Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:25:59

Excerpt #1, from 13 Days: The Chronicle of an Escape from a German Prison, by John Alan Lyde Caunter

…did not bring one to light, so there was nothing for it but to get wet. However, Fox had a plan whereby two of us might be saved a wetting. He being the heaviest was to strip and stand in the middle of the stream while we crossed over, using his shoulders as a stepping-stone. When he got into the stream he found the bottom very muddy and the water came up to his chest. I was to try the ‘stunt’ first. All the food bags, etc., were carried across, and then Fox stood ready to do his part. Stepping well out from the bank and placing one foot on his shoulder I reached down until I could catch hold of his hands and waited for his signal. At the word, I sprang, he simultaneously throwing me, and before I had time to realise anything, I found myself rolling over and over on the other side. The timing had been perfect and I had landed completely dry. Blank was also got across successfully, and then the two of us pulled Fox out. But not without an effort, as one of his feet had got well embedded in the mud. He told us then that a large stone had prevented the other from getting similarly stuck. Rapid marching was the order after this episode, and we covered a great distance in an extraordinarily short space of time. We had omitted to fill our water-bottles at the last stream, and this…

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Excerpt #2, from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, by W. E. B. Du Bois

…must be educated, insanity prevented, and only those put under the guardianship of others who can in no way be trained to speak for themselves. The real argument for democracy is, then, that in the people we have the source of that endless life and unbounded wisdom which the rulers of men must have. A given people today may not be intelligent, but through a democratic government that recognizes, not only the worth of the individual to himself, but the worth of his feelings and experiences to all, they can educate, not only the individual unit, but generation after generation, until they accumulate vast stores of wisdom. Democracy alone is the method of showing the whole experience of the race for the benefit of the future and if democracy tries to exclude women or Negroes or the poor or any class because of innate characteristics which do not interfere with intelligence, then that democracy cripples itself and belies its name. From this point of view we can easily see the weakness and strength of current criticism of extension of the ballot. It is the business of a modern government to see to it, first, that the number of ignorant within its bounds is reduced to the very smallest number. Again, it is the duty of every such government to extend as quickly as possible the number of persons of mature age who can vote. Such possible voters must…

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Excerpt #3, from The American Diary of a Japanese Girl, by Yoné Noguchi

…“Go, Mr. Poet! Why don’t you mind your own business? You are butler to-day.” I spoke in rough sweetness, and drove him away. He began to place a linen cloth on the table, while I dipped up all the pepper. He picked up one dozen pebbles to weight the tablecloth. The first thing he put on the table was his claret bottle. How could he lose it from sight! When he said that everything was in place, he had forgotten the knives and forks. Dear old poet! We sat at the table under the wild rose bushes. Mr. Heine read aloud the following menu: “PERFUME OF OMAR’S ROSE WATER OF JORDAN RIVER MOTHER LOVE BROTH MEAT OF WISDOM POTATOES OF SIMPLICITY PASSION CARROT ONION OF WIT DREAM COFFEE. DESSERT TYPICAL TOKIO SMILE OF MISS MORNING GLORY.” My grandmamma was our guest. “Mother, you talk too much always. Remember, this is a sacred service….

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Excerpt #4, from The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway

…“You like the bull-fights?” “Sure. Don’t you?” “Yes,” he said. “I guess I like them.” Then after a little: “Where you go now?” “Up to Burguete to fish.” “Well,” he said, “I hope you catch something.” He shook hands and turned around to the back seat again. The other Basques had been impressed. He sat back comfortably and smiled at me when I turned around to look at the country. But the effort of talking American seemed to have tired him. He did not say anything after that. The bus climbed steadily up the road. The country was barren and rocks stuck up through the clay. There was no grass beside the road. Looking back we could see the country spread out below. Far back the fields were squares of green and brown on the hillsides. Making the horizon were the brown mountains. They were strangely shaped. As we climbed higher the horizon kept changing. As the bus ground slowly up the road we could see other mountains coming up in the south. Then the road came over the crest, flattened out, and went into a forest. It was a forest of cork oaks, and the sun came through the trees in patches, and there were cattle grazing back in the trees. We went through the forest and the…

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Excerpt #5, from Astounding Stories, May, 1931, by Various

…“Master, Harl was in it. And the Princess Tina.” “Ah!” “And a stranger. A man–” “From 1935? Did they stop there?” “Master, yes. But they stopped again, I think, in that same night of 1777, where I did your bidding. Master, the man Major Atwood is–” “That is very good, Migul,” Tugh said hastily. Mary and I standing gazing at him, did not know then that Mary’s father had been murdered. And Tugh did not wish us to know it. “Very good, Migul.” He regarded us as though about to speak, but turned again to the Robot. “And so Tina’s cage follows us–as you hoped?” “Yes, Master. But now there is only Harl in it. He approached us very close a while in the past. He is alone.” “So?” Tugh glanced at the Time-dials. “Stop us where we planned. You remember–in one of those years when this space was the big forest glade.” * * * * * He fronted Mary and me. “You are patient, young sir. You do not speak.” His glittering black eyes held me. They were red-rimmed eyes, like those of a beast. He had a strangely repulsive face. His lips were…

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Excerpt #6, from Wild Animals I Have Known, by Ernest Thompson Seton

…fifty yards of the door. He evidently came alone this time, for I found but one trail next morning, and he had galloped about in a reckless manner that was very unusual with him. I had half expected this, and had set a number of additional traps about the pasture. Afterward I found that he had indeed fallen into one of these, but, such was his strength, he had torn himself loose and cast it aside. I believed that he would continue in the neighborhood until he found her body at least, so I concentrated all my energies on this one enterprise of catching him before he left the region, and while yet in this reckless mood. Then I realized what a mistake I had made in killing Blanca, for by using her as a decoy I might have secured him the next night. I gathered in all the traps I could command, one hundred and thirty strong steel wolf-traps, and set them in fours in every trail that led into the canyon; each trap was separately fastened to a log, and each log was separately buried. In burying them, I carefully removed the sod and every particle of earth that was lifted we put in blankets, so that after the sod was replaced and all was finished the eye could detect no trace of human handiwork. When the traps were concealed I trailed the body of poor Blanca over each place, and made of it a drag that circled all about the ranch, and finally I took off one of her paws and made…

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Excerpt #7, from The Talking Horse, and Other Tales, by F. Anstey

…indeed!’ ‘Poor dear Tumps came home so proud of your approval,’ said Jessie to Ella, ‘and we were awfully relieved to find you didn’t think we’d made the house quite too dreadful–weren’t we, Carrie?’ ‘Yes, indeed, Jessie.’ ‘Of course,’ observed the latter young lady, ‘it’s always so hard to hit upon another person’s taste exactly–especially in furnishing.’ ‘Impossible, I should have thought,’ from Mrs. Hylton. ‘I hope Ella is of a different opinion–what do you say, dearest?’ ‘Oh,’ cried Ella hastily, with splendid mendacity, ‘I–I liked it all very much, and–and it was so much too kind of you and Carrie. I’ve never thanked you for–for all the things you gave me!’ ‘Oh, those! they ain’t worth thanking for–just a few little artistic odds and ends. They set off a room, you know–give it a finish.’ ‘Young people nowadays,’ croaked old Mrs. Chapman lugubriously in Mrs. Hylton’s courteously inclined ear, ‘think so much of luxury and ornament. I’m sure when I married my dear husband, we—-’ ‘Now, mater dear, you really mustn’t!’ interrupted the irrepressible Jessie; ’Mrs. Hylton is on our side, you know. She likes pretty things about her–don’t you, Mrs. Hylton? And, talking of that, Ella, I hope you thought our glyco-vitrine decoration a success? We were perfectly…

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Excerpt #8, from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1, by Edgar Allan Poe

…“At a quarter-past eight, being no longer able to draw breath without the most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to adjust around the car the apparatus belonging to the condenser. This apparatus will require some little explanation, and your Excellencies will please to bear in mind that my object, in the first place, was to surround myself and cat entirely with a barricade against the highly rarefied atmosphere in which I was existing, with the intention of introducing within this barricade, by means of my condenser, a quantity of this same atmosphere sufficiently condensed for the purposes of respiration. With this object in view I had prepared a very strong perfectly air-tight, but flexible gum-elastic bag. In this bag, which was of sufficient dimensions, the entire car was in a manner placed. That is to say, it (the bag) was drawn over the whole bottom of the car, up its sides, and so on, along the outside of the ropes, to the upper rim or hoop where the net-work is attached. Having pulled the bag up in this way, and formed a complete enclosure on all sides, and at bottom, it was now necessary to fasten up its top or mouth, by passing its material over the hoop of the net-work—in other words, between the net-work and the hoop. But if the net-work were separated from…

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Excerpt #9, from Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen

…none. On the contrary, if I have felt any anxiety at all on the subject, it has been in recollecting that he sometimes showed a want of pleasure and readiness in accepting my invitation, when I talked of his coming to Barton. Does Elinor expect him already?” “I have never mentioned it to her, but of course she must.” “I rather think you are mistaken, for when I was talking to her yesterday of getting a new grate for the spare bedchamber, she observed that there was no immediate hurry for it, as it was not likely that the room would be wanted for some time.” “How strange this is! what can be the meaning of it! But the whole of their behaviour to each other has been unaccountable! How cold, how composed were their last adieus! How languid their conversation the last evening of their being together! In Edward’s farewell there was no distinction between Elinor and me: it was the good wishes of an affectionate brother to both. Twice did I leave them purposely together in the course of the last morning, and each time did he most unaccountably follow me out of the room. And Elinor, in quitting Norland and Edward, cried not as I did. Even now her self-command is invariable. When is she dejected or melancholy? When does she try to avoid society, or appear restless and dissatisfied in it?” CHAPTER IX….

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Excerpt #10, from Dracula, by Bram Stoker

…“Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to begin.” The other added:– “He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.” I lay quiet, looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood. I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one’s flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer–nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat,…

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Excerpt #11, from The Golden Wheel Dream

…Napoleon at St. Helena. The Calculation. The Surprise Party. The Four Kings. The Clock. The Garden. The Queen’s Audience. The Phalanx. The Idle Year. The Chameleon. La Belle Lucie. The Shamrocks. The House in the Wood. The House on the Hill. The Grand Duchess. The Constitution. The Beleaguered Castle. The Citadel. The Exiled Kings. Penelope’s Web. Napoleon’s Square.…

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Excerpt #12, from The Pirates Own Book, by Charles Ellms

…Azores. The good fortune of Low was now singular; in his way thither he captured a French ship of 34 guns, and carried her along with him. Then entering St. Michael’s roads, he captured seven sail, threatening with instant death all who dared to oppose him. Thus, by inspiring terror, without firing a single gun, he became master of all that property. Being in want of water and fresh provisions, Low sent to the governor demanding a supply, upon condition of releasing the ships he had taken, otherwise he would commit them to the flames. The request was instantly complied with, and six of the vessels were restored. But a French vessel being among them, they emptied her of guns and all her men except the cook, who, they said, being a greasy fellow, would fry well; they accordingly bound the unfortunate man to the mast, and set the ship on fire. The next who fell in their way was Captain Carter, in the Wright galley; who, because he showed some inclination to defend himself, was cut and mangled in a barbarous manner. There were also two Portuguese friars, whom they tied to the foremast, and several times let them down before they were dead, merely to gratify their own ferocious dispositions. Meanwhile, another Portuguese, beholding this cruel scene, expressed some sorrow in his countenance, upon which one of the wretches said he did not like his looks, and so giving him a stroke across the body with…

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