Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:01

Excerpt #1, from Legends of the City of Mexico, by Thomas A. Janvier

…[Illustration: CAPILLA DE LA ESPIRACIÓN] Then went he for the last time to the Father to beg for another penance; and for the last time it was denied to him; and for the last time he set forth from his house at midnight to go to the chapel of the Espiración, and in front of it, kneeling beneath the gallows, to tell his rosary through. And that night, Señor, was the very worst night of all! The voices were so loud and so very woful that he was in weak dread of them, and he shook with fear, and his stomach was tormented because of the terrible ringing of the little bell. But he pressed on–you see, Señor, it was the only way to save his soul from blistering in hell through all eternity–until he was come to the Plazuela de Santo Domingo; and there, in front of the chapel of the Espiración, beneath the gallows, he knelt down upon his knees and told his rosary through. And in the morning, Señor, all the city was astonished, and everybody–from the Viceroy down to the cargadores–came running to the Plazuela de Santo Domingo, where was a sight to see! And the sight was Don Juan Manuel hanging dead on the gallows–where the angels themselves had hung him, Señor, because of his sins! LEGEND OF THE OBEDIENT DEAD NUN It was after she was dead, Señor, that this nun did what she was told…

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Excerpt #2, from Roughing It in the Bush, by Susanna Moodie

…remarkable, that I must endeavour to describe it for the edification of the reader. Q—- kept a shop, or store, in C—-; but he left the principal management of this establishment to his clerks; while, taking advantage of the influx of emigrants, he pursued, with unrivalled success, the profitable business of land-jobbing. In his store, before taking to this business, he had been accustomed for many years to retail goods to the farmers at high prices, on the usual long credit system. He had thus got a number of farmers deeply in his debt, and, in many cases, in preference to suing them, had taken mortgages on their farms. By this means, instead of merely recovering the money owing to him by the usual process of law, he was enabled, by threatening to foreclose the mortgages, to compel them to sell their farms nearly on his own terms, whenever an opportunity occurred to re-sell them advantageously to new comers. Thus, besides making thirty or forty per cent. on his goods, he often realised more than a hundred per cent. on his land speculations. In a new country, where there is no great competition in mercantile business, and money is scarce, the power and profits of store-keepers are very great. Mr. Q—- was one of the most grasping of this class. His heart was case-hardened, and his conscience, like…

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Excerpt #3, from Much Ado about Nothing, by William Shakespeare

…When are you married, madam? HERO. Why, every day, tomorrow. Come, go in: I’ll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel Which is the best to furnish me tomorrow. URSULA. She’s lim’d, I warrant you, We have caught her, madam. HERO. If it prove so, then loving goes by haps: Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. [Exeunt Hero and Ursula.] BEATRICE. [Advancing.] What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? Stand I condemn’d for pride and scorn so much? Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu! No glory lives behind the back of such. And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee, Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand: If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee To bind our loves up in a holy band;…

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Excerpt #4, from A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, by John Stuart Mill

…only of one individual thing; but to describe it is to affirm a connection between it and every other thing which is either denoted or connoted by any of the terms used. To begin with an example, than which none can be conceived more elementary: I have a sensation of sight, and I endeavor to describe it by saying that I see something white. In saying this, I do not solely affirm my sensation; I also class it. I assert a resemblance between the thing I see, and all things which I and others are accustomed to call white. I assert that it resembles them in the circumstance in which they all resemble one another, in that which is the ground of their being called by the name. This is not merely one way of describing an observation, but the only way. If I would either register my observation for my own future use, or make it known for the benefit of others, I must assert a resemblance between the fact which I have observed and something else. It is inherent in a description, to be the statement of a resemblance, or resemblances. We thus see that it is impossible to express in words any result of observation, without performing an act possessing what Dr. Whewell considers to be characteristic of Induction. There is always something introduced which was not included in the observation itself; some conception common to the phenomenon with other phenomena to which it is compared. An observation can not be spoken of in language at all without…

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Excerpt #5, from Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana

…third mate. One file was of all the Boston Transcripts for the month of August, 1835, and the rest were about a dozen Daily Advertisers and Couriers, of different dates. After all, there is nothing in a strange land like a newspaper from home. Even a letter, in many respects, is nothing, in comparison with it. It carries you back to the spot, better than anything else. It is almost equal to clairvoyance. The names of the streets, with the things advertised, are almost as good as seeing the signs; and while reading “Boy lost!” one can almost hear the bell and well-known voice of “Old Wilson,” crying the boy as “strayed, stolen, or mislaid!” Then there was the Commencement at Cambridge, and the full account of the exercises at the graduating of my own class. A list of all those familiar names, (beginning as usual with Abbot, and ending with W., ) which, as I read them over, one by one, brought up their faces and characters as I had known them in the various scenes of college life. Then I imagined them upon the stage, speaking their orations, dissertations, colloquies, etc., with the gestures and tones of each, and tried to fancy the manner in which each would handle his subject, *****, handsome, showy, and superficial; *****, with his strong head, clear brain, cool self-possession; *****, modest, sensitive, and underrated; *****, the mouth-piece of the debating clubs, noisy, vaporous, and democratic; and so following. Then I could…

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Excerpt #6, from Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall

…“I would prefer not to take a clerkship,” he rejoined, as if to settle that little item at once. “How would a bar-tender’s business suit you? There is no trying of the eyesight in that.” “I would not like it at all; though, as I said before, I am not particular.” His unwonted wordiness inspirited me. I returned to the charge. “Well then, would you like to travel through the country collecting bills for the merchants? That would improve your health.” “No, I would prefer to be doing something else.” “How then would going as a companion to Europe, to entertain some young gentleman with your conversation,—how would that suit you?” “Not at all. It does not strike me that there is any thing definite about that. I like to be stationary. But I am not particular.” “Stationary you shall be then,” I cried, now losing all patience, and for the first time in all my exasperating connection with him fairly flying into a passion. “If you do not go away from these premises before night, I shall feel bound—indeed I am bound—to—to—to quit the premises myself!” I rather absurdly concluded, knowing not with what possible threat to try to frighten his immobility into compliance. Despairing of all further efforts, I was precipitately leaving him,…

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Excerpt #7, from Grimms’ Fairy Tales, by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

…he came back she had bound up her hair again, and all was safe. So they watched the geese till it grew dark. In the evening, after they came home, Curdken went to the old king, and said, ‘I cannot have that strange girl to help me to keep the geese any longer.’ ‘Why?’ said the king. ‘Because, instead of doing any good, she does nothing but tease me all day long.’ Then the king made him tell him what had happened. And Curdken said, ‘When we go in the morning through the dark gate with our flock of geese, she cries and talks with the head of a horse that hangs upon the wall, and says: ‘Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!’ and the head answers: ‘Bride, bride, there thou gangest! Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’ And Curdken went on telling the king what had happened upon the meadow where the geese fed; how his hat was blown away; and how he was forced to run after it, and to leave his flock of geese to themselves. But the old king told the boy to go out again the next day: and when morning came, he placed himself behind the dark gate, and heard how she spoke to Falada, and how Falada answered. Then he went into the field, and hid himself in a bush by the meadow’s side; and he soon saw with his own…

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Excerpt #8, from Superstition in Medicine, by Hugo Magnus

…the effects of which were to persist for thousands of years. This was repeated a second time when Copernicus, in dealing especially with the orbit of the planets, founded the still-prevailing conception of the universe. “For the theory of creation could be reconciled with the phenomenon of sun and moon moving in their regular courses. They were in this case no longer, as had been assumed until then, individual living beings and divinities, but lights kindled by a mighty God, and intended to move day and night, in an established order, under the dome of heaven. But the other five planets! It was unnecessary to be a Chaldean on the Babylonian Tower in order to feel amazement at these. Every one who had ever followed with his eye their courses for a few nights during a caravan journey, every one who, lying awake, had occasionally attempted to read the time from the only clock of the night—the star-covered canopy of heaven—was bound to have noticed their peculiarities as to light and course. They did not shine uniformly, but sometimes intensely, at other times faintly, and entirely different was their radiance from that of other stars—reddish, greenish, bluish. And their course was at one time rapid, at other times slow; then backward or oblique; sometimes they disappeared entirely. Necessarily they appeared inexplicable not only to the inexperienced observer, but to a still…

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Excerpt #9, from Crimes of Preachers in the United States and Canada, by M. E. Billings

…1913. Atwood, Rev. W. C., Brookfield, Mo. Presbyterian. Assault. 1906. Austin, Rev. J. W., Gainesville, Ga. Methodist. Eloped with married woman whom he had “saved” at a revival. 1899. Axtell, Rev. J. J., Royal Oak, Mich. Prize fighting; non-support of wife; divorce. 1905. Ayres, Rev. Early, Lee Co., Tex. Cattle stealing; arrested in Berwyn, I. T., while preaching. Axtel, Rev. P. D., Pittsburgh, Pa. Presbyterian. Suicide. 1912. Ayres, Rev. William B., Wollaston, Mass. Congregational. Sued for alienation of affections by an irate husband in his parish. 1907. Babcock, Rev. C. A. C., Frankfort, Ind. Campbellite. Illegal marriage; immoral conduct. 1901. Babcock, Rev. Maltbie D., New York, N. Y. Presbyterian. Suicide. 1913. Backtell, Harry S., Pittsburgh, Pa. Noted “boy evangelist” and highly accredited “soul-saver.” Swindling by means of worthless checks. 1909. Bailey, Rev. Geo., Cincinnati. Abused his family. 1905. Bailey, Rev. J. J., Fletcher, Okla. Fighting. 1906. Bain, Rev. E. S., Waterloo, N. Y. Baptist. Arson. 1913. Baird, Rev. E. J., Woodland, Cal. Episcopal. Inhuman and…

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Excerpt #10, from History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year

…rapidity and vigour of the troops, their spirit should be excited by continual enterprize, and nourished by commendation and rewards. Now Macdonald, if we may believe Vacani, an eye-witness, did neither gain the confidence of his soldiers, nor cherish their ardour; and while he exacted a more rigid discipline, than the composition of his troops and the nature of the war would bear, he let pass many important opportunities of crushing his enemies in the field. His intent was to reduce the ferocious and insubordinate disposition of his men, but the peculiar state of feeling with respect to the war on both sides, did not permit this, and hence his marches appeared rather as processions and ceremonies than warlike operations. He won no town, struck no important blow in the field, gave no turn to the public feeling, and lost a most important fortress, which, with infinite pains and trouble, he could scarcely regain. The plans of all the French generals had been different. St. Cyr used to remain quiet, until the Spaniards gathered in such numbers that he could crush them in general battles; but then he lost all the fruit of his success by his inactivity afterwards. Augereau neither fought battles nor made excursions with skill, nor fulfilled the political hopes which he had excited. Macdonald was in constant movement, but he avoided battles; although in every previous important attack the…

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Excerpt #11, from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne

…character throughout:——I mean the males,—the females had no character at all,—except, indeed, my great aunt DINAH, who, about sixty years ago, was married and got with child by the coachman, for which my father, according to his hypothesis of christian names, would often say, She might thank her godfathers and godmothers. It will seem strange,——and I would as soon think of dropping a riddle in the reader’s way, which is not my interest to do, as set him upon guessing how it could come to pass, that an event of this kind, so many years after it had happened, should be reserved for the interruption of the peace and unity, which otherwise so cordially subsisted, between my father and my uncle Toby. One would have thought, that the whole force of the misfortune should have spent and wasted itself in the family at first,—as is generally the case.—But nothing ever wrought with our family after the ordinary way. Possibly at the very time this happened, it might have something else to afflict it; and as afflictions are sent down for our good, and that as this had never done the SHANDY FAMILY any good at all, it might lie waiting till apt times and circumstances should give it an opportunity to discharge its office.——Observe, I determine nothing upon this.——My way is ever to point out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at the first springs of the events I tell;—not with a pedantic…

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Excerpt #12, from Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora Ozaki

…The good old man was greatly surprised at what he heard, but respectfully followed the Knight to the nobleman’s Palace. The Daimio, who had been impatiently awaiting the old man’s coming, as soon as he saw him asked him at once: “Are you the old man who can make withered trees flower even out of season?” The old man made an obeisance, and replied: “I am that old man!” Then the Daimio said: “You must make that dead cherry tree in my garden blossom again by means of your famous ashes. I shall look on.” Then they all went into the garden—the Daimio and his retainers and the ladies-in waiting, who carried the Daimio’s sword. The old man now tucked up his kimono and made ready to climb the tree. Saying “Excuse me,” he took the pot of ashes which he had brought with him, and began to climb the tree, every one watching his movements with great interest. At last he climbed to the spot where the tree divided into two great branches, and taking up his position here, the old man sat down and scattered the ashes right and left all over the branches and twigs. Wonderful, indeed, was the result! The withered tree at once burst into…

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