"Mean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into a veritable chief, but that on English soil he did not in his own soul want any such elevation and distinction. His very loyalty to the forms and fabric of English life kept him fatuously content with the mean truckling and meaner domineering of his position of butler. On the other hand, the loyalty of an American to the American idea would tend to make him aggressive and self-confident. Our democratic prohibition of any but occasional ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... clinging to the back seat and looking toward us in an attitude of terror. A great fear crept into my half-frozen brain—were we not bringing deadly danger instead of help to these travelers? Great God! did the baron mean to use them as a bait for his new method ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... you put me out! I mean a dromond—that is, a large ship. I have fixed this post in my yard, and had it painted and carved something like a soldan or Saracen, and with him I breathe myself, and will wield my two handed sword against him, thrust or ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... notes between the United States and the belligerent Governments follow. The stars in the German note mean that as it came to the State Department in cipher certain words were omitted, probably through telegraphic error. In the official text of the note the State Department calls attention to the stars by an asterisk and a footnote saying "apparent omission." In the French note the same ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... mean," he asked with increased suavity, "that you would wish to ignore my existence until ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... that the poor squire was not proof against the awe which she inspired. "There," he cried, throwing down the key, "there it is, do whatever you please. I intended only to have kept her up till Blifil came to town, which can't be long; and now if any harm happens in the mean time, remember who is to be ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... "I did not mean that, Amine—but I am losing time. I must to the door again. Give me that carbine, and ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... yet another thing that the spirit of Antichrist is immediately concerned in; and that is, the antichristian names of the men that worship the beast: the names, I mean, that the Antichrist hath baptized them into: for those names are breathed upon them by the very spirit of Antichrist; and are such as are absolutely names of blasphemy, or such as do closely border thereupon; some such as Elihu durst not for his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "You mean steal it," said Betty promptly. "No. I don't think she did. She didn't seem to be that sort of person. Do you know, the more I think of her the more I consider that Mrs. Staples would be ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... dear," she replied, "they mean it as the greatest compliment, you may believe me." And she appealed to her husband, who confirmed what she said. All the gentlemen carry fans and use them with vigor; the ladies are so covered with powder (cascarilla) that you can't tell a pretty one from an ugly one. If one ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... information, as well as puzzled by this mysterious departure. Eugenie gone and in the night! Aurore gone with her! What could it mean? Whither had ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... "I mean Aileen's got a level head and isn't going to leave just as things are beginning to get interesting. She's stood it six year and she can stand it six more if she makes up her mind to it, and I'd ought to know, seeing as I've lived with her ever ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... April he wrote: "On Monday I am going to dine with all my translators at Hachette's, the bookseller who has made the bargain for the complete edition, and who began this week to pay his monthly L40 for a year. I don't mean to go out any more. Please to imagine me in the midst of my French dressers." He wrote an address for the Edition in which he praised the liberality of his publishers and expressed his pride in being so presented to the French people whom he sincerely loved and honoured. Another word ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... stomach he breathes his last.[571] That man who, having attained to the auspicious status of a Brahmana which is so difficult to acquire, disregards it and eats interdicted food, falls away from his high status. That Brahmana who drinks alcohol, who becomes guilty of Brahmanicide or mean in his behaviour, or a thief, or who breaks his vows, or becomes impure, or unmindful of his Vedic studies, or sinful, or characterised by cupidity, or guilty of cunning or cheating, or who does not observe vows, or who weds a Sudra woman, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... that they all see how hard you are trying to gain knowledge, I think they will be willing to call you by the name that is really yours. Remember this, however. Don't be offended if sometimes we forget, and call you 'Gyp.' It may mean only that we remember the boy who, while still thus addressed, made persistent effort ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... my ankle the day I followed one of you boys—that is, I suppose it was one of your crowd. I mean the chap who fell ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... passage (through which we might run north according to our plan), and passes into low-lying half-submerged land, bearing E.S.E. and S.E. by E., extending in all likelihood as far as Nova Guinea, a point which with God's help we mean to make sure of at any cost; on coming from Aru to the island of Ceram, the latter is found to have a low-lying foreland dangerous to touch at, since at 6, 8 and 9 miles' distance from the same, the lofty mountains of the interior become ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... called to see Alvina. The Allsops were great Chapel people, and Cassie Allsop was one of the old maids. She was thin and nipped and wistful looking, about forty-two years old. In private, she was tyrannously exacting with the servants, and spiteful, rather mean with her motherless nieces. But in public she had ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... be, and so it would be, if this world were not a web of petty interests and mean ambitions; and these, I grieve to say, will find their way into hearts that should be the home of very different sentiments. It was of this order was that compact with my cousin—for I will speak openly ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... this the projectors were disappointed; for the explosion, though a terrific one, did absolutely no harm to the Confederate works. When Porter finally did get into the fort, he asked a soldier what he thought of the attempt to blow them up. "It was a mighty mean trick," responded the Southerner satirically. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... to be fundamentally unclean—I don't mean that he doesn't wash himself. But there are certain sorts of animals and birds and other creatures from which one instinctively shrinks—not, perhaps, ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... can the girl mean? Of course she likes Washington—I'm not such a dummy as to have to ask her that. And as to its being her first visit, why bang it, she knows that I knew it was. Does she think I have turned idiot? Curious girl, anyway. But how they do swarm about her! She is the ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... answered Poeas' mighty-hearted son; "Friend, I forgive thee freely, and all beside Whoso against me haply hath trangressed. I know how good men's minds sometimes be warped: Nor meet it is that one be obdurate Ever, and nurse mean rancours: sternest wrath Must yield anon unto the melting mood. Now pass we to our rest; for better is sleep Than feasting late, for him who ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... assurance in my name, that if he will yet, before his trial, confess cheerily unto the commissioners his guiltiness of this fact, I will not only perform what I promised by my last messenger both towards him and his wife, but I will enlarge it, according to the phrase of the civil law, &c. I mean not, that he shall confess if he be innocent, but ye know how evil likely that is; and of yourself ye may dispute with him what should mean his confidence now to endure a trial, when, as he remembers, that this last winter he confessed to the chief-justice ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... ideal American girl. I mean the one who is essentially a lady, whether rich or poor, the one whose sterling good sense is equal to her emergencies; the one who is self-reliant without being bold, firm without being overbearing, brainy without being masculine, strong of nerve—"but yet a woman." Let ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... learn to resist the fascination of Idle-whatever-you-call-it. When I tell you to come in at a certain time I mean that time and not half an hour later. And you needn't stop to discourse with sympathetic listeners on your way, either. As for the picnic, of course you can go. You're a Sunday-school scholar, and it's not likely I'd refuse to ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... impossible, for that would mean an ego divided a thousand times. It would prevent the final using of knowledge by the learner, instead of directing its use wisely; for the many opposing ideas and cross purposes would nullify one another. ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... it before we began to hit out. What's the sense of it? Here am I, five-and-twenty, hale, hearty, and strong, trying to get shot. But of course one had to come. I mean to make some of ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... experiment, which promises advantage without expense? If rebels once obtain a victory, their wishes are accomplished; if they are defeated, they suffer little, perhaps less than their conquerors; however often they play the game, the chance is always in their favour. In the mean time, they are growing rich by victualling the troops that we have sent against them, and, perhaps, gain more by the residence of the army than they lose by ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... had no great temptation to write for money. But he was urged on by his desire for fame as much as anything. He must write this kind of matter. But what would Jesus do? The question plagued him even more than Rachel's refusal. Was he going to break his promise? "Did the promise mean ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... starting after her and clutching her by the skirt, "I didn't mean that! Truly, I didn't. I think you're just as nice as you can be. Do please let me go ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... reserve the right to use the paper to attack or defend men or causes, as I please; and you may indulge your own likes and dislikes so long as you do not interfere with my schemes. Perhaps I may be a Ministerialist, perhaps Ultra, I do not know yet; but I mean to keep up my connections with the Liberal party (below the surface). I can speak out with you; you are a good fellow. I might, perhaps, give you the Chambers to do for another paper on which I work; I am afraid I can ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... becomes general that food for plants is just as necessary as food for animals, then American agriculture will mean more than merely working the land for all that's in it. This knowledge is as well established as the fact that the earth is round, although the people are relatively few who understand or make intelligent application of the ...
— The Farm That Won't Wear Out • Cyril G. Hopkins
... he exclaimed. "Bully for you!... What do I mean? What I say! You forget that I am a scientific man, French. No end of appliances here you haven't had time to look at. I can see you sitting there, and Lenora and Laura looking as though you had them on the rack. You can drop ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... carry that horrid, great basket, I should like to know?' muttered Jack, as he rode on ahead with Walter. 'That is one of the mean dodges I told you about. She thinks it will save the expense of a lunch ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... the best-known men in the political-literary world of London and of Paris, from 1820 to 1860, she knew a very large number of distinguished men and women of the middle Victorian epoch. By this I mean such men as Thackeray, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Leslie Stephen, Mr. Justice Stephen, Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff, Sir Louis Mallet, Mr. Lecky, Lord Arthur Russell and his brothers—to choose a few names almost at random. The last- named, Lord Arthur ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... Kenelm, with his usual gravity, "is not the word I should myself have chosen. But could you oblige my horse—I mean that horse—with a stall and a feed of oats, and that young gentleman and myself with a private room ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "I only mean that the count seems the rage," replied the viscount, smiling, "and that you are the seventeenth person that has asked me the same question. The count is in fashion; I ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... light, or that they found in it exactly the same problems; yet there is this common feature in all who have thought or written on mythology, that they look upon it as something which, whatever it may mean, does certainly not mean what it seems to mean; as something that requires an explanation, whether it be a system of religion, or a phase in the development of the human mind, or an inevitable catastrophe in the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... IN the mean time, the multitude having gathered together in tens of thousands, so that they trod one upon another, he began first to say to his disciples: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... character. He was received with much consideration in the houses he visited, and was given the freedom of the burgh of Dumfries. On the ninth of June, 1787, he was back at Mauchline; and, calling at Armour's house to see his child, he was revolted by the "mean, servile complaisance" he met with—the result of his Edinburgh triumphs. His disgust at the family, however, did not prevent a renewal of his intimacy with Jean. After a few days at home, he seems to have made a short tour in the West Highlands. July ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... to the girl's eyes, but she fought them back. There was an instant of strained silence. "And what does it mean?" ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... of Zeus and Themis, the goddess of justice; dwelt among men during the Golden Age, but left the earth on its decline, and her sister Pudicitia along with her, the withdrawal explained to mean the vanishing of the ideal from the life of man on the earth; now placed among the stars under the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... name that came to me from so far off, down such long alleys of the memory, that I had, as it were, to grope and grapple with it to know what it should mean. Then it all came back, and I was a boy again on the trawler, creeping shorewards in the light breeze of an August night, and watching that friendly twinkle from the Manor woods above the village. Had she not promised she would ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... Harrington, with a smile; "I mean that I have speculated a good deal in—philosophy, and when I said I was a bankrupt, I meant only that I was a bankrupt—in faith; having become in fact, since I saw ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... Don't look so bad, now, despite the dead set That against him we've made since his very first running, Do they mean him to win after all? Artful set, That Stable! It strikes me they've been playing cunning. One wouldn't have backed him, first off, for a bob. His owner concerning him scarcely seemed caring. Eugh! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... amuse as well as instruct us; the narrative is perfectly true, although the scepticism of mankind is prone to doubt the tales of old. You have heard what happened in the quarrel of Atreus and Thyestes? 'You mean about the golden lamb?' No, not that; but another part of the story, which tells how the sun and stars once arose in the west and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion, as a witness to the right of Atreus. 'There is such a story.' And no doubt you have heard ...
— Statesman • Plato
... often best met by very ordinary physical remedies. It is not uncommon for people who suffer from them to examine their consciences, rake up forgotten transgressions, and feel themselves to be under the anger of God. I do not mean that such scrutiny of life is wholly undesirable; depression, though it exaggerates our sinfulness, has a wonderful way of laying its finger on what is amiss, but we must not wilfully continue in sadness; and ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... I could!" thought Bunny to himself. "This rolling downhill isn't any fun. I didn't really mean to do it, but I couldn't help it. I wanted to run or slide down. There are ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope
... is purer than the air taken from above Paris. In a given time, with the aid of progress, mechanisms become perfected, and as light increases, the sheet of water will be employed to purify the sheet of air; that is to say, to wash the sewer. The reader knows, that by "washing the sewer" we mean: the restitution of the filth to the earth; the return to the soil of dung and of manure to the fields. Through this simple act, the entire social community will experience a diminution of misery and an augmentation of health. At the present hour, the radiation ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience to reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is that, if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... I mean—by moonlight?" asked Ma Gregg, patting Tweetie's cheek and trying not to look uncomfortable as Blue Cape ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... fit the best "go to meetin'" gowns of female Sandgate. Both dearly love to talk over all that's going on, and whether this or that village swain is paying especial attention to any one rosy cheeked lass, and if so "what's likely to come on't." Both mean well by this neighborly interest, and especially does Mrs. Sloper, who always advises plaits for stout women, "with middlin' fulness in the bust" for ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... girl the danger of disease is not all. There is the additional danger of pregnancy, which means, and must mean, for her not only pain and risk of life, but lasting shame and disgrace. Even paid prostitutes, who are willing to employ dangerous methods to prevent conception, and soon become nearly sterile through disease or overindulgence, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the mean and dirty suburbs of the metropolis, and emerging into the open air, Waverley felt a renewal of both health and spirits, and turned his recollection with firmness upon the events of the preceding ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... singular and plural) and 3 municipalities* (krong, singular and plural); Banteay Mean Cheay, Batdambang, Kampong Cham, Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Spoe, Kampong Thum, Kampot, Kandal, Kaoh Kong, Keb*, Krachen, Mondol Kiri, Otdar Mean Cheay, Phnum Penh*, Pouthisat, Preah Seihanu* (Sihanoukville), Preah Vihear, Prey Veng, Rotanah Kiri, Siem Reab, ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and after many acts of favour, she despatched Sir Richard to the King, who was then on his way to Scotland. Lady Fanshawe and her husband proceeded to Calais, it being necessary that she should go to England to procure money for his journey, and in the mean time he intended to reside in Holland; but circumstances caused him to be immediately sent into Scotland, where he was received with marked kindness by the King and by the York party, who gave him the ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... I will be a match for them, somehow or other,' said Nichols, when he knew who the new lighthouse-keepers were. 'I have an old grudge against that Tresilian, and I mean to pay him out. As to that parson, you all know what I ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... and shame for them to behave so,—that it is!" cried good old Baucis, vehemently. "And I mean to go this very day, and tell some of then what naughty ...
— The Miraculous Pitcher - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... go with you," said the young man carelessly. "I say, Brimmer," he added, after a pause, with a sudden assumption of larger gayety, "there's nothing mean about Belle Montgomery, eh? She's a whole team and the little dog under the wagon, ain't she? Deuced pretty woman!—no ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... saw that I was not to be put off in that way, he said with a tone of assumed indifference, "O! if it is Belinda Merril you are talking about, I have to say that she is no longer an object of interest to me." "Is it possible, Arthur," said I, "that you mean what you say; surely an absence of two years has not caused you to forget the love you have borne Miss Merril from childhood. I am very much surprised to hear you speak in this manner." A flush of anger, at my plain reply, ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... mean thing. I reminded Crossman of having backed some bills of his—big bills, too—at a time when it was touch and go whether he'd manage to keep his head ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... Commons. The definitive peace of Paris was signed on the 10th of February 1763, and a wholesale proscription of the Whigs was begun, the most insignificant adherents of the fallen party, including widows, menial servants and schoolboys, incurring the minister's mean vengeance. Later, Bute roused further hostility by his cider tax, an ill-advised measure producing only L75,000 a year, imposing special burdens upon the farmers and landed interest in the cider counties, and extremely unpopular because extending ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... on the shifting sands of two conflicting social orders. For as long as our ancient duality of labor system shall continue to exist there will necessarily continue to exist also duality of ideas, interests and institutions. I do not mean mere variety in these regards which operates beneficiently, but profound and abiding social and political differences, engendering profound and abiding social and political antagonisms, naturally and inevitably ...
— Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 • Archibald H. Grimke
... these people, these Americans, do you know, Captain? I mean those just now stopping with the ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... and he knew that a number of the officers who had left the parsonage with General von Hindenburg on the night of the Cossack raid would be present. It would be strange, indeed, if none of them knew him. And it took no imagination to guess what recognition would mean. ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... Judge Mackinnon, looking at a document he had taken from the envelope Philo Gubb had handed him. "You mean ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... the lad to the Troll, 'now I see what you mean to do with me. You want to crush me to death; so just go down yourself and look after the cracks and refts in the rock, and I'll ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... with Noeux. It was a pretty village, girt by rolling hills crowned with rich woods. 'Wood-fighting' (which I always said should literally mean the fighting of woods, and indeed it often resolved itself into a contest of man versus undergrowth) was a frequent feature in the training programme. What was sometimes lost in 'direction' was as often gained in naughty amusement at the miscarriage of a scheme. For off-duty ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... temperate man. He soon regained his failing practice, and the esteem of his friends. The appeal of his better feelings effected a permanent change in his habits, which signing the pledge had not been able to do. To keep up an appearance of consistency he had had recourse to a mean subterfuge, while touching his heart produced ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... have been committed. So far has this principle been carried, that * * * it has been determined that the actual enlistment of men, to serve against the government, does not amount to the levying of war."[726] Chief Justice Marshall was careful, however, to state that the Court did not mean that no person could be guilty of this crime who had not appeared in arms against the country. "On the contrary, if it be actually levied, that is, if a body of men be actually assembled, for the purpose of effecting ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... health has certainly taken a most alarming turn; and, if some considerable alteration does not take place for the better in a very little time, it will be all over with me: I mean as to the present life. I have lost all appetite, and suffer grievously from an almost continual pain in my stomach, which leaves me no enjoyment of myself, but such as I can collect from my own reflections, and the comforts ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... because it was almost impossible to connect Juppiter with a specific form of government other than the republic, much less with a particular royal family like the Julian house. Juppiter had come to mean republicanism. The Capitoline temple had ushered in the republic in B.C. 509 and there was a halo of republicanism about it which was too genuine to be used as a mask for concealing imperial features. With the four other deities matters ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... one never realises till one is actually dead how nearly dead one can be without actually being it. You see what I mean? No. Well, how blithely, how recklessly one rollicks through life, fondly believing that one is in the best of health, in the prime of condition, and all the time one is the unconscious victim of some fatal infirmity or disease. I mean, take my own case. I went to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... until she had come to think, sometimes, that the most obvious meaning of a text could not possibly be the true one; and she said to herself, what if she had been taking comfort from these promises too soon? What if they meant something else, or meant what they seemed to mean only to those to whom they were spoken? What if, for some unknown, mysterious reason, she were among those who had no part nor lot in the matter?—among those who hearing hear not, or who fail to understand? And before she was aware, the hopefulness of the ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... any farther," said the Deacon, "let me understand what these figures mean? Do you mean that a ton of manure contains only 12-3/4 lbs. of nitrogen, and 111 lbs. of ash, and that all the rest is carbonaceous matter and water, of little or no value?" —"That is it precisely, Deacon," said I, "and furthermore, a large part of the ash has very little fertilizing ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... "What I mean to say is, that I am the last man in the world to insist upon that kind of thing, or to appear to triumph because my income is larger than another man's." Miss Marrable was now quite sure that Mr. Gilmore was a gentleman. "But if the match ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... rendered me a service that you cannot understand; and I am glad you cannot. I should feel mean to the end of my life if I did not attempt to make some slight return for it," said Mr. Hawlinshed, as he seated himself at a table. "I don't think you saved my life, for I don't believe my life was in danger for ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... improve his temper. He only ceased to shiver. After he had eaten something it must have occurred to him that he had no reason to bear me a grudge and he tried to assume a civil and even friendly manner. His mouth, however, betrayed an abiding bitterness. I mean when he smiled. In repose it was a very expressionless mouth, only it was too red to be altogether ordinary. The whole of him was like that: the whiskers too black, the hair too shiny, the forehead too white, the eyes too mobile; and he lent you his attention with an air of eagerness which made ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... steps are bad enough; but great Heavens! what do you mean by taking a fellow up to the ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... which might mean anything. He had no strong sympathies either way, and the conduct of the numerous deserters and disbanded men who had passed through his neighborhood had been far ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... of the "petition of the nobles," the regent had caused a new form of the edicts to be drawn up in the privy council, which should keep the mean between the commands of the king and the demands of the confederates. But the next question that arose was to determine whether it would be advisable immediately to promulgate this mitigated form, or moderation, as it was commonly called, or to submit it first to the king ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... never be regarded as other than individualities: and notwithstanding Eastern feelings about increase in quantity, its quality is, after all, the question for the heart. I mean that many children to be born, is but an inadequate return for many children dying. If a father loses a well-beloved son, it is small recompense of that aching void that he gets another. For this reason of the affections, and because I suppose that thinkers have sympathized with me in the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... might easily be passed over. Possibly there were small ruins of this type scattered over the whole canyon bottom. An example which occurs at the point marked 12 on the map, and shown in plate XLIV, presents no trace on the surface except some potsherds, which in this locality mean nothing. The site is a low hill or end of a slope, the top of which is perhaps 25 feet above the stream bed, but separated from it by a belt of recent alluvium carpeted with grass. The hill itself was formed of talus, covered ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... King, who lives yonder," pointing to a large village near some naked hills about ten miles to the north. "I have come to talk with the white man. It has always been the custom of the Arabs and the Wangwana to make a present to the King when they pass through his country. Does not the white man mean to pay the King's dues? Why does the white man halt in the road? Why will he not enter the village of Lukomo, where there is food and shade—where we can discuss this thing quietly? Does the white man mean to fight? I know well he is stronger than we are. His men have guns, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... of the century allusions to the Umbrella are not infrequent. Cowper, in his "Task" (1780), twice mentions it, but seems to mean ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... that hath miss'd the Princess is a thing Too bad for bad report; and he that hath her— I mean, that married her, alack, good man! And therefore banish'd—is a creature such As, to seek through the regions of the earth For one his like, there would be something failing In him that should compare. I do not think So fair an outward and such ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... such accusations mean? Suspect a man like him of murder! And Fabu became excited and was ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... a family failing, this getting out of bed at wrong times. Demi used to do it; and as for me, I was hopping in and out all night long. Meg used to think the house was on fire, and send me down to see, and I used to stay and enjoy myself, as you mean to, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... put in that first, stiring it well together, then put it into a Gallon of Conduit water, and let it stand till night; shift this with so much Oyl and Water, morning and evening seven dayes together, and be sure you shift it constantly; and the day before you mean to melt it wring it hard by a little at a time, and be sure the Oyl and water be all out of it, wring the water well out of it with a Napkin every time you shift it; then put in three pints of Rose-water; let ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous
... me the opportunity of establishing, beyond any reply, that in our fellow academician a noble firmness was on occasions allied to urbanity, mildness, and politeness. But what will be said of the puerilities which I have been obliged to recall, of the mean pretensions of the courtiers on the eve of an immense revolution? When the Greeks of the Lower Empire, instead of going on the ramparts valiantly to repel the attacks of the Turks, remained night and day collected ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... of learning what not to write about—a great many things that are written about are not really material for writing at all. And all this can't be done in a drivelling mood—you must pick your way if you are going to write. That's a long preface; but I mean this place to be a place to give men the right sort of start. I happen to be able to teach people, more or less, how to write, if they have got the stuff in them—and to be frank, I'm not sure that you have! You think this would be a pleasant sort of ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... or Khem, and men shall die no more because of my beauty, for I shall presently pass hence whither the Gods appoint; and this I say to thee—deal gently with that man who has betrayed my faith, for whatever he did was done for the love of thee. It is no mean thing to have won the heart of Odysseus of Ithaca out of the hand of Argive Helen. Fare thee well, Meriamun, who wouldst have slain me. May the Gods grant thee better days and more of joy than is given to Helen, who would look ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... lady—has a big boy of eight months, and is expecting her husband to-morrow, so nothing need be said more on her account. Mr. Dickens was over last evening, and reports all well with him. All the family are to be over this evening, so I cannot say more of them. Ravensworth is looking very well—I mean the house and grounds, but little of the farm seems to be cultivated, and is growing up with pines. I received your letter directed to Alexandria after my return from my visit to Cassius, also Colonel Williamson's. ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... private orderly, and he saw the polish and the rough of him. Gaskell has told me that he would get mad at his own brother, who was assistant adjutant general of the division, and blaspheme at him and call him the conventional name a man uses, when he wants to say a mean thing of the other fellow based on the alleged status ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... is unable to bear suffering, I really mean that he has to suffer a great deal more than others.... I know the human body, and I cannot be deceived as ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... process of the metamorphosis. Year after year he had waited and worked and Catherine Trelane had waited; then had come a time when he did not wish her to wait longer. His ideals had changed. Success had come to mean but one thing for him: gold; he no longer strove for honors but for riches. He abandoned the thought of glory and of power, of which he had once dreamed. Now he wanted gold. Beauty would fade, culture prove futile; but gold was king, and all he saw bowed before it. Why marry a poor girl when another ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... itself, though there is a pleasure-road from the Castle to it. As we went further up the valley the roads died away, and it became an ordinary Scotch glen, the poor pasturage of the hills creeping down into the valley, where it was little better for the shelter, I mean little greener than on the hill-sides; but a man must be of a churlish nature if, with a mind free to look about, he should not find such a glen a pleasing place to travel through, though seeing little but the busy brook, with here and there a bush ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... hands. Suddenly, then, in a place least suspected, perhaps whirling around and springing at two of the clasped hands behind her, or at the pair which she had touched before, if their owners appear to be off guard, she exclaims "Here I mean to break through!" and forces her way out of the circle ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... officials. You've also made such a splendid match; and do you still behave in the way you do? Had you been a son or daughter born in some poverty-stricken, humble and low household, there's no saying what a mean thing you wouldn't have been! Every one in this world has been gulled by you; and yesterday you went so far as to strike P'ing Erh! But it wasn't the proper thing for you to stretch out your hand on her! Was all that liquor, forsooth, poured ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... miles, extends from the Adour to the estuary of the Gironde, and covers an area of nine hundred and seventy square kilometres, or two hundred and forty thousand acres. When not fixed by vegetable growths, these dunes advance eastwards at a mean rate of about one rod, or sixteen and a half feet, a year. Wo do not know historically when they began to drift, but if we suppose their motion to have been always the same as at present, they would have passed over the space between ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... governed by the presence of the cockswain. Tom stood with infinite composure, leaning on his harpoon, and surveying, with a countenance where wonder was singularly blended with contempt, the furniture and arrangements of an apartment that was far more splendid than any he had before seen. In the mean time, Borroughcliffe entirely disregarded the private communications that passed between his host and Dillon, which gradually became more deeply interesting, and finally drew them to a distant corner of the apartment, but taking a most undue advantage of the absence of the gentleman, who had so ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... rise in the world. It will never do to bring Constance down to the comparatively mean condition in which a clerk with a small salary is ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... worth fabulous sums; unlikely looking spots where historic things had stood or had happened—all these were pointed out to him. He was called upon to exercise the eye of faith; to reconstruct; to eliminate the unfinished, the mean, the sordid; to overlook the inadequate; to build the city as it was sure to be; and to concern himself with that and that only. He admired Mount Tamalpais over the way. He was taken up a high hill—a laborious journey—to gaze on the spot where he would have been able to see Mount Diabolo, if ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... of St. Peter. The gold is said by the commentators to mean power to absolve; the silver, the learning and judgment requisite to ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... without the parable of the cow that gave a good pail of milk and then kicked it over? One could hardly keep house without it. Or the parable of the cream and the skimmed milk, or of the buttered bread? We know, too, through her aid, what the horns of the dilemma mean, and what comfort there is in the juicy cud ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... it arrives I'm sure Johnny-on-the-spot. Them Wyoming punchers beat me up after they'd got me tied. I'm tellin' yuh so you'll see I ain't mean unless I'm drove to it. Turn him feet down hill, Oscar, so he won't git a rush uh brains to the head and die on our hands. Now you're goin' to mind your own business, sonny. Next time yuh set out to herd sheep, better see the boss first and git ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... of this city, if ever they should be under the apprehensions of such another enemy (God forbid they should), might ease themselves of the greatest part of the dangerous people that belong to them; I mean such as the begging, starving, labouring poor, and among them chiefly those who, in case of a siege, are called the useless mouths; who being then prudently and to their own advantage disposed of, and the ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... because that's always the one thing that most campers who aren't used to it forget about—I mean digging a drain ditch outside their tent. And the first time it rains, good night, they get drowned out like rats. I thought he was a pretty nice kind of a fellow, only he was one tenderfoot, that was sure. He had a swell bathing suit on ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... thus at evening-time—to-morrow the light will again shine forth," whispered Kai Lung. "Alas, radiance, that you who have dwelt about a palace should be brought to so mean ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... sooth she has been courted, friend, nor is she easily to be won, for it is believed that both she and her father will be very particular in their choice of a husband." "Be that as it may," quoth Einar, "she is a woman to whom I mean to pay my addresses, and I would have thee present this matter to her father in my behalf, and use every exertion to bring it to a favorable issue, and I shall reward thee to the full of my friendship, if I am successful. It may be that Thorbiorn will regard the connection ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... because, to my mind, she has never had honour enough. I doubt if enough honour could be paid to her, but the attempt has not been sufficiently made. And to-day, of course, the very word as I am using it has only a secondary meaning. By "nurse" to-day we mean first a cool, smiling woman, with a white cap and possibly a red cross, ministering to the wounded and the sick. We have to think twice in order to evoke the guardian angel of our childhood, the mother's right hand, and often so much more real than the mother herself. I would ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... in the advancement of the arts and sciences it may not be proper to introduce foreign terms as the mean of conveying a knowledge of those improvements to others. It is better than to coin new words, inasmuch as they are generally adopted by all modern nations. In this way all languages are approximating together; and when the light of truth, science, and religion, ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... ignorance and superstition; out of degradation and disease, and every other wretchedness that superstitious, degraded humanity has known. She has lifted us above the low and the little, the narrow and mean in human thought and action, and has placed us in a broad, free, independent, noble, useful and ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... In the mean while, the Government of Hawaii is doing all in its power to get white laborers employed instead of Japanese on all the sugar and coffee plantations. And as it is feared that the United States will not care to annex the islands if all the labor is done by Asiatics and there is no room for white ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 29, May 27, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... 'They obviously mean business, don't they. The sleuth-hound touch. I expect to be asked for my photograph soon, for the Pink Pictorial and the Sunday Rag. I must ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... we mean simply one who examines the literary works of various ages, separates the good from the bad, and gives the reasons for his classification. It is noticeable that critical writings increase in an age, like that of the Restoration, when great ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... story"; third, that which comes from the dramatic action, as in "Little Miss Muffet," and "Little Jack Horner." This summary does not differ much from Mr. Walter Taylor Field's conclusions: "The child takes little thought as to what any of these verses mean. There are perhaps four elements in them that appeal to him,—first, the jingle, and with it that peculiar cadence which modern writers of children's poetry strive in vain to imitate; second, the nonsense,—with ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... "You mean that the soldiers in the trenches are all further from the people at home than from each other, no matter what side they ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... diadem Glittering with many a radiant gem, Some mean metallic foil is placed Judicious, by the hand of taste; You seek, amidst the sons of fame, To set an undistinguish'd name? If so—that name is freely lent, A pebble ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... was very versatile, was able to discourse on every subject, but above all on medals, upon which he spent large sums of money and much time, in order to gain knowledge of them. And although he was employed almost always in great works, this did not mean that he would not set his hand at times to the most trifling matters in order to oblige his patron and his friends; and no sooner had one opened his mouth to explain to him his conception than he had understood it and drawn it. Among the many rare things that he had in his house ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... for the more popular control of politics in the United States proportional representation will apparently play no mean part. The object of the People's Power League of Oregon is to free the representative assemblies of the State from the domination of political bosses, and an amendment to the constitution, providing for the adoption of proportional representation was, on the initiative of this League, ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... mountains formed a splendid acquisition for France. The French army, leaving strong garrisons in Lorraine, withdrew through Luxemburg and the northern frontier; its remaining exploits were few and mean, for the one gleam of good fortune enjoyed by Anne de Montmorency, who was unwise and arrogant, and a most inefficient commander, soon deserted him. Charles V., as soon as he could gather forces, laid siege to Metz, but, after nearly three months ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... said, "that's too dreadfully puritanical!" But at Miltoun's queer smile, she added hastily: "Logical—I mean." ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the American Nation, as used in the title (p. 118) of the present volume, is intended to mean the process by which the loosely connected American communities outgrew their colonial condition of social and political life, and ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... quite evident," said Jack, as we sat over our supper on the night after receiving the above news—"it is quite evident that they mean to go to the coast, for Mbango had often expressed to Mak a wish to go there; and the mere fact of their having been seen to escape and take down stream, is in itself pretty strong evidence that they ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... ostensibly by highwaymen, but as was afterwards rumoured, by Nicholas Oke, accompanied by his wife dressed as a groom. No legal evidence had been got, but the tradition had remained. "They used to tell it us when we were children," said my host, in a hoarse voice, "and to frighten my cousin—I mean my wife—and me with stories about Lovelock. It is merely a tradition, which I hope may die out, as I sincerely pray to heaven that it may be false." "Alice—Mrs. Oke—you see," he went on after some time, "doesn't feel about it as I do. Perhaps I am morbid. But I do dislike ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... charge for the goods is about 100 per cent. above the cost price, or rather it assumes that it is 100 per cent. above the price at which the worker of the shawl ought to get these goods, which would not be the cost price, but the retail price?-No, I don't mean that. I mean to say that if these merchants were to go to the proper market, they could buy their goods at such a rate that they would be able to sell them at 100 per cent. profit; but I know that a great many of these merchants go to second-hand houses to buy. Whether ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... following answer:—"I shall be quite happy to come if I possibly can." Such words the committee voted were equivalent to these—I'll come, if in the mean time I am not invited to a party ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various |
