Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:06

Excerpt #1, from War and Peace, by graf Leo Tolstoy

…remembered long afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but for several days she sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in anything and only saying now and then, “Oh, why did he go away?” But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became her old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a child gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face. CHAPTER XXV During that year after his son’s departure, Prince Nicholas Bolkónski’s health and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Mary had two passions and consequently two joys—her nephew, little Nicholas, and religion—and these were the favorite subjects of the prince’s attacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would bring round to the superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting and spoiling of children. “You want to make him”—little Nicholas—“into an old maid like yourself! A pity! Prince Andrew wants a son and not an old maid,” he would say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess Mary’s presence…

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Excerpt #2, from Meddler’s Moon, by George O. Smith

…personalities. Finally he snapped the switch and the roar died. “That’s it!” he said exultantly. “It’s beyond me,” said Marie, looking dazedly at the solid bank of figures she’d written down. “That’s because you’ve never been exposed to the stuff before. Come on–I’ll show you.” He snapped the safety switch and watched the last dying flicker of the radiation counter above the control panel. Then he pressed a button and a huge door creaked open. He led Marie along a zigzag hallway, explaining, “Radiation products, like all Chinese Devils, travel only in straight lines.” Then, inside of the shielding, she saw the generator. “This made that terrible racket?” she asked. He nodded. “I’d hate to be inside here when it’s running,” she said nervously. “Me, too,” he grinned. “But I daresay the radiation would kill you long before the noise did.” “Oh!” she gasped, getting the implication of the dangers of nuclear physics in one gulp. “This,” he said, "is brand new. In the center is a small, thin-walled brass container filled with radon gas, and suspending a cloud of finely…

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Excerpt #3, from Science and the modern world: Lowell Lectures 1925, by Alfred North Whitehead

…modal character of space, that the prehensive unity of A is the prehension into unity of the aspects of all other volumes from the standpoint of A. The shape of a volume is the formula from which the totality of its aspects can be derived. Thus the shape of a volume is more abstract than its aspects. It is evident that I can use Leibniz’s language, and say that every volume mirrors in itself every other volume in space. Exactly analogous considerations hold with respect to durations in time. An instant of time, without duration, is an imaginative logical construction. Also each duration of time mirrors in itself all temporal durations. But in two ways I have introduced a false simplicity. In the first place, I should have conjoined space and time, and conducted my explanation in respect to four-dimensional regions of space-time. I have nothing to add in the way of explanation. In your minds, substitute such four-dimensional regions for the spatial volumes of the previous explanations. Secondly, my explanation has involved itself in a vicious circle. For I have made the prehensive unity of the region A to consist of the prehensive unification of the modal presences in A of other regions. This difficulty arises because space-time cannot in reality be…

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Excerpt #4, from The Best British Short Stories of 1922, by Stacy Aumonier et al.

…with scenes, the greater the occasion the greater the reward, and there’s no denying this is an occasion, is there? You’re making a big to-do about Tim Martlow and the reward would be according. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that if a girl makes a scene and she’s got the looks for it, she gets offers of marriage, like they do in the police-court when they’ve been wronged and the magistrate passes all the men’s letters on to the court missionary and the girl and the missionary go through them and choose the likeliest fellow out of the bunch?" “But my dear young lady—-” Fosdike began. She silenced him. “Oh, it’s all right. I don’t know that I want to get married.” “Then you ought to,” said Sir William virtuously. “There’s better things in life than getting married,” Dolly said. “I’ve weighed up marriage, and I don’t see what there is in it for a girl nowadays.” “In your case, I should have thought there was everything.” Dolly sniffed. “There isn’t liberty,” she said. “And we won the fight for liberty, didn’t we? No; if I made that scene it ’ud be to get my photograph in the papers where the film people could see it. I’ve the right face for the pictures, and my romantic history will do the rest.” “Good heavens, girl,” cried the scandalised Sir William, "have you no…

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Excerpt #5, from Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study, by Grenville Kleiser

…Nor, lastly, does this Not a few persons demand Not many words are required to show Not quite so. Not so here. Nothing is more certain than Nothing less. Now, after what I have said, Now apply this to Now do you observe what follows from Now for one moment let us Now I have done. Now, I proceed to examine Now I want to ask whether Now it is evident Now let us observe what Now, mark it. Now, on the other hand, let me Now perhaps you will ask me Now we come to the question Observe, if you please, that…

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Excerpt #6, from Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

…disease, and they would fain treat every other experience of life as false and impossible. However highly we may esteem this indulgent and preservative care (inasmuch as in applying to others, it has applied, and applies also to the highest and usually the most suffering type of man), the hitherto PARAMOUNT religions–to give a general appreciation of them–are among the principal causes which have kept the type of “man” upon a lower level–they have preserved too much THAT WHICH SHOULD HAVE PERISHED. One has to thank them for invaluable services; and who is sufficiently rich in gratitude not to feel poor at the contemplation of all that the “spiritual men” of Christianity have done for Europe hitherto! But when they had given comfort to the sufferers, courage to the oppressed and despairing, a staff and support to the helpless, and when they had allured from society into convents and spiritual penitentiaries the broken-hearted and distracted: what else had they to do in order to work systematically in that fashion, and with a good conscience, for the preservation of all the sick and suffering, which means, in deed and in truth, to work for the DETERIORATION OF THE EUROPEAN RACE? To REVERSE all estimates of value–THAT is what they had to do! And to shatter the strong, to spoil great hopes, to cast suspicion on the delight in beauty, to break down everything autonomous, manly, conquering, and imperious–all instincts which are natural to the…

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Excerpt #7, from The Valley of the Moon, by Jack London

…I want to? Just the same it makes me sick. What’s the good of organized labor if it don’t stand together? For two cents I’d chuck the whole thing up an’ go over to the employers. Only I wouldn’t, God damn them! If they think they can beat us down to our knees, let ‘em go ahead an’ try it, that’s all. But it gets me just the same. The whole world’s clean dippy. They ain’t no sense in anything. What’s the good of supportin’ a union that can’t win a strike? What’s the good of knockin’ the blocks off of scabs when they keep a-comin’ thick as ever? The whole thing’s bughouse, an’ I guess I am, too.” Such an outburst on Billy’s part was so unusual that it was the only time Saxon knew it to occur. Always he was sullen, and dogged, and unwhipped; while whisky only served to set the maggots of certitude crawling in his brain. One night Billy did not get home till after twelve. Saxon’s anxiety was increased by the fact that police fighting and head breaking had been reported to have occurred. When Billy came, his appearance verified the report. His coatsleeves were half torn off. The Windsor tie had disappeared from under his soft turned-down collar, and every button had been ripped off the front of the shirt. When he took his hat off, Saxon was frightened by a lump on his head the size of an apple. “D’ye know who did that? That Dutch slob Hermanmann, with a riot club….

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Excerpt #8, from The Satyricon — Complete, by Petronius Arbiter

…pitying head with my sharp knuckles. In tears, he sat upon the bed, while I applied each eye in turn, to the opening, filling myself up as with a dainty dish, with Eumolpus’ misfortunes, and gloating over their prolongation, when Bargates, agent for the building, called from his dinner, was carried into the midst of the brawl by two chair-men, for he had the gout. He carried on for some time against drunkards and fugitive slaves, in a savage tone and with a barbarous accent, and then, looking around and catching sight of Eumolpus, “What,” he exclaimed, “are you here, nay prince of poets? and these damned slaves don’t scatter at once and stop their brawling!” (Then, whispering in Eumolpus’ ear,) “My bedfellow’s got an idea that she’s finer-haired than I am; lampoon her in a poem, if you think anything of me, and make ‘er ashamed.” CHAPTER THE NINETY-SEVENTH. Eumolpus was speaking privately with Bargates, when a crier attended by a public slave entered the inn, accompanied by a medium-sized crowd of outsiders. Waving a torch that gave out more smoke than light, he announced: “Strayed from the baths, a short time ago, a boy about sixteen years of age, curly headed, a minion, handsome, answers to the name of Giton. One thousand sesterces reward will be paid to anyone bringing him back or giving information as to his whereabouts.” Ascyltos, dressed in a tunic of many colors, stood not far from the crier, holding out a…

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Excerpt #9, from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, by William Shakespeare

…KING JOHN. Thus have I yielded up into your hand The circle of my glory. PANDULPH. [Gives back the crown] Take again From this my hand, as holding of the Pope, Your sovereign greatness and authority. KING JOHN. Now keep your holy word; go meet the French; And from his Holiness use all your power To stop their marches fore we are inflam’d. Our discontented counties do revolt; Our people quarrel with obedience, Swearing allegiance and the love of soul To stranger blood, to foreign royalty. This inundation of mistemp’red humour Rests by you only to be qualified. Then pause not; for the present time’s so sick That present med’cine must be minist’red Or overthrow incurable ensues. PANDULPH. It was my breath that blew this tempest up, Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope; But since you are a gentle convertite, My tongue shall hush again this storm of war…

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Excerpt #10, from The Open Boat and Other Stories, by Stephen Crane

…smacks as the saloon gorged itself with plump men, eating with astounding and endless appetite, smiling in some indescribable manner as the men came from all directions like sacrifices to a heathenish superstition. Caught by the delectable sign the young man allowed himself to be swallowed. A bar-tender placed a schooner of dark and portentous beer on the bar. Its monumental form up-reared until the froth a-top was above the crown of the young man’s brown derby. “Soup over there, gents,” said the bar-tender affably. A little yellow man in rags and the youth grasped their schooners and went with speed toward a lunch counter, where a man with oily but imposing whiskers ladled genially from a kettle until he had furnished his two mendicants with a soup that was steaming hot, and in which there were little floating suggestions of chicken. The young man, sipping his broth, felt the cordiality expressed by the warmth of the mixture, and he beamed at the man with oily but imposing whiskers, who was presiding like a priest behind an altar. “Have some more, gents?” he inquired of the two sorry figures before him. The little yellow man accepted with a swift gesture, but the youth shook his head and went out, following a man whose wondrous seediness promised that he would have a knowledge of cheap lodging-houses….

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Excerpt #11, from Scientific Sprague, by Francis Lynde

…three fifty-five, right now, and we’ve got thirty miles to go!” Benson laughed. “Stribling will wait until the last minute for you, never fear. With two hours we could mighty near get out and walk it.” “I reckon we’re going to get a chance to walk a piece of the way,” said Starbuck in his slow drawl. “That maverick choo-choo wrangler up ahead will have us in the ditch before he hits the Nophi grades, if he keeps up his lick.” “I don’t want to call him down,” said Maxwell, dubiously. “He’s probably got a grouch because I pulled the string on him back yonder at the Gloria bridge.” “There comes the third section!” Benson called out; and a minute afterward the third and last division of the overland freight went hurtling past on the main track. Bascom’s makeshift fireman was promptly on his job. While the tail-end of the third section was clanking over the frogs he jerked the switch, and at the same instant the master mechanic jerked the throttle of the Nine-fifteen. The wild train shot out into position on the main line, halted for the fraction of a minute needed to enable the fireman to run up and scramble to the footboard, and the breakneck race was continued. By this time none of the four thought of going back into the caboose….

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Excerpt #12, from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; the Art of Controversy, by Arthur Schopenhauer

…viii., c. 1. It is a trick which needs no illustration. V. To prove the truth of a proposition, you may also employ previous propositions that are not true, should your opponent refuse to admit the true ones, either because he fails to perceive their truth, or because he sees that the thesis immediately follows from them. In that case the plan is to take propositions which are false in themselves but true for your opponent, and argue from the way in which he thinks, that is to say, ex concessis. For a true conclusion may follow from false premisses, but not vice versâ. In the same fashion your opponent’s false propositions may be refuted by other false propositions, which he, however, takes to be true; for it is with him that you have to do, and you must use the thoughts that he uses. For instance, if he is a member of some sect to which you do not belong, you may employ the declared, opinions of this sect against him, as principles.[1] [Footnote 1: Aristotle, Topica bk. viii., chap. 2.] VI. Another plan is to beg the question in disguise by postulating what has to be proved, either (1) under another name; for instance, “good repute” instead of “honour”; “virtue” instead of “virginity,” etc.;…

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