskell: Ah, Mike, is it truth you are saying, you to go from me and to leave me with rude people and with townspeople, and…

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Excerpt #5, from Twenty years at sea: Leaves from my old log

…of the United States bark Arthur. As she was at Pensacola when I took command of the Anderson, I went on board of her one day to learn something about my new station. “Well, Kelson,” said Captain Wade in response to my queries, “it is a God-forsaken coast, and I am not sorry to have got away from it myself. You will need to anchor in about ten fathoms, say three miles from shore; for when the northers come along next winter you will very likely have to slip, and then you will require plenty of sea room to work off shore.” “Any inhabitants about the bay?” “I never saw any. There are some half-wild cattle on Matagorda Island, and I used to go on shore, occasionally, and shoot one for the messes. It’s a pretty lonely spot, I assure you!” That was about all that I had been able to learn, in advance, of the stretch of coast I was supposed to take care of; and up to this blessed Christmas Day, now nearly two weeks, no signs whatever of life in the neighborhood of the bay had been discovered, although a bright lookout had been constantly maintained from the mastheads of my ship. Consequently I felt that I was taking every reasonable precaution when I ordered my boat’s crew to wear their cutlasses, and had half a dozen Sharps’ rifles put in the stern sheets, for I knew that we would be…

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Excerpt #6, from French Idioms and Proverbs, by de V. Payen

…business best. Mien J’y ai mis du mien, mettez-y du vôtre = I have given way a bit, meet me half-way; I have done my share at it, now it’s your turn. Mieux *Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien = Leave well alone. Ils criaient à qui mieux mieux = Each was trying to shout louder than the other; Each tried to drown the others’ voices. Je ne demande pas mieux = Nothing would give me greater pleasure. Elle est mieux que sa sœur = She is prettier than her sister. Faute de mieux = For want of something better. Tant mieux = So much the better. Il est au mieux avec son médecin = He is on the best terms with his doctor. On ne peut mieux = As well as possible; It could not be better. Vous arrivez on ne peut mieux = You could not have come at a more opportune moment. Milieu Le juste milieu = The golden mean. Au beau milieu = In the very midst….

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Excerpt #7, from The Mark of Zorro, by Johnston McCulley

…Sergeant Gonzales choked again, and reached gropingly for a wine mug. “You promised me,” Don Diego continued, “that you would tell me the whole thing, word by word. Did he not say as much, landlord? You declared that you would relate how you played with him; how you laughed at him while you fought; how you pressed him back after a time and then ran him through–” “By the saints!” Sergeant Gonzales roared, the words coming from between his lips like peals of thunder. “It is beyond the endurance of any man! You–Don Diego–my friend–” “Your modesty ill becomes you at such a time,” Don Diego said. “You promised the tale, and I would have it. What does this Señor Zorro look like? Have you peered at the dead face beneath the mask? It is, perhaps, some man that we all know? Cannot some one of you tell me the facts? You stand here like so many speechless images of men–” “Wine–or I choke!” Gonzales howled. “Don Diego, you are my good friend, and I will cross swords with any man who belittles you! But do not try me too far this night–” “I fail to understand,” Don Diego said. “I have but asked you to tell me the story of the fight–how you mocked him as you battled; how you pressed him back at will, and presently ended it by running him through–”…

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Excerpt #8, from Dracula, by Bram Stoker

…great harmony of nature’s silence. A little after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming. Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in growing fury, each overtopping its fellow, till in a very few minutes the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster. White-crested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the shelving cliffs; others broke over the piers, and with their spume swept the lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier of Whitby Harbour. The wind roared like thunder, and blew with such force that it was with difficulty that even strong men kept their feet, or clung with grim clasp to the iron stanchions. It was found necessary to clear the entire piers from the mass of onlookers, or else the fatalities of the night would have been increased manifold. To add to the difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of sea-fog came drifting inland–white, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death, and many…

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Excerpt #9, from The History of the 33rd Divisional Artillery, in the War, 1914 to 1918.

…into action, and was accordingly brought into position in a shell-hole on the southern edge of the road which ran east and west due north of Bazentin-le-Grand. Three hundred rounds were dumped alongside it, the whole was placed under command of Lieutenant V. Benett-Stanford (C/162), and a most satisfactory registration was obtained with seventy rounds burst immediately over and into the enemy trench in true enfilade at a range of 1,600 yards. Following on this, on the morning of the 23rd, the 156th Brigade came out of rest and went into action about half a mile south-west of Montauban, as a group under Lieut.-Colonel Rochfort-Boyd; to this group was added A/167 which took up a position in the same area, and later B/167 which, on the 25th, joined the 156th Brigade group in a position near A/167. The 167th Brigade, now under the command of Lieut.-Colonel C. G. Stewart, did not come into action as a unit, but kept its remaining battery out at rest to replace casualties as they might occur. On the 23rd the orders for the attack were received. This time it was to be the biggest operation since July 14th, the order of battle showing the French to attack on the right from the Somme itself to Maurepas, the XIV. Corps from south of Guillemont to the western edge of Ginchy Village, the XV. Corps from a point in the Longueval-Flers road north of Delville Wood to the western edge of High Wood, and the III. Corps from…

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Excerpt #10, from The Moon: considered as a planet, a world, and a satellite., by James Carpenter et al.

…mass been at various times determined, and it has been found, as the latest and best accepted value, that the mass of the moon is one-eightieth that of the earth. From the known diameter of the earth we ascertain that its volume is 259,360 millions of cubic miles: and from the various experiments that have been made to determine the mean density of the earth, it has been found that that mean density is about 5½ times that of water; that is to say, the earth weighs 5½ times heavier than would a sphere of water of equal size. Now a cubic foot of water weighs 62·3211 pounds, and from this we can find by simple multiplication what is the weight of a cubic mile of water, and, similarly, what would be the weight of 259,360 cubic miles of water, and the last result multiplied by 5½ will give the weight of the earth in tons: The calculation, although extremely simple, involves a confusing heap of figures; but the result, which is all that concerns us, is, that the weight of the earth is 5842 trillions of tons: and since, as we have above stated, the mass of the earth is 80 times that of the moon, it follows that the weight of the moon is 73 trillions of tons. The cubical contents of a body compared with its weight gives us its density. In the moon we have 5276 millions of cubic miles of matter, the total weight of which is 73 trillions of tons. Now, 5276 millions of…

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Excerpt #11, from In Great Waters: Four Stories, by Thomas A. Janvier

…rights in her–as we say in Provence. But he did not get many of his rights. Half the time when he claimed her for walks on the hill-sides among the olive-orchards, she would not go with him–because she had her work to do at home, she said. And there was I, where her work was, at home! For a while Jan did not see beyond the end of his nose about it. I do not think that ever it crossed his mind to think of me in the matter–not, that is, until some one with better eyes than his eyes helped him to see. For he knew that I was his friend, and I suppose that he remembered what I had told him about my life being his. And even when his eyes were helped, he would not at first fully believe what he must plainly have seen. But he soon believed enough to make him change his manner toward me, and to make him watch sharp for something that would give him the right to speak words to me which would bring matters to a fair settlement by blows. And I was ready, as I have said–though I would not fairly own it to myself–to come to blows with him. For I wanted him dead, and out of my way. And so my mother’s words, which had made me at last see clearly, stayed by me as I went sailing in my boat softly seaward down the étang. And they struck deeper into me because Jan’s boat was just ahead of mine; and the sight of him, and the thought of how he had saved my life only to cross it, made me long to run him down and drown him, and so be quit…

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Excerpt #12, from The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

…this other fire he saw another and different man from the half-breed cook before him. This other man was shorter of leg and longer of arm, with muscles that were stringy and knotty rather than rounded and swelling. The hair of this man was long and matted, and his head slanted back under it from the eyes. He uttered strange sounds, and seemed very much afraid of the darkness, into which he peered continually, clutching in his hand, which hung midway between knee and foot, a stick with a heavy stone made fast to the end. He was all but naked, a ragged and fire-scorched skin hanging part way down his back, but on his body there was much hair. In some places, across the chest and shoulders and down the outside of the arms and thighs, it was matted into almost a thick fur. He did not stand erect, but with trunk inclined forward from the hips, on legs that bent at the knees. About his body there was a peculiar springiness, or resiliency, almost catlike, and a quick alertness as of one who lived in perpetual fear of things seen and unseen. At other times this hairy man squatted by the fire with head between his legs and slept. On such occasions his elbows were on his knees, his hands clasped above his head as though to shed rain by the hairy arms. And beyond that fire, in the circling darkness, Buck could see many gleaming coals, two by two, always two by two, which he knew to be the…

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