Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:30

Excerpt #1, from Robot nemesis, by E. E. Smith

…goes out into space to join those of the other Inner Planets in their war maneuvers, which they are undertaking for battle practice. Interception, alteration, and substitution of human signals and messages will be simple matters. We shall guide Earth’s fleet, not to humanity’s rendezvous in space, but to a destination of our own selection–the interior of the sun! Then, entirely defenseless, the mankind of Earth shall cease to exist. “To that end we shall sink a shaft here; and, far enough underground to be secure against detection, we shall drive a tunnel to the field from which the space-fleet is to take its departure. We ten thinkers shall go, accompanied by four hundred of you doers, who are to bore the way and to perform such other duties as may from time to time arise. We shall return in due time. Our special instruments will prevent us from falling into the sun. During our absence allow no human to live who may by any chance learn of our presence here. And do not make any offensive move, however slight, until we return.” * * * * * Efficiently, a shaft was sunk and the disintegrator corps began to drive the long tunnel. And along that hellish thoroughfare, through its searing heat, its raging back-blast of disintegrator-gas, the little army of robots moved steadily and relentlessly forward at an even speed…

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Excerpt #2, from The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2), by Herbert Spencer

…an evolving organic form in fifteen thousand years. That is to say, during general evolution it may have taken fifteen thousand years to establish, as distinct, two species differing from one another no more than the foetus differs from itself after the lapse of an hour. Hence, though we lack proof that adaptive modifications become specific traits, it is quite possible that they are in course of becoming specific traits. The converse proposition, that the traits by which species are ordinarily distinguished are non-adaptive traits is well sustained; and the statement that, if not themselves useful they are correlated with those which are useful, is, to say the least, unproved. For the instances given by Mr. Darwin of correlated traits are not those between adaptive traits and the traits regarded as specific, but between traits none of which are specific; as between skull and limbs in swine, tusks and bristles in swine, horns and wool in sheep, beak and feet in pigeons. If we seek a clue in those processes by which correlations are brought about–the physiological actions and reactions–we may at once see that any organic modification, be it adaptive or not, must entail secondary modifications throughout the rest of the organism, most of them insensible but some of them sensible. The competition for blood among organs, referred to above, necessitates that, other things remaining the same, the extra growth of any one tells on all others, in variable degrees according to…

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Excerpt #3, from Poems, by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, by Emily Dickinson

…But not the obligation To electricity. It founds the homes and decks the days, And every clamor bright Is but the gleam concomitant Of that waylaying light. The thought is quiet as a flake, – A crash without a sound; How life’s reverberation Its explanation found! XXVII. On the bleakness of my lot Bloom I strove to raise. Late, my acre of a rock Yielded grape and maize. Soil of flint if steadfast tilled Will reward the hand; Seed of palm by Lybian sun Fructified in sand. XXVIII. CONTRAST….

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Excerpt #4, from Contemporary One

…SMIRNOV. And I also had the honor of informing you in your native tongue that I need the money, not day after to-morrow, but to-day. If you don’t pay me to-day I shall have to hang myself to-morrow. MRS. POPOV. But what can I do if I haven’t the money? SMIRNOV. So you are not going to pay immediately? You’re not? MRS. POPOV. I cannot. SMIRNOV. Then I’ll sit here until I get the money. [He sits down.] You will pay day after to-morrow? Excellent! Here I stay until day after to-morrow. [Jumps up.] I ask you, do I have to pay that interest to-morrow or not? Or do you think I’m joking? MRS. POPOV. Sir, I beg of you, don’t scream! This is not a stable. SMIRNOV. I’m not talking about stables, I’m asking you whether I have to pay that interest to-morrow or not? MRS. POPOV. You have no idea how to treat a lady. SMIRNOV. Oh, yes, I have. MRS. POPOV. No, you have not. You are an ill-bred, vulgar person! Respectable people don’t speak so to ladies. SMIRNOV. How remarkable! How do you want one to speak to you? In French, perhaps! Madame, je vous prie! Pardon me for having disturbed you. What beautiful weather we are having to-day! And how this mourning becomes you! [He makes a low bow with mock ceremony.…

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Excerpt #5, from Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, by Richard Morris

…216 [E] & al bigrauen with grene, in gracios[1] werkes; A lace lapped aboute, þat louked at þe hede, & so after þe halme halched ful ofte, Wyth tryed tassele3 þerto tacched in-noghe, 220 [F] On botoun3 of þe bry3t grene brayden ful ryche. Þis haþel helde3 hym in, & þe halle entres, Driuande to þe he3e dece, dut he no woþe, [G] Haylsed he neuer one, bot he3e he ouer loked. 224 Þe fyrst word þat he warp, “wher is,” he sayd, [H] “Þe gouernour of þis gyng? gladly I wolde Se þat segg in sy3t, & with hym self speke raysoun.” 228 To kny3te3 he kest his y3e, & reled hym vp & doun, [I] He stemmed & con studie, Quo walt þer most renoun. [Sidenote A: The knight carried neither spear nor shield,] [Sidenote B: In one hand was a holly bough,] [Sidenote C: in the other an axe,] [Sidenote D: the edge of which was as keen as a sharp razor,] [Sidenote E: and the handle was encased in iron, curiously "graven with…

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Excerpt #6, from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

…every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just suited–this kind of thing was right in his line. He got to hanging around the widow’s too much and so she told him at last that if he didn’t quit using around there she would make trouble for him. Well, wasn’t he mad? He said he would show who was Huck Finn’s boss. So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn’t no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn’t find it if you didn’t know where it was. He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow she found out where I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn’t long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it–all but the cowhide part. It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking…

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Excerpt #7, from War and Peace, by graf Leo Tolstoy

…fastened to the cording of his uniform and, indicating a bandaged arm, glanced at Berg with a smile. “As you see,” he said. “Indeed? Yes, yes!” said Borís, with a smile. “And we too have had a splendid march. You know, of course, that His Imperial Highness rode with our regiment all the time, so that we had every comfort and every advantage. What receptions we had in Poland! What dinners and balls! I can’t tell you. And the Tsarévich was very gracious to all our officers.” And the two friends told each other of their doings, the one of his hussar revels and life in the fighting line, the other of the pleasures and advantages of service under members of the Imperial family. “Oh, you Guards!” said Rostóv. “I say, send for some wine.” Borís made a grimace. “If you really want it,” said he. He went to his bed, drew a purse from under the clean pillow, and sent for wine. “Yes, and I have some money and a letter to give you,” he added. Rostóv took the letter and, throwing the money on the sofa, put both arms on the table and began to read. After reading a few lines, he glanced angrily at Berg, then, meeting his eyes, hid his face behind the…

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Excerpt #8, from Nonsense Novels, by Stephen Leacock

…myself. Yet my narrative is so extraordinary and throws such light upon the nature of our communications with beings of another world, that I feel I am not entitled to withhold it from the public. I had gone over to visit Annerly at his rooms. It was Saturday, October 31. I remember the date so precisely because it was my pay day, and I had received six sovereigns and ten shillings. I remembered the sum so exactly because I had put the money into my pocket, and I remember into which pocket I had put it because I had no money in any other pocket. My mind is perfectly clear on all these points. Annerly and I sat smoking for some time. Then quite suddenly— “Do you believe in the supernatural?” he asked. I started as if I had been struck. At the moment when Annerly spoke of the supernatural I had been thinking of something entirely different. The fact that he should speak of it at the very instant when I was thinking of something else, struck me as at least a very singular coincidence. For a moment I could only stare. “What I mean is,” said Annerly, “do you believe in phantasms of the dead?” “Phantasms?” I repeated….

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Excerpt #9, from The Naval War of 1812, by Theodore Roosevelt

…the most consummate skill. At 4 P. M. the breeze again lightened, but even the Belvidera was now four miles astern and to leeward. At 6.45 there were indications of a heavy rain squall, which once more permitted Hull to show that in seamanship he excelled even the able captains against whom he was pitted. The crew were stationed and every thing kept fast till the last minute, when all was clewed up just before the squall struck the ship. The light canvas was furled, a second reef taken in the mizzen top-sail, and the ship almost instantly brought under short sail. The British vessels seeing this began to let go and haul down without waiting for the wind, and were steering on different tacks when the first gust struck them. But Hull as soon as he got the weight of the wind sheeted home, hoisted his fore and main-top gallant sails, and went off on an easy bowline at the rate of 11 knots. At 7.40 sight was again obtained of the enemy, the squall having passed to leeward; the Belvidera, the nearest vessel, had altered her bearings two points to leeward, and was a long way astern. Next came the Shannon; the Guerrière and Aeolus were hull down, and the Africa barely visible. The wind now kept light, shifting occasionally in a very baffling manner, but the Constitution gained steadily, wetting her sails from the sky-sails to the…

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Excerpt #10, from The History of the 33rd Divisional Artillery, in the War, 1914 to 1918.

…line which was scarcely habitable, but it was just as beastly for the Germans; therefore, forward observing officers going up to visit the infantry had the strange experience of walking up to our front line over the open, of sitting on the parapet in full view of the enemy one hundred yards away, and of seeing the enemy doing exactly the same thing themselves. So extraordinary were the conditions, in fact, that a battery commander of the 162nd Brigade walked over the open with one of his subalterns not only up to the front line but over it at a spot where it was deserted, and had got well into No Man’s Land before a sentry in one of the adjoining bays called him back. Whether the French method of thus maintaining an unofficial truce was a good one need not be debated in these pages. It certainly led them to give up making any effort to dig communication trenches at all, even in spots where with trouble it would have been possible, and it by no means helped to foster the “cultivation of the fighting spirit,” the importance of which was being impressed so busily upon all ranks at the time. On the other hand it gave them a tiny measure of comfort which made life just endurable, and by resuming active operations and reducing the enemy to a state of misery they would have let themselves in for similar wretchedness. When the 33rd Division took over the line, however, the question was…

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Excerpt #11, from A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

…of retaliative temperament), to pitch himself head foremost over the parapet, and crush a man or two below. Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, with the distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at his door, combined with the joy-ringing, for music; not to mention his having an ill-omened lamp slung across the road before his posting-house gate, which the village showed a lively inclination to displace in his favour. A trying suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink of the black ocean, ready to take that plunge into it upon which Monsieur Gabelle had resolved! But, the friendly dawn appearing at last, and the rush-candles of the village guttering out, the people happily dispersed, and Monsieur Gabelle came down bringing his life with him for that while. Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there were other functionaries less fortunate, that night and other nights, whom the rising sun found hanging across once-peaceful streets, where they had been born and bred; also, there were other villagers and townspeople less fortunate than the mender of roads and his fellows, upon whom the functionaries and soldiery turned with success, and whom they strung up in their turn. But, the fierce figures were steadily wending East, West, North, and South, be that as it would; and whosoever hung, fire burned….

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Excerpt #12, from To Cuba and Back, by Richard Henry Dana

…to the northern eye–an exotic wherever you meet it. It seems to be conscious of its want of usefulness for food or shade, yet has a dignity of its own, a pride of unmixed blood and royal descent–the hidalgo of the soil. What are those groves and clusters of small growth, looking like Indian corn in a state of transmigration into trees, the stalk turning into a trunk, a thin soft coating half changed to bark, and the ears of corn turning into melons? Those are the bananas and plantains, as their bunches of green and yellow fruits plainly enough indicate, when you come nearer. But, that sad, weeping tree, its long yellow-green leaves drooping to the ground! What can that be? It has a green fruit like a melon. There it is again, in groves! I interrupt my neighbor’s tenth cigarrito, to ask him the name of the tree. It is the cocoa! And that soft green melon becomes the hard shell we break with a hammer. Other trees there are, in abundance, of various forms and foliage, but they might have grown in New England or New York, so far as the eye can teach us; but the palm, the cocoa, the banana and plantain are the characteristic trees you could not possibly meet with in any other zone. Thickets–jungles I might call them–abound. It seems as if a bird could hardly get through them; yet they are rich with wild flowers of all forms and colors, the white, the purple, the pink, and the blue. The…

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