Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:46

Excerpt #1, from Second Treatise of Government, by John Locke

…were those in whose hands we find, de facto, the exercise of government: I say, if this argument be good, it will as strongly prove, that all princes, nay princes only, ought to be priests, since it is as certain, that in the beginning, the father of the family was priest, as that he was ruler in his own houshold. CHAPTER. VII. OF POLITICAL OR CIVIL SOCIETY. Sect. 77. GOD having made man such a creature, that in his own judgment, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination to drive him into society, as well as fitted him with understanding and language to continue and enjoy it. The first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to that between parents and children; to which, in time, that between master and servant came to be added: and though all these might, and commonly did meet together, and make up but one family, wherein the master or mistress of it had some sort of rule proper to a family; each of these, or all together, came short of political society, as we shall see, if we consider the different ends, ties, and bounds of each of these. Sect. 78. Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman; and tho’ it consist chiefly in such a communion and right in…

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Excerpt #2, from Astrology: How to Make and Read Your Own Horoscope, by Sepharial

…The Ecliptic is divided into twelve equal sections, counting from the Vernal Equinox. These are called the Signs of the Zodiac. Each sign occupies 30 degrees of the circle. Their names and symbols are as follows:– 1. Aries, the Ram ♈ 2. Taurus, the Bull ♉ 3. Gemini, the Twins ♊ 4. Cancer, the Crab ♋ 5. Leo, the Lion ♌ 6. Virgo, the Virgin ♍ 7. Libra, the Balance ♎ 8. Scorpio, the Scorpion ♏ 9. Sagittarius, the Hunter ♐ 10. Capricornus, the Goat ♑ 11. Aquarius, the Waterman ♒ 12. Pisces, the Fishes ♓ For Astrological purposes they are grouped according to the element and the constitution which they represent, thus:– ELEMENTS. Fire–Aries, Leo, Sagittarius. Earth–Taurus, Virgo, Capricornus….

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Excerpt #3, from Tales from a Rolltop Desk, by Christopher Morley

…“Oh, well, that’s Mr. Bennett, I’m sure,” said Elaine. “I’ll call up the police right away, and see if they can do anything. My nice coffee-urn! Why, it’s the finest thing we had in the whole house.” Before the police arrived, Mrs. Bennett herself took a careful look round the outside of the house. She found nothing unusual except a cigar butt lying on the ground near the broken window. She picked it up gingerly. A section of the gilt band still adhered to the wrapper. She could read the name, Florona. She carried the fragment into the cellar and threw it into the ash-can. Two policemen arrived shortly, examined everything, and asked innumerable questions. Mrs. Bennett gave them a careful description of the coffee-urn. They departed, promising to do everything possible to trace it. They said that a piece of silver so large and unusual would not be hard to locate with the aid of the pawnbrokers. Then Mrs. Bennett went upstairs to think. It seemed very strange that the thieves should take the urn and nothing else, when there were other pieces of silver beside it on the sideboard. She called up Harry, who was horrified to learn of the loss. He had slept right through the night without hearing a sound. He offered to come home if he could do anything to help; but she would not hear of it. That night Mrs. Bennett had a special little dinner waiting for her…

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Excerpt #4, from Guide to Fortune Telling, by Dreams, by Anonymous

…are going on well; if you are in trade, an increase of business; if you quarrel, and he overcomes you, it is a good sign, for you will conquer all obstacles to your promotion, happiness and fortune; but, if you conquer him, then you will never rise to any great preferment by the means you are at present adopting; many things will miscarry with you, but in general you will be fortunate. Acquaintance.–To dream you quarrel or fight with an acquaintance is unlucky; it forebodes a division amongst your own family, much to the injury and prejudice of the dreamer; if you are in love, your sweetheart will prove unfaithful, and marry some one else; if you are in business, heavy loss will befall you, and you will disagree with some of your best friends on the most trivial matters; if you have a law-suit, your attorney will neglect you, your witnesses will be tardy and backward, and finally you will lose your cause. Do not for some time undertake a journey by land, or a voyage by sea, or enter into new undertakings, for you will be unsuccessful; leave, if you can, your present place of residence, and, above all, avoid lending money, for you will surely lose it, together with the friendship of those to whom you lend it. Angels.–To dream you see angels in your sleep is a sure sign that one is near you, therefore be mindful of the rest of your dream, for it…

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Excerpt #5, from My Man Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

…“Hello!” I said. “Couldn’t you find her?” “Yes, I found her,” he replied, with one of those bitter, hollow laughs. “Well, then——?” Freddie sank into a chair and groaned. “This isn’t her cousin, you idiot!” he said. “He’s no relation at all. He’s just a kid she happened to meet on the beach. She had never seen him before in her life.” “What! Who is he, then?” “I don’t know. Oh, Lord, I’ve had a time! Thank goodness you’ll probably spend the next few years of your life in Dartmoor for kidnapping. That’s my only consolation. I’ll come and jeer at you through the bars.” “Tell me all, old boy,” I said. It took him a good long time to tell the story, for he broke off in the middle of nearly every sentence to call me names, but I gathered gradually what had happened. She had listened like an iceberg while he told the story he had prepared, and then—well, she didn’t actually call him a liar, but she gave him to understand in a general sort of way that if he and Dr. Cook ever happened to meet, and started swapping stories, it would be about the biggest duel on record. And then he had…

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Excerpt #6, from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete, by Suetonius

…and thence we may infer, that those two writers differed from each other, at least with respect to some particulars on that subject. This author’s treatise De Re Rustica was undertaken at the desire of a friend, who, having purchased some lands, requested of Varro the favour of his instructions relative to farming, and the economy of a country life, in its various departments. Though Varro was at this time in his eightieth year, he writes with all the vivacity, though without the levity, of youth, and sets out with invoking, not the Muses, like Homer and Ennius, as he observes, but the twelve deities supposed to be chiefly concerned in the operations of agriculture. It appears from the account which he gives, that upwards of fifty Greek authors had treated of this subject in prose, besides Hesiod and Menecrates the Ephesian, who both wrote in verse; exclusive likewise of many Roman writers, and of Mago the Carthaginian, who wrote in the Punic language. Varro’s work is divided into three books, the first of which treats of agriculture; the second, of rearing of cattle; and the third, of feeding animals for the use of the table. (67) In the last of these, we meet with a remarkable instance of the prevalence of habit and fashion over human sentiment, where the author delivers instructions relative to the best method of fattening rats. We find from Quintilian, that Varro likewise composed satires in various…

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Excerpt #7, from Astounding Stories, August, 1931, by Various

…occupied an entire side of the single room. “Regular young observatory you’ve got here, Van,” Bart commented when he had taken all this in in one sweeping glance of appraisal. “Yeah, and then some. Not another like it in the world.” Van was busying himself with the controls of his electrical equipment, and a powerful motor-generator started up with a click and a whirr as he closed a starting switch. Madison watched in silence as the swift-fingered scientist fussed with the complicated adjustments of the apparatus and then turned to the massive concrete pedestal on which his telescope was mounted. At his touch of a button the instrument swung over on its polar axis to a new position. The slit in the dome was opened to the afternoon sky, revealing the lunar disc in its daytime faintness. “You can see it just as well in daylight?” Bart asked as his friend peered through the eyepiece of the telescope and continued his adjustments. “Sure, the surface is just as bright as at night. Doesn’t seem so to your eye, but it’s different through the telescope. Here, take a look.” * * * * * Bart squinted through the eyepiece and saw a huge crater with a…

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Excerpt #8, from The Story of the Barbary Corsairs, by J. D. Jerrold Kelley and Stanley Lane

…probity of the African princes in the settlement and maintenance of these treaties. As a general rule, Sicily and the commercial Republics were allied to the rulers of Tunis and Tilimsān and Fez by bonds of amity and mutual advantage. One after the other, Pisa, Genoa, Provence, Aragon, and Venice, concluded commercial treaties with the African sovereigns, and renewed them from time to time. Some of these States had special quarters reserved for them at Tunis, Ceuta, and other towns; and all had their consuls in the thirteenth century, who were protected in a manner that the English agent at Algiers would have envied seventy years ago. The African trade was especially valuable to the Pisans and Genoese, and there was a regular African company trading at the Ports of Tripoli, Tunis, Bujēya, Ceuta, and Salē. Indeed, the Genoese went so far as to defend Ceuta against Christian crusaders, so much did commerce avail against religion; and, on the other hand, the Christian residents at Tunis, the western metropolis of Islam, had their own place of worship, where they were free to pray undisturbed, as late as 1530. This tolerance was largely due to the mild and judicious government of the Benī Hafs, whose three centuries’ sway at Tunis was an unmixed benefit to their subjects, and to all who had relations with them. Not that the years passed by without war and retaliation, or that…

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Excerpt #9, from Appletons’ Popular Science Monthly, March 1899, by Various

…the military establishment.[3] All the rest is expenditure that should no more be intrusted to the Government–that is, subject to the application of political instead of business methods–than the expenditure of a household, or a farm, or a cotton mill, or an iron foundry. Even if it were a legitimate expenditure of the Government, it could not be collected nor expended without injustice. Tax laws have never been and never will be framed that will not permit some one to escape his share of the burdens of the community; and the heavier those burdens are, as they are constantly becoming to an alarming degree, the more desperate will be the effort to shirk them–the more lightly will they rest upon the dishonest and unworthy, and the more heavily upon the honest and worthy. Moreover, it has never been possible, and it never will be possible, to expend money by political methods without either waste or fraud, and most usually without both. Such a volume of legislation and taxation permits of the easy detection of the vital difference between the theory and practice of politics. According to the text-books and professors, politics is the science of government. In countries like the United States, where popular institutions prevail, the purpose of its study is the discovery and the application of the methods that shall enable all citizens, rich and poor, to share alike in the inestimable privilege…

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Excerpt #10, from Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, by Benjamin Franklin

…As I seem’d at first not to think so ill of them as she did, she mentioned some things she had observ’d and heard that had escap’d my notice, but now convinc’d me she was right. I thank’d her for her kind advice, and promis’d to follow it. When we arriv’d at New York, they told me where they liv’d, and invited me to come and see them; but I avoided it, and it was well I did; for the next day the captain miss’d a silver spoon and some other things, that had been taken out of his cabin, and, knowing that these were a couple of strumpets, he got a warrant to search their lodgings, found the stolen goods, and had the thieves punish’d. So, tho’ we had escap’d a sunken rock, which we scrap’d upon in the passage, I thought this escape of rather more importance to me. At New York I found my friend Collins, who had arriv’d there some time before me. We had been intimate from children, and had read the same books together; but he had the advantage of more time for reading and studying, and a wonderful genius for mathematical learning, in which he far outstript me. While I liv’d in Boston, most of my hours of leisure for conversation were spent with him, and he continu’d a sober as well as an industrious lad; was much respected for his learning by several of the clergy and other gentlemen, and seemed to promise making a good figure in life. But, during my absence, he had acquir’d…

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Excerpt #11, from The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

…“That I can’t say. To see some officer. Some one invited her and horses were sent to fetch her.” Mitya left him, and ran like a madman to Fenya. Chapter V. A Sudden Resolution She was sitting in the kitchen with her grandmother; they were both just going to bed. Relying on Nazar Ivanovitch, they had not locked themselves in. Mitya ran in, pounced on Fenya and seized her by the throat. “Speak at once! Where is she? With whom is she now, at Mokroe?” he roared furiously. Both the women squealed. “Aie! I’ll tell you. Aie! Dmitri Fyodorovitch, darling, I’ll tell you everything directly, I won’t hide anything,” gabbled Fenya, frightened to death; “she’s gone to Mokroe, to her officer.” “What officer?” roared Mitya. “To her officer, the same one she used to know, the one who threw her over five years ago,” cackled Fenya, as fast as she could speak. Mitya withdrew the hands with which he was squeezing her throat. He stood facing her, pale as death, unable to utter a word, but his eyes showed that he realized it all, all, from the first word, and guessed…

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Excerpt #12, from Phrases and Names, Their Origins and Meanings, by Trench H. Johnson

…=Go one better.= Originally a sporting expression, meaning that by jumping farther a contestant would make a scratch on the ground beyond the one just scored. =Goose.= The tailor’s smoothing iron, from the resemblance of its handle to the neck of a goose. =Gooseberry.= A corruption of Gorseberry, rough or coarse, on account of the hairs or diminutive prickles which distinguish this berry. =Gordon Hotels.= Established by the late Frederick Gordon, a solicitor of Bloomsbury. These middle-class hotels have supplied a long-felt want in London and elsewhere. =Gordon Square.= In compliment to Lady Georgina Gordon, wife of the sixth Duke of Bedford, the ground landlord. =Gospel.= From the Anglo-Saxon God-spell, “good news.” =Gospel Oak.= From the oak-tree marking the juncture of St Pancras and Hampstead parishes, beneath which the Gospel was annually read. =Goswell Road.= From an ancient spring, styled “God’s Well,” discovered in this neighbourhood. =Gotham.= The city of New York. Washington Irving first gave it this name in his “Salmagundi.” Its people in his time were anything but fools, yet he may not have appreciated the singular wisdom attributed to them. By referring to the city as Gotham he made a…

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