Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:51

Excerpt #1, from The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe

…Thou talk’st of Christ, contrary to thy promise: Thou shouldst not think of God: think of the devil, And of his dam too. FAUSTUS. Nor will I henceforth: pardon me in this, And Faustus vows never to look to heaven, Never to name God, or to pray to him, To burn his Scriptures, slay his ministers, And make my spirits pull his churches down. LUCIFER. Do so, and we will highly gratify thee. Faustus, we are come from hell to shew thee some pastime: sit down, and thou shalt see all the Seven Deadly Sins appear in their proper shapes. FAUSTUS. That sight will be as pleasing unto me, As Paradise was to Adam, the first day Of his creation. LUCIFER. Talk not of Paradise nor creation; but mark this show: talk of the devil, and nothing else.–Come away! Enter the SEVEN DEADLY SINS.[105] Now, Faustus, examine them of their several names and dispositions. FAUSTUS. What art thou, the first? PRIDE. I am Pride. I disdain to have any parents. I am like to Ovid’s flea; I can creep into every corner of a wench; sometimes,…

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Excerpt #2, from Under the White Ensign: A Naval Story of the Great War, by Percy F. Westerman

…landing expedition had been properly ambushed. Treachery had been at work. The Greek who, fortunately, was still detained on board the Portchester Castle had deliberately misled the British. Instead of the operations being directed against a secret petrol depot, the boats found themselves up against a powerful and well-organized system of shore batteries and a strong force of troops to oppose their landing. Clearly Osborne knew his duty. At all costs the steamboat must dash in and rescue her consorts or perish in the attempt. Suddenly one of the seaward-directed searchlights swung rapidly past the steam cutter and, hesitating, played fairly upon the hull of a large torpedo-boat that was making at full speed in the direction of Akhissareli. For a brief instant Osborne hesitated. He knew that British destroyers were in the vicinity, and possibly this was one tearing to the assistance of the Portchester Castle’s boats. He dare not make a private signal lest the shore batteries should spot the steamboat’s presence. On the other hand, there were two factors that tended to upset the friendly destroyer theory. The Turks ashore had made no attempt to fire upon the approaching craft; her outlines, as shown up by the search-lights, were unfamiliar. As she drew nearer, Osborne…

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Excerpt #3, from The Moon: considered as a planet, a world, and a satellite., by James Carpenter et al.

…Neutral plane or pivot axis, above and below which the directions of the tearing strain and horizontal compression are severally indicated by the smaller arrows; the larger arrows beneath represent the direction of the primary expansive force.] Mr. Scrope in his work on volcanoes has given a hypothetical section of a portion of the earth’s crust, which presents a bulging or tumescent surface in some measure resembling the effect which such a cause as we have been considering would produce. We give a slightly modified version of his sketch in Fig. 35, showing what would be the probable phenomena attending such an upheaval as regards the behaviour of the disturbed portion of the crust, and also that of the lava or semifluid matter beneath: and, as will be seen by the sketch, a possible phase of the phenomena is the production of an elevated ridge or rampart at the points of disruption c c; and where there is a ring of disruption, as by our hypothesis there would be, the ridge or rampart c c would be a circle. In this drawing we see the cracking and distortion to which the elevated area would be subjected, but of which, as previously remarked, the circular areas of the moon present no trace of residual appearance. [Illustration: PLATE XIV. PLATO.] Those who have offered other explanations of these vast ring-formed…

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Excerpt #4, from On the Anzac trail: Being extracts from the diary of a New Zealand sapper, by Anzac

…said to be one of the largest in the world, occupies the centre of a prettily planted square; there is a fine, showy Casino, and whole streets of beautifully designed buildings. It is, in fact, a model little town resting incongruously enough on the arid desert, a bit of Monaco transplanted to the land of the Pharaohs. A close inspection, however, reveals the fact that a large part of the solid-looking architecture is a sham, most of the ornamental work being moulded in stucco. In this connection the natives will tell you that when the heavy rains put in an appearance (they only visit these parts about once in every three years or so) Heliopolis begins to moult—in plain words the outer crust of lime washes away, and the town bears the appearance of a fleshless skeleton. You can still see bits of Old Heliopolis—the Heliopolis of the Scriptures. In fact, the modern town is built partly on the site of the ancient city which the Virgin Mary passed through. Your guide will point out to you the Virgin’s Well and what purports to be the tree she rested under. You can swallow the latter assertion with a large mouthful of salt; the plant looks altogether too flourishing and full of life to have so many years on its head. The original Virgin’s Tree is, I believe, to be found close handy—an old dead stump that might be any age. In the Virgin’s Chapel adjoining you will find a number of…

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Excerpt #5, from Investigation of Communist activities in Seattle, Wash., area. Hearings, Part 3

…that—- Mr. O’CONNELL. May I say I had no connection; I was not an officer of the Washington Pension Union. Mr. TAVENNER. I was going to discuss that question, whether or not you were affiliated in any way with the Washington Pension Union. Mr. O’CONNELL. I think as executive secretary of the Democratic Party and as executive secretary of the Progressive Party I made speeches to State conventions of the Washington Pension Union, as did practically all the political leaders of the State of Washington, regardless of the party. I think during a period after my employment as executive secretary of the Democratic Party at the request of a local in Everett I was sent there to make a speech and I think I was–I am pretty sure I was paid expenses and I may have been paid a fee for the speech I made to the group at Everett at that time. Mr. TAVENNER. Was that a convention of the Washington Pension Union? Mr. O’CONNELL. No, as I remember it, the Everett meeting was some kind of a large local meeting that they had, some kind of an event or celebration or something of that kind that I spoke at. It is hard to recollect. It is a long time ago and I have made a lot of speeches all…

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Excerpt #6, from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal, by John Camden Hotten

…away with NURSING. NURSE also means to cheat or swindle; trustees are sometimes said to NURSE property, i.e., gradually eat it up themselves. _Nut, the head, in pugilistic slang. Used as an exclamation at a fight, it means to strike on the head. In tossing it is a direction to hide the head; to be “off one’s NUT,” to be crazed or idiotic. _Nut-cut, roguish, mischievous. A good-natured term of reproach.—Anglo-Indian. _Nuts, to be NUTS on anything or person is to be pleased with or fond of it or him; a self-satisfied man is said to be NUTS on himself. NUTTED, taken in by a man who professed to be NUTS on you. _Nux, the “plant,” or object in view. “Stoll up to the NUX?” “Do you fully comprehend what is wanted?”—North Country Cant. _Oaf, a lumbering, awkward fellow. _Oak, the outer door of college rooms; to “sport one’s OAK,” to be “not at home” to visitors. See SPORT.—University. [Illustration: A “Sporting Door,” or “Oak.”] _Oar, “to put in an OAR,” to interfere. “I put my OAR in no man’s boat.”—Thackeray. _Oat, an atom. Probable corruption of iota, or perhaps from the small size of an oat. “I never got an OAT of it,” I never received the…

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Excerpt #7, from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum

…makes one forget he is afraid.” “Very well, I will give you that sort of courage tomorrow,” replied Oz. “How about my heart?” asked the Tin Woodman. “Why, as for that,” answered Oz, “I think you are wrong to want a heart. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart.” “That must be a matter of opinion,” said the Tin Woodman. “For my part, I will bear all the unhappiness without a murmur, if you will give me the heart.” “Very well,” answered Oz meekly. “Come to me tomorrow and you shall have a heart. I have played Wizard for so many years that I may as well continue the part a little longer.” “And now,” said Dorothy, “how am I to get back to Kansas?” “We shall have to think about that,” replied the little man. “Give me two or three days to consider the matter and I’ll try to find a way to carry you over the desert. In the meantime you shall all be treated as my guests, and while you live in the Palace my people will wait upon you and obey your slightest wish. There is only one thing I ask in return for my help—such as it is. You must keep my secret and tell no one I am a humbug.” They agreed to say nothing of what they had learned, and went back to…

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Excerpt #8, from Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora Ozaki

…will to dig up the earth and to pat it into shape. “All right,” said Kintaro, “I will look on while you all wrestle with each other. I shall give a prize to the one who wins in each round.” “What fun! we shall all try to get the prize,” said the bear. The deer, the monkey and the hare set to work to help the bear raise the platform on which they were all to wrestle. When this was finished, Kintaro cried out: “Now begin! the monkey and the hare shall open the sports and the deer shall be umpire. Now, Mr. Deer, you are to be umpire!” “He, he!” answered the deer. “I will be umpire. Now, Mr. Monkey and Mr. Hare, if you are both ready, please walk out and take your places on the platform.” Then the monkey and the hare both hopped out, quickly and nimbly, to the wrestling platform. The deer, as umpire, stood between the two and called out: “Red-back! Red-back!” (this to the monkey, who has a red back in Japan). “Are you ready?” Then he turned to the hare: “Long-ears! Long-ears! are you ready?” Both the little wrestlers faced each other while the deer raised a leaf on high as signal. When he dropped the leaf the monkey and the hare…

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Excerpt #9, from Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), by Jerome K. Jerome

…unusual course to stop all business on that account. He had to go to business: why should other people stop in bed merely because it was dark and foggy! At length he reached Holborn. Not a shutter was down! not a bus was about! There were three men in sight, one of whom was a policeman; a market-cart full of cabbages, and a dilapidated looking cab. George pulled out his watch and looked at it: it was five minutes to nine! He stood still and counted his pulse. He stooped down and felt his legs. Then, with his watch still in his hand, he went up to the policeman, and asked him if he knew what the time was. [Picture: George and the policeman] “What’s the time?” said the man, eyeing George up and down with evident suspicion; “why, if you listen you will hear it strike.” George listened, and a neighbouring clock immediately obliged. “But it’s only gone three!” said George in an injured tone, when it had finished. “Well, and how many did you want it to go?” replied the constable. “Why, nine,” said George, showing his watch. “Do you know where you live?” said the guardian of public order, severely. George thought, and gave the address….

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Excerpt #10, from The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

…fellow to kiss. At the foot of the ladder he had been pale enough; but when he set foot on the scaffold at the top, his face suddenly became the colour of paper, positively like white notepaper. His legs must have become suddenly feeble and helpless, and he felt a choking in his throat—you know the sudden feeling one has in moments of terrible fear, when one does not lose one’s wits, but is absolutely powerless to move? If some dreadful thing were suddenly to happen; if a house were just about to fall on one;—don’t you know how one would long to sit down and shut one’s eyes and wait, and wait? Well, when this terrible feeling came over him, the priest quickly pressed the cross to his lips, without a word—a little silver cross it was—and he kept on pressing it to the man’s lips every second. And whenever the cross touched his lips, the eyes would open for a moment, and the legs moved once, and he kissed the cross greedily, hurriedly—just as though he were anxious to catch hold of something in case of its being useful to him afterwards, though he could hardly have had any connected religious thoughts at the time. And so up to the very block. “How strange that criminals seldom swoon at such a moment! On the contrary, the brain is especially active, and works incessantly—probably hard, hard, hard—like an engine at full pressure. I imagine that various thoughts must beat loud and fast through his…

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Excerpt #11, from The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James

…drop me and to accompany me without appearing to surround. They were never importunate and yet never listless. My attention to them all really went to seeing them amuse themselves immensely without me: this was a spectacle they seemed actively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer. I walked in a world of their invention—they had no occasion whatever to draw upon mine; so that my time was taken only with being, for them, some remarkable person or thing that the game of the moment required and that was merely, thanks to my superior, my exalted stamp, a happy and highly distinguished sinecure. I forget what I was on the present occasion; I only remember that I was something very important and very quiet and that Flora was playing very hard. We were on the edge of the lake, and, as we had lately begun geography, the lake was the Sea of Azof. Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the other side of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. The way this knowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing in the world—the strangest, that is, except the very much stranger in which it quickly merged itself. I had sat down with a piece of work—for I was something or other that could sit—on the old stone bench which overlooked the pond; and in this position I began to take in with certitude, and yet without direct vision, the presence, at a distance, of a third person….

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Excerpt #12, from Masters of the vortex, by E. E. Smith

…street or somewhere beside or behind us . . . there isn’t a damn thing we can do. They’d have more gunnies than we could send in, even if we knew exactly where they were, and we can’t send a young army barging around without anything but a flimsy suspicion to go on—the lawmen would throw us in the clink in nothing flat. . . . Besides, this Mob idea isn’t exactly solid, either. How’d they get their cut from all these people? Especially the Vegian?” “The Vegian, probably not; the rest, probably so. They could have passed the word around that this is the big day. Anybody’d split fifty-fifty on a cold sure thing.” “Uh-uh. I won’t buy that, either. I’d’ve known about it—somebody would have leaked. No matter how you figure it, it doesn’t add up.” “Well, then?” “Only one thing we can do. Close down. While you’re doing that I’ll go shoot in a Class A Double Prime Urgent to top brass.” Hence Vesta’s croupier soon announced to his clientele that all betting was off, at least until the following day. All guests would please leave the building as soon as possible. For a couple of minutes Vesta simply could not take in the import of the announcement. She was stunned. Then: “Whee . . . yow . . . ow . . . erow!” she yowled, at the top of her not…

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