"Merit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... even above Christianity of later centuries. This creed relates to the element of human responsibility particularly, the other two remaining much as they were found by Buddha. According to his teachings, a man rested under an obligation to live nobly in the truest sense, and he acquired merit—karma—or lost it, in proportion to his deserts. At death a human soul is reincarnated, in a lower form of animal or even in a being residing in one of a series of unseen hells, if punishment is due; if a higher state is merited, progress is ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... merit the beholder's praise, What's high to sink? and what is low to raise? Slopes shall ascend where once a green-house stood, And in my horse-pond I will plant a wood. Let misers dread the hoarded gold to waste, Expence and alteration show ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... No prince but you Could merit that sincerity I used, Nor durst another man have ventured it; But you, ere love misled your wandering eyes, Were sure the chief and best of human race, Framed in the very pride and boast of nature; So perfect, that the gods, ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... long as this buckler remains to the people, they cannot be liable to much, or permanent oppression. The government may be administered with violence, offices may be bestowed exclusively upon those who have no other merit than that of carrying votes at elections,—the commerce of our country may be depressed by nonsensical theories, and public credit may suffer from bad intentions; but so long as we have an independent ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... looked, then fell back on my arm. It was not life which forsook her face, and left her whole sweet body inert—that I could have borne, for did she not merit death who had killed my love, killed me?—but happiness, the glow of youthful blood, the dreams of a youthful brain. And seeing this, seeing that the heart I thought a child's heart had gone down in this shipwreck, I felt ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... was pretty well satisfied about that, he inquired how his soul might be saved? The answer being made, "By the applying of Christ's merit by faith:" he was pleased with the answer, and was ready to give any one that should desire it an account ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley
... And though we have spoken of them, as mere critics on art, somewhat superciliously, yet there is almost always no inconsiderable merit in all prints, pictures, paintings, poems, or prose-works, that—pardon our tautology—are popular with the people. The emblematical figments now alluded to, have been the creations of persons of genius, who had never had access to the works of the old masters; so that, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... sufficiently credulous to trust his hollow professions— whose hands are red with the blood of your children! What hope of happiness or peace could you indulge for me, in view of such a union? I should merit all the wretchedness that would inevitably be my life—long portion if, knowing his crimes, I could consent to ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... operations is admirable. The drawings, representing original work, have the commendable merit of illustrating instead ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... Unexpectedly I found embarrassment of choice dazing me, and I sat without attending to the later speakers. Was not successful humor more difficult than pathos? Were not tears more cheaply raised than laughter? Yet, on the other hand, Guy had one prize, and where merit was so even—I sat, I say, forgetful of the rest of the speakers, when suddenly I was aware of louder shouts of welcome, and I awaked to Josey Yeatts bowing ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... you be so anxious to meet me?" Lois replied. "I am sure that I have done nothing to merit your ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... He is made a noble; and his military rank is now that of lieutenant-General. Your turn will come next, my friend; and if promotion went strictly according to personal merit, no one would have been ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... extracted from a collection of considerable merit, now become uncommon, the authors of the different papers in which were Dr. Deacon and Dr. Byrom, and which is entitled Manchester Vindicated (Chester, 1749, 12mo.). The occasion was on a soldier snatching a white rose from the bosom of a young ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... paper contains nothing which deserves the name either of experiment or discovery, and as it is, in fact, destitute of every species of merit, we should have allowed it to pass among the multitude of those articles which must always find their way into the collections of a society which is pledged to publish two or three volumes every ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... especially in the province of Che-Kiang.[880] The true doctrine of the Mahayana is that everyone should strive for the happiness and salvation of all beings, but this beautiful truth may be sadly perverted if it is held that the endurance of pain is in itself meritorious and that such acquired merit can be transferred to others. Self-torture, seems not to be unknown in the popular ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... Administration in 1912, to the ruin of the Republican party. Moreover, there are numbers of States and municipalities where very little has as yet been done to do away with the spoils system. But in the National Government scores of thousands of offices have been put under the merit system, chiefly through the action of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... than any heartnut found so far. The kernels in many cases fall out whole or in halves. This strain received the O. K. of Prof. Reed and Dr. Deming and as you know when a nut gets by either of those gentlemen it has to possess some merit. The good result produced by nature without any assistance from man suggests the possibility of getting even better results from parents of superior characters. I believe the Japanese walnut offers interesting possibilities in breeding with ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... which was conducted by examiners specially appointed by the governors. The result, which was kept a close secret until "Prize Saturday," was as eagerly looked forward to as the Derby by a betting man. The different forms were divided into classes, as at Oxford, according to merit, and the names printed along with the examination papers in pamphlet form. After this examination boys went up to the form above them, each boy usually remaining a year in each form. The system of punishment was as follows. A book called the "Black ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... deeply grateful to you. I feel certain that in all you say, you have no object in the world but kindness to us. But years have passed since we began this life; and to take from my brother any part of what has so endeared him to me, and so proved his better resolution—any fragment of the merit of his unassisted, obscure, and forgotten reparation—would be to diminish the comfort it will be to him and me, when that time comes to each of us, of which you spoke just now. I thank you better with these tears than any words. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... pastry must be admitted to the royal table every day! The man held the reversion to the office of king's pastry-cook (the right to it when the occupant should die), and the right once acquired, the man could not, by court custom, be got rid of. Thus were court offices not open to merit; but conferred sometimes by favour, and sometimes for money; and greedily grasped at for the great profits they yielded. One wonders that the royal family did not discover that the new state of affairs, if it imposed some restrictions, ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... Dupratz; Charlevoix, "Histoire de la Nouvelle France"; "Lettres du Rev. G. Hecwelder;" "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society," v. I; Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," pp. 135-190. What is said by Jefferson is of especial weight, on account of the personal merit of the writer, of his peculiar position, and of the matter-of-fact ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... has found peace with God: henceforth he is rich. He does not need now to huckster in small bargains between his conscience and the divine law every day, and struggle to diminish the ever-increasing amount of guilt by getting small entries of merit marked on the other side of the page. All this is past. He is in Christ Jesus, and to him, therefore, there is now ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them." Ezek. 36:25-27. The Old Testament, as well as the New, denounces self-righteousness in every form, and teaches men that they are saved not for the merit of their good works, but through God's free mercy: "Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thy heart dost thou go in to possess their land," Deut. 9:5; "Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... Fouquet, "there is money here." D'Artagnan looked at the superintendent with astonishment. "You have been answered inconsiderately, monsieur, I know, because I heard it," said the minister; "a man of your merit ought to be known by everybody." D'Artagnan bowed. "Have you an order?" ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... courts must set forth a substantial claim under the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States.[294] Nor does jurisdiction arise simply because an averment of a federal right is made, "if it plainly appears that such averment is not real and substantial, but is without color of merit."[295] The federal question averred may be insubstantial because obviously without merit, or because its unsoundness so clearly results from previous decisions of the Supreme Court as to foreclose the issue and leaves no room for the inference that the questions sought to be raised can be subjects ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... more. It will be observed that they are more negative than positive. The reason of this is not far to seek. The main difference between my verses and those of other contemporary writers—the one point on which I claim for myself the merit of novelty—is the strict observance throughout of the rules of position. But the strict observance of position is in effect the strict avoidance of unclassical collocations of syllables: it is almost wholly negative. To illustrate my meaning I will instance the poems ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... Judith, "to have the romp come in on merit when she can't prove it. It really looks like a ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... evidence, at all times so necessary to a traveller, and indispensably so at the period when he travelled, and in most of the countries where his enquiries and his researches were carried on. His great and characteristic merit consists in freeing his mind from the opinions which must have previously occupied it;—in trusting entirely either to what e himself saw, or to what he learned from the best authority;—always, however, bringing the information acquired in this latter ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... to Claire. He had thought her straight. And all the time that she had been saying those things to him that night of their last meeting she had been engaged to another man, a fat, bald, doddering, senile fool, whose only merit was his money. Scarcely a fair description of Mr Pickering, but in a man in Bill's position a ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... possible way in which it can be done, and I shall do no harm to the State. Kennedy will be a better governor than I could have been. He is an older, wiser, more experienced statesman. I am conscious that I have been over-rated by the people who love me. I was elected for my popularity, not for my merit. And now—I am not even the man that I was—my life seems torn out of my bosom. Oh, Cora, Cora! life of my life! But you shall be happy, dear one! free and happy after a little while. Ah! I know your gentle heart. ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... yet come in America when a leader of smart society dares to invite to her table men and women whose only merit is that they have done something worth while. She is not sufficiently sure of her own place. She must continue all her social life to be seen only with the "right people." In England her position would be secure and she could summon whom she would to dine with her; but in New York we ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... perhaps it is all the better. I am to retain my situation, and so are two others; but there are many new hands coming in as rangers. I know nothing of them, but that they are little fitted for their places, and rail against the king all day long, which, I suppose, is their chief merit in the eyes of those who appoint them. However, one thing is certain, that if those fellows can not stalk a deer themselves, they will do all they can to prevent others; so you must be on the alert, for the punishment ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... longer, and many men might have been saved. This fatal city retained nearly twenty thousand, including three hundred officers and seven generals. Most of them had been wounded by the winter more than by the enemy, who had the merit of the triumph. Several others were still in good health, to all appearance at least, but their moral strength was completely exhausted. After courageously battling with so many difficulties, they lost heart when they were near the port, at the prospect of four more days' ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... bottom for the home-coming of the bride, though, to Graeme's masculine perceptions, its panelling of polished pitch pine from floor to ceiling, in which you could see yourself as in a mirror, had always appeared the very acme of cleanliness and comfort, with the additional merit of a tendency ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... attack of the same kind. Ethelred was delighted with their spirit, and rejoiced at the violence his nephews offered him; accepting an abominable wrong as though it were the richest of benefits. For he saw far more merit in their bravery than in piety. Thus he thought it nobler to be attacked by foes than courted by cowards, and felt that he saw in their valiant promise a sample of ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... minister being asked why he did not promote merit? "Because," answered he, "merit ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... "There is no merit in labour which is not in anywise a burden, but, rather, a delight," pronounced those who ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... in the complete edition of 1817; and the biographers give a long list of publications, besides those above-mentioned, romantic, ethical, and spiritual, in verse and in prose. But he wrote mainly for his own pleasure, he never sought fame, and consequently his reputation never equalled his merit. His name, however, still smells sweet, passing sweet, amid the corruption and the frantic fury of his day, and the memory of the witty, genial, and virtuous litterateur ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... characters, notwithstanding the restraint which the artificialities of the period often put upon their utterance. On the other hand, work at first pronounced to be romantic establishes, by a universal recognition of its merit, the claim to be considered classic, or set apart; what is romantic to-day thus growing to be classic[175] tomorrow. It is evident, therefore, that the terms interlock and are not mutually exclusive. It is a mistaken attitude ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... defy public opinion invite social impalement, and rarely fail to merit the branding and opprobrium they invariably receive. Madam, I should imagine that to a nature so refined and shrinking as yours, almost any trial would seem slight in comparison with the certainty of becoming a target for sarcasm, pity, and malice, in every kitchen in the neighborhood. Permit my ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat, by merit rais'd To ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... of Buddha, obtained by merit the Six Supernatural Powers. And by virtue of them it was given him to see the soul of his mother in the Gakido—the world of spirits doomed to suffer hunger in expiation of faults committed in a previous life. Mokenren saw that his mother suffered much; he grieved exceedingly because of her pain, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... of the North American Review, in 1817, appeared an original poem of such merit as to mark an era in the history of American verse. There was in William Cullen Bryant's Thanatopsis, it is true, no such youthful exuberance of feeling as the first stirrings of poetic genius in a new world ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... which seems to merit more attention than it has received, is the very frequent recurrence in Greek mythology of allusions to creatures which have been usually regarded as the creations of a poetic fancy, but which bear a strong resemblance to the Saurian and other monsters ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... In India, at the beginning of the Christian era, there was a development of drama of a high character. The one called the Clay-waggon (a child's toy) is described as of very great literary merit,—realistic, graphic, and Shakespearean in its artistic representation of life.[2078] Every drama which has that character must be in and of the mores. In the Clay-waggon the story is that of a Brahmin of the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... thy merit, Kindly unassuming spirit! Careless of thy neighbourhood, Thou dost show thy pleasant face On the moor, and in the wood, In the lane—there's not a place, Howsoever mean it be, But ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... the too great imaginative wealth thrown by him into mere narrative.[266] "It does not seem to me to be enough to say of any description that it is the exact truth. The exact truth must be there; but the merit or art in the narrator, is the manner of stating the truth. As to which thing in literature, it always seems to me that there is a world to be done. And in these times, when the tendency is to be frightfully literal and catalogue-like—to ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... 1844, we anchored off the grand City of Palaces, and well does it merit the name. We could not have, timed our visit better. The governor-general, the Earl of Ellenborough, was being feted on his return from the frontiers, which fetes were continued on the arrival, a few days after ourselves, of the Cornwallis at Kedgeree, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... Australia as an important part of his view; whereas, I dwell mainly on their long continued separation. Notwithstanding this and other important differences between us, to him undoubtedly belongs the merit of first indicating the division of the Archipelago into an Australian and an Asiatic region, which it has been my good fortune to establish ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... groceries. Those which were the strongest in favour of the Empire, are now the strongest in favour of the Republic. Editors and writers whose dream it was a few months ago to obtain an invitation at the Tuileries or to the Palais Royal, or to merit by the basest of flatteries the Legion of Honour, now have become perfect Catos, and denounce courts and courtiers, Bonapartists and Orleanists. War they regard as the most wicked of crimes, and they appear entirely to have forgotten that ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... "In the golden highest sheath dwells the stainless, changeless Brahman; It is the radiant white Light of lights, known to the knowers of the Self."[35] "When the seer sees the golden-coloured Creator, the Lord, the Spirit, whose womb is Brahman, then, having thrown away merit and demerit, stainless, the wise one ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... over now to learn the ABC in the training school of responsibility for the big load that's to come on my shoulders. I've been asleep all these years. Thank Heaven I've waked up in time. It's no merit of mine—" ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... midst of them, and seizing upon them before they were forgotten, made them and the localities classical. Other districts have in this way been despoiled to some extent of their proper meed of honour. Fortune as well as merit has favoured the Border Minstrelsy in the race for survival and for precedence in the popular memory. But Galloway, a land pervaded with romance, claims at least one ballad that can rank with the best. Lord Gregory has aliases and duplicates without number. But the scene is always ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... must be proud of them also. They were worthy of esteem, they were entitled to applause; and mean, base, ineffably shabby, stupidly mean and base was the soul—if such a soul there were—that questioned their merit or grudged them a meet reward. (Applause.) He was delighted to have the opportunity of looking upon the two great heroes, Landsborough and McKinlay. They had undertaken and accomplished great things. Without deliberation they ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... genius, that gift of attention revealing in the objects and facts of life properties not perceived by others; he possessed a beautiful form of expression, uttering clearly, simply, and with charm what he wished to say; and he possessed also the merit of sincerity, without which a work of art produces no effect; that is he did not merely pretend to love or hate, but did indeed love or hate what ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... ordering a battle, preparing artillery, and that old captains marvelled at her skill in placing cannon.[65] The Duke quite understands that all these gifts were miraculous and that to God alone was the glory. For if the merit of the victories had been Jeanne's he would not have said ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... men, that he may vilify him by them. And they, bold fools as they are, will not spare to spit in his face. They will rail at his person, and deny the very being of it; they will rail at his blood, and deny the merit and worth of it. They will deny the very end why he accomplished the law, and by jiggs, and tricks, and quirks, which he helpeth them to, they set up fond names and images in his place, and give the glory of a Saviour to them. Thus Satan worketh ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... the same to me," said the Flea. "She may have the old Leap-frog, for all I care. I jumped the highest; but in this world merit seldom meets its reward. A fine exterior is ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... abide by the same view, when circumstances were changed and the feelings of the loyalists altered, but rather to bow to circumstances. For the persistence in the same view has never been regarded as a merit in men eminent for their guidance of the helm of state; but as in steering a ship one secret of the art is to run before the storm, even if you cannot make the harbour; yet, when you can do so by tacking about, it is folly to keep to the course ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... was to happen" and she was not on the spot. She declines to enter on the question, mooted by the maid, how the spot comes to be there, and not in her room (which is nearer to Sir Leicester's), but staunchly declares that on the spot she will remain. Volumnia further makes a merit of not having "closed an eye"—as if she had twenty or thirty—though it is hard to reconcile this statement with her having most indisputably opened ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Hamilton. "He must have been a man of rare candour, too," says John Fiske, "for after weeks of debate he owned himself convinced."[47] Whatever could be said against the Constitution, Smith voiced it; and there was apparent merit in some of his objections. To a majority of the people, New York appeared to be surrendering natural advantages in much larger measure than other Commonwealths, while its concession of political power struck them as not unlikely to endanger the personal liberty of the citizen and the independence ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... If the merit of a historical novel be the exact reproduction of the life of another age, then Esmond is the greatest of its class. No other book has caught more perfectly the flavour of the ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... feather flock together naturally, and before half a mile had been covered a tall, thin, boyish-looking officer, with a star of merit in the shape of a series of strips of diachylon upon his brow, gravitated towards the rear-guard and suddenly joined their ranks, holding out and shaking hands ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... was a Samaritan. The occurrence must have impressed the apostles as another evidence of acceptability and possible excellence on the part of aliens, to the disparagement of Jewish claims of superiority irrespective of merit. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... about, does not need to be emphasized, and the fact that two such competent authorities should agree upon a possible solution of a puzzling literary problem, makes that solution worthy of careful consideration; it would certainly have the merit of simplifying the question and deserves to ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... inhabitants produced more wealth per head than any other community in the Northern world, not even excluding the gold cities of Alaska and the Yukon. It was a considerable boast, but with more than usual justice. A cynic once declared that it was the only distinction of merit the ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... the theatre in common with the whole nation derived from the court, and from a most flagitious monarch whose example made vice fashionable. In servile compliance with the reigning taste, the greatest poets of the day abandoned true fame, and discarded much of their literary merit: Otway and Dryden sunk into the most mean and criminal slavery to it—the former with the greatest powers for the pathetic ever possessed by any man, Shakspeare excepted, has left behind him plays which in an almost equal degree ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... rest of it we run about and amuse ourselves; then we work till fifty, and then we grow again to be children. We sleep half our lives; we give God a tenth of our time; and yet we think that with our good works we can merit heaven. What have I been doing to-day? I have talked for two hours, I have been at meals three hours, I have been idle four hours; ah, enter not into judgment with thy servant, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... imagination betrays itself in their every-day sayings and doings, and more directly in every branch of thought. Originality is not their strong point. Their utter ignorance of science shows this, and paradoxical as it may seem, their art, in spite of its merit and its universality, does the same. That art and imagination are necessarily bound together receives no very forcible confirmation from a land where, nationally speaking, at any rate, the first is easily first and the last easily last, as ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... now the Jainas also hold the view of the world originating from atoms and similar views, their theory is reviewed next.—The Jainas hold that the world comprises souls (jiva), and non-souls (ajiva), and that there is no Lord. The world further comprises six substances (dravya), viz. souls (jiva), merit (dharma), demerit (adharma), bodies (pudgala), time (kala), and space (akasa). The souls are of three different kinds-bound (in the state of bondage), perfected by Yoga (Yogasiddha), and released (mukta). 'Merit' ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... Colonel Newcome, as you are newly arrived in Europe. Not men of worldly rank, necessarily, although some of them are amongst the noblest of Europe. But my maxim is, that genius is an illustration, and merit is better than any pedigree. You have heard of Professor Bodgers? Count Poski? Doctor McGuffog, who is called in his native country the Ezekiel of Clackmannan? Mr. Shaloony, the great Irish patriot? our papers have ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... involves self-restraint, and no man who wishes to retain his own respect and to merit the respect of others would think of advertising his own virtues or bragging of his own deeds. Nor would any Nation wishing to stand well in its own eyes and in the eyes of the world boast of its own conquests over weaker foes or shout itself hoarse ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... the light diffused around him by the progress of reason, the thicker is the darkness of antiquated barbarism in which he buries himself like a mole, to throw up the barren hillocks of his Cimmerian labours." These gay shafts had at any rate the merit of stinging Shelley to action. 'The Defence of Poetry' was his reply. People like Peacock treat poetry, and art generally, as an adventitious seasoning of life—ornamental perhaps, but rather out of place in a progressive and practical age. Shelley undermines the whole position by ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... by these selected examiners and signed by the authors. The reports must be "based upon inherent and comparative merit. The elements of merit shall be held to include considerations relating to originality, invention, discovery, utility, quality, skill, workmanship, fitness for the purpose intended, adaptation to public wants, economy and cost." Each report, upon its completion, is delivered to the Centennial ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... events or conditions foreseen: seductive in the review of them by a writer who has to be still foreseeing: nevertheless, that none of them were bardic of Bull, and that our sound man would have acted wisely in heeding some of the prescriptions, constituted their essential merit, consolatory to think of, though painful. The country has gone the wrong road, but it may yet cross over to the right one, when it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to man's estate he learned to draw. His sketches, at first rude, at last acquired considerable merit. He had been taught no rules of perspective; but while his perspective differed from that of a European, he did not ignore it, like the Chinese. He had now a very comfortable hewed-log residence, well furnished with such articles as were common with the better class ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... generates that beauty which is the object of sight; and that in the commensurate and the moderate alone the beauty of everything consists. But from such an opinion the compound only, and not the simple, can be beautiful, the single parts will have no peculiar beauty; and will only merit that appellation by conferring to the beauty of the whole. But it is surely necessary that a lovely whole should consist of beautiful parts, for the fair can never rise out of the deformed. But from such a definition, it follows, ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... a Society of several Gentlemen, eminent for their Learning and Merit, such as Sir Robert Cotton, Mr. Dodderidge, (afterwards Sir John Dodderidge, who died one of the Judges of the King's-Bench) Mr. Camden, Mr. Stow, &c. who had regular Meetings, or Conferences, for the Improvement and Illustration of the History and Antiquities of England. That ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... which may render them just before God. By faith, the penitent sinner receives all these blessings—is rescued from wrath, delivered from the guilt and bondage of sin, and made a child of God, and an heir of eternal life. Thus the triumph of the cross is complete, the pride of human merit is humbled in the dust, and all the glory of the salvation of sinners is rendered to the riches of ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin
... thou speakest well and like a true man!" he said joyously. "Unfamous as thou art, thou deservest honor for the frank confession of thy lack of merit! Believe me, there are some boastful rhymers in Al-Kyris who would benefit much by a share of thy becoming modesty! Give him his wish, Gisenya—" and Gisenya, obediently detaching a sprig of myrtle from the wreath ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... stood silent for some minutes, she with blushes, which the king took for a sign of modesty, answered, 'Sir, I am infinitely obliged to your majesty for your good opinion of me, for the honour you do me, and the great favour you offer me, which I cannot pretend to merit, and dare not refuse. ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... passing, lies perhaps the secret of the dry rot that too often settles on our American art schools. We, for some unknown reason, do not take the work of native painters seriously, nor encourage them in proportion to their merit. In consequence they retain but a ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... plans to escape, and not only that, but also to liberate others. That I did not make the attempt was the fault—or merit, perhaps—of a certain night watch, whose timidity, rather than sagacity, impelled him to refuse to unlock my door early one morning, although I gave him a plausible reason for the request. This night watch, I learned later, admitted that he feared to ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... above respectability, or she would remain beneath it. Respectability might be an excellent thing; surely there must be some merit in a thing about which there was so much talk, after which there was so much hankering, and to which there was such desperate clinging. But as a sole possession, as a sole ambition, it seemed thin and poor and even pitiful. She had emancipated herself from its tyranny; she would not resume ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the site of the oldest Etruscan towns, which circumstance has led antiquaries to allow the Etruscans the honour of having fashioned these rude specimens of pottery; but as the samples display a higher degree of skill they refuse to allow the Etruscans the merit of having improved the clumsiness of their early handiwork. In the sixth and seventh cases are pale vases with deep red figures, chiefly of animals upon them, chiefly from Canino and Vulci. The exertions of the Prince of Canino in excavating on his estate ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... Newspaper eulogy declares him to be a remarkable orator. He is often spoken of as of solid, and even brilliant, intellectual attainments. How much of all this vogue and of this unusual reputation is based upon the fact that he is a negro, and how much upon his native merit when weighed and judged without regard to any other consideration whatsoever? Has he, in fact, done that which, had he been a white man, would have given him a solid and substantial claim to the esteem ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... official churches have had no other merit but that they have preserved Christ as the treasury of the world, yet they are justified thereby. Even if they have solely repeated through all the past centuries "Lord! Lord!" still they stand above the secular world. For they know ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... think the stature all in all, Nor like a hero if he is not tall. The feeling sense all other wants supplies— I rate no actor's merit from his size. Superior height requires superior grace, And what's a giant with a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... and having its whole surface covered with an involved and rich ornamental design. Its eyes were, or seemed to be rubies, and saddle and bridle and housing were studded with small gems. There was little merit in the art of it beyond the engraving, but Cosmo saw the eyes of the lady fixed upon it, with a strange ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... delirium abated, and consciousness, that had been driven forcibly from her throne, hastened to assume the sceptre of her authority. The crisis was past, and the patient began to be sensible of those attentions on the part of his devoted wife, which had not only the merit of being unremitting, but that of being sweetened by the tears of solicitude and the blandness of love. I marked attentively the first impressions made by her devotedness on the returning sense. I saw his look following her eye, which was continually ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... otherwise than it is; and the wise reader is convinced that he could have done the thing himself without half trying. At that, the weary writer smiles a bitter smile; but it is one of the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes. Nobody, except him who has tried it, will ever know how hard it is to write a really good detective story. The man or woman who can do it can also write a good play (according to modern ideas of plays), and possesses force of character, individuality, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... that you are called 'Robespierre the Incorruptible,"' Harry said; "but, nevertheless, you belong to France, and France will assuredly see that some day you have such a reward as you richly merit." ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... to compel him, whom I have loaded with benefits, to repay them in his turn; if not, he does not merit the least of the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... beating up the quarters of the royalists at Bovey Tracy, Fairfax sat down before Dartmouth, and in a few days entered it by storm. Poudram Castle being taken by him, and Exeter blockaded on all sides, Hopton, a man of merit, who now commanded the royalists, having advanced to the relief of that town with an army of eight thousand men, met with the parliamentary army at Torrington, where he was defeated, all his foot dispersed, and he ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... day as are the crowd of common readers who know no other, yet he suffered not the brilliant novelties of the hour to wean his admiration from the authors whose reputation has stood the test of time. He was generous, however, to rising merit, and took pleasure in commending it to ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... supplied by the spinnerets, unite the pieces, so that the whole resembles a coarse fabric. Without being absolutely faultless, for there are always awkward pieces on the outside, which the worker could not handle, the gaudy building is not devoid of merit. The bird lining its nest would do no better. Whoso sees the curious, many-coloured productions in my pans takes them for an outcome of my industry, contrived with a view to some experimental mischief; and his surprise is great when I confess who the real author is. No one would ever ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... scruple to give her every assurance that no duel, or angry collision of any kind, was likely, to take place: at which news her face glowed with pleasure, and her lips flowed with many an expression of gratitude, although he assured hex again and again that he had done nothing on earth to merit her thanks. ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... be noted, this balance dispenses entirely with knife edges, and this statement carries with it the gist of its entire merit. There is no friction, and the elegance of the work and the nice adjustments of the parts ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... basis, and stands not as it should upon the personal merits of those who compose it, but upon a pile of bank-books. In other cities, poor men, who are members of families which command respect for their talents or other admirable qualities, or who have merit of their own sufficient to entitle them to such recognition, are welcomed into what are called the "Select Circles" with as much cordiality as though they were millionaires. In New York, however, men ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... lose their merit of a touching simplicity in an unrhymed translation; but they will serve to show the habitual temper ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... particular, it proceeds from nothing but a difference in the tempers and complexions of men; and is besides very inconsiderable. Can we imagine it possible, that while human nature remains the same, men will ever become entirely indifferent to their power, riches, beauty or personal merit, and that their pride and vanity will not ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... only child of Sir Richard Brandon. Sir Richard was a knight and a widower. He was knighted, not because of personal merit, but because he had been mayor of some place, sometime or other, when some one connected with royalty had something important to do with it! Little Diana was all that this knight and widower had on earth to care for, except, of course, his horses and dogs, ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... years of age he was at work in New York, and soon was discovered to be the editor in secret of a paper called The Thespian Mirror. The merit of this juvenile sheet attracted the attention of many people, and among them of Mr. Seaman, a wealthy New Yorker who offered the talented boy an opportunity to go to college free of expense. Young Payne ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... as you have invited Joe—old Joe, who has no other merit, Sir, but that he is tough and hearty—to be your guest and guide at Leamington, command him in any way you please, and he is wholly yours. I don't know, Sir,' said the Major, wagging his double chin with a jocose air, 'what it is you people see in Joe to make you hold him in ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... that all racing is rotten—as everything connected with losing money must be. Out here, in addition to its inherent rottenness, it has the merit of being two-thirds sham; looking pretty on paper only. Every one knows every one else far too well for business purposes. How on earth can you rack and harry and post a man for his losings, when you are fond of his wife, and live in the same Station with him? He says, "on ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... was also proved above, in 525. In the world, merits may as it were be transferred by men; that is, good may be done to children for the sake of their parents, or to the friends of any client out of favor; but the good of merit cannot be inscribed on their souls, but only be externally adjoined. The like is not possible with men as to their spiritual life: this, as was shewn above, must be implanted; and if it is not implanted ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... novel writing are very liberal, and he accepts as belonging to literature many specimens we should sternly reject. The one point to remember, however, is that he does not accept them all; he draws the line somewhere, and in that age when the novel was in its infancy, there was merit in doing even no more than this. He is very hard upon the old mediaeval romances, which it is true he seems to have known only through the abridged and degenerate texts circulated in his time, for the amusement ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... point at which I had been obliged from the want of good water to abandon it, in 1828, to lat. 32 degrees 26 minutes, and had marked down some hills to the westward of it. Still I do not think that I detract from his merit, and I am sure I do not wish to do so, when I say that his having so marked them can hardly be said to have given us any certain knowledge of ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... of the whites—a constantly increasing variety of professional and business men and women. Their places in the economic world will be assured and their prosperity guaranteed in proportion to the merit displayed by them in their several callings, for about them will have been established the solid bulwark of an industrial mass to which they may safely look for support. The esthetic demands will be met as the capacity of the race to procure ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... was about an inch long by an eighth broad. It had come into existence some ten years previously, in the following manner. The inter-house cricket cup at Wrykyn had originally been a rather tarnished and unimpressive vessel, whose only merit consisted in the fact that it was of silver. Ten years ago an Old Wrykinian, suddenly reflecting that it would not be a bad idea to do something for the school in a small way, hied him to the nearest jeweller's and purchased another silver cup, vast withal and cunningly ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... the careful performer of my Sabbath duties, I will forbear to hold up a candle to the daylight, or to point out to the judicious those recommendations of my labours which they must necessarily anticipate from the perusal of the title-page. Nevertheless, I am not unaware, that, as Envy always dogs Merit at the heels, there may be those who will whisper, that albeit my learning and good principles cannot (lauded be the heavens) be denied by any one, yet that my situation at Gandercleugh hath been more favourable to my acquisitions in learning than to the enlargement ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... certainly a few colonists in our old possessions of Senegal, but yonder in the Niger valley, beyond Djenny, there are, I think, only ourselves. We are the pioneers, the vanguard, the riskers full of faith and hope. And there is some merit in it, for to sensible stay-at-home folks it all seems like defying common sense. Can you picture it? A French family installed among savages, and unprotected, save for the vicinity of a little fort, where a French officer commands a dozen native soldiers—a French family, which is sometimes ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... economic theory. This great work was intended to be, in its literal sense, the Bible of the working class, as indeed it has since become. Certainly, Jaures' tribute to Marx is well deserved and fairly sums up the work accomplished by him in the period 1847-1869. "To Marx belongs the merit," he says, " ... of having drawn together and unified the labor movement and the socialist idea. In the first third of the nineteenth century labor struggled and fought against the crushing power of capital; but it was not conscious itself ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... and the commercial proscription, drove the iron ever deeper and deeper into the souls of Irishmen. It is but small merit in the Irish Parliament of George I. and George II., if under these circumstances a temper was gradually formed in, and transmitted by, them, which might one day achieve the honours of patriotism. It was in dread of this most healthful process, that the ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... system of merit and demerit established; everything good and everything bad has a specific value in numbers and decimals, which is accurately recorded against the owners thereof in the reports made for each year. The cadet appears to be expected to improve in conduct as well as knowledge; ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the public I offer this book, not for its literary merit, but as the tribute of a daughter to a loved father, whose earnest devotion to duty was ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... mismanagement. This mismanagement has itself, as your Committee conceive, in a great measure arisen from dark cabals, and secret suggestions to persons in power, without a regular public inquiry into the good or evil tendency of any measure, or into the merit or demerit of any person intrusted with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... intoxicated by the young man's singular good fortune. What he particularly admired was the union of success and merit. When he compared the abundance of these works, tossed off apparently as in play, and the young man's cheerful evenness of temper with his own torn, distracted existence, a feeling came upon him ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... collection of six volumes of contemporary poems, and they show how much rarer humour was than sentiment, for Dodsley was not a man to omit anything sparkling. The following imitation of Ambrose Philips—a general butt—has merit: ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... promising young officer in the army. Graduating at West Point as he did during the second year of the war, he had won his way up to the command of a corps before its close. This he did upon his own merit and without influence." Such a statement from such a quarter is enough to show that once more the Second Connecticut was to be commanded by a soldier of more than ordinary qualities, a fact which was not long ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... for myself, I wish to claim no exemption from the rule. My one aim is to benefit my readers, and to advance truth. For this I would sacrifice the smiles of Courts, and incur the shallow sneers of the grovelling, chowder-headed horde of flunkeys who sit in high places. My work bears witness to my merit. ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... the merit of certain poems, whether they be Ossian's or Macpherson's can surely be of little consequence, yet, in order to prove their worthlessness, Mr. W. has expended many pages in the controversy. 'Tantaene animis?' Can great ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... have a fine ceremony," he said. "And another year if we can find a girl as worthy as Isidore we will give the reward to her. It will even be a good example that we shall set to Nanterre. Let us not be exclusive; let us welcome all merit." ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... monetary policy to South Africa. Customs duties from the Southern African Customs Union, which may equal as much as 70% of government revenue this year, and worker remittances from South Africa substantially supplement domestically earned income. Swaziland is not poor enough to merit an IMF program; however, the country is struggling to reduce the size of the civil service and control costs at public enterprises. The government is trying to improve the atmosphere for foreign investment. With an estimated 40% unemployment rate, Swaziland's ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... clothes ill, sat his horse worse, and was uneasy in the saddle. The unmistakable air of the gamin was apparent beneath the superficies of the gentleman. Conspicuous on his costume, and wound like an order of merit upon his breast, glittered a chain, the chain,—each tiny brick-like gem spiked with a hundred sparks, and building a fabric of sturdy probabilities with the celerity of the genii in constructing Aladdin's palace. There, a cable to haul up the treasure, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... nicely writ, with humour stings 140 But those who merit praise in other things; Yet we must needs this one exception make, And break our rules for silly Tropos'[60] sake; Who was too much despised to be accused, And therefore scarce deserves to be abused; Raised only by his mercenary tongue, For railing smoothly, and for reasoning wrong, As boys, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... your mind, then, as to its being Lucille that we saw?' said Madame d'Heranville with a smile. 'If it was,' she added, more gravely, 'I think she can scarcely merit all the trouble you are giving yourself on her account. Her friendship for Andre does not ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... pursuance of the plan of our former Supplement, we are enabled to assemble within the present sheet the characteristics of eight works, whilst our quotations include fourteen prose tales and sketches, and poetical pieces, of great merit. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... her opinion without asking it. This woman of experience and good sense is incapable of recognising merit in a man who is sufficiently impertinent to make Mlle. Moriaz love him, without having at least fifty thousand livres ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... only one of the most picturesque and striking instances of stage effect to be found in the ancient or modern drama, but by the skilful manner in which it is prepared, it has, wonderful as it appears, all the merit of consistency and truth. The grief, the love, the remorse and impatience of Leontes, are finely contrasted with the astonishment and admiration of Perdita, who, gazing on the figure of her mother like one entranced, looks as if she were also turned to marble. There is here one little ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... but of those also who shall come after us. For a little while when He had departed from the sight of men, that faith might be established in their hearts, whosoever believed, believed tho they saw Him not, and great has been the merit of their faith; for the procuring of which faith they brought only the movement of a pious heart, and not the touching of ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... larger cities. Art societies thrive and flourish in many States, and art teachers are in demand in most of our towns. Colonies of artists swarm in stately buildings in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. The time has come when no artist of merit need starve ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... were at first of opinion that they could not award the prize to the author of any poem written in the vulgar tongue. At the same time they reported that one of the poems written in Gascon possessed such real merit, that the committee decided by a unanimous vote that a prize should be awarded to the author of the best poem written in the Gascon dialect. Many poems were accordingly sent in and examined. Lou Tres de May was selected as the best; and on the letter attached to the poem being opened, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... appear impressed, the three ladies, followed by Starr, trailed into the building, deserted at this hour; and it was the artist's quick eye that first caught the eccentric merit of the famous ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... specious robe, so when there appeared this work of a "miserable Indian," who dared to portray them and the conditions that their control produced exactly as they were—for the indefinable touch by which the author gives an air of unimpeachable veracity to his story is perhaps its greatest artistic merit—the effect upon the mercurial Spanish temperament was, to say the least, electric. The very audacity of the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... do you wish me to say to you? Do you wish me to tell you it is good? It isn't. Do you wish me to tell you it is well drawn? It isn't. Do you wish me to say it has merit? It hasn't. Do you wish me to show you what is wrong with it? It is all wrong. Do you wish me to tell you what to do with it? Tear it ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Valparaiso, Talcahuano and Iquique. In itself this policy was not unreasonable, and in many ways extremely beneficial for the country. Unfortunately corruption crept into the expenditure of the large sums necessary to carry out this programme. Contracts were given by favour and not by merit, and the progress made in the construction of the new public works was far from satisfactory. The opposition in congress to President Balmaceda began to increase rapidly towards the close of 1887, and further gained ground in 1888. In order to ensure a majority ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... whether he ought to speak out or not), 'arter all, Sam,' said he, 'atween ourselves (but you must not let on I said so, for the fullness of time hain't yet come), half a yard of blue ribbon is a plaguy cheap way of rewardin' merit, as the English do; and, although we larf at 'em (for folks always will larf at what they hain't got, and never can get), yet titles ain't bad things as objects of ambition, are they?' Then, tappin' me on the shoulder, and lookin' up and smilin', ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... said thus much because it is my wish that the principles which have guided me in the composition of these Memoirs may be understood. I am aware that they will not please every reader; that is a success to which I cannot pretend. Some merit, however, may be allowed me on account of the labour I have undergone. It has neither been of a slight nor an agreeable kind. I made it a rule to read everything that has been written respecting Napoleon, and I have had to decipher many ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... are scores of men in the ranks merit promotion better far than I do. And—leave the Colonel's name alone. He is our chief, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... merit and comprise some excellent descriptions of forest and clearing, and a clever delineation of the passions which actuate humanity in the rough.... The stories, eleven in all, deal with love and life and religion in many aspects, and ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... Prince Consort was informed that Savoy was to go for Lombardy, and Nice for Venetia; others said that Nice was to be the price of the Duchies and Legations. There was a persistent impression that the island of Sardinia was mentioned, which would not merit record but for the general correctness of the other guesses. There is no reference, however, to Sardinia, in the version of the treaty which has since been published, and Cavour indignantly repudiated the idea of ceding this Italian island ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... honorable from the manner in which the appointment is made. The unanimous suffrage of the elective body in your favor is peculiarly expressive of the gratitude, confidence, and affection of the citizens of America, and is the highest testimonial at once of your merit and their esteem. We are sensible, sir, that nothing but the voice of your fellow-citizens could have called you from a retreat chosen with the fondest predilection, endeared by habit, and consecrated to the repose of declining years. We rejoice, and with us all America, that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... liveliest ride he ever experienced. I knew I was safe in saying that, and the orderly remarked that he had about come to that conclusion himself, and he left me. I had never expected to rise, on pure merit, to that proud position of colonel's orderly, and I made up my mind if that night's ride did not founder me, or drive my spine up into the top of my hat, or glue the two sides of my empty stomach together, so they would never come apart, that I would try to conduct myself so that ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... sulphur, on the nearest assailants. Nor was caution a sufficient protection to those who kept aloof; for darts, discharged from engines or by the hand, inflicted wounds on most of them; and thus the brave and the timid, though of unequal merit, were exposed to ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... the keen and sharp yearning for reputation; he had not, as yet, tasted its sweets and bitters—fatal draught, which once tasted, begets too often an insatiable thirst! neither had he enemies and decriers whom he was desirous of abashing by merit. And that is a very ordinary cause for exertion in proud minds. He was, it is true, generally reputed clever, and fools were afraid of him: but as he actively interfered with no man's pretensions, so no man thought it necessary to call him a blockhead. At present, therefore, it was quietly ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... picture which was stationed, partly for business reasons, partly for ornament, in a corner near the office door. It was a figure of a gayly dressed damsel, nearly life-size, and was supposed by its blooming appearance to settle finally the merit of a new health food. The other clerk, who was a young fellow, hardly more than a boy, had placed it there. He had reached the first fever-stage of admiration of the other sex, and this gaudy beauty had resembled in his eyes a fair damsel of ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... much the more obliged to speak of it," writes the historian De Thou respecting the battle of Sainte Gemme, "as La Noue, the most generous of men, who has written on the civil wars with as much fidelity as judgment, always disposed to render conspicuous the merit of others, and very reserved respecting his own, has not said a word of this victory." De Thou, iv. (liv. ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... return your paper on Universal Art. It is not without merit; but I consider art such an important subject that I mean to deal with it exclusively myself. With thanks for kindly appreciation of my new venture, I ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... was entrusted to Captain Tuckey, an officer of merit and varied services, who had published several works connected with geography and navigation. Besides a crew of about fifty, including marines and mechanics; he was accompanied by Mr. Smith, an eminent botanist, who likewise ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... he is a follower of Frank Norris, and two or three facts lend it a specious probability. "McTeague" was printed in 1899; "Sister Carrie" a year later. Moreover, Norris was the first to see the merit of the latter book, and he fought a gallant fight, as literary advisor to Doubleday, Page & Co., against its suppression after it was in type. But this theory runs aground upon two circumstances, the first being that Dreiser did not actually ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... of Karl disclosed the villainy of the Italians, and made known how narrowly the commissary had escaped the loss of his fair young bride; whilst, as he told his rude and simple tale, without claiming any merit, or appearing to be conscious of any, Adelaide learned that to this repulsive stupid clown she had three ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... The merit of this method of arguing may be left to the judgment of the reader, who will remark that wedded pairs are not described as leaving the hall when they go to bed; they sleep in "a recess of the lofty house," the innermost part. Is this the same as the "recess ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... repentances and righteous intentions and endeavours, are as much out of place as a means of procuring God's favour and help as Naaman's talents of silver and pieces of gold. We have God's favour irrespective of our merit, and we must humble ourselves to accept it as His free gift, which we could not earn and ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... "When I have ensured mine own salvation, and won mine husband's soul from Purgatory, and heaped up great store of merit belike!—Woman, I live but of bread and water, with here and there a lettuce leaf; a draught of milk of Sundays, but meat never saving holydays. I sleep never beyond three hours of a night, and of a Friday night ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... ordained, in a hum-drum sort of way, going where he was sent for, and performing his routine duties reasonably well, but without showing any great aptitude for his work. He had little interest, and had almost given up expecting promotion, which he certainly had done nothing particular to merit. But there was one point on which he was always ready to go out of his way, and take a little trouble. He was a good musician, and had formed choirs at all ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... in which, of forenoons, she had always been accustomed to "go her household ways" in her own country. She did not choose to adopt English fashions because she was obliged to live in England; she adhered to her old Belgian modes, quite satisfied that there was a merit ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... 1922, when I sailed from Buffalo aboard the airship America on her expedition against the German fleet. For the first time in my modest career I found myself a figure of nation-wide interest, not through any particular merit or bravery of my own, but by reason of a series of fortunate accidents. I may say that I became a hero in ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... unremitting labor evinced by modern astronomers in the investigation and comparison of the older calculations, and the ingenious application of the results thus obtained to the observation of new facts. The merit of having paved the way for the discovery of the planet Neptune is due to M. Bouvard, who, in his persevering and assiduous efforts to deduce the entire orbit of Uranus from observations made during the forty years that succeeded the discovery of that planet in 1781, found the results ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Providence. After that, of course, she had never expected there would be a son, and with each year her anxiety to see Charles safely married had increased. He had seemed so amenable that at first she could hardly believe that the steed which she had led to waters of such divers merit would refuse to drink from any of them. If rank had no charm for him, which apparently it had not, she would try beauty. When beauty failed, even beauty with money in its hand, Lady Mary hesitated, and then fell back on goodness. But either the goodness was not ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... time they asked that they might be assessed at lower rates than their neighbours, on the ground that the antelope, being thus left undisturbed, did more damage to their crops; but I told them that this would lessen the merit (pun) of their actions in protecting the animals, and they must be treated just as the surrounding villages were. They consider it a good deed to scatter grain to pigeons and other birds, and often have a large number of half-tame birds about their villages. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... perceive, was known by report to Eratosthenes and some other Greeks, and which they call Orcynia) and settled there. Which nation to this time retains its position in those settlements, and has a very high character for justice and military merit: now also they continue in the same scarcity, indigence, hardihood, as the Germans, and use the same food and dress; but their proximity to the Province and knowledge of commodities from countries beyond the sea supplies to the Gauls many ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... his advancing years money had lost much of its attraction. Nor, if he knew himself, was he particularly affected by the glory which attends success. Duty, and duty only, drove him on—to elucidate his problem and merit the confidence put in him by his superiors. If suffering followed, that was not his fault; his business ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green |
