Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:03

Excerpt #1, from Tales from a Rolltop Desk, by Christopher Morley

…does ‘pullulate’ mean?” Lester’s valiant heart, Lester’s manly hands that had acted as a muff on a Riverside Drive bus, trembled and stiffened. “It ’pullulates and blooms in sultry rhyme,” she quoted gayly. “Now what do you make of that, as referring to Mr. Arundel’s heart? Sultry is right, too!” Lion-hearted Harvard, oak-bosomed Balliol, and all the mature essences of manhood were needed to keep Lester calm. How had she seen these secret strains? She must have been peeping into the chief’s private correspondence. He hesitated during six inches of spaghetti. “Search me!” he said. “Is it in Walter Mason?” “No, it’s his own stuff, I tell you. O beauteous rose! O shrub without a thorn!” she chanted, and her laughter popped like a champagne cork. The horrid truth burst upon him. The boss was courting the angel of the office with the very ammunition that Lester himself had furnished, and his vow of secrecy forbade him to disclose the truth. Oh, the paltry meanness of fate, the villainy of circumstance! It is impossible to describe the pangs it cost him to dissemble, cloak, disguise, and conceal the anguish he felt. But dissemble, cloak, disguise, and conceal he did, and though his heart glowed like an angry cigar stub, he reached home at last. There he sat down at his table, and amid the healthy snores of his…

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Excerpt #2, from Weather, Crops, and Markets. Vol. 2, No. 6, by Anonymous

…Alfalfa: │ │ │ │ No. 1 │ │ │ │ alfalfa │ 17.00│ 25.00│ 24.00│ 22.50 Standard │ │ │ │ alfalfa │ 16.00│ 23.50│ │ 19.50 No. 2 │ │ │ │ alfalfa │ 14.00│ 22.00│ │ 17.00 Prairie: │ │ │ │ No. 1 upland│ │ │ │ No. 2 upland│ │ │ │ No. 1 │ │ │ │ midland │ │ │ │ Grain: │ │ │ │ No. 1 wheat │ │ │ │ No. 1 oat │ │ │ │ FEED │ │ │ │ (bagged). │ │ │ │ Wheat bran: │ │ │ │ Spring │ 21.00│ 24.00│ 24.00│ 18.50 Soft winter │ 21.50│ 24.00│ │ Hard winter │ 21.00│ 24.00│ │…

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Excerpt #3, from A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, by Charles Dickens

…foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood. “Why, it’s Ali Baba!” Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. “It’s dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,” said Scrooge, “and his wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what’s his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don’t you see him! And the Sultan’s Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I’m glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess!” To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed. “There’s the Parrot!” cried Scrooge. "Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called…

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Excerpt #4, from Bel Ami; Or, The History of a Scoundrel: A Novel, by Guy de Maupassant

…to read it, but the figures danced before her eyes; she handed the paper to Duroy. “Here, pay it for me; I cannot see.” At the same time, she put her purse in his hand. The total was one hundred and thirty francs. Duroy glanced at the bill and when it was settled, whispered: “How much shall I give the waiter?” “Whatever you like; I do not know.” He laid five francs upon the plate and handed the purse to its owner, saying: “Shall I escort you home?” “Certainly; I am unable to find the house.” They shook hands with the Forestiers and were soon rolling along in a cab side by side. Duroy could think of nothing to say; he felt impelled to clasp her in his arms. “If I should dare, what would she do?” thought he. The recollection of their conversation at dinner emboldened, but the fear of scandal restrained him. Mme. de Marelle reclined silently in her corner. He would have thought her asleep, had he not seen her eyes glisten whenever a ray of light penetrated the dark recesses of the carriage. Of what was she thinking? Suddenly she moved her foot, nervously, impatiently. That movement caused him to tremble, and turning quickly, he cast himself upon her, seeking her lips with his. She uttered a cry, attempted to repulse him and then…

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Excerpt #5, from The Sea

…TREPLIEFF. We are alone. NINA. Isn’t that some one over there? TREPLIEFF. No. [They kiss one another.] NINA. What is that tree? TREPLIEFF. An elm. NINA. Why does it look so dark? TREPLIEFF. It is evening; everything looks dark now. Don’t go away early, I implore you. NINA. I must. TREPLIEFF. What if I were to follow you, Nina? I shall stand in your garden all night with my eyes on your window. NINA. That would be impossible; the watchman would see you, and Treasure is not used to you yet, and would bark. TREPLIEFF. I love you. NINA. Hush! TREPLIEFF. [Listening to approaching footsteps] Who is that? Is it you, Jacob? JACOB. [On the stage] Yes, sir. TREPLIEFF. To your places then. The moon is rising; the play must commence. NINA. Yes, sir….

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Excerpt #6, from Mr. Standfast, by John Buchan

…determined to tangle up that outfit so that the fellows who were after me would have better things to think about. My advantage was that I knew how to command men. I could see that my opposite number with the megaphone was helpless, for the mistake which had swept my man into a shell-hole had reduced him to impotence. The troops seemed to be mainly in charge of N.C.O.s (I could imagine that the officers would try to shirk this business), and an N.C.O. is the most literal creature on earth. So with my megaphone I proceeded to change the battle order. I brought up the third wave to the front trenches. In about three minutes the men had recognised the professional touch and were moving smartly to my orders. They thought it was part of the show, and the obedient cameras clicked at everything that came into their orbit. My aim was to deploy the troops on too narrow a front so that they were bound to fan outward, and I had to be quick about it, for I didn’t know when the hapless movie-merchant might be retrieved from the battle-field and dispute my authority. It takes a long time to straighten a thing out, but it does not take long to tangle it, especially when the thing is so delicate a machine as disciplined troops. In about eight minutes I had produced chaos. The flanks spread out, in spite of all the shepherding of the N.C.O.s, and…

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Excerpt #7, from The Book of Hallowe’en, by Ruth Edna Kelley

…O’er the Urdar-fountain." Völuspa saga. (Blackwell trans.) guarded by three fates, Was, Will, and Shall Be. The name of Was means the past, of Will, the power, howbeit small, which men have over present circumstances, and Shall Be, the future over which man has no control. Vurdh, the name of the latter, gives us the word “weird,” which means fate or fateful. The three Weird Sisters in Macbeth are seeresses. Besides the ash, other trees and shrubs were believed to have peculiar powers, which they have kept, with some changes of meaning, to this day. The elder (elves’ grave), the hawthorn, and the juniper, were sacred to supernatural powers. The priests of the Teutons sacrificed prisoners of war in consecrated groves, to Tyr, god of the sword. The victims were not burned alive, as by the Druids, but cut and torn terribly, and their dead bodies burned. From these sacrifices auspices were taken. A man’s innocence or guilt was manifested by gods to men through ordeals by fire; walking upon red-hot ploughshares, holding a heated bar of iron, or thrusting the hands into red-hot gauntlets, or into boiling water. If after a certain number of days no burns appeared the person was declared innocent. If a…

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Excerpt #8, from Nonsense Books, by Edward Lear

…From the land of Thibet: Except his white tail, He was all black as jet. y! Look at the yak! Z [Illustration] Z was a zebra, All striped white and black; And if he were tame, You might ride on his back. z! Pretty striped zebra! * * * * * MORE NONSENSE Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc. by EDWARD LEAR [Illustration] CONTENTS. NONSENSE BOTANY…

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Excerpt #9, from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

…even this be a feint that will increase your triumph by affording a wider scope for your revenge?” “How is this? I thought I had moved your compassion, and yet you still refuse to bestow on me the only benefit that can soften my heart, and render me harmless. If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing, of whose existence every one will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am now excluded.” I paused some time to reflect on all he had related, and the various arguments which he had employed. I thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence, and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him. His power and threats were not omitted in my calculations: a creature who could exist in the ice caves of the glaciers, and hide himself from pursuit among the ridges of inaccessible precipices, was a being possessing faculties it would be vain to cope with. After a long pause of reflection, I concluded, that…

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Excerpt #10, from The Early History of the Airplane, by Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright

…Wilbur remained in camp while I went to get the new shafts. I did not get back to camp again till Friday, the 11th of December. Saturday afternoon the machine was again ready for trial, but the wind was so light a start could not have been made from level ground with the run of only sixty feet permitted by our monorail track. Nor was there enough time before dark to take the machine to one of the hills, where, by placing the track on a steep incline, sufficient speed could be secured for starting in calm air. Monday, December 14, was a beautiful day, but there was not enough wind to enable a start to be made from the level ground about camp. We therefore decided to attempt a flight from the side of the big Kill Devil Hill. We had arranged with the members of the Kill Devil Hill Life Saving Station, which was located a little over a mile from our camp, to inform them when we were ready to make the first trial of the machine. We were soon joined by J. T. Daniels, Robert Westcott, Thomas Beachem, W. S. Dough and Uncle Benny O’Neal, of the station, who helped us get the machine to the hill, a quarter mile away. We laid the track 150 feet up the side of the hill on a 9-degree slope. With the slope of the track, the thrust of the propellers and the machine starting directly into the wind, we did not anticipate any trouble in getting up flying speed on the 60-foot monorail track. But we did not feel certain the…

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Excerpt #11, from The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, by Selma Lagerlöf

…out what had become of the goosey-gander. He smuggled himself quickly into the box and concealed himself as well as he could under the anemones and colt’s-foot. He was hardly hidden before the young man picked the box up, hung it around his neck, and slammed down the cover. Then the teacher came back, and said that they had been given permission to enter the castle. At first he conducted them no farther than the courtyard. There he stopped and began to talk to them about this ancient structure. He called their attention to the first human beings who had inhabited this country, and who had been obliged to live in mountain-grottoes and earth-caves; in the dens of wild beasts, and in the brushwood; and that a very long period had elapsed before they learned to build themselves huts from the trunks of trees. And afterward how long had they not been forced to labour and struggle, before they had advanced from the log cabin, with its single room, to the building of a castle with a hundred rooms–like Vittskövle! It was about three hundred and fifty years ago that the rich and powerful built such castles for themselves, he said. It was very evident that Vittskövle had been erected at a time when wars and robbers made it unsafe in Skåne. All around the castle was a deep trench filled with…

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Excerpt #12, from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne

…cypress was used by the antients on mournful occasions?_ ] ——’Tis one thing, brother Shandy, for a soldier to hazard his own life—to leap first down into the trench, where he is sure to be cut in pieces:——’Tis one thing, from public spirit and a thirst of glory, to enter the breach the first man,—to stand in the foremost rank, and march bravely on with drums and trumpets, and colours flying about his ears:——’Tis one thing, I say, brother Shandy, to do this,—and ’tis another thing to reflect on the miseries of war;—to view the desolations of whole countries, and consider the intolerable fatigues and hardships which the soldier himself, the instrument who works them, is forced (for sixpence a day, if he can get it) to undergo. Need I be told, dear Yorick, as I was by you, in Le Fever’s funeral sermon, That so soft and gentle a creature, born to love, to mercy, and kindness, as man is, was not shaped for this?——But why did you not add, Yorick,—if not by NATURE—that he is so by NECESSITY?——For what is war? what is it, Yorick, when fought as ours has been, upon principles of liberty, and upon principles of honour—what is it, but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within bounds? And heaven is my witness, brother Shandy, that the pleasure I have taken in these things,—and that infinite delight, in particular,…

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