Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:24:47

Excerpt #1, from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, by William Shakespeare

…arrant knave. HORATIO. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave To tell us this. HAMLET. Why, right; you are i’ the right; And so, without more circumstance at all, I hold it fit that we shake hands and part: You, as your business and desires shall point you,— For every man hath business and desire, Such as it is;—and for my own poor part, Look you, I’ll go pray. HORATIO. These are but wild and whirling words, my lord. HAMLET. I’m sorry they offend you, heartily; Yes faith, heartily. HORATIO. There’s no offence, my lord. HAMLET. Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio, And much offence too. Touching this vision here, It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you. For your desire to know what is between us, O’ermaster’t as you may. And now, good friends, As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers, Give me one poor request. HORATIO. What is’t, my lord? We will. HAMLET. Never make known what you have seen tonight. HORATIO and MARCELLUS. My lord, we will not. HAMLET. Nay, but swear’t. HORATIO. In faith, my lord, not I….

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Excerpt #2, from The Bacchae of Euripides, by Euripides

…That the Spirit of God, whate’er it be, The Law that abides and changes not, ages long, The Eternal and Nature-born–these things be strong? What else is Wisdom? What of man’s endeavour Or God’s high grace so lovely and so great? To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait; To hold a hand uplifted over Hate; And shall not Loveliness be loved for ever? LEADER. Happy he, on the weary sea Who hath fled the tempest and won the haven. Happy whoso hath risen, free, Above his striving. For strangely graven Is the orb of life, that one and another In gold and power may outpass his brother. And men in their millions float and flow And seethe with a million hopes as leaven; And they win their Will, or they miss their Will, And the hopes are dead or are pined for still; But whoe’er can know, As the long days go,…

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Excerpt #3, from Notes from the Underground, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

…a coward and a slave, and I fancied it just because I was more highly developed. But it was not only that I fancied it, it really was so. I was a coward and a slave. I say this without the slightest embarrassment. Every decent man of our age must be a coward and a slave. That is his normal condition. Of that I am firmly persuaded. He is made and constructed to that very end. And not only at the present time owing to some casual circumstances, but always, at all times, a decent man is bound to be a coward and a slave. It is the law of nature for all decent people all over the earth. If anyone of them happens to be valiant about something, he need not be comforted nor carried away by that; he would show the white feather just the same before something else. That is how it invariably and inevitably ends. Only donkeys and mules are valiant, and they only till they are pushed up to the wall. It is not worth while to pay attention to them for they really are of no consequence. Another circumstance, too, worried me in those days: that there was no one like me and I was unlike anyone else. “I am alone and they are everyone,” I thought—and pondered. From that it is evident that I was still a youngster. The very opposite sometimes happened. It was loathsome sometimes to go to the office; things reached such a point that I often came home ill….

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Excerpt #4, from A United States Midshipman in Japan, by Yates Stirling

…Phil gazed with renewed interest at these doll-like beauties, wishing to speak, yet believing that surely neither could understood English. “How old are they?” he thought–“surely not beyond sixteen years.” Takishima had been talking to the young ladies in his own soft language, while Phil studied their enthusiastic faces. He knew that he was the subject of the conversation, and felt very conscious until Hama-san changed this feeling to one of delighted surprise. “Then you are one of my brother’s schoolmates,” Takishima’s sister, Hama-san, exclaimed, again bowing gracefully to Phil. The midshipman was startled to hear one of these delicate dolls speak his own difficult language, and the surprise in his face caused all three of his companions to laugh gayly. “You speak English!” he gasped, and then joined in the laugh on himself. “How stupid of me,” he added hastily. “O Hama-san was at Vassar while Taki was at Annapolis. “Do you speak English too?” he asked of Miss Kamikura. Cho Kamikura, or O Chio-san, as she was called by her friends, shook her head, smiling nevertheless into the lad’s face. Phil almost dropped the plate from which he was eating, as he suddenly saw his sought for Mr. Impey enter the tent and come directly toward his party. Takishima grasped his hand cordially, while his woman…

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Excerpt #5, from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete, by Mark Twain

…floorless room, unplastered, an ancient fireplace, vacant windows, a ruinous staircase; and here, there, and everywhere hung ragged and abandoned cobwebs. They presently entered, softly, with quickened pulses, talking in whispers, ears alert to catch the slightest sound, and muscles tense and ready for instant retreat. In a little while familiarity modified their fears and they gave the place a critical and interested examination, rather admiring their own boldness, and wondering at it, too. Next they wanted to look upstairs. This was something like cutting off retreat, but they got to daring each other, and of course there could be but one result—they threw their tools into a corner and made the ascent. Up there were the same signs of decay. In one corner they found a closet that promised mystery, but the promise was a fraud—there was nothing in it. Their courage was up now and well in hand. They were about to go down and begin work when— “Sh!” said Tom. “What is it?” whispered Huck, blanching with fright. “Sh!… There!… Hear it?” “Yes!… Oh, my! Let’s run!” “Keep still! Don’t you budge! They’re coming right toward the door.” The boys stretched themselves upon the floor with their eyes to knotholes in the planking, and lay waiting, in a misery of fear….

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Excerpt #6, from The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

…that such simple and self‐ evident ideas should be so slow to occur to our minds. It is impossible that there should be no servants in the world, but act so that your servant may be freer in spirit than if he were not a servant. And why cannot I be a servant to my servant and even let him see it, and that without any pride on my part or any mistrust on his? Why should not my servant be like my own kindred, so that I may take him into my family and rejoice in doing so? Even now this can be done, but it will lead to the grand unity of men in the future, when a man will not seek servants for himself, or desire to turn his fellow creatures into servants as he does now, but on the contrary, will long with his whole heart to be the servant of all, as the Gospel teaches. And can it be a dream, that in the end man will find his joy only in deeds of light and mercy, and not in cruel pleasures as now, in gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boasting and envious rivalry of one with the other? I firmly believe that it is not and that the time is at hand. People laugh and ask: “When will that time come and does it look like coming?” I believe that with Christ’s help we shall accomplish this great thing. And how many ideas there have been on earth in the history of man which were unthinkable ten years before they appeared! Yet when their destined hour had come, they came forth and spread over…

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Excerpt #7, from Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas, by H. A. Guerber

…And they met and kissed together: then they hewed and heaved full hard Till, lo, through the bursten rafters the winter heavens bestarred! And they leap out merry-hearted; nor is there need to say A many words between them of whither was the way." Sigmund’s Vengeance As soon as they were free, Sigmund and Sinfiotli returned to the king’s hall, and piling combustible materials around it, they set fire to the mass. Then stationing themselves on either side of the entrance, they prevented all but the women from passing through. They loudly adjured Signy to escape ere it was too late, but she did not desire to live, and so coming to the entrance for a last embrace she found opportunity to whisper the secret of Sinfiotli’s birth, after which she sprang back into the flames and perished with the rest. “And then King Siggeir’s roof-tree upheaved for its utmost fall, And its huge walls clashed together, and its mean and lowly things The fire of death confounded with the tokens of the kings.” Helgi The long-planned vengeance for the slaughter of the Volsungs having thus been carried out, Sigmund, feeling that nothing now detained him in the land of the Goths, set sail with Sinfiotli and returned to…

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Excerpt #8, from The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

…pie, as the least convenient thing to carry. In a few minutes he came to a stream, and he climbed a fence and walked down the bank, along a woodland path. By and by he found a comfortable spot, and there he devoured his meal, slaking his thirst at the stream. Then he lay for hours, just gazing and drinking in joy; until at last he felt sleepy, and lay down in the shade of a bush. When he awoke the sun was shining hot in his face. He sat up and stretched his arms, and then gazed at the water sliding by. There was a deep pool, sheltered and silent, below him, and a sudden wonderful idea rushed upon him. He might have a bath! The water was free, and he might get into it—all the way into it! It would be the first time that he had been all the way into the water since he left Lithuania! When Jurgis had first come to the stockyards he had been as clean as any workingman could well be. But later on, what with sickness and cold and hunger and discouragement, and the filthiness of his work, and the vermin in his home, he had given up washing in winter, and in summer only as much of him as would go into a basin. He had had a shower bath in jail, but nothing since—and now he would have a swim! The water was warm, and he splashed about like a very boy in his glee. Afterward he sat down in the water near the bank, and proceeded to scrub himself—soberly and methodically, scouring every inch of him with…

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Excerpt #9, from Don Juan, by Baron George Gordon Byron Byron

…But I will fall at least as fell my hero; Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign; Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go, With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe. Sir Walter reign’d before me; Moore and Campbell Before and after; but now grown more holy, The Muses upon Sion’s hill must ramble With poets almost clergymen, or wholly; And Pegasus hath a psalmodic amble Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley, Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts, A modern Ancient Pistol—by the hilts? Then there’s my gentle Euphues, who, they say, Sets up for being a sort of moral me; He’ll find it rather difficult some day To turn out both, or either, it may be. Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three; And that deep-mouth’d Boeotian ‘Savage Landor’ Has taken for a swan rogue Southey’s gander. John Keats, who was kill’d off by one critique,…

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Excerpt #10, from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; the Art of Controversy, by Arthur Schopenhauer

…If you had a dog and wanted to make him fond of you, and fancied that of your hundred rare and excellent characteristics the mongrel would be sure to perceive one, and that that would be sufficient to make him devoted to you body and soul–if, I say, you fancied that, you would be a fool. Pat him, give him something to eat; and for the rest, be what you please: he will not in the least care, but will be your faithful and devoted dog. Now, believe me, it is just the same with men–exactly the same. As Goethe says, man or dog, it is a miserable wretch: Denn ein erbärmlicher Schuft, so wie der Mensch, ist der hund. If you ask why these contemptible fellows are so lucky, it is just because, in themselves and for themselves and to themselves, they are nothing at all. The value which they possess is merely comparative; they exist only for others; they are never more than means; they are never an end and object in themselves; they are mere bait, set to catch others.[1] I do not admit that this rule is susceptible of any exception, that is to say, complete exceptions. There are, it is true, men–though they are sufficiently rare–who enjoy some subjective moments; nay, there are perhaps some who for every hundred subjective moments enjoy a few that are objective; but a higher state of perfection scarcely ever occurs. But do not take yourself for an…

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Excerpt #11, from The Radio Amateur’s Hand Book, by A. Frederick Collins

…fee or charge of any kind is made. There are three classes of licenses issued to amateurs who want to operate transmitting stations and these are: (1) the restricted amateur license, (2) the general amateur license, and (3) the special amateur license. If you are going to set up a transmitter within five nautical miles of any naval wireless station then you will have to get a restricted amateur license which limits the current you use to half a kilowatt [Footnote: A Kilowatt is 1,000 watts. There are 746 watts in a horsepower.] and the wave length you send out to 200 meters. Should you live outside of the five-mile range of a navy station then you can get a general amateur license and this permits you to use a current of 1 kilowatt, but you are likewise limited to a wave length of 200 meters. But if you can show that you are doing some special kind of wireless work and not using your sending station for the mere pleasure you are getting out of it you may be able to get a special amateur license which gives you the right to send out wave lengths up to 375 meters. When you are ready to apply for your license write to the Radio Inspector of whichever one of the following districts you live in: First District…………..Boston, Mass. Second " …………..New York City…

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Excerpt #12, from The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway

…“Get two or three rods with reels, and lines, and some flies.” “I won’t fish,” Brett put in. “Get two rods, then, and Bill won’t have to buy one.” “Right,” said Mike. “I’ll send a wire to the keeper.” “Won’t it be splendid,” Brett said. “Spain! We will have fun.” “The 25th. When is that?” “Saturday.” “We will have to get ready.” “I say,” said Mike, “I’m going to the barber’s.” “I must bathe,” said Brett. “Walk up to the hotel with me, Jake. Be a good chap.” “We have got the loveliest hotel,” Mike said. “I think it’s a brothel!” “We left our bags here at the Dingo when we got in, and they asked us at this hotel if we wanted a room for the afternoon only. Seemed frightfully pleased we were going to stay all night.” “I believe it’s a brothel,” Mike said. “And I should know.” “Oh, shut it and go and get your hair cut.” Mike went out. Brett and I sat on at the bar. “Have another?” “Might.”…

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