Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:44

Excerpt #1, from Mental Radio, by Upton Sinclair

…with the necessary mental passivity. Each reacts on the other. “The next step, after having turned off the light and closed your eyes and relaxed mind and body full length on the couch, is to reach for the top drawing of the pile on the table. Hold it in your hand over your solar plexus. Hold it easily, without clutching it. Now, completely relaxed, hold your mind a blank again. Hold it so for a few moments, then give the mental order to the unconscious mind to tell you what is on the paper you hold in your hand. Keep the eyes closed and the body relaxed, and give the order silently, and with as little mental exertion as possible. “However, it is necessary to give it clearly and positively, that is, with concentration on it. Say to the unconscious mind, ‘I want the picture which is on this card, or paper, presented to my consciousness.’ Say this with your mind concentrated on what you are saying. Repeat, as if talking directly to another self: ‘I want to see what is on this card.’ Then relax into blankness again and hold blankness a few moments, then try gently, without straining, to see whatever forms may appear on the void into which you look with closed eyes. Do not try to conjure up something to see; just wait expectantly and let something come. “My experience is that fragments of forms appear first. For example, a curved line, or a straight one, or two lines of a triangle. But…

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Excerpt #2, from The Open Boat and Other Stories, by Stephen Crane

…Pop whirled a bottle along the bar and then gazed at it with a rapt expression. “Fine as silk,” he murmured. “Now just taste that, and if it isn’t the best whisky you ever put in your face, why I’m a liar, that’s all.” The kids surveyed him with scorn, and poured their allowances. Then they stood for a time insulting Pop about his whisky. “Usually it tastes exactly like new parlour furniture,” said the San Francisco kid. “Well, here goes, and you want to look out for your cash register.” “Your health, gentlemen,” said Pop with a grand air, and as he wiped his bristling grey moustaches he wagged his head with reference to the cash register question. “I could catch you before you got very far.” “Why, are you a runner?” said one derisively. “You just bank on me, my boy,” said Pop, with deep emphasis. “I’m a flier.” The kids sat down their glasses suddenly and looked at him. “You must be,” they said. Pop was tall and graceful and magnificent in manner, but he did not display those qualities of form which mean speed in the animal. His hair was grey; his face was round and fat from much living. The buttons of his glittering white waistcoat formed a fine curve, so that if the concave surface of a piece of barrel-hoop had been laid…

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Excerpt #3, from My Man Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

…she was wearing the most perfectly ripping dress. I couldn’t begin to describe it. I can only say it was the limit. It struck me that if this was how she was in the habit of looking every night when they were dining quietly at home together, it was no wonder that Bobbie liked domesticity. “Here’s old Reggie, dear,” said Bobbie. “I’ve brought him home to have a bit of dinner. I’ll phone down to the kitchen and ask them to send it up now—what?” She stared at him as if she had never seen him before. Then she turned scarlet. Then she turned as white as a sheet. Then she gave a little laugh. It was most interesting to watch. Made me wish I was up a tree about eight hundred miles away. Then she recovered herself. “I am so glad you were able to come, Mr. Pepper,” she said, smiling at me. And after that she was all right. At least, you would have said so. She talked a lot at dinner, and chaffed Bobbie, and played us ragtime on the piano afterwards, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Quite a jolly little party it was—not. I’m no lynx-eyed sleuth, and all that sort of thing, but I had seen her face at the beginning, and I knew that she was working the whole time and working hard, to keep herself in hand, and that she would have given that diamond what’s-its-name in…

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Excerpt #4, from The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, by Selma Lagerlöf

…settled within the walls of the city where they pulled down the wretched little cabins that stood there and built high, magnificent stone houses. But space was not plentiful within the walls, therefore they had to build the houses close together, with gables facing the narrow by-lanes. So you see, Clement, that Stockholm could attract people!" At this point in the narrative another gentleman appeared and walked rapidly down the path toward the man who was talking to Clement, but he waved his hand, and the other remained at a distance. The dignified old gentleman still sat on the bench beside the fiddler. “Now, Clement, you must render me a service,” he said. "I have no time to talk more with you, but I will send you a book about Stockholm and you must read it from cover to cover. I have, so to speak, laid the foundations of Stockholm for you. Study the rest out for yourself and learn how the city has thrived and changed. Read how the little, narrow, wall-enclosed city on the islands has spread into this great sea of houses below us. Read how, on the spot where the dark tower Kärnan once stood, the beautiful, light castle below us was erected and how the Gray Friars’ church has been turned into the burial place of the Swedish kings; read how islet after islet was built up with factories; how the ridge was lowered and the sound filled in; how the truck gardens at the south and north ends of the city have been converted into beautiful…

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Excerpt #5, from The Radio Boys Rescue the Lost Alaska Expedition, by Gerald Breckenridge

…it. The water, as Frank had predicted, was delightfully invigorating, and refreshed and with the young blood tingling in their veins, after a long sleep and a good swim, they returned to camp. They brought voracious appetites with them, but fortunately the fishermen had pulled in a big haul of beauties, and these, together with flapjacks made by that skillful chef, Art, and washed down with coffee tasting like none ever made in city restaurants, the whole having the tang of the outdoors and woodland smoke for sauce, made a delectable repast. “Now,” said Mr. Hampton, at its conclusion, “now for a discussion of what’s to be done.” Thereupon he set forth the facts of the situation. Lupo with five or six men at most was still at large. He might have turned back. He might be in hiding nearby. He might have gone on ahead in search of Thorwaldsson. In any case, Mr. Hampton declared, he felt it would be a waste of time to search for him in view of the fact that they had learned Thorwaldsson was somewhere to the north and east and their primary object was to join forces with that explorer. He wanted to know what the others had to say. Farnum, who had been talking matters over with Mr. Hampton, sat silent, nodding approval. The other was stating his own views. But MacDonald voiced a protest….

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

…“It’s time ye was home, Miss Mary. It chappit half-eleven as I came up the stairs. It’s comin’ on to rain, so I’ve brought an umbrelly.” “One word,” I said. “How old is the man?” “Just gone thirty-six,” Blenkiron replied. I turned to Mary, who nodded. “Younger than you, Dick,” she said wickedly as she got into her big Jaeger coat. “I’m going to see you home,” I said. “Not allowed. You’ve had quite enough of my society for one day. Andrew’s on escort duty tonight.” Blenkiron looked after her as the door closed. “I reckon you’ve got the best girl in the world.” “Ivery thinks the same,” I said grimly, for my detestation of the man who had made love to Mary fairly choked me. “You can see why. Here’s this degenerate coming out of his rotten class, all pampered and petted and satiated with the easy pleasures of life. He has seen nothing of women except the bad kind and the overfed specimens of his own country. I hate being impolite about females, but I’ve always considered the German variety uncommon like cows. He has had desperate years of intrigue and danger, and consorting with every kind of scallawag. Remember, he’s a big man and a poet, with a brain and an imagination that takes every grade without changing gears….

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Excerpt #7, from Beowulf: An Anglo

…Beowulf donned then his battle-equipments, Cared little for life; inlaid and most ample, The hand-woven corslet which could cover his body, 60 Must the wave-deeps explore, that war might be powerless To harm the great hero, and the hating one’s grasp might Not peril his safety; his head was protected By the light-flashing helmet that should mix with the bottoms, Trying the eddies, treasure-emblazoned, 65 Encircled with jewels, as in seasons long past The weapon-smith worked it, wondrously made it, With swine-bodies fashioned it, that thenceforward no longer Brand might bite it, and battle-sword hurt it. And that was not least of helpers in prowess {He has Unferth’s sword in his hand.} 70 That Hrothgar’s spokesman had lent him when straitened; And the hilted hand-sword was Hrunting entitled, Old and most excellent ’mong all of the treasures; Its blade was of iron, blotted with poison, Hardened with gore; it failed not in battle 75 Any hero under heaven in hand who it brandished, Who ventured to take the terrible journeys,…

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Excerpt #8, from The Boy Inventors’ Radio Telephone, by Richard Bonner

…“Gracious, what’s happened now!” gasped Tom, and then catching Dick’s laughing eye, he exclaimed: “Dick, this is some of your work!” “Maybe,” said Dick, still choking with laughter, “but what on earth is happening in the wood?” “Help! Lions! Help! They’re after me! Help!” The cries came thick and fast. “It’s the professor,” choked out Dick. “He says there are lions in there,” cried Tom, looking rather alarmed, but at this juncture something happened to the donkey that momentarily distracted their attention. In trying to pass between two saplings the animal had bumped the ladder against them and brought itself up with a round turn. But it still struggled forward and kept up its braying: “Cotched, by ginger!” shouted old man McGee. He galloped toward the runaway donkey, but the next moment a curious thing happened. In pressing forward, the donkey had bent the saplings over with the ladder until it became entangled in their branches. Suddenly the animal ceased struggling and the saplings sprang up, no longer having any pressure on them, and the donkey was fairly lifted from its feet and carried up into the air. And there he hung, threshing about with…

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Excerpt #9, from Science and the modern world: Lowell Lectures 1925, by Alfred North Whitehead

…basis or on a subjectivist basis. By a subjectivist basis I mean the belief that the nature of our immediate experience is the outcome of the perceptive peculiarities of the subject enjoying the experience. In other words, I mean that for this theory what is perceived is not a partial vision of a complex of things generally independent of that act of cognition; but that it merely is the expression of the individual peculiarities of the cognitive act. Accordingly what is common to the multiplicity of cognitive acts is the ratiocination connected with them. Thus, though there is a common world of thought associated with our sense-perceptions, there is no common world to think about. What we do think about is a common conceptual world applying indifferently to our individual experiences which are strictly personal to ourselves. Such a conceptual world will ultimately find its complete expression in the equations of applied mathematics. This is the extreme subjectivist position. There is of course the half-way house of those who believe that our perceptual experience does tell us of a common objective world; but that the things perceived are merely the outcome for us of this world, and are not in themselves elements in the common world itself. Also there is the objectivist position. This creed is that the actual elements perceived by our senses are in themselves the elements of a…

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Excerpt #10, from Planet of Sand, by Murray Leinster

…his mercy. So Stan brooded, hating Rob Torren with a desperate intensity surpassing even the hatred he’d felt on the Stallifer. A large part of his hatred was due to helplessness. There was no way to fight back. But he tried desperately to think of one. On the fourth day he said abruptly, “Let’s take a trip, Esther.” She looked at him in mute inquiry. “For power,” he said “and maybe something more. We might be able to find out something. If there are inhabitants on this planet, for instance. There can’t be, but there’s that beast–”Maybe it’s somehow connected with whatever or whoever built that grid–that checkerboard arrangement I told you about. Something or somebody built that, but I can’t believe anything can live in those sandstorms." They’d followed the huge trail that had been visible on their first landing in the polar regions. The great, two-yard-across pads of the monster had made a clear trail for ten miles from the point of their discovery. At the end of the trail there was a great gap in a cliff of frozen sand. The Thing seemed to have devoured tons of ice-impacted stuff. Then it had gone back into the swirling sandy wastes. It carried away with it cubic yards–perhaps twenty or thirty tons–of…

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Excerpt #11, from The Busy Life of Eighty Five Years of Ezra Meeker, by Ezra Meeker

…suggested the name Olympia, which was not given to the place until after Mr. Sylvester’s flight to the gold mines of California and return in 1850. But we could not stay here at Olympia. We had pushed on past some good locations on the Chehalis, and further south, without locating, and now, should we retrace our steps? Brother Oliver said no. My better judgment said no, though sorely pressed with that feeling of homesickness, or blues, or whatever we may call it. The resolve was quickly made that we would see more of this Puget Sound, that we were told presented nearly as many miles of shore line as we had traveled westward from the Missouri River to Portland, near sixteen hundred miles, and which we afterwards found to be true. But how were we to go and see these, to us unexplored waters? I said I would not go in one of those things, the Indian canoe, that we would upset it before we were out half an hour. Brother Oliver pointed to the fact the Indians navigated the whole Sound in these canoes, and were safe, but I was inexorable and would not trust my carcass in a craft that would tip so easily as a Siwash canoe. When I came to know the Indians better, I ceased to use such a term, and afterwards when I saw the performances of these apparently frail craft, my admiration was greater in degree than my contempt had been….

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Excerpt #12, from The Swedish Fairy Book, by Klara Stroebe, George Hood, and Frederick Herman Martens

…out." Time passed and the sun was shining brightly, and its rays fell straight on the royal castle down below. Then the old man said: “Lovely maiden, turn around! Do you see anything down below?” “Yes,” replied the princess, “I see a number of people coming out of my father’s castle, and some are going along the road, and others into the forest.” The old man said: “Those are your step-mother’s servants. She has sent some to meet the king and welcome him; but she has sent others to the forest to look for you.” At these words the princess grew uneasy, and wished to go down to the queen’s servants. But the old man withheld her and said: “Wait a while, and let us first see how everything turns out.” More time passed, and the king’s daughter was still looking down the road from which the king would appear, when the old man said: “Lovely maiden, turn around! Do you see anything down below?” “Yes,” answered the princess, “there is a great commotion in my father’s castle, and they are hanging it with black.” The old man said: “That is your step-mother and her people. They will assure your father that you are dead.” Then the king’s daughter felt bitter anguish, and she implored from the depths of her heart: “Let me go, let me go, so that I may spare my father this anguish!” But the old man detained her and said:…

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