Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:06

Excerpt #1, 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 #2, from The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, by G. K. Chesterton

…together when children. But he remembered that he was still tied to Gregory by a great promise. He had promised never to do the very thing that he now felt himself almost in the act of doing. He had promised not to jump over that balcony and speak to that policeman. He took his cold hand off the cold stone balustrade. His soul swayed in a vertigo of moral indecision. He had only to snap the thread of a rash vow made to a villainous society, and all his life could be as open and sunny as the square beneath him. He had, on the other hand, only to keep his antiquated honour, and be delivered inch by inch into the power of this great enemy of mankind, whose very intellect was a torture-chamber. Whenever he looked down into the square he saw the comfortable policeman, a pillar of common sense and common order. Whenever he looked back at the breakfast-table he saw the President still quietly studying him with big, unbearable eyes. In all the torrent of his thought there were two thoughts that never crossed his mind. First, it never occurred to him to doubt that the President and his Council could crush him if he continued to stand alone. The place might be public, the project might seem impossible. But Sunday was not the man who would carry himself thus easily without having, somehow or somewhere, set open his iron trap. Either by anonymous poison or sudden street accident, by hypnotism or by fire…

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Excerpt #3, from History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent

…platform of natural rock, about fifteen feet high. To north and south of this were open courts. The southern is bounded by the hill; the northern is now bounded by the Great Temple of Hat-shepsu, but, before this was built, there was evidently a very large open court here. The face of the rock platform is masked by a wall of large rectangular blocks of fine white limestone, some of which measure six feet by three feet six inches. They are beautifully squared and laid in bonded courses of alternate sizes, and the walls generally may be said to be among the finest yet found in Egypt. We have already remarked that the architects of the Middle Kingdom appear to have been specially fond of fine masonry in white stone. The contrast between these splendid XIth Dynasty walls, with their great base-stones of sandstone, and the bad rough masonry of the XVIIIth Dynasty temple close by, is striking. The XVIIIth Dynasty architects and masons had degenerated considerably from the standard of the Middle Kingdom. This rock platform was approached from the east in the centre by an inclined plane or ramp, of which part of the original pavement of wooden beams remains in situ. [Illustration: 324.jpg XIth DYNASTY WALL: DÊR EL-BAHARI.] Excavated by Mr. Hall, 1904, for the Egypt Exploration Fund. To right and left of this ramp are colonnades, each of twenty-two square…

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Excerpt #4, from Famous Modern Ghost Stories, by Dorothy Scarborough et al.

…The gendarme, Durand, also sat down, twisting his mustache into needlelike points. Fortin leaned against the cliff, polishing his glasses and examining us with vague, near-sighted eyes; and Le Bihan, the mayor, planted himself in our midst, rolling up the scroll and tucking it under his arm. “First of all,” he began in a shrill voice, “I am going to light my pipe, and while lighting it I shall tell you what I have heard about the attack on the fort yonder. My father told me; his father told him.” He jerked his head in the direction of the ruined fort, a small, square stone structure on the sea cliff, now nothing but crumbling walls. Then he slowly produced a tobacco pouch, a bit of flint and tinder, and a long-stemmed pipe fitted with a microscopical bowl of baked clay. To fill such a pipe requires ten minutes’ close attention. To smoke it to a finish takes but four puffs. It is very Breton, this Breton pipe. It is the crystallization of everything Breton. “Go on,” said I, lighting a cigarette. “The fort,” said the mayor, "was built by Louis XIV, and was dismantled twice by the English. Louis XV restored it in 1730. In 1760 it was carried by assault by the English. They came across from the island of Groix–three shiploads, and they stormed the fort and sacked St. Julien yonder, and they started to burn St. Gildas–you can see the marks of…

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Excerpt #5, from Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, by William Sleeman

…that language was given to man for the better concealment of his thoughts, they at least seem to regard in what they say, not its resemblance to the tact in question, but rather its subserviency to the purpose in view.’ (Brougham’s George IV.) ‘Yet, let it never be forgotten, that princes are nurtured in falsehood by the atmosphere of lies which envelops their palace; steeled against natural sympathies by the selfish natures of all that surround them; hardened in cruelty, partly indeed by the fears incident to their position, but partly too by the unfeeling creatures, the factions, the unnatural productions of a court whom alone they deal with; trained for tyrants by the prostration which they find in all the minds which they come in contact with; encouraged to domineer by the unresisting medium through which all their steps to power and its abuse are made.’ (Brougham’s Carnot.) But Lord Brougham is too harsh. Johnson has observed truly enough, ‘Honesty is not necessarily greater where elegance is less’; nor does a sense of supreme or despotic power necessarily imply the exercise or abuse of it. Princes have, happily, the same yearning as the peasant after the respect and affection of the circle around them, and the people under them; and they must generally seek it by the same means….

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Excerpt #6, from Gladiator, by Philip Wylie

…incidents of his career. Until the day of that incident his incumbency was in no way unusual. He was one of the bank’s young men, receiving fifty dollars weekly to learn the banking business. They moved him from department to department, giving him mentally menial tasks which afforded him in each case a glimpse of a new facet of financial technique. It was fairly interesting. He made no friends and he worked diligently. One day in April when he had returned from lunch and a stroll in the environs of the Battery–returned to a list of securities and a strip from an adding machine, which he checked item by item–he was conscious of a stirring in his vicinity. A woman employee on the opposite side of a wire wicket was talking shrilly. A vice-president rose from his desk and hastened down the corridor, his usually composed face suddenly white and disconcerted. The tension was cumulative. Work stopped and clusters of people began to chatter. Hugo joined one of them. “Yeah,” a boy was saying, “it’s happened before. A couple o’ times.” “How do they know he’s there?” “They got a telephone goin’ inside and they’re talkin’ to him.” “I’ll be damned.” The boy nodded rapidly. “Yeah–some talk! Tellin’ him what to try next.”…

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Excerpt #7, from A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer

…if, after this, the weather clear up, you may expect very severe cold. Q. How can you know if the MERCURY of the barometer be RISING? A. If it be convex (i. e. higher in the middle than at the sides;) it is in a rising state. Q. How can you tell if the MERCURY of the barometer be about to FALL? A. If it be concave (i. e. hollow in the middle) it is in a falling state. Q. Why is the mercury CONVEX when it is RISING? A. The sides of the mercury rub against the glass tube, and are delayed by it, so that the middle part rises faster than the sides. Q. Why is the mercury CONCAVE when it is FALLING? A. The sides of the mercury rub against the glass tube, and are delayed by it, so that the middle part sinks faster than the sides. Q. What effect does a THUNDER-STORM produce on the weather? A. Thunder is generally preceded by hot weather, and followed by cold and showery weather. Q. What effect does a SUDDEN CHANGE produce on the weather? A. A great and sudden change (either from hot to cold, or from cold to…

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Excerpt #8, from The Topaz Story Book: Stories and Legends of Autumn, Hallowe’en, and

…ANN TRUMBULL SLOSSON Used by permission of Chas. Scribner and Sons. Once there was a posy. ’Twa’n’t a common kind o’ posy, that blows out wide open, so’s everybody can see its outsides and its insides too. But ’twas one of them posies like what grows down the road, back o’ your pa’s sugar-house, Danny, and don’t come till way towards fall. They’re sort o’ blue, but real dark, and they look’s if they was buds ’stead o’ posies–only buds opens out, and these doesn’t. They’re all shet up close and tight, and they never, never, never opens. Never mind how much sun they get, never mind how much rain or how much drouth, whether it’s cold or hot, them posies stay shet up tight, kind o’ buddy, and not finished and humly. But if you pick ’em open, real careful, with a pin,–I’ve done it,–you find they’re dreadful pretty inside. You couldn’t see a posy that was finished off better, soft and nice, with pretty little stripes painted on ’em, and all the little things like threads in the middle, sech as the open posies has, standing up, with little knots on their tops, oh, so pretty,–you never did! Makes you think real hard, that does; leastways, makes me. What’s they that way for? If they ain’t never goin’ to open out, what’s the use o’ havin’ the shet-up part so slicked up and nice, with nobody never…

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Excerpt #9, from The Fifth Ace, by Isabel Ostrander

…too, I’ll admit that." “Do you want to try a little of it for me?” Willa asked. “An old Spanish woman disappeared early this morning from that house back on Second Place, and I want her found without delay. It’s she whom those other men are after; she used to live with her grandson, a hunchback, in that cottage upon the Parkway. There will be double wages in it for you while you’re working on it, and a thousand dollars reward if you find her and bring her to me.” She went on to describe Tia Juana, and Dan listened in rapt attention to every detail, fired with instant enthusiasm for the new job. “You leave it to me, Miss!” he announced confidently when she had finished. “I’ll get into that house to-morrow, one way or another, and have a talk with the landlady and the kid. I’ll soon find out if they know more than they’ve told. In the meantime, I’ll make the round of the hospitals to-night and have a look-in at headquarters to see if she’s turned up missing. Those fellers trailing us this afternoon don’t make it look as if they or the man they’re workin’ for could have got hold of her already and there’s a chance that she just wandered off, like, on her own hook. I’ll let you know the minute I’ve got a line on her. Wish I spoke her lingo!” "Oh, Tia Juana understands English well enough when she wants to, and…

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Excerpt #10, from The Story of the Great War, Volume 1, by Churchill, Miller, and Reynolds

…ultimatum which England did not answer. Then the Boer War broke out. For our purposes it is not necessary to consider its details. It suffices to state that it lasted until April, 1902. For almost three years the brave Boers fought against almost impossible odds. Again and again they defeated the English, but finally they succumbed to the British Empire’s inexhaustible resources in men and money, and on May 31, 1902, they were forced to accept England’s terms for surrender which cost them their independence. Indeed, as early as September 1, 1900, the South African Republic was annexed, and on October 25, Transvaal became an English colony. In its international aspect the Boer War cost England temporarily the friendship of many nations, who resented the ruthlessness with which they carried on war, and ridiculed the lack of efficiency which was so noticeable during the early stages of the war. Relations with Germany became especially strained as a result of the strong pro-Boer sentiment which was evident throughout the German Empire, and which found even official expression in a much-discussed telegram of the German Emperor to President Krueger. Although the Boer War cost England much in lives, money, and prestige, its gain far overshadowed its cost. By it Great Britain won the richest gold-producing mines and the most wonderful diamond…

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Excerpt #11, from The Myths and Fables of To Day, by Samuel Adams Drake

…their supernatural powers by his own arts. Indeed, the very word “charms” so innocently given to a bunch of jingling objects dangling from the belt or watch-chain, is itself indicative of a superstitious origin, to say the least. As an example of the change wrought by the tyrant fashion in the supposed attributes of certain gems, the ruby was formerly considered the correct thing for an engagement ring, but that stone is now almost wholly superseded by the diamond for that highly interesting event; though the ruby continues to be regarded as a valuable gift upon other occasions, and if of a fine quality, is much more costly than a diamond. Very possibly the familiar Biblical phrase, “for her price is far above rubies,” spoken of the truly virtuous woman in Proverbs, may have suggested the peculiar fitness of this gem in a promise of marriage. If so, we can only regret the substitution. Perhaps the most plausible explanation given for the present popularity of the diamond–it must, however, be a solitaire of the purest water–is that, as the diamond is the most durable substance known, so it is hoped that it may symbolize an enduring affection between the contracting parties. Though in itself nothing but a symbol or sign, the gift of an engagement ring is considered as evidence in a breach of promise case, thus showing that the very ancient custom in use among…

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Excerpt #12, from Let’s Get Together, by Isaac Asimov

…will begin with an all-Science conference." “All-Science?” Breckenridge said, “We have listed every important scientist of every branch of natural science. They’ll all be at Cheyenne. There will be only one point on the agenda: How to advance robotics. The major specific sub-heading under that will be: How to develop a receiving device for the electromagnetic fields of the cerebral cortex that will be sufficiently delicate to distinguish between a protoplasmic human brain and a positronic humanoid brain.” Jeffreys said, “We had hoped you would be willing to be in charge of the conference.” “I was not consulted in this.” “Obviously time was short, sir. Do you agree to be in charge?” Lynn smiled briefly. It was a matter of responsibility again. The responsibility must be clearly that of Lynn of Robotics. He had the feeling it would be Breckenridge who would really be in charge. But what could he do? He said, “I agree.” * * * * * Breckenridge and Lynn returned together to Cheyenne, where that evening Laszlo listened with a sullen mistrust to Lynn’s description of coming…

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