Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:54

Excerpt #1, from The Grand Babylon Hôtel, by Arnold Bennett

…Rocco–’ ‘Rocco! What about Rocco?’ Nella could scarcely hear herself. Her grip of the revolver tightened. Miss Spencer’s eyes opened wider; she gazed at Nella with a glassy stare. ‘Don’t ask me. It’s death!’ Her eyes were fixed as if in horror. ‘It is,’ said Nella, and the sound of her voice seemed to her to issue from the lips of some third person. ‘It’s death,’ repeated Miss Spencer, and gradually her head and shoulders sank back, and hung loosely over the chair. Nella was conscious of a sudden revulsion. The woman had surely fainted. Dropping the revolver she ran round the table. She was herself again–feminine, sympathetic, the old Nella. She felt immensely relieved that this had happened. But at the same instant Miss Spencer sprang up from the chair like a cat, seized the revolver, and with a wild movement of the arm flung it against the window. It crashed through the glass, exploding as it went, and there was a tense silence. ‘I told you that you were a fool,’ remarked Miss Spencer slowly, ‘coming here like a sort of female Jack Sheppard, and trying to get the best of me. We are on equal terms now. You frightened me, but I knew I was a…

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Excerpt #2, from Grimms’ Fairy Tales, by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

…Gretel,’ she cried to the girl, ‘stir yourself, and bring some water. Let Hansel be fat or lean, tomorrow I will kill him, and cook him.’ Ah, how the poor little sister did lament when she had to fetch the water, and how her tears did flow down her cheeks! ‘Dear God, do help us,’ she cried. ‘If the wild beasts in the forest had but devoured us, we should at any rate have died together.’ ‘Just keep your noise to yourself,’ said the old woman, ‘it won’t help you at all.’ Early in the morning, Gretel had to go out and hang up the cauldron with the water, and light the fire. ‘We will bake first,’ said the old woman, ‘I have already heated the oven, and kneaded the dough.’ She pushed poor Gretel out to the oven, from which flames of fire were already darting. ‘Creep in,’ said the witch, ‘and see if it is properly heated, so that we can put the bread in.’ And once Gretel was inside, she intended to shut the oven and let her bake in it, and then she would eat her, too. But Gretel saw what she had in mind, and said: ‘I do not know how I am to do it; how do I get in?’ ‘Silly goose,’ said the old woman. ‘The door is big enough; just look, I can get in myself!’ and she crept up and thrust her head into the oven. Then Gretel gave her a push that drove her far into it, and shut the iron door, and fastened the bolt. Oh! then she began to howl quite horribly, but Gretel ran away and the godless witch was miserably burnt to death….

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Excerpt #3, from In the Sargasso Sea, by Thomas A. Janvier

…that it’s dancin’ a jig every time she pitches, and everything at rags an’ tatters of loose ends." “But the doctor?” I asked. “He says himself, sir, that he’s not dangerous, and I s’pose he ought to know. Th’ captain an’ th’ purser together, he orderin’ ‘em, have set his leg for him; and his head, he says, ’ll take care of itself, bein’ both thick an’ hard. But he’s worryin’ painful because he can’t look after you, sir, an’ th’ four or five others that got hurt in th’ storm. And I can tell you, sir,” the man went on, “that all th’ ship’s company, an’ th’ passengers on top of ‘em, are sick with sorrow that this has happened to him; for there’s not a soul ever comes near th’ doctor but loves him for his goodness, and we’d all be glad to break our own legs this minute if by that we could be mendin’ his!” The steward spoke very feelingly and earnestly, and with what he said I was in thorough sympathy; for the doctor’s care of me and his friendliness had won my heart to him, just as it had won to him the hearts of all on board. But there was comfort in knowing that he had got off with only a broken leg and a broken head from a peril that so easily might have been the death of him, and of that consolation I made the most–while the steward, who was a handy fellow and pretty well trained as a surgeon’s assistant, freshly bandaged my head for me…

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Excerpt #4, from Vikram and the Vampire: Classic Hindu Tales of Adventure, Magic, and Romance

…caresses. But as Jayashri bent down to kiss his lips, he caught the end of her nose in his teeth, and bit it clean off. He then issued from the corpse, and returned to the branch where he had been sitting. Jayashri was in despair. She did not, however, lose her presence of mind, but sat down and proceeded to take thought; and when she had matured her plan she arose, dripping with blood, and walked straight home to her husband’s house. On entering his room she clapped her hand to her nose, and began to gnash her teeth, and to shriek so violently, that all the members of the family were alarmed. The neighbours also collected in numbers at the door, and, as it was bolted inside, they broke it open and rushed in, carrying lights. There they saw the wife sitting upon the ground with her face mutilated, and the husband standing over her, apparently trying to appease her. “O ignorant, criminal, shameless, pitiless wretch!” cried the people, especially the women; “why hast thou cut off her nose, she not having offended in any way?” Poor Shridat, seeing at once the trick which had been played upon him, thought to himself: “One should put no confidence in a changeful mind, a black serpent, or an armed enemy, and one should dread a woman’s doings. What cannot a poet describe? What is there that a saint (jogi) does not know? What nonsense will not a drunken man talk? What limit is there to…

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Excerpt #5, from Desert Dust, by Edwin L. Sabin

…silhouette. While through the interstices between the buildings I might see other structures, ranging from those of tolerable size to simple wall tents and makeshift shacks, eerily shadowed. The noise had, if anything, redoubled. To the exclamations, the riotous shouts and whoops, the general gay vociferations and the footsteps of a busy people, the harangues of the barkers, the more distant puffing and shrieking of the locomotives at the railroad yards, the hammering where men and boys worked by torchlight, and now and then a revolver shot, there had been added the inciting music of stringed instruments, cymbals, and such–some in dance measures, some solo, while immediately at hand sounded the shuffling stamp of waltz, hoe-down and cotillion. Night at Benton plainly had begun with a gusto. It stirred one’s blood. It called–it summoned with such a promise of variety, of adventure, of flotsam and jetsam and shuttlecock of chances, that I, a youth with twenty-one dollars and a half at disposal, all his clothes on his back, a man’s weapon at his belt, and an appointment with a lady as his future, forgetful of past and courageous in present, strode confidently, even recklessly down, as eager as one to the manners of the country born. The mysterious allusions to the Big Tent now piqued me. It was a rendezvous, popular, I deemed, and respectable, as assured. An amusement place, judging by the talk; superior, undoubtedly, to other resorts that I…

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Excerpt #6, from Anne of the Island, by L. M. Montgomery

…string to it and the other end to the door, and then shut the door. I sold it to Milty for two cents. Milty’s collecting teeth.” “What in the world does he want teeth for?” asked Marilla. “To make a necklace for playing Indian Chief,” explained Davy, climbing upon Anne’s lap. “He’s got fifteen already, and everybody’s else’s promised, so there’s no use in the rest of us starting to collect, too. I tell you the Boulters are great business people.” “Were you a good boy at Mrs. Boulter’s?” asked Marilla severely. “Yes; but say, Marilla, I’m tired of being good.” “You’d get tired of being bad much sooner, Davy-boy,” said Anne. “Well, it’d be fun while it lasted, wouldn’t it?” persisted Davy. “I could be sorry for it afterwards, couldn’t I?” “Being sorry wouldn’t do away with the consequences of being bad, Davy. Don’t you remember the Sunday last summer when you ran away from Sunday School? You told me then that being bad wasn’t worth while. What were you and Milty doing today?” “Oh, we fished and chased the cat, and hunted for eggs, and yelled at the echo. There’s a great echo in the bush behind the Boulter barn. Say, what is echo, Anne; I want to know.” “Echo is a beautiful nymph, Davy, living far away in the woods, and laughing at the world from among the hills.”…

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Excerpt #7, from The 1992 CIA World Factbook, by United States. Central Intelligence Agency

…Natural resources: oil, some coal, bauxite, low-grade iron ore, calcium, natural asphalt, silica, mica, clays, salt, fruit, livestock Land use: 32%!a(MISSING)rable land; 20%!p(MISSING)ermanent crops; 18%!m(MISSING)eadows and pastures; 15%!f(MISSING)orest and woodland; 9%!o(MISSING)ther; includes 5%!i(MISSING)rrigated Environment: air pollution from metallurgical plants; damaged forest; coastal pollution from industrial and domestic waste; subject to frequent and destructive earthquakes Note: controls most land routes from Western Europe to Aegean Sea and Turkish Straits :Croatia People Population: 4,784,000 (July 1991), growth rate 0.39%!((MISSING)for the period 1981-91) Birth rate: 12.2 births/1,000 population (1991) Death rate: 11.3 deaths/1,000 population (1991) Net migration rate:…

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Excerpt #8, from The 1992 CIA World Factbook,, by United States. Central Intelligence Agency

…is the closest conjoined, and imbued, and identified, so to speak, with the spirit whereof it is the instrument.” “Then I need ask no further,” said the clergyman, somewhat hastily rising from his chair. “You deal not, I take it, in medicine for the soul!” “Thus, a sickness,” continued Roger Chillingworth, going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption,—but standing up, and confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark, and misshapen figure,—“a sickness, a sore place, if we may so call it, in your spirit, hath immediately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame. Would you, therefore, that your physician heal the bodily evil? How may this be, unless you first lay open to him the wound or trouble in your soul?” “No!—not to thee!—not to an earthly physician!” cried Mr. Dimmesdale, passionately, and turning his eyes, full and bright, and with a kind of fierceness, on old Roger Chillingworth. “Not to thee! But if it be the soul’s disease, then do I commit myself to the one Physician of the soul! He, if it stand with his good pleasure, can cure; or he can kill! Let him do with me as, in his justice and wisdom, he shall see good. But who art thou, that meddlest in this matter?—that dares thrust himself between the sufferer and his God?”…

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Excerpt #9, from Curiosities of Human Nature, by Samuel G. Goodrich

…at Prague; but in reality I have written it principally to please myself and my friends." Ample justice has however at length been rendered to this great production; it is heard with enthusiasm in nearly all the principal cities of that quarter of the globe where music is cultivated as a science–from the frozen regions of Russia, to the foot of Mount Vesuvius. Its praise is not limited by the common attributes of good musical composition; it is placed in the higher rank of fine poetry; for not only are to be found in it exquisite melodies and profound harmonies, but the playful, the tender, the pathetic, the mysterious, the sublime, and the terrible, are to be distinctly traced in its various parts. The overture to this opera is generally esteemed Mozart’s best effort; yet it was only composed the night previous to the first representation, after the general rehearsal had taken place. About eleven o’clock in the evening, when retired to his apartment, he desired his wife to make him some punch, and to stay with him, in order to keep him awake. She accordingly began to tell him fairy tales, and odd stories, which made him laugh till the tears came. The punch, however, made him so drowsy, that he could go on only while his wife was talking, and dropped asleep as soon as she ceased. The efforts which he made to keep himself awake, the continual alternation of sleep and watching, so fatigued him, that…

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Excerpt #10, from The Story of the Barbary Corsairs, by J. D. Jerrold Kelley and Stanley Lane

…remained he enhanced his already unrivalled renown. His first exploit after Prevesa was the recapture of Castelnuovo, which the allied fleets had seized in October, as some compensation on land for their humiliation at sea. The Turkish armies had failed to recover the fortress in January, 1539; but in July Barbarossa went to the front as usual, with a fleet of two hundred galleys, large and small, and all his best captains; and, after some very pretty fighting in the Gulf of Cattaro, landed eighty-four of his heaviest guns and bombarded Castelnuovo, from three well-placed batteries. On August 7th, a sanguinary assault secured the first line of the defences; three days later the governor, Don Francisco Sarmiento, and his handful of Spaniards, surrendered to a final assault, and were surprised to find themselves chivalrously respected as honourable foes. Three thousand Spaniards had fallen, and eight thousand Turks, in the course of the siege. One more campaign and Barbarossa’s feats are over. Great events were happening on the Algerine coasts, where we must return after too long an absence in the Levant and Adriatic: but first the order of years must be neglected that we may see the last of the most famous of all the Corsairs. To make amends for the coldness of Henry VIII., Francis I. was allied with the other great maritime power, Turkey, against the…

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Excerpt #11, from The Topaz Story Book: Stories and Legends of Autumn, Hallowe’en, and

…with. When the damsels had informed him he thanked them for all their kindness. But before he was out of hearing one of the maidens called after him. “Keep fast hold of the Old One when you catch him!” cried she. “Do not be astonished at anything that may happen. Only hold him fast, and he will tell you what you wish to know.” Hercules again thanked her, and pursued his way. “We will crown him with the loveliest of our garlands,” said they, “when he returns hither with the three golden apples after slaying the dragon with a hundred heads.” Hercules traveled constantly onward over hill and dale, and through the solitary woods. Hastening forward without ever pausing or looking behind, he, by and by, heard the sea roaring at a distance. At this sound he increased his speed, and soon came to a beach where the great surf-waves tumbled themselves upon the hard sand in a long line of snowy foam. At one end of the beach, however, there was a pleasant spot where some green shrubbery clambered up a cliff, making its rocky face look soft and beautiful. A carpet of verdant grass, largely intermixed with sweet-smelling clover, covered the narrow space between the bottom of the cliff and the sea. And what should Hercules espy there…

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Excerpt #12, from The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

…once. “God, have mercy upon all of them, have all these unhappy and turbulent souls in Thy keeping, and set them in the right path. All ways are Thine. Save them according to Thy wisdom. Thou art love. Thou wilt send joy to all!” Alyosha murmured, crossing himself, and falling into peaceful sleep. PART II Book IV. Lacerations Chapter I. Father Ferapont Alyosha was roused early, before daybreak. Father Zossima woke up feeling very weak, though he wanted to get out of bed and sit up in a chair. His mind was quite clear; his face looked very tired, yet bright and almost joyful. It wore an expression of gayety, kindness and cordiality. “Maybe I shall not live through the coming day,” he said to Alyosha. Then he desired to confess and take the sacrament at once. He always confessed to Father Païssy. After taking the communion, the service of extreme unction followed. The monks assembled and the cell was gradually filled up by the inmates of the hermitage. Meantime it was daylight. People began coming from the monastery. After the service was over the elder desired to kiss and take leave of every one. As the cell was so small the earlier visitors withdrew to make room for…

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