"Outdo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... empire, whose monuments are gigantic, whose administration is perfect, among whom revolutions are impossible, who have regarded ideal beauty as a barren element in art, who have carried luxury and industry to such a pitch that we cannot outdo them in anything, while they are our equals in things where ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... brotherly, free, common love perishes, and selfish love prevails. So Jeremiah and Hosea speak, [Jer. 2:28, Hos. 8:11,12] yea, all the profits lament that the people of Israel divided themselves into as many sects as there were cities in the land; each desiring to outdo the others. Thence also arose the Sadducees and ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... malleate, beetle, weld, hammer; belabor, maul, buffet, smite, flagellate, whack, pelt, strike; See whip; overcome, vanquish, surpass, conquer, eclipse, subdue, checkmate, rout, excel, outdo; cheat, swindle, defraud; throb, pulsate; pulverize, comminute, bruise, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... years of the war, while the bulk of the army now was composed of the lowest type of foreigners, who had been tempted to our shores by the large bounties paid by the Union Government. Taking their cue from their native comrades in arms, they now tried to outdo them in vandalizing, having been taught that they were wreaking vengeance upon the aristocracy and ruining the slave-holders of the South. The flower of the South's chivalry had also fallen upon the field and in the trenches, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... as cunning as he is—more so. We must outdo him at his own game. We—I, I should say, for you must go back to England—I am going to disappear and emerge as a simple workman, with German sympathies of course. Then the ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... Their adherence to it corroborates his own. Even therefore when the disseminator of the news, that is, the owner of the newspaper, has no special motive for lying, the message is conveyed in a vitiated and inhuman form. Where he has a motive for lying (as he usually has) his lie can outdo any merely spoken or ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... comes into the gates is startled by the sight of a gaunt black man wrapped in a sheet and wearing coiled around his head enough clothing to make a good wash. But of all the incomprehensible varieties of headwear about the grounds from foreign lands, it remained for our own American Indian to outdo them all. When the great No Neck, of the Sioux nation, walks through the grounds with his war bonnet of eagle feathers trailing on the ground, the East Indians concede their defeat. No Neck's bonnet is worth ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... the living. His reasoning is like this: 'The dead are free from the limitations of our life, therefore they should manifest themselves to us as befits their wider knowledge of the laws of the universe, and especially is it their business to outdo the most skilful conjurer! Hence each man insists on locked slates and sealed letters. These the poor psychics are forced to grant. To be just to them, I must say that I have found most mediums fairly willing to meet any reasonable test; in fact, many of them ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... his shirt and had no other weapon but his sword, had stretched one of them on the ground mortally wounded. While the other two were occupied in raising their companion, he, perceiving himself to be naked and the others armed, bethought him that he could not outdo them except it were by flight, as being the least encumbered with clothes. And so he had escaped, and for this he praised God and those who ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... the Duke's lodge and Gilian's way up Glen Aray lay before him. He was pausing to say good-night, confused, troubled by what he had heard, feeling he must confess his own regard for the girl and not let this comparative stranger so buoyantly outdo him in admiration. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... or of her! I don't blame you. Meehaul—I blame nobody but him for it all. Now a word of advice before you go in; don't let on to Ellen that you know of her meetin' him this night;—an' reason good,—if she thinks you're watchin' her, she'll be on her guard—'ay, an' outdo you in spite of your teeth. She's a woman—she's a woman. Good night, an' mark ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Alaric, nothing less than "le vainqueur des vainqueurs de la terre"; and having conquered all the world is in his turn conquered by Love. To write thus was supposed to be following the noble impulse given by the Renaissance, to be Roman, to outdo Seneca.[321] ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... in the cities, those who followed carried the revolutionary spirit further and further, and determined to outdo the report of all who had preceded them by the ingenuity of their enterprises and the atrocity of their revenges. The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things, but was changed by them as ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... dem days Brer Rabbit en Brer Tarrypin done gone in cohoots fer ter outdo de t'er creeturs. One time Brer Rabbit tuck'n make a call on Brer Tarrypin, but w'en he git ter Brer Tarrypin house, he year talk fum Miss Tarrypin dat her ole man done gone fer ter spen' de day wid Mr. Mud-Turkle, w'ich dey wuz blood kin. Brer Rabbit he put out atter Brer Tarrypin, en w'en ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... circulation; Journalism will descend to mountebanks' tricks worthy of Bobeche; Journalism would serve up its father with the Attic salt of its own wit sooner than fail to interest or amuse the public; Journalism will outdo the actor who put his son's ashes into the urn to draw real tears from his eyes, or the mistress who sacrifices everything to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... carried with him his gun, knapsack, haversack, containing five days' provisions, and forty rounds of cartridges. The men had kept up wonderfully during this trying campaign, but the great march of all, in which this magnificent corps was to outdo all that was ever recorded of wonderful marches, was yet in store ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... wouldn't listen. Maybe he was kinder jealous at seeing old Squire Buck Throckmorton setting hisse'f up as a jedge of human nature that-a-way. Even the greatest of us air but mortal, and I reckon Colonel Bud wouldn't admit that anybody could outdo him reading character offhand, and he taken the floor agin. Replying to his venerable friend and neighbor, he would say that the Squire was talking like a plain derned fool. Continuing he would add that it didn't make no difference if both eyes was riding the bridge of the nose ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... lift again, and down on deck, by the backstay, before half the men had time to get clear of the top. In fact, they often risked their lives in bad weather, when there was no occasion for it, that one might outdo the other. Now, this was all very well, and a good example to the other men: the captain and officers appeared to like these contests for superiority, but it ended in their hating each other, and not being even on speaking ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... had been touched, and for two weeks they had worked like demons to outdo the boss. At night when the amount of work done was calculated, they laughed at Ed. Then they heard that the piece-work plan was to be installed in the factory, and were afraid they would be paid by a scale calculated on the amount of work ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... thou here see'st put, It was for gentle Shakspeare cut, Wherein the graver had a strife With nature to outdo the life. Oh! could he have but drawn his wit As well in brass, as he hath hit ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... England, and sustained serious internal injury, which she neglected to provide against by medical treatment, concealing it even from her husband. Indeed, she sang on the same evening, and her prodigious facility in tours de force was the subject of special comment, for she seemed spurred to outdo herself from consciousness of physical weakness. When she returned to England again in the following September, her failing health was painfully apparent to all. Yet her unconquerable energy struggled against her sufferings, ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... had been too desolate to feel that, but here in Buenos Aires, at the very moment when the great city was waking to the knowledge of her queenship in the southern world—when the commercial hordes of the north were sweeping down in thousands of ships across the equator to outdo each other in her markets, it was an inspiring thing merely to be alive and busy. He was as proud of Stephens and Jarrott's long brick shed, where the sun beat pitilessly on the corrugated iron roof, and the smell of wool nearly sickened him, as if it had been a Rothschild's counting-house. ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... in a place where everybody gets nervous prostration trying to outdo everybody else in originality and extravagance, it wouldn't be like Mrs. Ess Kay ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... devoted, the girl who could not decide between them, she liked both of them so immensely, especially as she herself was the champion basket-ball player among the girls at her seminary. Each of the Twins resolved that he would not only outdo all the rest of the players upon the gymnasium floor, but also his bitter ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... that called for strength, speed and daring was the diversion of the youth of that period, and the pioneers conducted this good-natured but spirited sport strictly on its merits. Each contestant strove his utmost to outdo his opponent. It was hardly to be expected that Alfred would carry off any of the laurels. Used as he had been to comparative idleness he was no match for the hardy lads who had been brought up and trained to a life of action, wherein a ten mile walk behind a plow, or a cord of wood ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... weapon, mighty to avail in all sorts of crises. Hence, we see the treacherous smile of the wily; the patronizing smile of the pompous; the obsequious smile of the flatterer; the cynical smile of the satirist. Very few of these have heard of Delsarte; but they outdo him on his own grounds. Their smile is four-fifths of their social stock in trade. All such smiles are hideous. The gloomiest, blankest look which a human face can wear is welcomer than a trained smile or a smile which, if it is not actually and consciously methodized by its ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Mrs. Wilson learned that in marrying she had found a master. Fortunately she had married for love, and no woman loves a man less for finding him able to control her. In these days Mrs. Wilson amused himself by having a troop of admirers, and perhaps prided herself upon being able to outdo the wiles of the other women of her set in securing and holding her captives; but she discussed them with her husband with the utmost frankness, mocking them to their faces if they made a step across ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... religion. Work how you will, you cannot be perfect, and, if you were, you could only be what God made man before sin came. Each student is trying to beat all the others, and one succeeds. We are not trying to outdo each other; there are no marks in our examination and there is no competition. We are working together to save life in a world where millions die for want of care. To do less than the best we can is failure, for each of us, and the best we can all do together is very little compared with ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... instinct is in fact the cause of a very large amount of the world's intellectual endeavor. The financier does not think merely for money, nor the scientist for truth, nor the theologian to save souls. Their intellectual efforts are aimed in great measure to outdo the other man, to subdue nature, to conquer assent. The maternal instinct in its turn is the chief source of woman's superiorities in the moral life. The virtues in which she excels are not so much due to either any general ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... her letter that "there was never so much pleasure and dressing going on" is corroborated by the statement of an officer writing to General Wayne: "It is all gaiety, and from what I can observe, every lady endeavors to outdo the other in splendor and show.... The manner of entertaining in this place has likewise undergone its change. You cannot conceive anything more elegant than the present taste. You can hardly dine at a table but they present you with three courses, and each of them ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... wholesome and vital law; it is only the direction of it that requires alteration. When the cessation of working for one's livelihood takes place, human energy and love of production will not cease with it, but will persist, and must find their channels. But competition to outdo each in the service of all is free from collisions, and its range is limitless. Not to support life, but to make life more lovely, will be the effort; and not to make it more lovely for one's self, but for one's neighbor. Nor is this all. The love of the neighbor will be a true act of Divine ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... the head of our Battalion. We were great friends with the French-Canadian Battalion, but there was another Battalion in our Brigade with whom we did not pull at all, and there was always a certain amount of jealousy between us, which was a good thing as we were always trying to outdo the other. Their Commanding Officer thought that they were the best battalion that ever left Canada, and Hilliam, the bulldog that he was, would not stand for that; so there was always a certain ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis
... first dreadful and vague, such as its nascent reason allowed it to conceive them. Then the first megalithic blocks were erected; then began that mad heaping up and up, which was to last nearly fifty centuries; and temples were built above temples, palaces over palaces, each generation striving to outdo its predecessor by a ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... on the head. I join the ladies and go with them to the Arcade. It is revoltingly dull to listen to women shopping, haggling and trying to outdo the sharp shopman. I felt ashamed when Sasha, after turning over masses of material and knocking down the prices to a minimum, walked out of the shop without buying anything, or else told the shopman to cut ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... beautiful work only to spoil it, nay he abused them" Mary looked down as she spoke, as if she were repeating something ill to tell, but Selene colored slightly with pleasure, and exclaimed eagerly, as if to outdo ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... delight in the combinations of words. She sought them in the pages of her favorite authors. She made them for herself on scraps of paper, and rolled them on her tongue when there seemed no occasion for such eloquence. She was upheld in these excursions by the certainty that no language could outdo the splendor of her father's memory, and although her efforts did not notably further the end of his biography, she was under the impression of living more in his shade at such times than at others. No one can escape the power of language, let alone those of English birth brought up from childhood, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... village. The aged warrior, whom weakness and decrepitude had compelled to throw down the bow and the spear, and the eagle-eyed boy, who was fast gaining upon the ripened period when he should take them up, did each his part in celebrating the feats which the one had equalled, and the other hoped to outdo. The wife, with a proud mien, came forward to meet the embraces of her renowned husband; the timid maiden, with a downcast eye, to steal a look at her valiant lover. Those who had lost friends came eagerly to enquire their fate, and to know whether they had died like men. The decrepid ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... and gallery, and let us have a play entire from beginning to end; so as it be a German play, no matter what, with a good tricking, shifting afterpiece, and a figure-dance, and a hornpipe, and a song between the acts. If we do not outdo Ecclesford, we ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... of the "inferiority complex" which spurs a man forward to outdo himself. But Babe Durgon and I didn't go into these matters as we trudged along through the dark on our way to do battle "over the line." At the foot of the hill, ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... was a custom much in use among the knights-errant of old to make their squires governors of the islands or kingdoms they conquered, and I am determined that so laudable a custom, shall not be lost through my neglect; on the contrary, I resolve to outdo them in it: for they sometimes, and perhaps most times, waited till their squires were grown old; and when they were worn out in their service, and had endured many bad days and worse nights, they ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... on we found the line in possession, not of the Boers, but of a big drove of horses which seemed bent on proving that they could outdo even the Boers themselves in the rapidity of their retreat before an advancing foe. Mile after mile they galloped, but mile after mile they kept to the track, just in front of our engine, which whistled ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... have afforded more, but because he was all unaccustomed to giving. He had been known to be the unhappy man's friend, and because he headed the list with his fifty pounds it was said that no one liked to outdo that donation. Sir Francis Forcus, in order to avoid hurting those sensitive feelings with which Mr. Boult was accredited, had the happy thought to put his own name down for fifty pounds, and those of his wife and his young brother, each ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... confinement. Being a black Protestant, she wouldn't hear of the child being brought up a Catholic or even baptized in a Catholic Church. The child was now a week old and Rean was fairly distracted, for neither his own mother nor his mother-in-law would give way; each was trying to outdo the other. Mrs. Rean watched Mrs. Egan, and Mrs. Egan watched Mrs. Rean, and the poor mother lay all day with the baby at her breast, listening to the ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... the Roman Catholics, who usually outdo us in their work among the poor, seemed a little behindhand in this special department of settling the Arabs. They have schools largely attended in Tudor Place, Tottenham Court Road, White Lion Street, Seven Dials, &c., but, as far as I could ascertain, nothing local in the shape of a Refuge. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... the "Man Monkey." A little creature, dressed in tinsel, leaped and capered, keeping time to the grinding of an organ. When the spectators were silent, he would glance timidly at his ill-favored keeper, but when they cheered, the poor little figure would strive to outdo itself, in spite of laboring breath and trembling limbs. Then a rope was stretched, and "The Man Monkey," seizing an end, swung himself up, and, amid the acclamations of the admiring mob, began a new act of his performance. ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... guinea—or walk with boots—or cheapen tooth-picks—or lay out a shilling upon a band-box the year round; and for the six months I'm in the country, I'm upon so small a scale, that with all the good temper in the world, I outdo Rousseau, a bar length—for I keep neither man or boy, or horse, or cow, or dog, or cat, or any thing that can eat or drink, except a thin poor piece of a Vestal (to keep my fire in), and who has generally as bad an appetite as myself—but ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... extant in the museums have come from such country seats. There were of course vulgar houses in bad taste, where the owner's notions of magnificence consisted in ostentatious extravagance and a desire to outdo his neighbour. As now, everything depended either on the culture of the man or on the amount of his good sense in leaving such ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... unheard of prodigality, the rarest gems and jewels. It was indeed to be a fitting celebration of the glory of Bel, and the power and magnificence of his earthly representative; heathen opulence, heathen pride and sensuality were to outdo themselves. ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... ironically at Dale's disgusted face, and smiled at the imperfect development of his sense of humour. Indeed, to the young, humour is only a weapon of offence. It takes a philosopher to use it as defensive armour. Dale burned to outdo Mr. Papadopoulos. I, having no such ambition, laid my hand on his arm and went forward to take ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... exactly hit his temper in your declared love of Miss Goodwill. I see, child, you know your man; and never fear but you'll hold him, if you can go on thus to act, and outdo your sex. But I should think you might as well not insist upon having her with you; you'd better see her now and then at the dairy-house, or at school, than have her with you. But this I leave to your ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the dinner a specific antidote for a bruised character, for no sooner had my literary friends eaten it than they were ready to outdo one another in saying good things of me. One cunning fellow told his readers that the election of General Harrison was entirely owing to the wisdom I had distilled into the minds of the people of Cape ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... in his ears, and gave him no rest till he had set about obeying it (v. 5). The motives of the great temple-builders of old, as they themselves expound them in hieroglyphics and cuneiform, were largely ostentation and the wish to outdo predecessors; but Solomon was moved by thankfulness and by obedience to his father's will, and still more, to God's destination of him. If we would look at our positions and blessings as he looked at his in the fair dawning of his reign, we should find abundant indications of God's will regarding ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... examination of small objects would perhaps seem as utilitarian as their fathers' hunting."[13] Certainly the tendency of little children to chase a small object going away from them, and to run from a large object approaching slowly, their tendency to collect and hoard, their tendency to outdo another engaged in any instinctive pursuit, would under primitive conditions have a distinct utilitarian value, and yet all such tendencies are ranked as play when ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... against Aurelius, and lost his life in consequence. Cassius, after he had succeeded in clearing Syria of the invaders, was made by Aurelius a sort of generalissimo; and being thus free to act as he chose, determined to carry the war into the enemy's country, and to try if he could not rival, or outdo, the exploits of Trajan fifty years previously. Though we have no continuous narrative of his expedition, we may trace its course with tolerable accuracy in the various fragmentary writings which bear upon the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... drawn a great number of foreigners from all countries to the court, the French were rather in disgrace; for, instead of any persons of distinction having appeared among the first who came over, they had only seen some insignificant puppies, each striving to outdo the other in folly and extravagance, despising everything which was not like themselves, and thinking they introduced the 'bel air', by treating the English as strangers in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... our girls are going to merit the high praise given us by De Tocqueville, when he placed first among the causes of our prosperity the noble character of American women. Because foolish female persons in New York are striving to outdo the demi-monde of Paris in extravagance, it must not follow that every sensible and patriotic matron, and every nice, modest young girl, must forthwith and without inquiry rush as far after them as they possibly can. Because Mrs. ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to talk with Aunt Judith, and the four playmates ran over to the Grafton's for a game of tennis. And while they were playing, eagerly hoping to win, each trying to outdo the other, little Sprite Seaford sat in the odd little living room of her home, sorting her treasures, and at the same time thinking what a fine time Princess Polly must be having at Aunt Judith's cottage with ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... The busiest part had yet to come and did not occur till the third decade of the nineteenth century. But even from the time of the Battle of Waterloo until, say, about 1825 there were ten years in which the smugglers left no device untried which they could conceive to enable them to outdo the Revenue authorities. And we may now proceed to give actual instances of ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... meekness all adown; Hide, Jonathan, all thy friendly mannere, Penelope, and Marcia Catoun, Make of your wifehood no comparisoun; Hide ye your beauties, Isoude and Helene; My lady comes, that all this may distain.* *outdo, obscure ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... big."—"You must know, friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "that it has been the constant practice of knights-errant in former ages to make their squires governors of the islands or kingdoms they conquered. Now I am not only resolved to keep up that laudable custom, but even to improve it, and outdo my predecessors in generosity; for whereas sometimes, or rather most commonly, other knights delayed rewarding their squires till they were grown old, and worn out with services, bad days, worse nights, and all manner ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... eighty-second degree of boreal latitude, much nearer the Pole than any of his predecessors. Now, this vessel was American, Grinnell was American, and Kane was American. The Englishman's disdain for the Yankee will be easily understood; in the heart of Hatteras it changed to hatred; he was resolved to outdo his audacious competitor ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... frightful determination, Sir Hugh," pleaded Cousin Edward; "take my life in a fair field. I will offer no resistance; but you can hardly expect to outdo my throw, and nothing shall induce me to take advantage of it. Think better of it, Sir Hugh, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... become accustomed to it, it will always long for more, and that stronger. A young man of talent, who would produce an effect and be acknowledged, and who is great enough to go his own way, must accommodate himself to the taste of the day—nay, must seek to outdo his predecessors in the horrible and frightful. But in this chase after outward means of effect, all profound study, and all gradual and thorough development of the talent and the man from within, is entirely neglected. And this is the greatest injury which ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... showers—one from the west and one from the south—approached each other, until at last they met overhead, and then commenced a wild and fierce battle of the elements, the southern storm and the western storm each seemingly trying to outdo the other and come ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... laid in their last sleep. Each tomb was a shelter, a roof, and a tomb, and upon each the builder had lavished his highest skill in ornament. They were all vivid with paint and carving and lattice work. Each builder seemed trying to outdo his neighbor in making a ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... Shatt-el-Arab, if not actually the winner according to statistics, comes out top in popular estimation. Its proximity to the scorching desert, its choking dustiness and its depressing isolation, are characteristics which it shares with countless other places among these mud plains. But it can outdo them all with its bleached and slime-stained ground in which nothing can grow, its roaring furnaces and its ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... thus taught to try and outdo each other, still they were always the best of friends, and there was never any ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... their respective countries, and among strangers. On many occasions I have seen the Britisher and American argue and even quarrel over the merits of their countries but when serious trouble arose, all jealousies would be cast aside, and each one would endeavor to outdo the ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... direction, artistic atmosphere, and technique in order to fill the land with such orchestras as the world has never heard. When our so-called conservatories and music schools, instead of straining every nerve to outdo each other in turning out hosts of bad piano-players, shall address themselves earnestly to the education of performers upon all the orchestral instruments; when our people shall have become aware of the height and glory of the orchestra, as the only ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... the State Government has power to confer titles, the magnates do so. They see that dukes and other peers are created in Europe, and that the partners in the big, wealthy firms over there, are called "merchant princes", and so to outdo them, they arrogate to themselves a still higher title. Hence there are railroad kings, copper kings, tobacco kings, etc. It is, however, manifestly improper and incongruous that the people should possess a higher title than their President, who is the head of the nation. To make it even, ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... final yell that split the ears of the groundlings, the music stopped, and the dancers sank breathless into their seats. The excitement was contagious. One after another got up and danced singly, each attempting to outdo the other. ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... reached, and seeming to say, "I will silence you, anyhow," it made a spiteful dive at its rival, and in hot pursuit the two disappeared in the bushes beneath the tree. Of course I would not say that the birds were consciously striving to outdo each other in song; it was the old feud between males in the love season, not a war of words or of blows, but of song. Had the birds been birds of brilliant plumage, the rivalry would probably have taken the form of strutting and showing off ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... I have endeavoured at something like it in the Beginning of my Epistle. I desire to be inform'd a little as to that Particular. In my next I design to give you some account of excellent Watermen, who are bred to the Law, and far outdo the Land-Students above-mentioned.' ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... used to courts, but his passion for money was growing fast, and he determined fairly to outdo himself in such a golden harvest field. His instrument was "instructed" to a most unusual degree, and at the appointed time was in good working order at the palace of Versailles. Everything proceeded famously until the organist carried on his old trick of "winding ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... speculations of the Vevaisans touching the individuals who had been selected to perform these grave and important characters which, for fidelity of representation, were to outdo that of Silenus himself; but so much care had been taken by the agents of the abbaye to conceal the names of those they had selected, that, until this moment, when disguise was no longer possible, the public was completely in the dark on the interesting point. It was so usual to make ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... voice left, but overflowing with quaint humor, and willingly turning her years and ill looks to the utmost account, with a readiness to be absurd, if the part needed, which even a Lablache could not outdo,—so often as we recollect her Madame Barnek, in 'L'Ambassadrice,' and her La Bocchetta in 'Polichinelle, some of our most comic operatic impressions will be revived. Madame Boulanger was buried in the church of ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... excelling here means greater service to his country. It would be difficult indeed to give the palm to any branch of the service. They have all endured hardship and met wounds and death with equal gallantry, each striving to outdo the other in devotion ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... People live up to every cent of their incomes, and often beyond them. It is no uncommon occurrence for a fine mansion, its furniture, pictures, and even the jewels of its occupants, to be pledged to some usurer for the means with which to carry on this life of luxury. Each person strives to outdo his or her acquaintances. Those who have studied the matter find no slight cause for alarm in the rapid spread of extravagance among all classes of the city people, for the evil is not confined to the wealthy. They might afford it, but people of moderate means, who cannot properly make such ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... fairly familiar to English readers by the first series of Lowell's "Bigelow Papers." This minority corresponded roughly to those who in England were called "Pro-Boers." There was another section which warmly supported the war: it sought to outdo the Democrats in their patriotic enthusiasm, and to reap as much of the electoral harvest of the prevalent Jingoism as might be. Meanwhile, the body of the party took up an intermediate position, criticized the diplomacy of the President, maintained ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... laughter the game began; some other acquaintances came down the bank and joined them, and presently Betty found herself darting over the ice hither and thither, following Peter's purposely erratic course, and pursuing the ball, determined this time to outdo Yorke, who followed her every motion, and whom she again began to tease and laugh at. But to Yorke anything was better than her scorn or displeasure, and when, by a lucky stroke and a quick turn of ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... was decided, 'n' Mrs. Brown's good cookin' heart come out strong 'n' she pledged three pies right then n' there. I put myself down f'r a pan o' biscuit, 'n' Mr. Kimball said he believed 's the Aliens would outdo every one 'n' give a whole cow, without no urgin' neither. Mrs. Allen laughed a little, 'n' then Mrs. Macy come up so out o' breath 't it was all o' five minutes afore she could get out a word. Seemed when she did speak, ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... theaters—gaining doubtful introductions to expensive mistresses. Mere upstarts set the fashion in dress, in extravagance, and all who would be elegant, followed, leading the way to barbaric vices. The old-established inhabitants were many of them weak or silly enough to try to outdo the newcomers, and degraded the quiet dignity of their patriarchal manner of life by speculations on the Stock Exchange. The intelligent middle classes, whose eyes and ears were filled with this bluster of the gold-orgy, found that their former way of living had now grown uncomfortable, their ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Nicolas Irtenieff will have to bewail his misery for the rest of his existence, yet do you take my sister,' and I should lay his hand in Lubotshka's. Then he would say to me, 'No, not for all the world!' and I should reply, 'Prince Nechludoff, it is in vain for you to attempt to outdo me in nobility. Not in the whole world does there exist a more magnanimous being than Nicolas Irtenieff.' Then I should salute him and depart. In tears Dimitri and Lubotshka would pursue me, and entreat me to accept their sacrifice, and I should consent to do so, and, perhaps, be happy ever ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... this kind. A wealth of subtleties and sympathies, gorgeously wrought, full of macabre effects (as many of the poems are) and brilliantly worked out. The things of splendor she has made she will hardly outdo in their kind." — Josephine ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... person present was required to say what reward he would demand of the King if he could change places with the Paladin and do the wonders the Paladin was going to do. The answers were given in fun, and each of us tried to outdo his predecessors in the extravagance of the reward he would claim; but when it came to Joan's turn, and they rallied her out of her dreams and asked her to testify, they had to explain to her what the question was, for her thought had been absent, ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... Together they walked rapidly past the window of a large toy store. Then each would write down the things that he had seen. The boy soon became so expert that one glance at a show window would enable him to write down the names of forty different objects. The boy could easily outdo his father. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... Generosity, Above thy Sex, and much above my Merit, I never can repay: my dear Urania, Thou did'st outdo thy Sex before in Beauty, In all the Charms that make 'em so ador'd: But this last Act, this noble Mark of Love, Begets a reverend Wonder in my Soul, And I behold thee as some sacred thing, That—this way should be worship'd— ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... same service, a service full of constant danger. They were not gathered together by chance, but by their vocation and by selection, and they spoke the same language. For them, friendship easily became rivalry in courage and energy, and a school of mutual esteem, in which each strove to outdo the other. Friendship kept them alert, drove away inertia and weakness, and they became confident and generous, so that each rejoiced in the success of the others. In the mountains, on the sea, in every place where men ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... the ruthless massacre of the Hereros; whose attitude towards ancient but disorganised civilisations has been illustrated by the history of Kiao-chau and by the celebrated allocution of the Kaiser to his soldiers on the eve of the Boxer expedition, when he bade them outdo the ferocity of Attila and his Huns; whose attitude towards kindred civilisations on the same level as their own has been illustrated before the war in the treatment of Danes, Poles, and Alsatians, and during the war in the treatment of Belgium, of the occupied districts ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... the whole of the enemy, to shake their spears as they yelled out the chorus, leaping and stamping with regular movement, till the earth seemed to quiver. The acts of the chief were imitated, every man seeming to strive to outdo his fellows in the contortions of their countenances, the protrusion of their tongues, and the way in which they rolled and displayed ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... when his wife no longer even wished to do so. His fancy cast a poetry about these Venetian friends, whose conversation displayed the occasional sparkle of Ollendorff-English on a dark ground of lagoon-Italian, and whose vivid smiling and gesticulation she wearied herself in hospitable efforts to outdo. To his eyes their historic past clothed them with its interest, and the long patience of their hope and hatred under foreign rule ennobled them, while to hers they were too often only tiresome visitors, ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... purer from closer knowledge of the filthy side of life. Political and social writers, lawyers, and doctors who are initiated into all the mysteries of human sinfulness are not reputed to be immoral; realistic writers are often more moral than archimandrites. And, finally, no literature can outdo real life in its cynicism, a wineglassful won't make a man drunk when he has ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... in importance to the Great Feast to the Dead. It is a celebration on invitation from one tribe to her neighbors when sufficient provisions have been collected. It takes place late in the season, after the other festivals are over. Neighboring tribes act as hosts in rotation, each striving to outdo the other in the quality and quantity of entertainment offered. During this festival the dramatic pantomime dances for which the Alaskan Eskimo are justly famous, are performed by especially trained actors. For ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... "I will outdo Bronck," determined Van Corlaer. "I will have myself skinned at my death and spread out as a rug to your feet. So good a housekeeper as Antonia will beat my pelt full often, and so be ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... exhausted with fatigue, and dissolve in a profusion of sweat. When the men drop their part in this frenzy, the women take it up, acting over again much the same kind of wild scene, except that they rather outdo the men in shrieks and noise. Our cacique, who had been reclaimed from these abominations by the Spaniards, and just knew the exterior form of crossing himself, pretended to be much offended at these profane ceremonies, and that he would ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... deepened. Foster declared that it was so thick during the last half of the contest that he couldn't see the backs. Neil saw the game from the bench, and Paul, once more at left-half, played an excellent game; but, try as he might, could not outdo Gillam. When it was over Neil declared the honors even, but Paul took a less optimistic view ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... up from the reports at last, he said: "Amazing! They've held off the Karna at every point! They've beaten them back! They've managed to cope with and outdo the finest team of ...
— In Case of Fire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... on the general relation in which the two parties stand to each other. If the one side through a general moral superiority can intimidate and outdo the other, then he can make use of the surprise with more success, and even reap good fruit where properly ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... proclamation, he saw that it was another trick to catch him, but he was so daring and so fond of adventure that he could not resist the temptation to outdo the king in cunning once more. He determined actually to put his head in the lion's mouth—in other words, to go boldly to the temple and talk to the princess. He took with him under his cloak the strangest of presents, an arm cut from a dead ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... blows or parry those of the enemy, trying to come up with the Prussian cavalry which fled before us. But this trench warfare, this warfare in which one stays for days and days in the same position, in which ground is gained yard by yard, in which artifice tries to outdo artifice, in which each side clings to the ground it has won, digs into it, buries itself in it, and dies in it sooner than give it up! What warfare for cavalry! We have devoted ourselves to it with all our hearts, and the chiefs who have ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... so often formerly. There have always been ambition, strife, struggle, suffering—why should the historians trouble to tell of them? You yourself, Alban, would be a worker if the opportunity came to you. I have foreseen that from the first moment I met you. If you were interested, you would outdo the Germans and beat them both with your head and your hands. But it will be very difficult to interest you. You would need some great stimulus, and in your case it would be ambition rather ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... was mistaken in expecting kinder treatment of Regan than he had experienced from her sister Goneril. As if willing to outdo her sister in unfilial behavior, she declared that she thought fifty knights too many to wait upon him; that five-and-twenty were enough. Then Lear, nigh heartbroken, turned to Goneril and said that he would go back with her, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... is possible that the language suffers something, at least temporarily—during the life of a couple of generations, let us say—from the loss of elasticity and rebound brought about by such strain. Moreover, exaggeration has always to outdo itself progressively. There should have been a Durdles to tell this Swinburne that the habit of exaggerating, like that ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... stockmen's hut Works with them, toils with them, side by side; As to his past — well, his lips are shut. 'Gentleman once,' say his mates with pride; And the wildest Cornstalk can ne'er outdo In feats of recklessness, ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... expression of agony at finding that his horse was failing, I quickly obtained a place between the two brothers, Taher and Roder Sheriff. There had been a jealousy between the two parties of aggageers, and each was striving to outdo the other; thus Abou Do was driven almost to madness at the superiority of Taher's horse, while the latter, who was the renowned hunter of the tribe, was determined that his sword should be the first to taste blood. I tried to pass the rhinoceros on my left, so as to fire close into ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... that street. It was possible, she thought, that another year it might be wiser not to shut up her palace at all, but so far to overcome her feelings as to exhibit the superb hangings, the banners, the damask, and cloth of gold, used in the mediaeval festivals and processions, and thus outdo the ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... of taste pervaded even the rebellious department of feminine millinery in the city of the Pilgrims,—an idea which we rather think young Boston would laugh down as an exploded superstition, young Boston's leading idea at the present hour being apparently to outdo New York in New York's imitation ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... dish is— A sort of soup or broth, or brew, Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes, That Greenwich never could outdo; Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace: All these you eat at TERRE'S tavern, In that ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... powerful voice stepped forward to the front and proclaimed that if the foolish person at the back of the hall, who appeared to differ from the opinion of the rest of the audience, would come forward upon the platform, he might, if he dared, exhibit his own powers, and see if he could outdo the admirable and wonderful exhibition which they had just had ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... war is going on with maddening haste. Nations are seeking to outdo each other in their colossal preparation for the approaching strife. Armies are no longer mere levies or hired cohorts, every man in the nation capable of bearing arms or in any wise doing military ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... than was necessary (for there were five hundred Seamen, between two and three hundred Blacks, besides as many Pioneers as could be spared out of the Army) much Execution may be expected therefrom: But alas! the Engineers would by no Means outdo themselves; the Battery was constructed in a Wood! and no more Ground was cleared, than a Space necessary for so stupendous a Building (lest the Enemy should see the Army!). For so great Caution was used, ...
— An Account of the expedition to Carthagena, with explanatory notes and observations • Sir Charles Knowles
... thing which was aimed at by the German divines, Arndt, Calixtus, and Spener, when they rose up against the grinding oppression which Lutheran dogmatism had raised on its Symbolical Books,[56] and which had come to outdo the worst extravagances of scholasticism. This seems to have been his object—a fair and legitimate one. But in arguing against investing the Thirty-nine Articles with an authority which did not ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... Barrow, "will disdain to subsist, like a drone, upon others' labours; like a vermin to filch its food out of the public granary; or, like a shark, to prey upon the lesser fry; but it will rather outdo his private obligations to other men's care and toil, by considerable service and beneficence to the public; for there is no calling of any sort, from the sceptre to the spade, the management whereof, with any good success, any credit, any satisfaction, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... elaborate piece of work, being bright blue with little white stars all over it; this she finished nicely, and felt sure no patient old lady could outdo it. Merry decided to send butter, for she had been helping her mother in the dairy that summer, and rather liked the light part of the labor. She knew it would please her very much if she chose that instead of wild flowers, so she practised moulding the yellow pats into ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Manlius was the most distinguished, he who first drove back the Gauls when they made their night attack upon the Capitol, and who for that reason had been named Capitolinus. This man, affecting the first place in the commonwealth, and not able by noble ways to outdo Camillus's reputation, took that ordinary course toward usurpation of absolute power, namely, to gain the multitude, those of them especially that were in debt; defending some by pleading their causes against their creditors, rescuing others by force, and not suffering the law to proceed ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... renewed, doubling in and out, over logs, or through a group of lounging men, scattering them right and left, the yelp of the chasing dog accompanying the blazing meteor as it cut odd figures in the darkness, and the shouting laughter of the men encouraging the dogs to new efforts to outdo each other. The intelligence of the dogs in playing the game with apparent recklessness, yet without ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... ever seen, by the jewels, which will be more dazzling than anything you have ever dreamed of, to say nothing about the gorgeous costumes that will rival anything displayed upon the Field of the Cloth of Gold, outdo the splendours of any court, and put the pageant of the grandest pantomime ever witnessed to shame. Follow me," commanded the Lion, "and you will see what you will see only once in your lives, and it all begins with the ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... covered nearly half a continent; whose orders always spoke with the true bluntness of the soldier; who fought from valley's depths to mountain heights, and marched from inland rivers to the sea. [Applause.] Their rivalry manifested itself only in one respect—the endeavor of each to outdo the other in generosity. With hearts untouched by jealousy, with souls too great for rivalry, each stood ready to abandon the path of ambition when it became so narrow that two could ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... New York tried to outdo Vienna and London in honoring Mark Twain. Every newspaper was filled with the story of his great fight against debt, and his triumph. "He had behaved like Walter Scott," writes Howells, "as millions rejoiced to know who had not ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... this bargain shall be made between you and me, friend and neighbour; we will get a pair of scales, then you Robin Mutton shall be put into one of them, and Tup Robin into the other. Now I will hold you a peck of Busch oysters that in weight, value, and price he shall outdo you, and you shall be found light in the very numerical manner as when you shall ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... an hundred delicious things to please your appetites, & do as many Hocus Pocus tricks more. Now you may outdo Aretin, and all her light Companions, in all their several postures. Now you may rejoice in the sweet remembrance, how sumptuous that you were, in Apparel, meat and drink, and all other ornaments that my Lady Bride, and Madam Spend-all, first invented ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... knew Velasquez could paint, and the artist's handsome face, stalwart frame and fearless riding did the rest. The young King was considered the best horseman in Madrid: Velasquez and Olivarez took pains never to outdo ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... any one did him a kindness or an injury, he showed himself anxious to go beyond him in those respects; and some used to mention a wish of his, that "he desired to live long enough to outdo both those who had done him good, and those who had done him ill, in the requital that he should make." 12. Accordingly to him alone of the men of our days were so great a number of people desirous of committing the disposal of their ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... consequent necessity of publicly reversing his whole well-known intention, is one source of Lear's extreme anger. He loved Cordelia most and knew that she loved him best, and the supreme moment to which he looked forward was that in which she should outdo her sisters in expressions of affection, and should be rewarded by that 'third' of the kingdom which was the most 'opulent.' And then—so it naturally seemed to him—she put ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... Peter Pan, the Hague, (the home-made boat), and the Sprint. Now this would be ahead, and now that, until it seemed that there could be but little difference in the merits of any of the three. Of course most of the sympathy was with the Sprint, because a girl was striving to outdo the boys. At the same time, the Hague, being such an oddity, and the lake folks knowing that this had been built by the boys who were running it, came in for ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... elders went into a neighbouring house, where the luncheon was ready. The conversation during luncheon was constrained and captious. The Doulebovs tried all sorts of pinpricks and coarse insinuations; their companions followed suit. Every one tried to outdo the other in saying ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... I've two brothers and two sons, all young and strong, who believe in the game. We have land without end, thousands of acres; engines to pull stumps, to plough, to plant, to reap. The nigger go hang! A white boy with an engine can outdo a dozen of 'em. Cotton and corn for staple crops; peaches, figs, scuppernongs, vegetables, melons for incidental crops; God's good air in North Carolina; good roads, too—why, man, Moore County has authorized the laying out of a strip ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... mark, by allowing the Germans to work harder and eat less than the English, is threatening to drive the English out of house and home: if the mark goes on falling still further the Germans will thereby outdo us also in music, literature and in religion. What has got to be done, therefore, is to force the Germans to lift the mark up again, and make them pay up ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... enthusiasms, inherited pride of race, and instilled pride in nationality, were covered by worked apron-bibs, and even childish pinafores, is anyone likely to doubt? Schoolgirls can be patriots as well as rebels, and the seminary can vie with the college, or possibly outdo it, occasion given. Ask Juliette Adam whether the bread-and-butter misses of France in the year 1847 did not squabble over the obstinacy of King Louis Philippe and the greed of M. Guizot, the claims of Louis Napoleon and the theories of Louis ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... dialects of the north-country keelman, pilot and tradesman, he had at his command a source of supply unrivalled in vituperative richness, abundance and variety. With these at his tongue's end none could touch, much less outdo him in power and scope of abusive description. He became in consequence of these superior advantages so "insupportably impudent" that the only known cure for his complaint was to follow the prescription of Capt. Atkins of the Panther, ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... but from 'a sense of duty.' Almsgiving and visiting the sick were one of the methods of earning heaven prescribed by her new creed. She was ashamed of her own laziness by the side of Honoria's simple benevolence; and, sad though it may be to have to say it, she longed to outdo her by some signal act of self-sacrifice. She had looked to this nunnery, too, as an escape, once and for all, from her own luxury, just as people who have not strength to be temperate take refuge in teetotalism; and the thought of menial services towards the poor, however distasteful to her, came ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... tried to outdo the other at every point; advertising, number of performers, length of the street parade, menagerie collection and everything which money could buy. They started in to see which could get the largest herd of elephants, each advertising ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... prompted him to indulge somewhat in the language of exaggeration, the testimony of so respectable a witness cannot be rejected as untrue. "We," says he, "proceed so far in the affectation of pomp and state, as to outdo even bad rulers among the pagans; and, like the emperors, surround ourselves with a guard that we may be feared and made difficult of access, particularly to the poor. And in many of our so-called Churches, especially in the large towns, may be found presiding officers of the Church ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... my Soul is so unfurnish'd Of all that Sweetness which allow'd it rest. —'Tis flown, 'tis flown, for ever from my breast, And in its room eternal discords dwell, Such as outdo the black intrigues of Hell— Oh ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... him into his service as porter, and his chief duty was to carry the earl's fish into the castle. But the cook had many porters besides Havelok, and when the cry of 'barmen' was heard they all tried one to outdo the other in obtaining the pot in which lay the hot fish. However, Havelok was taller and stronger than the rest, and generally was able to thrust the others on ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... looking than Lady Betty, if you ask me," exclaimed Bob, but if Kit liked the compliment she didn't show it. Lady Betty was perfect and no one could outdo her ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... run high. Therefore, of course, such feelings could not be submerged on an occasion of this kind. Perhaps the war has intensified them; perhaps they are always there; perhaps this is the chronic atmosphere of Peking, where each power is trying to outdo the other, to overreach the other, in their dealings with China. Anyway, E—— and I were intensely aware of it in this "scrambling together" of all ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... insomuch, that when you think you have attained its utmost depth in the work of some of its great masters, another, or peradventure the same, astonishes you, immediately after, by a plunge so much more vigorous, as to outdo all his former outdoings. So it seems to be with the new school, or, as they may be termed, the wild or lawless poets. After we had been admiring their extravagance for many years, and marvelling at the ease and rapidity with which one exceeded another in the ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... popular writers of the second empire is Ernest Feydeau (1821-1874), a writer of great ability, but morbid and affected in the choice and treatment of his subjects. Of late, many writers of the realist school have striven to outdo their predecessors in carrying out the principles of Balzac; among these are Gaboriau, Cherbulliez, Droz, Belot, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... miles with hideous brownstone residences, and showing little real animation except during the Saturday afternoon parade when the activities of the smart set, male and female, centred chiefly in such exciting diversions as going to Huyler's for soda, taking tea at the Waldorf, and trying to outdo each other in dress and show. New York certainly was a dull place with all its boasted cosmopolitanism. There was no denying that. Destitute of any natural beauty, handicapped by its cramped geographical position ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... arguments justify the slaughter of those belonging to the yellow race by Christians; while in the same way the Japanese scientists and philosophers justify the slaughter of those of the white race. Journalists, without concealing their joy, try to outdo each other, and, not hesitating at any falsehood, however impudent and transparent, prove in all possible ways that the Russians only are right and strong and good in every respect, and that all the Japanese are wrong and ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... jeer and make faces. The Baptist camp make faces back for a full minute there is silence while each camp tries to outdo the other in face making. The Baptist ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... Perceiving that no man did any more oppose my design, I took the pen, and wrote, before I had done, six sorts of hands used among the Arabians, and each specimen containing an extemporary distich or quatram in praise of the sultan. My writings did not only outdo that of the merchants, but I dare say they had not before seen any such fair writing in that country. When I had done, the officers took the roll, and carried it ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... was a freak, mind you, but "for art's sweet sake." Mrs. Gushington-Andrews offered twenty-five hundred dollars for him as a week-end guest, and Mrs. Gaster immediately went her bid a hundred per cent. better. Henriette, in order to outdo every one else, promptly put in a bid of ten thousand dollars for a single evening, and had supposed the bargain closed when along came Mrs. Shadd's cards announcing that she would be pleased to have Mrs. Van Raffles at Onyx House on Friday evening, ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... which he seemed to pass on landing. Freed from the glare of the waterfront of Hamilton and on the road to Fairyland Bay, he seemed to have entered a new world. It was a Paradise of Flowers, even the Golden State could not outdo it. Hedges of scarlet hibiscus flamed ten feet high, clusters of purple bougainvillea poured down from cottage-porches, while oleander in radiant bloom formed a hedge twenty feet high for as much as ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Greeks, who was obliged to receive us whether he liked it or not, it being sufficient that a Turk orders it. But in truth, I believe the old Patriarch was very proud of the honor for no hospitality could outdo his: the fatted calf was killed and we feasted sumptuously. Fingers were now called into requisition as knives and forks are no part of the necessaries of these Oriental nations. Such tearing of fowls and tucking up of sleeves! After dinner the water, and then the Alpha and Omega of ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... water-buffalo,—a fact in natural history, which certainly seems to call for some explanation. The High Gods, they say, when creating all things, made also the cow, the highest of the beasts that perish. This the devil beheld, and, in futile emulation, striving to outdo the work of the High Ones, he imitated their creation, and produced the water-buffalo! Every one who knows this brute, must admit that the Indian theory bears on its face the imprint of truth; for a more detestable ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... girl must have her movies every night, and besides the nine hundred kino shows, a hundred and twenty theatres are needed to satisfy the amusement seeking crowd of New York, in addition to the half dozen which offer art. This mad race to outdo one another and this hunting after pleasures which tickle the senses have benumbed the social mind and have inhibited in it the feeling for deeper values. But if by a magic word extreme equality of material means were created and the mere sensuous enjoyments evenly distributed, in ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... of deeply injuring a friend. If there were two desert-traversers, or more than two, making for the well, friendship would not hold one back, push another forward. Race!—and if the well was but to one, then let fate and Allah approve the swiftest! Under such circumstances would not Alexander outdo him if he might? He was willing to believe so. Glenfernie said himself that the girl did not know if she cared for him. If, then, the well was not for him, anyway?... Where was the wrong? Now Ian believed in his own power and easy might and pleasantness and, on the whole, goodness—believed, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... nearly all the pupils had assembled in the big reception-room, and the hum of voices told that each was doing her best to outdo her neighbor. Near the center of the room a group of girls stood talking. It was evident that the theme of their conversation was not engrossing, for twice their leader, Betty Chase, had replied at random while her eyes roved toward the door, ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... all your own, if I may make so free as to tell you so. Sir Hyacinth O'Brien," said he, "as capital an electioneerer as you are, I'll engage I'll find one that shall outdo you here. Send me and Stafford back again this minute to Rosanna, and we'll bring you the three votes as dead as crows in an hour's time, or my name is not ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... extravagant in his Christmas entertainments. When, in 1201, he kept Christmas at Guildford he taxed his purse and ingenuity in providing all his servitors with costly apparel, and he was greatly annoyed because the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a similar fit of sumptuary extravagance, sought to outdo his sovereign. John, however, cunningly concealed his displeasure at the time, but punished the prelate by a costly celebration of the next Easter festival at Canterbury at the Archbishop's expense. In consequence of ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... forgotten that circumstances have altered considerably since those days when the Irish possessed a regular army led by experienced generals: restore those circumstances, and the Irish of to-day might outdo their ancestors; at all events, there is no reason for supposing that they would be inferior. However, there is such a thing as impossibility, and any attempt of such a nature, with such surroundings, must be deemed by all sensible men ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... barns, mills, haystacks, etc., within a certain area. Merritt was provoked. He pointed to the west and one could have made a chart of Custer's trail by the columns of black smoke which marked it. The general was manifestly fretting lest Custer should appear to outdo him in zeal in obeying orders, and blamed me as his responsible subordinate, for the delay. I told him, with an appearance of humility that I am sure was unfeigned, that those mills would never grind again, after what ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... I was no chicken, I tell you. From that day, Mark Forrester wrote himself down 'man' And well he might, 'squire, and no small one neither. Six feet in stocking-foot, sound in wind and limb—could outrun, outjump, outwrestle, outfight, and outdo anyhow, any lad of my inches in the whole district. There was Tom Foster, that for five long years counted himself cock of the walk, and crowed like a chicken whenever he came out upon the ground. You never saw Tom, I ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... man. In the afternoon Commissioner Pett and I went on board the yacht, which indeed is one of the finest things that ever I saw for neatness and room in so small a vessel. Mr. Pett is to make one to outdo this for the honour of his country, which I fear he will scarce better. From thence with him as far as Ratcliffe, where I left him going by water to London, and I (unwilling to leave the rest of the officers) went back again to Deptford, and being very much troubled ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... out of my hands, he might do as he pleased, he generously yielded it. And indeed he could not have bestowed it more properly; for Tommy had the best ear for music I ever knew; and in less than a twelvemonth could far outdo me, his instructor, in softness and easiness of finger; and was also master of every tune I knew, which were neither inconsiderable in number, nor of the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... a noble dish is— A sort of soup, or broth, or brew, Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes, That Greenwich never could outdo: Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace: All these you eat at Terre's tavern In that one dish ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the very features of a beautiful young woman. To say the least, she has ten thousand eyes in her heart, and were they willing to wager their mouths, why ten men gifted with eloquence couldn't even outdo her! But by and bye, when you've seen her, you'll know all about her! There's only this thing, she can't help being rather too severe in her ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin |
