Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:56

Excerpt #1, from Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Jonathan Swift

…down every precipice, and bouncing his head against every post; and in the streets, of justling others, or being justled himself into the kennel. It was necessary to give the reader this information, without which he would be at the same loss with me to understand the proceedings of these people, as they conducted me up the stairs to the top of the island, and from thence to the royal palace. While we were ascending, they forgot several times what they were about, and left me to myself, till their memories were again roused by their flappers; for they appeared altogether unmoved by the sight of my foreign habit and countenance, and by the shouts of the vulgar, whose thoughts and minds were more disengaged. At last we entered the palace, and proceeded into the chamber of presence, where I saw the king seated on his throne, attended on each side by persons of prime quality. Before the throne, was a large table filled with globes and spheres, and mathematical instruments of all kinds. His majesty took not the least notice of us, although our entrance was not without sufficient noise, by the concourse of all persons belonging to the court. But he was then deep in a problem; and we attended at least an hour, before he could solve it. There stood by him, on each side, a young page with flaps in their hands, and when…

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Excerpt #2, from A Lad of Grit: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea in Restoration Times

…and, at the request of Lawyer Whitehead, the clothes my father wore at the time of his death were produced. There was the belt–a highly ornamented broad band of Spanish leather. The lawyer took and examined it, then passed it on to Sir George, who also looked at it closely, even bending and shaking it in the hope that the missing box might be hidden between the layers of leather. “Ah, what has been here?” exclaimed the knight, pointing to a series of minute holes round a patch of leather that was not quite so discoloured as the rest. Clearly the mysterious box was missing, and it was evident that it had been forced away from the leathern belt. Then arose the question, how could it have been detached, and who was the miscreant who had taken it? The debate lasted for a long while, but all present were agreed that the villain Joyce must have annexed it for some particular motive, though ’twas evident that robbery was not intended, the box being of some worthless metal. Master Whitehead then gave to Sir George an oaken box which my father had mentioned in his will. The knight opened it, disclosing a lace handkerchief marked with a deep brown stain, to which was fastened a piece of parchment inscribed: “Stained with y^e blood of y^e Martyr His M^tie King Charles”, the jewelled hilt of a sword, a ring, and several…

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Excerpt #3, from The Topaz Story Book: Stories and Legends of Autumn, Hallowe’en, and

…in the world. The cows would not eat them, the children would not pick them, and even the bugs did not seem to like them very well. “I don’t see what we’re here for,” said one of the weeds. “We are not any good.” “No good at all,” growled a dozen little weeds, “only to catch dust.” “Well, if that’s what we’re here for,” cried a very tall weed, “then I say let’s catch dust! I suppose somebody’s got to do it. We can’t all bear blueberries or blossom into hollyhocks.” “But it isn’t pleasant work at all,” whined a tiny bit of a weed. “No whining allowed in this field,” laughed a funny little fat weed, with a hump in his stalk. “We’re all going to catch dust, so let’s see which one can catch the most. What do you say to a race?” The little fat weed spoke in such a jolly voice that the weeds all cheered up at once, and before long they were as busy as bees, and as happy as Johnnie-jump-ups. They worked so well stretching their stalks and spreading out their fingers that before the summer was half over they were able to take every bit of dust that flew up from the road. In the field beyond, where the clover grew and the cows fed, there was not any to be seen. One morning, toward the end of summer, the weeds were surprised to see a number of people standing by the fence looking at them. Pretty…

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Excerpt #4, from Legends of the Gods, by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge

…(?)].[FN#230] I went away to the city of Am, [where] the people gave thanks [for me] through [their] fear of my making trouble [for them]. I passed the day in seeking to provide food for the child, [and] on returning to take Horus into my arms I found him, Horus, the beautiful one of gold, the boy, the child, without [life]. He had bedewed the ground with the water of his eye, and with foam from his lips. His body was motionless, his heart was powerless to move, and the sinews (or, muscles) of his members were [helpless]. I sent forth a cry, [saying]: [FN#229] Or, Ateh, the papyrus swamp. [FN#230] i.e., Set. "’I, even I, lack a son to make answer [for me].[FN#231] [My] two breasts are full to overflowing, [but] my body is empty. [My] mouth wished for that which concerned him.[FN#232] A cistern of water and a stream of the inundation was I. The child was the desire of my heart, and I longed to protect him (?). I carried him in my womb, I gave birth to him, I endured the agony of the birth pangs, I was all alone, and the great ones were afraid of disaster and to come out at the sound of my voice. My father is in the Tuat,[FN#233] my mother is in Aqert,[FN#234] and my elder brother is in the sarcophagus. Think of the enemy and of how prolonged was the wrath of his heart against me,…

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Excerpt #5, from The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, by Oscar Wilde

…JACK. My dear Algy, I don’t know whether you will be able to understand my real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It’s one’s duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple. ALGERNON. The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility! …JACK. That wouldn’t be at all a bad thing. ALGERNON. Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don’t try it. You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the…

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Excerpt #6, from Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll

…down there? They can’t be bees—nobody ever saw bees a mile off, you know—” and for some time she stood silent, watching one of them that was bustling about among the flowers, poking its proboscis into them, “just as if it was a regular bee,” thought Alice. However, this was anything but a regular bee: in fact it was an elephant—as Alice soon found out, though the idea quite took her breath away at first. “And what enormous flowers they must be!” was her next idea. “Something like cottages with the roofs taken off, and stalks put to them—and what quantities of honey they must make! I think I’ll go down and—no, I won’t just yet,” she went on, checking herself just as she was beginning to run down the hill, and trying to find some excuse for turning shy so suddenly. “It’ll never do to go down among them without a good long branch to brush them away—and what fun it’ll be when they ask me how I like my walk. I shall say—‘Oh, I like it well enough—’” (here came the favourite little toss of the head), “‘only it was so dusty and hot, and the elephants did tease so!’” “I think I’ll go down the other way,” she said after a pause: “and perhaps I may visit the elephants later on. Besides, I do so want to get into the Third Square!” So with this excuse she ran down the hill and jumped over the first of the six little brooks….

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Excerpt #7, from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; the Art of Controversy, by Arthur Schopenhauer

…privation. * * * * * Every happiness that a man enjoys, and almost every friendship that he cherishes, rest upon illusion; for, as a rule, with increase of knowledge they are bound to vanish. Nevertheless, here as elsewhere, a man should courageously pursue truth, and never weary of striving to settle accounts with himself and the world. No matter what happens to the right or to the left of him,–be it a chimaera or fancy that makes him happy, let him take heart and go on, with no fear of the desert which widens to his view. Of one thing only must he be quite certain: that under no circumstances will he discover any lack of worth in himself when the veil is raised; the sight of it would be the Gorgon that would kill him. Therefore, if he wants to remain undeceived, let him in his inmost being feel his own worth. For to feel the lack of it is not merely the greatest, but also the only true affliction; all other sufferings of the mind may not only be healed, but may be immediately relieved, by the secure consciousness of worth. The man who is assured of it can sit down quietly under sufferings that would otherwise bring him to despair; and though he has no pleasures, no joys and no friends, he can rest in and on himself; so powerful is the comfort to be derived from a vivid consciousness of this advantage; a…

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Excerpt #8, from A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, by Charles Dickens

…Spirit for an explanation. The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here. He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view. “How are you?” said one. “How are you?” returned the other. “Well!” said the first. “Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?” “So I am told,” returned the second. “Cold, isn’t it?” “Seasonable for Christmas time. You’re not a skater, I suppose?” “No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!” Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting. Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden…

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Excerpt #9, from Short Stories for High Schools, by Rosa Mary Redding Mikels

…tackler who clung to his waist, he floundered to earth with most of the Princeton team piled above him. But the ball lay beyond the fateful chalk-line, the Yale touchdown was won, and the game was tied. The captain clapped Seeley on the shoulder, nodded at the ball, and the full-back limped on to the field to kick the goal or lose a victory. There were no more signs of nervousness in his bearing. With grave deliberation he stood waiting for the ball to be placed in front of the goal-posts. The sun had dropped behind the lofty grand-stands. The field lay in a kind of wintry twilight. Thirty thousand men and women gazed in tensest silence at the mud-stained, battered youth who had become the crowning issue of this poignant moment. Up in the press-box a thick-set, grayish man dug his fists in his eyes and could not bear to look at the lonely, reliant figure down yonder on the quiet field. The father found courage to take his hands from his face only when a mighty roar of joy boomed along the Yale side of the amphitheatre, and he saw the ball drop in a long arc behind the goal-posts. The kick had won the game for Yale. Once clear of the crowds, Henry Seeley hurried toward the training quarters. His head was up, his shoulders squared, and he walked with the free stride of an athlete. Mr. Richard Giddings danced madly across to him:…

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Excerpt #10, from Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

…was never so beaten with anything in my life: but you must e’en take it as a gift of God; though it’s as dark almost as if it came from the devil.” We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy’s head I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, black-haired child; big enough both to walk and talk: indeed, its face looked older than Catherine’s; yet when it was set on its feet, it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand. I was frightened, and Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for? What he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad? The master tried to explain the matter; but he was really half dead with fatigue, and all that I could make out, amongst her scolding, was a tale of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb, in the streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and inquired for its owner. Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at once, than run into vain expenses there: because he was determined he would not leave it as he found it. Well, the conclusion was, that my mistress grumbled herself calm; and Mr. Earnshaw told me to wash it, and give it clean things, and let it sleep…

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Excerpt #11, from Canadian Fairy Tales, by Cyrus MacMillan

…the ladder strands, and he laughed to himself at the memory of the star-fairies falling to earth with a great crash. But the man with the light knew that now he had his chance to take vengeance on the Spider Man. The latter did not suspect evil. He was glad to get food at last. Then the humped man said, “I will give you four pots. You must not open them until you get home. They will then be filled with food, and thereafter always when you open them they will be packed with good food. And the food will never grow less.” The Spider Man put the four pots in his bag and slinging it over his shoulder he set out for his home, well pleased with his success. After he had gone away, the humped man used his power to make him hungry. Yet for several days he travelled without opening the pots, for although he was almost starving he wished to do as the humped man had told him. At last he could wait no longer. He stopped near his home, took the pots out of the bag and opened them. They were filled with good food as he had been promised. In one was a fine meat stew; in another were many cooked vegetables; in another was bread made from Indian corn; and in another was luscious ripe fruit. He ate until he was full. He covered the pots, put them back in the bag, and hid the bag among the trees. Then he went home. He had meanwhile taken pity on his people and he decided to invite the Chief and all the tribe to a feast the next…

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Excerpt #12, from Desert Dust, by Edwin L. Sabin

…hyar, either. You can meet a friendly woman any time, but this one got hold you fust." I writhed to the words. “And that fellow Jim?” I asked. “He’s jest a common roper. He alluz wins, to encourage suckers like you. ‘Tisn’t his money he plays with; he’s on commish. Beginnin’ to understand, ain’t you?” “But the bent card?” I insisted. “That is the mystery. It was the queen. What became of the queen?” “Ho ho!” And again he laughed. "A cute trick, shore. That’s what we got for bein’ so plumb crooked ourselves. Why, o’ course it was the queen, once. You see ‘twas this way. That she-male and the capper in cahoots with her tolled you on straight for Montoyo’s table; teased you a leetle along the trail, no doubt, to keep you interested." I nodded. “They promised you winnin’s, easy winnin’s. Then at Montoyo’s table the game was a leetle slack; so one capper touched him on the shoulder and another marked the card. O’ course a gambler like him wouldn’t be up to readin’ his own cards. Oh, no! You sports were the smart ones.” “How about yourself?” I retorted, nettled. "Me? I know them tricks, but I reckoned I was smart, too. Then that capper Jim led out and we all made a small winnin’, to prove the system. And…

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