Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:30

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

…plainly heard by some wood cutters. Hurrying through the fog and mist, they found Huking, covered with blood, walking about the wreck. “I couldn’t keep her up with only one wing,” he was repeating. As they drew near, the pilot, who had had a very narrow escape from death, suddenly collapsed. They carried his unconscious form to the nearest doctor—three miles away—and Huking spent the next ten days in bed. But at the end of that time he was back on the job, carrying the mail between Reno and San Francisco, across the “hump” and the “hell hole” or Verdi, Nevada, which has been the scene of more than half a dozen near-tragedies. To return to Pilot Vance, who in December, 1923, was caught in a snowstorm between Reno and San Francisco: The flakes, large and fluffy like the breast feathers of a Canada goose, floated lazily to earth, entirely cutting off his view of the country below. Flying by compass and resorting to the tactics taught him by experience, Vance endeavored to climb above the storm. At 13,000 feet—two and a half miles—the tempest still was raging. Snow was falling thicker than ever. Vance realized that it would be pitch dark before he could reach Reno. With the chances ten to one that he would become lost in the snowstorm, and realizing that his gasoline supply was running low, Vance decided to come down….

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Excerpt #2, from The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

…possibly let you stand in front of that picture.” “You will some day, surely?” “Never.” “Well, perhaps you are right. And now good-bye, Dorian. You have been the one person in my life who has really influenced my art. Whatever I have done that is good, I owe to you. Ah! you don’t know what it cost me to tell you all that I have told you.” “My dear Basil,” said Dorian, “what have you told me? Simply that you felt that you admired me too much. That is not even a compliment.” “It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one’s worship into words.” “It was a very disappointing confession.” “Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn’t see anything else in the picture, did you? There was nothing else to see?” “No; there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn’t talk about worship. It is foolish. You and I are friends, Basil, and we must always remain so.” “You have got Harry,” said the painter sadly. “Oh, Harry!” cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter. “Harry spends his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is…

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Excerpt #3, from Uncle Wiggily’s Travels, by Howard Roger Garis

…water on himself, and they went on, feeling much better. But still they were warm again in a short time, and then the elephant said: “I know what I am going to do. I am going to get some more ice cream cones. They will cool us off better than anything else. I’ll go for them and bring back some big ones. You stay here in the shade, Uncle Wiggily, but don’t walk on ahead, or you may tumble into the water again.” “I’ll not,” promised the rabbit. “I’ll wait right here for you.” Off the elephant started to get the ice cream cones and pretty soon he came to the store where the man sold them. [Illustration] “I want two of your very coldest cones,” said the elephant to the man, for sometimes, in stories, you know, elephants can talk to people. “I want a big strawberry cone for myself,” the elephant went on, “and a smaller one for my friend, Uncle Wiggily, the rabbit.” “Very well,” said the man, “but you will have to wait until I make a large cone for you.” So that man took seventeen thousand, six hundred and eighty-seven little cones and made them into one big one for the elephant. Then he took eighteen thousand, two hundred and ninety-one quarts of strawberry ice cream, and an extra pint, and put it into the big cone. Then he made a…

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Excerpt #4, from The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study of Biological Philosophy, by Ernst Haeckel

…is especially conspicuous when it is one-sided, and provokes definite movements in one particular direction (chemotaxis). The movements of unicellular organisms that are provoked by chemical stimuli and are known as chemotropism (more recently as chemotaxis) are particularly interesting because they show the existence of a chemical sensitiveness, somewhat resembling taste or smell, in the lowest organisms, and even in the homogeneous plasm of the monera. Repeated experiments of Wilhelm Engelmann, Max Verworn, and others, have shown that many bacteria, diatomes, infusoria, rhizopods, and other protists, have a similar sense of taste; they move towards certain acids (for instance, a drop of malic acid) or a bubble of oxygen that lies on one side of the drop of water in which the protists are under the microscope. Many pathogenetic bacteria secrete poisonous substances which are very injurious to the human frame. The active white blood-cells, leucocytes, in the human blood have a special “taste” for these bacteria-poisons, and concentrate in large quantities, by means of their amœboid movements, at those parts of the body where they are secreted. If the leucocytes prove the stronger in their struggle with the bacteria, they destroy them, and in this way they act as sanitary officers in keeping poisonous infection out of our organism. But if the bacteria win the battle, they are transported into other…

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Excerpt #5, from Studying the short story, by J. Berg Esenwein

…70. However, the adjutant Gamba seemed to be offering the watch in good faith. Fortunato did not hold out his hand, but he said to him with a bitter smile: 71. “Why do you jest with me?” 72. “By Heaven, I am not joking! Only tell me where Gianetto is and this watch is yours.” [Sidenote: Compare with ¶67.] 73. Fortunato allowed an incredulous sigh to escape him; and, fixing his black eyes on those of the adjutant, he sought to find in them the faith he wished to have in his words. [Sidenote: A typical Latin protest.] 74. “May I lose my epaulets,” cried the adjutant, “if I do not give you the watch on these terms! My comrades are witnesses, and I cannot go back on my word!” [Sidenote: A key to the plot.] [Sidenote: MAIN CRISIS.] 75. So speaking, he held the watch nearer and nearer until it almost touched the pale cheeks of the child, whose face showed plainly the combat going on in his heart between covetousness and his respect for the laws of hospitality. His bare breast heaved violently, and he seemed to be almost stifling. All the time the watch dangled and…

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Excerpt #6, from Seven O’Clock Stories, by Robert Gordon Anderson

…“Through, through, through–I’m through with yooooooouuu.” He wouldn’t have anything more to do with little Duckie. I guess he suspected he was just a step-child after all. So he just grumbled to himself as he speared a fat tumble-bug with his beak: “Ur, ur–I don’t care!” He had enough children anyway. But the Gold Rooster on the top of the barn looked down, laughing at him. He couldn’t really laugh, you know, or flap his wings, but he swung from west to southwest and back again, as if to say: “I knew it. I knew it. They fooled you!” Old Father Drake, the head of the duck family, started for the water. Mother Duck and all the little ducks went in too. They were going to show Duckie the way. He just couldn’t stand it any longer. So–plopp in he went and paddled around after the others, and ducked his head under the water to catch his dinner, just as a real duckling should. “Better than grubbing for bugs in the dirty earth, this nice clean cool water,” quacked he, and he was as happy as happy could be. The Toyman was looking at him with a smile on his face. “He’s just like me,” he said at last, and the children, surprised at that, asked all together:…

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Excerpt #7, from Boswell’s Life of Johnson, by James Boswell

…tell, that Johnson said of an actor, who played Sir Harry Wildair at Lichfield, ‘There is a courtly vivacity about the fellow;’ when in fact, according to Garrick’s account, ‘he was the most vulgar ruffian that ever went upon boards.’ We had promised Mr. Stanton to be at his theatre on Monday. Dr. Johnson jocularly proposed me to write a Prologue for the occasion: ‘A Prologue, by James Boswell, Esq. from the Hebrides.’ I was really inclined to take the hint. Methought, ‘Prologue, spoken before Dr. Samuel Johnson, at Lichfield, 1776;’ would have sounded as well as, ‘Prologue, spoken before the Duke of York, at Oxford,’ in Charles the Second’s time. Much might have been said of what Lichfield had done for Shakspeare, by producing Johnson and Garrick. But I found he was averse to it. We went and viewed the museum of Mr. Richard Green, apothecary here, who told me he was proud of being a relation of Dr. Johnson’s. It was, truely, a wonderful collection, both of antiquities and natural curiosities, and ingenious works of art. He had all the articles accurately arranged, with their names upon labels, printed at his own little press; and on the staircase leading to it was a board, with the names of contributors marked in gold letters. A printed catalogue of the collection was to be had at a bookseller’s. Johnson expressed his admiration of the activity and diligence and good fortune of Mr. Green,…

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Excerpt #8, from The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories, by P. G. Wodehouse

…‘But why?’ She burst out a-crying again, like a kid. ‘Didn’t you read about it in the paper, Uncle Bill?’ ‘Read about what in the paper?’ ‘My accident. I broke my ankle at rehearsal ever so long ago, practising my new dance. The doctors say it will never be right again. I shall never be able to dance any more. I shall always limp. I shan’t even be able to walk properly. And when I thought of that … and Andy … and everything … I….’ I got on to my feet. ‘Well, well, well,’ I says. ‘Well, well, well! I don’t know as I blame you. But don’t you do it. It’s a mug’s game. Look here, if I leave you alone for half an hour, you won’t go trying it on again? Promise.’ ‘Very well, Uncle Bill. Where are you going?’ ‘Oh, just out. I’ll be back soon. You sit there and rest yourself.’ It didn’t take me ten minutes to get to the restaurant in a cab. I found Andy in the back room. ‘What’s the matter, Henry?’ he says. ‘Take a look at this,’ I says. There’s always this risk, mister, in being the Andy type of feller what must have his own way and goes straight ahead and has it; and that is…

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Excerpt #9, from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories, by Chekhov, by Chekhov

…“There is a wind, though. . . . Brrr!” said Samoylenko. “There must be a pretty stiff storm on the sea now! You are not going off at a nice time, Koyla.” “I’m not afraid of sea-sickness.” “That’s not the point. . . . I only hope these rascals won’t upset you. You ought to have crossed in the agent’s sloop. Where’s the agent’s sloop?” he shouted to the boatmen. “It has gone, Your Excellency.” “And the Customs-house boat?” “That’s gone, too.” “Why didn’t you let us know,” said Samoylenko angrily. “You dolts!” “It’s all the same, don’t worry yourself . . .” said Von Koren. “Well, good-bye. God keep you.” Samoylenko embraced Von Koren and made the sign of the cross over him three times. “Don’t forget us, Kolya. . . . Write. . . . We shall look out for you next spring.” “Good-bye, deacon,” said Von Koren, shaking hands with the deacon. “Thank you for your company and for your pleasant conversation. Think about the expedition.” “Oh Lord, yes! to the ends of the earth,” laughed the deacon. “I’ve…

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Excerpt #10, from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, by Jules Verne

…of forty leagues. But these forty leagues were of hard, impenetrable granite! All these dreary and miserable reflections passed through my mind, before I attempted to answer my uncle’s question. “Why, what is the matter?” he cried. “Cannot you say whether you have slept well or not?” “I have slept very well,” was my reply, “but every bone in my body aches. I suppose that will lead to nothing.” “Nothing at all, my boy. It is only the result of the fatigue of the last few days–that is all.” “You appear–if I may be allowed to say so–to be very jolly this morning,” I said. “Delighted, my dear boy, delighted. Was never happier in my life. We have at last reached the wished-for port.” “The end of our expedition?” cried I, in a tone of considerable surprise. “No; but to the confines of that sea which I began to fear would never end, but go round the whole world. We will now tranquilly resume our journey by land, and once again endeavor to dive into the centre of the earth.” “My dear uncle,” I began, in a hesitating kind of way, "allow me to ask…

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Excerpt #11, from An Ideal Husband, by Oscar Wilde

…LORD GORING. [After a long pause.] Nobody is incapable of doing a foolish thing. Nobody is incapable of doing a wrong thing. LADY CHILTERN. Are you a Pessimist? What will the other dandies say? They will all have to go into mourning. LORD GORING. [Rising.] No, Lady Chiltern, I am not a Pessimist. Indeed I am not sure that I quite know what Pessimism really means. All I do know is that life cannot be understood without much charity, cannot be lived without much charity. It is love, and not German philosophy, that is the true explanation of this world, whatever may be the explanation of the next. And if you are ever in trouble, Lady Chiltern, trust me absolutely, and I will help you in every way I can. If you ever want me, come to me for my assistance, and you shall have it. Come at once to me. LADY CHILTERN. [Looking at him in surprise.] Lord Goring, you are talking quite seriously. I don’t think I ever heard you talk seriously before. LORD GORING. [Laughing.] You must excuse me, Lady Chiltern. It won’t occur again, if I can help it. LADY CHILTERN. But I like you to be serious. [Enter MABEL CHILTERN, in the most ravishing frock.] MABEL CHILTERN. Dear Gertrude, don’t say such a dreadful thing to Lord…

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Excerpt #12, from Radio Active Substances, by Marie Curie

…chloride is only slightly soluble. Antimony and arsenic are found among the oxides only in the minutest quantity, their oxides having been dissolved by the soda. In order to obtain the very active sulphides, the following process was employed:—The solutions made strongly acid with hydrochloric acid were precipitated with sulphuretted hydrogen; the sulphides thus precipitated are very active, and are employed for the preparation of polonium; there remain in the solution substances not completely precipitated in presence of excess of hydrochloric acid (bismuth, lead, antimony). To complete the precipitation, the solution is diluted with water, and treated again with sulphuretted hydrogen, which gives a second precipitate of sulphides, much less active than the first, and which have generally been rejected. For the further purification of the sulphides, they are washed with ammonium sulphide, which removes the last remaining traces of antimony and arsenic. They are then washed with water and ammonium nitrate, and treated with dilute nitric acid. Complete solution never occurs; there is always an insoluble residue, more or less considerable, which can be treated afresh if it is judged expedient. The solution is reduced to a small volume and precipitated either by ammonia or by excess of water. In both cases the lead and the copper remain in solution; in the second case, a little bismuth, scarcely active at all, remains also in solution….

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