BMTG Daily Dose

Formerly known as the Daily Dose, the Weekly Dose is home to weekly excerpts from a wide variety of important books. These excerpts are near and dear to the hearts of the BMTG membership. Submissions from BMTG members are welcome, as long as the guidelines are followed. Submissions that do not conform to the official guidelines will be rejected without the opportunity to appeal. Excerpts are best when read aloud with a dramatic flair.

2006
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Week of February 27, 2006

The Black-Bearded Barbarian by Marian Keith

In less than an hour the street in front of it was thronged with a shouting crowd. Before the day was past the news spread, and the whole city was in an uproar. By the next afternoon the excitement had reached white heat, and a wild crowd of men came
roaring down the street. They hurled themselves at the little house where the missionaries were waiting and literally tore it to splinters. The screams of rage and triumph were so horrible that they reminded Mackay of the savage yells of the head-hunters.

An Algonquin Maiden by G. Mercer Adam

"Ah!" ejaculated Allan, as he read and re-read this brief epistle, "she does not despise my love, but she recognizes its hopelessness." With the usual bluntness of masculine perception he failed to see that it was impossible for her to ignore what he himself was accustomed to dwell upon at such dreary length. If he was profoundly convinced that there was no hope, she could scarcely condescend to suggest that there
might be a glimmer. So the young man continued to be wrapped in the darkness which was largely born of his own imagination.

Week of February 20, 2006

Speeches That Changed the World

J. Robert Oppenheimer, Los Alamos, New Mexico, November 2, 1945
And there was finally, and I think rightly, the feeling that there was probably no place in the world where the development of atomic weapons would have a better chance of leading to a reasonable solution, and a smaller chance of leading to disaster, than within the United States. I believe all these things that people said are true, and I think I said them all myself at one time or another.
But when you come right down to it the reason that we did this job is because it was an organic necessity...If you are a scientist you believe that it is good to find out how the world works; that it is good to turn over to mankind at large the greatest possible power to control the world and to deal with it according to its lights and its values.

Queen Elizabeth I, Speech to the English troops at Tilbury, 1588
Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.

Week of February 13, 2006

The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan—but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes—an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me—but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.

Grandfather's Chair by Nathaniel Hawthorne

        "What was that?" inquired Charley.
        "The Stamp Act," replied Grandfather, "was a law by which all deeds, bonds, and other papers of the same kind were ordered to be marked with the king's stamp; and without this mark they were declared illegal and void. Now, in order to get a blank sheet of paper with the king's stamp upon it, people were obliged to pay threepence more than the actual value of the paper. And this extra sum of threepence was a tax, and was to be paid into the king's treasury."
        "I am sure threepence was not worth quarrelling about!" remarked Clara.
        "It was not for threepence, nor for any amount of money, that America quarrelled with England," replied Grandfather; "it was for a great principle. The colonists were determined not to be taxed except by their own representatives. They said that neither the king and Parliament, nor any other power on earth, had a right to take their money out of their pockets unless they freely gave it. And, rather than pay threepence when it was unjustly demanded, they resolved to sacrifice all the wealth of the country, and their lives along with it. They therefore made a most stubborn resistance to the Stamp Act."

Week of February 6, 2006

Hadda Padda by Godmunder Kamban

KRISTRUN. Are you tired?

INGOLF. I seem to feel lighter, in holding you on my shoulder.

KRISTRUN. Hf--! Lighter?

INGOLF. Yes, certainly!

KRISTRUN. Hf--! In carrying me?

INGOLF. In feeling the weight of your body. In that way, I could bear you to the end of the world.

KRISTRUN [hops down, looks straight into his eyes]. Really now, I refuse to listen to such foolishness. ... Only look kindly at me once, instead of bearing me to the end of the world. [Sits down.]

INGOLF. Kindly!--Kristrun, do I deserve the cruelty you have shown me these last days.--Every moment of the day you have felt my soul streaming out to you, yet you choose the most common terms to describe my feelings, and pretend not to recognize them. I have been inventing new pet-names for you all the time, so that no one should have as pretty a name as you, so that you should have a prettier name to-day than you had yesterday. You pretend not to hear them. I have shown you every tenderness, but by your pretence you keep it at sword's length from you. You have been torturing me in this way now for three days. ... Look kindly at you! Why, every time I look at you, you see my eyes shine through a tearfilled dimness ...

Sunset Western Garden Annual, 2001 by Editors of Sunset Magazine

A single pot can center a small, round patio table; three to five pots - filled with the same flowers - can march in a line down a long rectangular table.