Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:16

Excerpt #1, from The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells

…destroyed in the end. Every now and then people would glance nervously across the Wey, at the meadows towards Chertsey, but everything over there was still. Across the Thames, except just where the boats landed, everything was quiet, in vivid contrast with the Surrey side. The people who landed there from the boats went tramping off down the lane. The big ferryboat had just made a journey. Three or four soldiers stood on the lawn of the inn, staring and jesting at the fugitives, without offering to help. The inn was closed, as it was now within prohibited hours. “What’s that?” cried a boatman, and “Shut up, you fool!” said a man near me to a yelping dog. Then the sound came again, this time from the direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud—the sound of a gun. The fighting was beginning. Almost immediately unseen batteries across the river to our right, unseen because of the trees, took up the chorus, firing heavily one after the other. A woman screamed. Everyone stood arrested by the sudden stir of battle, near us and yet invisible to us. Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows feeding unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows motionless in the warm sunlight. “The sojers’ll stop ’em,” said a woman beside me, doubtfully. A haziness rose over the treetops….

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Excerpt #2, from Significant Achievements in Space Bioscience 1958

…Comparison with ground-based controls revealed no measurable differences. Radiation dosimetry from the Mercury series established that minimal exposures were encountered at those orbital altitudes. A typical example is the MA-8 flight of W. M. Schirra, Jr., during which the body surface dosage was less than 30 millirads. NASA has supported fundamental radiation studies at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory. Emphasis has been placed on the biological effects of high-energy proton radiation and particulate radiation from accelerators. At the NASA Ames Research Center extensive fundamental studies are being carried out on the effects of radiation, especially in the nervous system. It has been demonstrated that deposits accumulate in the brain following exposure to large doses of ionizing particle radiation as well as after X-irradiation. These deposits, referred to as a “chemical lesion,” result from an accumulation of glycogen. The formation of these deposits during exposure to large doses of X-irradiation was not increased in environments of 99.5 percent oxygen and increased atmospheric pressure. SIMULATION OF PLANETARY (MARTIAN) ENVIRONMENTS Attempts have been made to simulate to some degree the various…

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Excerpt #3, from Nick Carter Stories No. 143, June 5, 1915: The sultan’s pearls; or, Nick

…general, and I don’t want to have a fight here. It isn’t necessary, and I always like to do my work in a quiet way–when I can.” “What shall I say he is wanted for?” asked Lawton, hesitating. “Tell him he has to sign a declaration for the customs department. Be sure you don’t give him a hint that there is anything wrong.” “I’m not afraid of him,” snapped the captain. “Of course you’re not. I don’t mean that he would hurt you–or me, either. But he might have a gun handy, and send a bullet through his own head. That’s all.” “I’ll be careful,” promised Lawton, as he went to the door of the stateroom and knocked. Sawyer was behind the sailcloth curtain that protected the saloon from the wind in bad weather, but he could see everything done from a narrow chink. The door of the stateroom was flung open, and Paul Clayton stood in the opening, his figure silhouetted against the light that streamed through the porthole behind him. “Custom officer on board, Mr. Miles,” announced the captain gruffly. “You’ll have to declare any baggage you have. They are particular here in San Juan.” “I don’t see why,” objected Clayton. “We have come from one American…

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Excerpt #4, from Survival at Altitude for Heavy and Very Heavy Bomber Crews

…operational or replacement training schools. The A-10-A mask is used in training where sufficient A-14 masks are not available. Both the A-10-A and the A-14 masks are suspended from the summer and winter flying helmets. NOTE: It is important that AERIAL GUNNERS obtain a properly fitting mask, fit to both summer and winter helmets at the first station available. Because of the extreme cold to which gunners are subjected under combat conditions, you MUST learn to remove and replace the mask quickly and accurately WEARING HEAVY GLOVES. It is not easy to manipulate a mask or unjam a .50 cal. gun with numb fingers in heavy flying gloves. PRACTICE these things on every training flight with gloves ON. FITTING THE MASK TO THE FACE – There are two considerations in obtaining a proper fit: (1) An AIR-TIGHT SEAL of mask to face. (2) Comfort of fit without undue pressure. The A-10-A and A-14 masks come in three sizes. Roughly, 60%!o(MISSING)f flyers will require the STANDARD (medium) size mask, 30%!t(MISSING)he LARGE mask, and the remaining 10%!t(MISSING)he SMALLER sizes. General instructions concerning fitting are….

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Excerpt #5, from Argot and Slang, by Albert Barrère

…à règles, a dirty, slatternly woman. Resserrer son —-, to die. (Thieves’) Avoir son —- lavé, to be caught, apprehended, or “smugged.” LINGÉ, adj. (popular), être —-, to have plenty of fine linen. LINGRE, or LINGUE, m. (thieves’), knife, or “chive.” From Langres, a manufacturing town. The synonyms are “linve, trente-deux, vingt-deux, chourin or surin, scion, coupe-sifflet, pliant.” Jouer du —-, to stab, “to stick, or to chive.” LINGRER, or LINGUER (thieves’), to stab, “to stick, or to chive.” LINGRIOT, m. (thieves’), penknife. LINGUARDE, f. (popular), woman with a soft tongue. LINGUE, m. (thieves’), knife, or “chive.” LINSPRÉ, m. (thieves’), prince. See LIMONADE. LINVÉ, m. (popular), loussem, twenty sous. The words “vingt sous” distorted. Un —-, a franc: “un lenquetré” being one franc and fifty centimes, or thirty sous, and “un larantqué,” two francs, or forty sous. These expressions are respectively the words un, trente, quarante, disguised. LION, m. (familiar), dandy of 1840. Fosse aux lions, box at the opera occupied by men of fashion. For synonymous terms see GOMMEUX. LIONNERIE, f. (familiar), fashionable world….

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Excerpt #6, from Hawaiian Folk Tales, by Thomas G. Thrum

…to his home at Puuloa was like the flight of a bird. The spoils and trophies of this battle he disposed of as before. The two young women, Kalelealuaka’s wives, turned the nozzle of the water-gourd downward, as they were bidden, and continued to press it into the water, in the vain hope that it might rise and fill their container, until the noonday sun began to pour his rays directly upon their heads; but no water entered their calabash. Then the younger sister proposed to the elder to fill the calabash in the usual way, saying that Kalelealuaka would not know the difference. This they did, and returned home. Kalelealuaka would not drink of the water, declaring that it had been dipped up. At this the younger wife laughed furtively; the elder broke forth and said: “It is due to the slowness of the way you told us to employ in getting the water. We are not accustomed to the menial office of fetching water; our father treated us delicately, and a man always fetched water for us, and we always used to see him pour the water into the gourd with the nozzle turned up, but you trickily ordered us to turn the nozzle down. Your exactions are heartless.” Thus the women kept complaining until, by and by, the tramp of the returning soldiers was heard, who were boasting of the great deeds of Keinohoomanawanui. The King, however, said: "I do not believe a word of…

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Excerpt #7, from Legends of the City of Mexico, by Thomas A. Janvier

…was sputtering out its very last sparks. Therefore the Padre went out in a hurry through the still open door into the street; and no sooner had he come there than the door closed behind him sharply, as though some one on the inside had pushed against it strongly to shut it fast. Out in the street he had expected to find the old woman waiting for him; and he looked about for her everywhere, desiring to tell her that she must send for him when the man’s fever left him–that he might return and hear from the man a real confession, and really shrive him of his sins. But the old woman was quite gone. Thinking that she must have slipped past him in the darkness into the house, he knocked at the door lightly, and then loudly; but no answer came to his knocking–and when he tried to push the door open, using all his strength, it held fast against his pushing as firmly as though it had been a part of the stone wall. So the Padre, having no liking for standing there in the cold and rain uselessly, hurried onward to his friend’s house–and was glad to get into the room where his friends were waiting for him, and where plenty of candles were burning, and where it was dry and warm. He had walked so fast that his forehead was wet with sweat when he took his hat off, and to dry it he put his hand into his pocket for his handkerchief; but his handkerchief was not in his pocket–and then…

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Excerpt #8, from Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Jonathan Swift

…in my poor opinion, be of much use for the despatch of business, in those countries where senates have any share in the legislative power; beget unanimity, shorten debates, open a few mouths which are now closed, and close many more which are now open; curb the petulancy of the young, and correct the positiveness of the old; rouse the stupid, and damp the pert. Again, because it is a general complaint, that the favourites of princes are troubled with short and weak memories; the same doctor proposed, “that whoever attended a first minister, after having told his business, with the utmost brevity and in the plainest words, should, at his departure, give the said minister a tweak by the nose, or a kick in the belly, or tread on his corns, or lug him thrice by both ears, or run a pin into his breech; or pinch his arm black and blue, to prevent forgetfulness; and at every levee day, repeat the same operation, till the business were done, or absolutely refused.” He likewise directed, “that every senator in the great council of a nation, after he had delivered his opinion, and argued in the defence of it, should be obliged to give his vote directly contrary; because if that were done, the result would infallibly terminate in the good of the public.” When parties in a state are violent, he offered a wonderful contrivance…

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Excerpt #9, from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, by Mark Twain

…as well at home. And although this expedition was strictly a holiday excursion for the king, he kept some of his business functions going just the same. He touched for the evil, as usual; he held court in the gate at sunrise and tried cases, for he was himself Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. He shone very well in this latter office. He was a wise and humane judge, and he clearly did his honest best and fairest,–according to his lights. That is a large reservation. His lights–I mean his rearing–often colored his decisions. Whenever there was a dispute between a noble or gentleman and a person of lower degree, the king’s leanings and sympathies were for the former class always, whether he suspected it or not. It was impossible that this should be otherwise. The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder’s moral perceptions are known and conceded, the world over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name. This has a harsh sound, and yet should not be offensive to any–even to the noble himself–unless the fact itself be an offense: for the statement simply formulates a fact. The repulsive feature of slavery is the thing, not its name. One needs but to hear an aristocrat speak of the classes that are below him to recognize–and in but indifferently modified measure…

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Excerpt #10, from The Student’s Elements of Geology, by Sir Charles Lyell

…teeth (which, as in all the old-World apes, exactly agree in number with those in man) it differed from the Gorilla and Chimpanzee, and corresponded with the human species. Upper Miocene Beds of Œningen, in Switzerland.—The faluns of the Loire first served, as already stated (p. 211), as the type of the Miocene formations in Europe. They yielded a plentiful harvest of marine fossil shells and corals, but were entirely barren of plants and insects. In Switzerland, on the other hand, deposits of the same age have been discovered, remarkable for their botanical and entomological treasures. We are indebted to Professor Heer, of Zurich, for the description, restoration, and classification of several hundred species and varieties of these fossil plants, the whole of which he has illustrated by excellent figures in his “Flora Tertiaria Helvetiæ.” This great work, and those of Adolphe Brongniart, Unger, Goppert and others, show that this class of fossils is beginning to play the same important part in the classification of the tertiary strata containing lignite or brown coal as an older flora has long played in enabling us to understand the ancient coal or carboniferous formation. No small skepticism has always prevailed among botanists as to whether the leaves alone and the wood of plants could ever afford sufficient data for determining even genera and families in the vegetable kingdom. In…

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Excerpt #11, from Seven Short Plays, by Lady Gregory

…and left it after. Miss Joyce: (Sharply.) It is a lodging you will never be let into or let stop in, Fardy. If they did go they were a good riddance. Fardy: John Hart, the plumber, left it—— Miss Joyce: If he did it was because he dared not pass the police coming in, as he used, with a rabbit he was after snaring in his hand. Fardy: The schoolmaster himself left it. Miss Joyce: He needn’t have left it if he hadn’t taken to card-playing. What way could you say your prayers, and shadows shuffling and dealing before you on the blind? Hyacinth: I think maybe I’d best look around a bit before I’ll settle in a lodging—— Miss Joyce: Not at all. You won’t be wanting to pull down the blind. Mrs. Delane: It is not likely you will be snaring rabbits. Miss Joyce: Or bringing in a bottle and taking an odd glass the way James Kelly did. Mrs. Delane: Or writing threatening notices, and the police taking a view of you from the rear. Miss Joyce: Or going to roadside dances, or running after good-for-nothing young girls——…

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Excerpt #12, from Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas, by H. A. Guerber

…decided to build an impregnable fortress; and while they were planning how this could be done, an unknown architect came with an offer to undertake the construction, provided the gods would give him sun, moon, and Freya, goddess of youth and beauty, as reward. The gods were wroth at so presumptuous an offer, but when they would have indignantly driven the stranger from their presence, Loki urged them to make a bargain which it would be impossible for the stranger to keep, and so they finally told the architect that the guerdon should be his, provided the fortress were finished in the course of a single winter, and that he accomplished the work with no other assistance than that of his horse Svadilfare. “To Asgard came an architect, And castle offered to erect,– A castle high Which should defy Deep Jotun guile and giant raid; And this most wily compact made: Fair Freya, with the Moon and Sun, As price the fortress being done.” Valhalla (J.C. Jones). The unknown architect agreed to these seemingly impossible conditions,…

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