"Mere" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... refrain from lamenting that in his literary researches he has too often found amongst the writings of those, most illustrious for their genius and imagination, the least of that which is calculated to meet the approbation of the Christian, or even of the mere Moralist; and in conclusion he will take the liberty of addressing to those who may feel within them the stirrings of a mind capable of mighty things, the sublime words, slightly modified, of an Arabian sage and poet: O man, though ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... works, "Life is a Dream" may be regarded as the most universal in its theme. It seeks to teach a lesson that may be learned from the philosophers and religious thinkers of many ages—that the world of our senses is a mere shadow, and that the only reality is to be found in the invisible and eternal. The story which forms its basis is Oriental in origin, and in the form of the legend of "Barlaam and Josaphat" was familiar ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... singing in their peculiar manner; it was a most wild and abandoned and barbaric kind of music, if it could really be called music at all. It consisted chiefly of shouting and yelling in different scales, as if the singers were overflowing with joy at the mere idea of being alive. I would often hear them singing, or yelling like children, in the deep recesses of the forest. In fact the contentment and happiness of these little people was quite extraordinary, and I had a great affection ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... they started back up the side gorge to where it joined the greater, and then began to descend again by what proved to be a very precipitous but direct way down toward the sea, water soon after making its appearance in a mere thread, which suddenly leaped down from a crack in the side and found its way to the bottom: while as they were hurried on by their more nimble captors, the stream kept on increasing in volume by the help of the many tiny tributaries which ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... hostile meeting I found a much more formidable adversary in the shape of the governor himself, who was stamping furiously up and down the verandah of my apartment. He received me with, 'What the d—- l do you mean, young sir, by making love to my daughter? you are a mere boy.' (I was twenty and did not relish his remark.) 'What means ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... university in Ireland during the fourteen and fifteenth centuries[23] proved a failure, students who wished to obtain a degree were obliged to go to Oxford, from which various attempts were made to exclude "the mere Irish" by legislation,[24] to Cambridge, Paris, or some of the other great schools on the Continent. If one may judge from the large number of clerics who are mentioned in the papal documents as having obtained a degree, a fair proportion of clerics during the fifteenth century both from ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... sort exists in Bontoc. The nearest approach to it is the exchange of property, as carabaos or hogs, between two pueblos at the time a peace is made between them — at which time the one sueing for peace makes by far the larger payment, the other payment being mere form. This transaction, as it occurs in Bontoc, is a recognition of submission and of inferiority, and is, as well, a guarantee of a certain amount of protection. However, such payments are not made at all regularly and do not stand as true tributes, though in time they might ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... there in its cream. And on the other hand John spends five chapters (xiii.-xvii.), almost a fifth of the whole, on a single evening. He devotes seven chapters (xiii.-xix.), almost a third of all, on the events of twenty-four hours. John is controlled not by mere proportion of space or quantity, but by the finer proportions ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... Latin and Greek quotations from the heathens and fathers, those thunderbolts of scholastic warfare, dwindled into mere pop-gun weapons before the sword of the Spirit, which puts all such rabble to utter rout. Never was the homely proverb of Cobbler Howe more fully exemplified, than in this triumphant answer to the subtilities of a man deeply schooled in all human acquirements, by an unlettered ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the folk-lore of the red men is found to be extremely interesting and instructive.[57] Their religion consisted mainly in a devout belief in witchcraft. No well-defined priestly class had been evolved; the so-called "medicine men" were mere conjurers, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... reporting what he had seen, whether his report was of value or not. Muller had simply uttered aloud the thought that came into his mind, a habit of his which years of official training had not yet succeeded in breaking. It was annoying to himself sometimes, for these half-formed thoughts were mere instinct—they were the workings of his own genius that made him catch a suspicion of the truth long before his conscious mind could reason it out or appreciate its value. But that sort of thing was not popular in official ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... as Brasile, log-wood, &c. is a mistake: Upon recension therefore of these exotics, I cannot but encourage the more frequent raising the rest of those semper-vivents, especially such as are fittest for the shrubby parts, and furniture of our groves, mere gardens of pleasure, which none but the ever-green become. To these we might add (not for their verdure only) other more rare exotics, styrax arbor, and terebynth, noting by the way, that we have ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... 7th of October Jackson himself reached the rendezvous. He was still a mere wreck, thin as a shadow, tottering with weakness, and needing to be lifted bodily to his horse. His arm was closely bound and in a sling. His wounds were so sensitive that the least jar or wrench gave him agony. His stomach was ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... shortly after; and likewise that of his son, Diadumenia'nus, whom he took as partner in the empire. 25. Macri'nus was fifty-three years old when he entered upon the government. He was of obscure parentage; some say by birth a Moor, who, by the mere gradation of office, being made first prefect of the praetorian bands, was now, by treason and accident, called ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... outside is not one of mere inconvenience. It never rains. How can it when the water from the oceans cannot evaporate to form clouds? Little by little the rivers begin to run dry—there is no rain to feed them. No fog blows in from the sea; no clouds cool the sun's glare; ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... her wealth, {she points at} the tombs of her ancestors. Sparta was famed;[49] great Mycenae flourished; so, too, the citadel of Cecrops, and that of Amphion. {Now} Sparta is a contemptible spot; lofty Mycenae is laid low. What now is Thebes, the city of Oedipus, but a {mere} story? What remains of Athens, the city of Pandion, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... her," thought Everychild. He could just see her now: a mere blur in the shadows far ahead of him. He could no longer hear the sound of her feet. Then quite ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... the casualness that he could assume. "How does it strike you?" And to himself: "This'll make her see I'm not a mere lunatic. This'll give her ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... hunger, and weariness, and the strange creatures which crawled out from the crevices in the rocks, and ran along the hot sand. He had no time to examine them. At length he found that he was rising on the side of another bank, and what had seemed mere shrubs in the distance, now assumed the appearance of a group of tall cocoa-nut trees. "Should there be no water below, I shall find what will be almost as refreshing," thought Paul, as he hurried on, almost forgetting his fatigue in his eagerness to reach the spot. The sand, however, ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... person to call him 'Domine,' sir. It was not till many ages after that men would have the word 'you,' as though they were double, instead of 'thou' employed in speaking to them; and usurped the flattering titles of lordship, of eminence, and of holiness, which mere worms bestow on other worms by assuring them that they are with a most profound respect, and an infamous falsehood, their most obedient humble servants. It is to secure ourselves more strongly from such a shameless traffic of lies and flattery, that we 'thee' and 'thou' a king with the ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... upstairs in triumph. I enter the bedroom like no mere humdrum son, but after the manner of the Glasgow waiter. I must say more about him. He had been my mother's one waiter, the only manservant she ever came in contact with, and they had met in a Glasgow hotel which she was eager to see, having heard of the monstrous things, and conceived ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... that many of these persons possess something more than mere tenderness or sympathy. Not a few of them are truly conscientious in what may be called the larger concerns of life—especially in external religion. They not only feel the force of conscience, but they obey her voice in some things. They would not fail to attend ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... mud, and now dismantled, had a wretched appearance;[5] and the town which is contained within them is, though very populous, a mere collection of wretched hovels; the only respectable habitation within is the palace, which consists of three detached buildings—one for the chief, another for the females of his family, and the third for his court of justice, I could not ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Aunt Rachel, speaking warmly, "to get hurt at a mere word. It's a little hard that people can't open their ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... might always remain in which the theory was still as hypothetical as at first—so long as it was not actually disproved (which it is scarcely in the nature of the case that it should ever be) it would deserve to be retained, for its mere convenience in bringing a large body of phaenomena under a general conception. In a resume of the general principles of the positive method at the end of the work, he claims, in express terms, an unlimited license ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... of introduction is always sent, never left in person. Calls at the theater or in opera boxes are mere social amenities, and are not accepted as formal. A man enters an opera box, stands, and bows. His hostess will turn around and greet him. He will then, if there is a vacant chair, take one, and sit and talk a little while, leaving on the arrival ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... thought it might come to that. I heard the alarm beating all night to assemble the National Guard; and I am told that some volunteers have marched out to support Marmot. But they are a mere handful: what can ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... leather clothes—walk'd much at night, solitary, deeply troubled ("the inward divine teaching of the Lord")—sometimes goes among the ecclesiastical gatherings of the great professors, and though a mere youth bears bold testimony—goes to and fro disputing—(must have had great personality)—heard the voice of the Lord speaking articulately to him, as he walk'd in the fields—feels resistless commands not to be explain'd, but follow'd, to abstain from taking off his hat, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... it were through mists of love and wonder, whom men could not forget, but for centuries continued to celebrate in countless songs and stories. They were not literary phantoms, but actual existences; imaginary and fictitious characters, mere creatures of idle fancy, do not live and flourish so in the world's memory. And as to the gigantic stature and superhuman prowess and achievements of those antique heroes, it must not be forgotten that all art magnifies, as if in obedience to some strong law; and so, even ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... reflection, resolved, and when she had resolved, she believed it done. By a candle she had by her, to read a little novel she had brought, she surveyed him often, as curiously as Psyche did her Cupid, and though he slept like a mere mortal, he appeared as charming to her eyes as the winged god himself; and it is believed she wished he would awake and find by her curiosity, her sex: for this I know, she durst no longer trust herself a-bed ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... far country were liars, every one. Their mere howdy-do was a lie, because they didn't care how you did, except they were undertakers. To the ordinary inquirer you lied in return; for you made no conscientious diagnostic of your case, but answered at random, and usually ...
— On the Decay of the Art of Lying • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... to-morrow shall be as grave as an elegy. I change with the weather, I don't know why. You see, I am capable of anything, according to the moment. There are days when I would like to kill people,—not animals, I would never kill animals,—but people, yes, and other days when I weep at a mere thing. A lot of different ideas pass through my head. It depends, too, a good deal on how I get up. Every morning, on waking, I can tell just what I shall be in the evening. Perhaps it is our dreams that settle it ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... very desirable that the pirates should not be frightened away before the Charles Town fleet could reach them, the vessels of the latter were made to look as much like mere merchantmen as possible. Their cannon were covered, and the greater part of the crews was kept below, out of sight. Thus the four ships came sailing down the bay, and early in the morning made their appearance in the sight of the pirates. When the ship and ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... had again seated himself at the edge of his veranda. The summer sun grew unpleasantly warm. The morning-glories on their trellises had begun to droop. A little later they would hang, wretched and limp, mere faded scraps of dissolution. Overhead the temple bell struck seven. Kano shuddered at this foreign marking out of hours. A melancholy, intense as had been his former ecstacy, began to enfold his spirit. Perhaps he had waited too long for the simple breakfast; perhaps the recent ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... went on driving piles, stringing cables, binding chains, although, now that the inspiration of Orde's combative spirit was withdrawn the labours seemed useless, futile, a mere filling in of the time before the supreme moment when they would be called upon to pay the sacrifice their persistence and loyalty had proffered for the altar of self-respect and the ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... for me to answer your question, Paul, but I understand enough of both French and German to know that his broken English is a mere sham—a mixture, and a bad one too, of what no German or Frenchman would use—so it's not likely to be the sort of bad English that a Swede would speak. Moreover, I have caught him once or twice using English words ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... Antonia in a slow voice; "I partly grasp your meaning. The pawning of the jewel is to me a mere nothing. I have had chequered times when the tea-pot and even the coffee-pot have been sold for the sake of a quarter of a cake of cobalt or of rose-madder, but then the tea-pot and the coffee-pot and the hair which grew on my head were undoubtedly my own. I cannot ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... that in San Francisco, but whatever form, the underlying principle of a proper division of functions must be embodied. The Affirmative must admit that proper correlation of departments has brought about municipal success, as far as mere organization can do so, yet, notwithstanding that, after fifteen years of misrule under the commission form in Sacramento the freeholders by unanimous choice again adopted distinct legislative and administrative ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... stretches blue to the eastward there appears a distant canoe, a mere speck, no bigger than a bird far ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... the Dubois house, and on her way home she saw the Emperor approaching. She had slipped behind a statue as quickly as possible, and he could scarcely have recognised her, for the gloaming had already merged into partial darkness; but the mere thought of having been so near him quickened ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to be affected, moved, by this leave-taking, but without success. In regard to Japan, as with the little men and women who inhabit it, there is something decidedly wanting; pleasant enough as a mere pastime, it ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... barbarous manner cut off his toes, feet, legs, and thighs. The holy martyr held out his limbs and joints, one after another, with invincible patience and courage, repeating these words, "Lord, teach me thy wisdom:" for the tyrants had forgot to cut out his tongue. After so many martyrdoms, his body lay a mere trunk weltering in its own blood. The executioners themselves, as well as the multitude, were moved to tears and admiration at this spectacle, and at such an heroic patience. But Arcadius, with a joyful countenance, surveying his scattered limbs ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... time the student has slowly worked his way to this chapter, he will no doubt—should he be apt, and have an artistic mind—have achieved things beyond the mere drudgery of the profession. I take it that, being interested in his work, he will not have rested content with mounting—even in a perfect manner—his animals at rest, but will have "had a shy" at animals in action, or engaged in some characteristic ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... overlook the offence of the soldier, in deeper indignation at the conduct of the infinitely more culpable officer; but not one word did he credit of a statement, which he assumed to have been got up by the prisoner with the mere view of shielding himself from punishment: and when to these suspicions of his fidelity was attached the fact of the introduction of his alarming visitor, it must be confessed his motives for indulging in this ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... the Almighty he says nothing), and that, being the creator and preserver of all things, he is 'of so exalted a nature that it is idle to imagine the feeble supplications of wretched mortals can reverse the decrees and change the purpose of unerring Wisdom.' The new moon prayers are mere matters of tradition; 'our fathers did it before us.' 'Such is the blindness of unassisted nature,' says Park, who is not satirising, in Swift's manner, the prayers of Presbyterians ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... proceed in Great Britain, but he was ignorant of the object Government had in view by his mission; and though large sums were promised if successful, and if he gave satisfaction by his zeal and discretion, the money advanced him was a mere trifle, and barely sufficient to keep him from want. He was, therefore, really distressed, when he fixed upon some necessitous and greedy emigrants for his instruments to play on the credulity of the English Ministers ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... known but too well elsewhere, but unexpected here. But not the watching of the often tragic meeting of these great fatalities of inherited spirit and habit only: for equally fascinating almost has been the watching of the elaboration by this double-natured period of things of little weight, mere trifles of artistic material bequeathed to it by one or by the other of its spiritual parents. The charm for me—a charm sometimes pleasurable, but sometimes also painful, like the imperious necessity which we sometimes feel to ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... bighorn heads, and elk and stag antlers on the other walls supplied racks for an ample variety of rifles, polished by familiar use and kept, through love of trusty friends, in good order. Trophies of the hunt, disposed sometimes in effective and sometimes in mere man fashion, flanked the racks and showed the tastes of the owner of the isolated habitation; for few trails led within miles of ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... Theoria Sacra, or Sacred Theory of the Earth, pub. about 1692, first in Latin and afterwards in English, a work which, in absence of all scientific knowledge of the earth's structure, was necessarily a mere speculative cosmogony. It is written, however, with much eloquence. Some of the views expressed in another work, Archaeolgiae Philosophicae, were, however, so unacceptable to contemporary theologians that he had to resign his ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... narrowing of the activity of each worker, which would make his work constantly more simple, and more monotonous, and himself more and more dependent on the regular co- operation of an increasing number of other persons over whom he had no direct control. Without the growth of modern machinery, mere subdivision of labour would constantly make for the slavery and the intellectual degradation of labour. Independently of the mighty and ever-new applications of mechanical forces, this process of subdivision or specialization would take place, though at a slower pace. How ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... them, so that they had filled the city with their armed retainers. Fathers and mothers, masters and dames, sisters and fellow prentices, found their doors closely guarded, and could only look with tearful, anxious eyes, at the processions of poor youths, many of them mere children, who were driven from each of the jails to the Guildhall. There when all collected the entire number amounted to two hundred and seventy-eight, though a certain proportion of these were grown men, priests, wherrymen and beggars, who ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... I was engaged once; you know girls instinctively engage themselves to some one whom they fancy; they imagine themselves in love, and it is a pleasant fallacy. My engagement might have gone on forever, if he had contented himself with a mere engagement. He was a young army officer stationed miles and miles away. We wrote volumes of letters to each other—and they were clever letters; it was rather like a seaside novelette, our love affair. He was lonely, or restless, or something, and pressed his case. Then Mama and Gene—those ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... what was that life to others?—a thing full of warm beneficence, of active uses, of hardy powers fitted to noble ends! In paralysing that life as it was to others, there may be sin wider and darker than the mere infidelity to love. And now do you dare to ask, 'Can I again be the Caroline ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... even on the ground, most of them being lost. "Before and during the breeding-season the females, sometimes accompanied by the males, are seen continually haunting and examining the domed nests of the Dendrocolaptidae. This does not seem like a mere freak of curiosity, but their persistence in their investigations is precisely like that of birds that habitually make choice of such breeding-places. It is surprising that they never do actually lay in such nests, except when the side or dome has been accidentally ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... Nobody dies of mere grief; Of this Antonia was an instance. Aided by her youth and healthy constitution, She shook off the malady which her Mother's death had occasioned; But it was not so easy to remove the disease of her mind. Her ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... finally refused to work. Threats of compelling them to work were made. The men answered by gathering up their guns and starting for the woods, in the rear. At this point General Warren came down and spoke to the men in a reasonable manner. The mere fact of his coming among them had a good effect on the men. He urged the necessity of the work, and told them that if provisions were not on hand by a given time, he would consent to their ceasing from work. The men then went to ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... with a roof. Vitruvius writes of it as frequented by merchants, who would find in it shelter and quiet for the transaction of their business. Legal tribunals were also set up in it, though it is a mistake to suppose the basilica a mere law court. The magistrates who presided over these tribunals had sometimes platforms, curved or rectangular in plan, provided as part of the permanent fittings ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... twenty pages or so of the sixth volume (nominally iii. 2) afford a good example of the fashion in which, as may be observed more fully below, even an analysis of the Grand Cyrus, though a great advance on mere general description of it, must be still (unless it be itself intolerably voluminous) insufficient. Not very much actually "happens"; but if you simply skip, you miss a fresh illustration of magnanimity ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... the formalities of the Constitution had not been complied with, and this were not a mere pretext, how easy would it have been to have passed a new act in conformity with the constitutional formalities, assuming the debt, or providing for the issue of new bonds to be delivered to the holders on the return of those alleged to be informal. But the truth is, this alleged unconstitutionality ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... A mere glance gave Nick these superficial features, and he quickly knelt beside the girl, and felt her hand ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... with the exception of one old woman, who, sooner than again be led into slavery, dashed herself to pieces from the summit of the mountain. In a Roman matron this would have been called the noble love of freedom: in a poor negress it is mere brutal obstinacy. We continued riding for some hours. For the few last miles the road was intricate, and it passed through a desert waste of marshes and lagoons. The scene by the dimmed light of the moon was most desolate. A few fireflies flitted by us; and the ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... us enjoy a story of battle and adventure. Some of us delight in the anxiety and excitement with which we watch the various strange predicaments, hairbreadth escapes, and ingenious contrivances that are presented to us; and the mere imaginary dread of the dangers thus depicted, stirs our feelings and makes us feel eager and full ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with a start and found that the fire had crept along a jutting branch and had reached his fingers. He sprang to his feet. The fire lay in smouldering embers, for the sticks were mere brushwood. A terrible fear seized him. His life depended upon the maintaining of this fire. Carefully he assembled the embers and nursed them into bright flame. At all costs he must keep awake. A further excursion into the woods for fuel thoroughly roused him from his sleep. Soon ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... he assented wretchedly. "And, oh, this is hard, sir. I am wholly innocent of the charge, and yet of course you have no right to take my mere word. This, in the face of a desperate expedition that I want to join more than I ever wanted anything in my ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... as seen apart from the horrible counterbalancing never-to-be-written rest of me—by the side of which, could it be written and put before you, my note would sink to its proper and relative place, and become a mere 'thank you' for your good opinion—which I assure you is far too generous—for I really believe you to be my superior in many respects, and feel uncomfortable till you see that, too—since I hope for your sympathy and assistance, and 'frankness is everything in such ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... summers were formerly hotter than they are now, bringing as a proof the Vineyards and English-made wine of other days. This was Parkinson's idea. "Our yeares in these times do not fall out to be so kindly and hot to ripen the Grape to make any good wine as formerly they have done." But this is a mere assertion, and I believe it not to be true. I have little doubt that quite as good wine could now be made in England as ever was made, and wine is still made every year in many old-fashioned farmhouses. But foreign wines can now be produced much better and much ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... borders of a neighboring river, twenty-five of the Indians had been busied ten days in preparing for their annual deer-hunt. They planted posts interlaced with boughs in two straight converging lines, each extending mere than half a mile through forests and swamps. At the angle where they met was made a strong enclosure like a pound. At dawn of day the hunters spread themselves through the woods, and advanced with shouts, clattering of sticks, and howlings like those of wolves, driving the deer before them into ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... wind began to dash loose objects about, tearing limbs off trees and hurling them aloft as if they were mere splinters. A cocoanut crashed down, striking the ground near Piang; another fell, and yet another. Then the rain came in torrents. It fell unevenly as if poured by mighty giants from huge buckets. The ground beneath Piang was swaying, undulating. ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... in the chronicles of the expedition,—modest, unassuming, matter-of-fact—the word of one who had done a difficult thing thoroughly and well, and who was at the end, as he had been throughout, larger than the mere circumstances of his labor. His companion was of the same stalwart stuff. It is hard to choose between them in any essential detail of manhood. Nor were the officers much exalted in temper above the men of their command. When we are celebrating the heroes of our national life, every ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... broadens the lines and gives a very rich effect, and, if continued sufficiently, fills the spaces between the lines and produces an almost black effect. All this work is varied according to the wishes of the etcher. A plate that left the etcher's hand a mere skeleton may be made to produce a print which is a thing of life. The possibilities of an etching in the hands of a skilful printer are almost limitless; the effects can vary with every impression, each showing a new picture. His processes are as interesting ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... square, from the centre of which rose a tall flagstaff. The buildings behind those just described were smaller and insignificant—the principal one being the house appropriated to the men; the others were mere sheds and workshops. Luxuriant forests ascended the slopes that rose behind and encircled this oasis on all sides, excepting in front, where the clear waters of the lake sparkled ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... in pain are strange and abnormal, and sometimes seem unaccountable; it is not the mere suffering at which any are amused. We can sometimes laugh at a person, although we feel for him, where the incentive to mirth is much stronger than the call for sympathy. Still we confess that some of the old malice lingers among us, some skulking cruelty peeps ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... this but we cannot ascend, or rise above it. But is this any answer to the argument? A sophister could press it further, and take advantage from that very ground—What! is not this to establish a mere tyranny in the Lord, that he doeth all things of mere will and pleasure, distributes rewards and punishments without previous consideration of men's carriage? But here we must stand, and go no farther than the scriptures walk with us. Whatever reasons or causes may be assigned, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... moderate Catholics make advances to him, struck with his sympathetic ability and his valor, and hoping that he would end by becoming a Catholic, but patriotic wrath was kindling in France against Philip II. and the Spaniards, those fomenters of civil war in the mere interest of foreign ambition. We quoted but lately the words used by the governor of Dieppe, Aymar de Chastes, when he said to Villars, governor of Rouen, who pressed him to enter the League, "You will yourself find out that the Spaniard is the real head ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to endeavor to set off before the wakening of your father," said the hunchback. "The quarter in which the young lady dwells, is so deserted, that the mere going there will almost serve for ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... seated himself on a branch, and the giant, who could not see what he was doing, had the whole tree to carry, and the little man on it as well. And the little man was very cheerful and merry, and whistled the tune: "There were three tailors riding by," as if carrying the tree was mere child's play. The giant, when he had struggled on under his heavy load a part of the way, ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... all that, but this person will not stay there very long; it's only a makeshift for a night, a mere lock-up house till farther examination. There is a small room through which it opens; you may light a fire for yourselves there, and I 'll send you plenty of stuff to make you comfortable. But be ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... which the words above quoted were spoken were weird and strange. A man and a mere youth were sitting by a campfire that was blazing and crackling in a narrow gulch far away in the Rocky Mountains, days and ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)
... out as usual, had breakfast, and were then on the move. We had not much to do. The empty sledges we were to use for driving up to the starting-point were ready; we only had to throw a few things on to them. But it turned out that the mere fact of having so few things was the cause of its taking a long time. We were to harness twelve dogs to the empty sledges, and we had an idea that it would cost us a struggle to get away. We helped each other, two and two, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... received, however, had so much effect upon King Malcolm that he went himself to visit the strangers in their ship. He was not a mere barbaric prince, to be dazzled by the sight of these great persons, but no doubt had many a lingering recollection in his mind of Siward's great house in Northumberland, where he had taken refuge after his father's murder. It is curious and bewildering ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... by Eusebius, of about the year 200, it is apparent that they who at that time contended for the mere humanity of Christ, argued from the Scriptures; for they are accused by this writer of making alterations in their copies in order to favour their opinions. (Lardner, vol. iii. ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... to witness this old man, apparently a mere useless burden, becoming the sole protector, support, and adviser of the lovers who were both young, beautiful, and strong. His remarkably noble and austere expression struck Morrel, who began his story with trembling. He related the manner in ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... its ruins and the Ponte Nuovo over the Fiumi Uniti, according to Dr. Ricci, being also constructed from its remains, as were other buildings in Ravenna. Then like the Rocca Malatestiana at Rimini it came to be used as a mere prison, and when it failed to prove useful for that purpose it was allowed to become the picturesque ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... it, that Maggie was still there. I came, I went—without their so much as dreaming. What do they really suppose," she asked, "becomes of one?—not so much sentimentally or morally, so to call it, and since that doesn't matter; but even just physically, materially, as a mere wandering woman: as a decent harmless wife, after all; as the best stepmother, after all, that really ever was; or at the least simply as a maitresse de maison not quite without a conscience. They must even in their odd way," she declared, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... which stands for the husband. It is vigorous, alert, active, positive, monopolising all the means of communication and production. So intense is its consciousness that it ignores the very existence of its partner, excepting as a mere appendage and convenience to itself. Then there is the Unconscious Personality, which corresponds to the wife who keeps cupboard and storehouse, and the old stocking which treasures up the accumulated wealth of impressions acquired by the Conscious Personality, but who ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... senor, you are kind, you are good. You are an Americano, one of a great nation. You will feel sympathy for a poor young man,—a mere muchacho,—one of your own race, who was a vaquero here, senor. He has been sent away from us here disgraced, alone, hungry, ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... deputies had never been allowed the privilege of debate, had been at its best a very imperfect expression of popular sentiment; and now was reduced to a mere empty form. Abuses which had been corrected under the vigilant personal administration of two able and patriotic sovereigns returned in aggravated form. Misrule and disorder prevailed, while their King was absorbed in the larger field of ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... reflect on ourselves, who have been so much better favoured, yet have neglected to teach them, than on those who, whilst they are sinning, know not what they are doing. To say a negro is incapable of instruction, is a mere absurdity; for those few boys who have been educated in our schools have proved themselves even quicker than our own at learning; whilst, amongst themselves, the deepness of their cunning and their power of repartee are quite surprising, and are especially shown in their ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... unexpected social privileges were granted him; his way was made easier in a hundred particulars. From every quarter delicately gratifying distinctions came to him. Without his volition he found that he had risen to an entirely different position from that which he had formerly occupied; the mere coupling of his name with Mildred Wayland's had lifted him into a calcium glare. It affected him not at all, he only knew that he was truly enslaved to the girl, that he idolized her, that he regarded ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... been a bad son, and the Talking Cricket was right when he said that a disobedient boy cannot be happy in this world. I have learned this at my own expense. Even last night in the theater, when Fire Eater. . . Brrrr!!!!! . . . The shivers run up and down my back at the mere thought of it." ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... and sheltered harbor, I inferred that it would be made the objective point of the contemplated attack. The Secretary of War, in his reply to the questions of the Investigating Commission, says that the movement against Santiago, as then planned, was to be a mere "reconnaissance in force, to ascertain the strength of the enemy in different locations in eastern Cuba"; but Colonel Babcock certainly gave me to understand that the attack was to be a serious one, and that it would be made with the whole ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... my Uncle Adam. His nails, in spite of anxious supervision, were often in conspicuous mourning; his clothes hung about him in bags and wrinkles like a ploughman's Sunday coat; his accent was rude, broad, and dragging: take him at his best, and even when he could be induced to hold his tongue, his mere presence in a corner of the drawing-room, with his open-air wrinkles, his scanty hair, his battered hands, and the cheerful craftiness of his expression, advertised the whole gang of us for a self-made family. My aunt might mince and my cousins bridle; but there was no getting over ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... find an evolution in Botany, another in Geology, and another in Astronomy, and the effect is to lead one insensibly to look upon these as three distinct evolutions. But these sciences, of course, are mere departments created by ourselves to facilitate knowledge—reductions of Nature to the scale of our own intelligence. And we must beware of breaking up Nature except for this purpose. Science has so dissected everything, that it becomes ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... to the pictures on street ballads of the present day. To explain Bewick's improvements would occupy too much of our space, but, we may observe, generally that the engravings of the above period were mere patches of black and white, till Bewick introduced those beautiful reliefs, or varieties of light and shade which principally form the pictorial effect of an engraving. By this means he raised wood-engraving from a state ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... Eupatrid, who pretended to be better informed than any other person upon all manner of subjects, 'beside her the daughter of Coelus and the Sea would seem but a mere ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... parts as are diseased, will be found permeated with a deep, foxy colour. It is believed by some persons that one stage of this disease is identical with the disease named 'Tacon' by the French, and in this country known as 'Copper Web,' Rhizoctonia crocorum. This Rhizoctonia is a mere spawn or mycelium, a mass of rusty-brown material like a thick coating of spider's web of a red tint. This parasite attacks the Crocus (especially C. sativus), the Narcissus, Asparagus, Potato, and other plants. Immersed in the softer and damper ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... traditional method of impersonation. You may learn where a particular personage used to stand on the stage, or down which trap the ghost of Hamlet's father vanished; but the soul of interpretation is lost, and it is this soul which the actor has to re-create for himself. It is not mere attitude or tone that has to be studied; you must be moved by the impulse of being; you must ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... the stereotyped "sensibility" of the old world one may discover in the openness of Crevecoeur's heart; and that is the completeness of his interest in all the humbler sorts of natural phenomena. Nature is, for him, no mere bundle of poetic stage- properties, soiled by much handling, but something fresh and inviting and full of interest to a man alive. He takes more pleasure in hunting bees than in expeditions with his dogs and gun; the king- birds destroy his bees—but, he adds, they drive the crows ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... his slaves better than most men. This gentleman was also the owner of a girl who was perfectly white, with straight hair and prominent features. This girl was said to be the daughter of her own master. A feeling of attachment sprang up between Mary and George, which proved to be more than mere friendship, and upon which we base the burden of ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... he, "fools have been lavishing poetic praise and amorous compliment on mortal women, mere creatures of earth, smacking palpably of their origin; Sirens at the windows, where our Roman women in particular have by lifelong study learned the wily art to show their one good feature, though but an ear or an eyelash, at a jalosy, and hide all the rest; Magpies at the door, Capre n' ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... controlling his thoroughbred English horse to her gentle pace. Every now and then his mount would wheel about and rear in revolt, she following him with fond looks, proud of the elegant cavalier who could subdue without apparent effort, by the mere pressure of his thighs, that ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... none more studious than he in the schoolroom, yet he always took the keenest delight in every kind of active and manly sport, and was the acknowledged leader of the playground. But he had qualities of mind and heart far more desirable and meritorious than those of mere bodily activity and strength. Such was his love of truth, his strong sense of justice, and his clearness of judgment, that, when any dispute arose between his playmates, they always appealed to him to decide the ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... a girl of seventeen, dark-haired and serious, and with a sweet sad face, for she had had many cares laid on her shoulders, even whilst still a mere baby. She was the eldest of the Strehla family, and there were ten of them in all. Next to her there came Jan and Karl and Otho, big lads, gaining a little for their own living; and then came August, who went up in the summer to the high Alps with the farmers' cattle, but in winter ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... very outset the sight of peasants, men and women, unconcernedly at work in the fields gathering the harvest, struck me as strange and unnatural. The men were either old or well advanced in middle age. Everywhere women, girls, and mere lads ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... time, and he had successfully regained his sense of supremacy. Taken wholly by surprise, he had not felt able to cope with this gaunt, dusty, desperately determined Knight. But the Knight would leave more than mere travel stains behind, in the scented waters of the bath! He would reappear clothed and in his right mind. A good meal and a flagon of Italian wine would further improve that mind, mellowing it and rendering ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... the human modicum of joy. But his heart rejected also this reproach. In no other circumstance could he place her justly. She was so amply made for joy—so strong to love, to endure; so true to the eternal passions. But not mere household love, the calm minutes of interlude in the fragments of a busy day! They would not satisfy the deep thirst for love in her heart. He had given the best he had—all, nearly all, as few men could give, as most men never give. He must content ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... foam-topped waves danced up wildly, the sky was of a murky hue, the wind roared and whistled as loudly as before, and the ship, instead of gliding on with calm dignity, tumbled and tossed as if she was a mere cock-boat. ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... reasons for that," replied his father. "The first, that you are not sufficiently in earnest in your petitions; and next, that you imagine that your prayers are to do all, without any exertion on your part—that the mere fact of having asked the help of the Almighty will insure you a supernatural ease and delight in performing these duties, forgetting that, while we are in this world we have to fight, to run steadily forward, ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... not be very inviting; nationality, without race as a plea, is like the smoke of this nargileh, a fragrant puff. Well, then, there remains only personal influence: ancient family, vast possessions, and traditionary power: mere personal influence can only be maintained by management, by what you stigmatise as intrigue; and the most dexterous member of the Shehaab family will be, in the long run, Prince ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... registry; the corpse was conveyed to the morgue. The count told every one that this adventure had happened during his absence at Auteuil, and that he only knew what was related by the Abbe Busoni, who that evening, by mere chance, had requested to pass the night in his house, to examine some valuable books in his library. Bertuccio alone turned pale whenever Benedetto's name was mentioned in his presence, but there was no reason why any one should notice his doing so. Villefort, being called on to ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... at the present time they no longer made any impression. The opposition of political ideas came to the surface in this matter as in others. The King held the strongly monarchical view that the populations of both countries were united with one another by the mere fact of their being both subject to him. To this the Parliament opposed the doctrine that the two crowns were distinct sovereignties, and that the legislation of the two countries could not be united. They wished to fetter the King to the old legal position which they were far more ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... ROBERT,—I want to give you more than a mere "good-bye" in words, as you take your leave of us. I want to tell you how much I have been pleased with your course here as a student, how gratified I have been to see your pleasantness in your work, and how thoroughly you have won my respect and esteem; and then want to add ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... change in his wife's condition. Now she sank, and he buried his face in the bedclothes and cried; now she recovered a little, and he rated at her and made rough jokes at her. At one moment he appeared to be all {118} tenderness to her, at another moment he went on as if the whole illness were a mere sham to worry him, and she might get up and be well if she would only act like a sensible woman. The Prince of Wales made an attempt to see the Queen. The King spoke of him as a puppy and a scoundrel; jeered at his impudent, affected airs of duty ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... an almost simultaneous movement. These half-dazed, wholly sick creatures moved with the precision of a universally impelling force. The store might have been one huge magnet—perhaps it was—and these dejected early risers mere ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... I wrote. But there I was on the wide world again. So I took up with a Russian prince, whom I met at a gambling-table in Pera,—a mere boy, but such a plucky one,—and went with him to Circassia, and up to Astrakhan, and on to the Kirghis steppes; and there I ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... the activity of his reason or the activity of his intuition working in isolation, it then becomes obvious that the universal revelations of the aesthetic sense, if they can be genuinely disentangled from mere subjective caprices, are an essential part of what we have to work with if we are to ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... of sheep momentarily barred the way before defiling past. And beyond the gentle undulations of the ruddy Campagna Rome appeared amidst the violet vapours of evening, sinking by degrees as the carriage itself descended to a lower and lower level. There came a moment when the city was a mere thin grey streak, speckled whitely here and there by a few sunlit house-fronts. And then it seemed to plunge below the ground—to be submerged by the swell of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the trees that grew upon the banks of the river. As soon as day broke, they began to consider how they would reach those trees. Although swimming a river of that width would have been to any of the four a mere bagatelle, they saw that it was not to be so easy an affair. Had they been upon either bank, they could have crossed to the other without difficulty—as they would have chosen a place where the water was comparatively still. On the rock they had no choice, as the rapids extended ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... your father's. I, old Morgan, Am that Belarius whom you sometime banish'd. Your pleasure was my mere offence, my punishment Itself, and all my treason; that I suffer'd Was all the harm I did. These gentle princes— For such and so they are—these twenty years Have I train'd up. Those arts they have as Could put into them; my breeding was, sir, as Your Highness knows. Their nurse, Euriphile, ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... was quick in her affections and resentments, but looking back many years later Godwin declares that they were "as happy as is permitted to human beings." "It must be remembered, however, that I honoured her intellectual powers and the nobleness and generosity of her propensities; mere tenderness would not have been adequate to produce the happiness ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... go home, Elizabeth," the substitute continued, unconcernedly making her way to the blackboard as though this life-and-death affair were a mere incident in her many duties, "and bring me back a written excuse ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... doctors and commissariat officers, and they submit to be patronised by him. Half-priest, half-buffoon, something of a Friar Tuck and something of a Louis XV. abbe, he is a sort of privileged person, who by the mere force of impudence has made his way in the world. Most English girls in their teens fall in love with a curate and a cavalry officer. Monseigneur Bauer, who combines in himself the unctuous curate and the dashing dragoon, is adored by the fair sex ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... essence of Christian Science is not "faith-healing" in the ordinary sense. It does not say, e.g., "Here is a case of genuine, unmistakeable rheumatism or consumption, but faith is able to dispel it"; on the contrary, it says, "This alleged rheumatism or consumption is a mere illusion, a phantasm of the imagination; and the way to be cured is for the 'patient' to discover his mistake. There are no maladies—there are only malades imaginaires." Mrs. Eddy states in plain words that "Mortal ills are but errors of thought" [2]; it is from this point of ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... seeing that in this world the keeping of their persons inviolate is deemed as the highest duty of Women, and is held in high regard! O thou possessed of wealth of splendour, it is only to test the power of my mantras that I have, from mere childishness, summoned thee. Considering that this hath been done by a girl offender years, it behoveth thee, O lord, to forgive her!' Then Surya said, 'It is because I consider thee a girl that, O Kunti, I am speaking to thee so mildly. To ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... inglorious reigns of Constantius and Gallus only enabled the barbarians to renew their strength. They are signally defeated by the Emperor Julian, A.D. 360, who alone survives of all the heirs of Constantius Chlorus. The studious Julian, who was supposed to be a mere philosopher, proves himself to be one of the most warlike of all the emperors. He repulses the Alemanni, defeats the Franks, delivers Gaul, and carries the Roman eagles triumphantly beyond the Rhine. His victories delay the ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... conqueror returning from his victories. But we kept the old farm, and as you know, it still plays an important part in my life though I passed the title to my brother many years ago. It is my only home, other homes that I have had were mere camping places for a day and night. But the wealth which my bumps indicated turned out to be of a very shadowy and uncommercial kind, yet of a kind that thieves cannot ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... dressmaker, a Schneiderin, as they call them over there, and ran a fairly big business in the Praguer Strasse. I've always been told that German husbands are the worst going, treating their wives like slaves, or, at the best, as mere upper servants. But my experience is that human nature don't alter so much according to distance from London as we fancy it does, and that husbands have their troubles same as wives all the world over. Anyhow, I've come across a German husband or two as didn't carry about with him any sign of the ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... case was the receipt of a letter from his sister in Germany, before his trial, informing him of the fact that she, his parents and all his relatives had utterly disowned him and regarded him with no sympathy whatever. As this was done before he was proven guilty, and upon mere knowledge of the accusation, it is significant in showing that the whole family were as deficient in the social propensities as was ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... large and flourishing town, built somewhat on Philadelphia principles, in blocks, and, like Philadelphia, gridironed all over with tramway lines. It is a good thing one is able to get off the marble pavements into the cars without having far to go, for the streets are at times mere sloughs of despond. It is the same in all ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... people. Such action provided ample protection and was as wings for the accomplishing of the gigantic tasks set for a small band of heroic men and women. The Church was kept informed from time to time as to the progress of the midnight work. Care was taken not to allow this work to become a mere fad, but it was so presented as to rank with every other ministry of the Church. The young people were not drawn into this type of work at all, as it was not deemed advisable to take young people into the streets of sin where the fight ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... Apaches were closing around the fugitive, and it seemed inevitable that he should reap the natural reward of his own foolhardiness that Sut had acted. When the warriors were confident of their success, he discharged his rifle with marvelous quickness, and with a more important result than the mere tumbling over of ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... looking at Betty; he was staring out on the lake. His eyes and mouth were hard again; he looked like a mere intellect, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... in finer air than I can breathe with my commonplace lungs. Such delicacy of sentiment is something that I admire without comprehending. I am bewildered. I am of the earth earthy, and I find myself in the incongruous position of having to do with mere souls, with natures so finely tempered that I run some risk of shattering them in my awkwardness. I am as Caliban ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the less the chance of survival unless well cared for. They may be smothered out by the adverse force of superior numbers; they are even more likely to be bred out of existence by unprevented cross-fertilization, or to disappear from mere change of fashion. The question, however, is not so much about reversion to an ancestral state, or the falling off of a high-bred stock into an inferior condition. Of such cases it is enough to say that, when a variety or strain, of animal or vegetable, is led up to unusual ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... later he reappeared in Africa. Marie was with him. They were living in a small town on the rim of the desert near Biskra. Grimshaw occupied a native house—a mere hovel, flat-roofed, sun-baked, bare as a hermit's cell. Marie had hired herself out as femme de chambre in the only hotel in the place. "I watched over him," she told me. "And believe me, monsieur, he needed care! He was thin as a ghost. He had starved more ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... seemed old-fashioned and crude to the taste of twenty years after, yet the triumphs of Shakespeare's maturity failed to exhaust the opportunities for innovation and advance. We are amazed to-day at the mere number of plays produced, as well as by the number of dramatists writing at the same time for this London of two hundred thousand inhabitants. To realize how great was the dramatic activity, we must remember further that hosts of plays have been lost, ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... child home to mother, not knowing what else to do, but she wouldn't have it at any price, even for a night. She doesn't like children, you know, and Father has joked so much about 'the Pointers' that she is quite rampant at the mere idea of a child in the house. She told me to take it to the Rose Garden. I said it was running over now, and no room even for a mite like this. 'Go to the Hospital,' says she. 'Baby isn't ill, ma'am,' says I. 'Orphan Asylum,' says ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Coal.—By mere convention, we call the peat which accumulated in the Carboniferous age by the name of bituminous coal; and an examination of the Carboniferous strata in different countries has shown that the peat-beds formed in the Carboniferous ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... her thoughts clung to him. Just as, insensibly, her vision of Canada had changed, so had her vision of Anderson. Canada was no longer mere fairy tale and romance; Anderson was no longer merely its picturesque exponent or representative. She had come to realise him as a man, with a man's cares and passions; and her feelings about him had begun ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... near its close, when a drunken man, in the quarrelsome stage of intoxication, stumbled in through the open door. Felix knew him by sight well; a confirmed drunkard, a mere miserable sot, who hung about the spirit-vaults, and lived only for the drink he could pour down his throat. There had been a vague instinctive dread and disgust for the man, mingled with a deep interest ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... satire on everything is a satire on nothing; it is mere absurdity. All contempt, all disrespect, implies something respected, as a standard to which it is referred; just as every valley implies a hill. The persiflage of the French and of fashionable worldlings, which turns into ridicule the exceptions and ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... of Delia.———"Ah," said he, starting from his trance, "what do I see? Art thou, lovely intruder, a mere vision, an aerial being that shuns the touch?" "I beg ten thousand pardons. I meaned not, sir, to interrupt you. I will be gone." "No, go not." Answered he. "Thou art welcome to my troubled thoughts. I ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... judiciously treated, would make a novel, and I especially see in the character and sufferings of the Quaker, previous to his crime, matter for effective psychological treatment. The contrast between the semi-insane nature and that of the hypocrite might be powerfully worked up; but these are mere suggestions from an old craftsman, who never expects younger ones to see things as ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... Ulysses, a shipwrecked mariner, but just escaped from the waves, and utterly destitute of clothing, awaking and discovering that only a few bushes were interposed between him and a group of young maidens, whom, by their deportment and attire, he discovered to be not mere peasant girls, but of a higher class. Sadly needing help, how could he yet venture, naked as he was, to discover himself and make his wants known? It certainly was a case worthy of the interposition of his patron goddess Minerva, who never failed ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... a personal friend during his stay in Kansas: "Young men must learn to wait. Patience is the hardest lesson to learn. I have waited for twenty years to accomplish my purpose." These are not the words of a mere visionary idealist, but the mature language of a practical and judicious leader, a leader than whom the world has never seen a greater. By greatness is meant deep convictions of duty, a sense of the Infinite, "a strong hold on ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... but apparently exists. But precognition? That's not simply mechanical or kinetic, like TK. PC is something terrifyingly different." Her voice hushed as she said it. "It's a kind of sensitivity that has nothing to do with mere kinetics. It defies time!" She looked back at me. "I simply find it comical that you thought of yourself as sensitive ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... little absurd to couple the word "terrible" with any action of mere inanimate matter, from which, after all, we stood in no very evident peril. Yet "terrible" is the only word for it. Grand it was not, because in all its action and voice it seemed infernal. Though its movement is slow and deliberate, it would scarcely occur to you to call either the constant impulse ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... the background. The grasp of his hand was firmer than usual, the tone more earnest, which said, "I am very glad to see you!"—and yet the doctor felt that in them both there was more—and also less—than mere ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... adventure, what need to tell how the mutton was placed on the spit, and slowly unroasted—how the potatoes were wrapped in their skins, and handed over to the gardener to be buried—how, when the mutton had at length attained to rawness, the fire, which had gradually changed from red-heat to a mere blaze, died down so suddenly that the cook had only just time to catch its last flicker on the end of a match—or how the maid, having taken the mutton off the spit, carried it (backwards, of course) out of the house, to meet the butcher, who was coming ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... signified by it. Let this course be adopted in the education of children, and they will not be required to spend months and years in the study of an "art" which they can not comprehend, for the simple reason that they can not apply it in practice. Grammar has been taught as a mere art, depending on arbitrary rules to be mechanically learned, rather than a science involving the soundest and plainest principles of philosophy, which are to be known only as developed in common practice ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... description of a town with an appropriate engraved frontispiece, or adorning your biography of So-and-so with a portrait. But the temptation to overstep the bounds of seemliness is so great that it is seldom the collector stops at a mere frontispiece. In most cases the Grangerite soon loses his self-control, and develops an acute mania for embellishing his volume with all and every print upon which he can lay his hands, apposite in the slightest degree ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... Willoughby might have learned that she was not so iniquitously wise of the things of this world as her mere sex's instinct, roused to the intemperateness of a creature struggling with fetters, had made her appear in her dash to seize a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
