"Really" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of you to pay me such a compliment!" she laughed as a vivid blush dyed her face. "I really wish Mr. Watson were here to see me too; for he, too, has been ministering to my woman's vanity. He says quite a lot of nice things to ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... discovers glaring instances of forgery in the book of Isaiah and the Psalms of David, which, while they pretend to have been written by Isaiah and David, are really compilations by various writers. Similarly, he finds that the Book of Esther has been pronounced by scholars as a clumsy forgery of the second century, and that the story of the slaying of Goliath by David is not consistent with the unlegendary tradition that the slayer ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... his protest.] Why on earth not? You really mustn't drag your personal feelings and prejudices into important matters like this ... ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... crumpling at the corners. Lewis, who had been Fries's attorney and whose testimony they had chiefly relied upon to prove the judge's unfairness on that occasion, had not only acknowledged that his memory was "not very tenacious" after so great a lapse of time but had further admitted that he had really dropped the case because he thought it "more likely that the President would pardon him [Fries] after having been convicted without having counsel than if he had." Similarly Hay, whose repeated efforts ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... "I really believe I have!" he accepted her somewhat sadly humorous statement; "and that's why I don't believe I'll ever make a mistake. I'd rather never marry than make a mistake. I know I sound priggish; but I've thought a good deal about it: I've had to." He paused for a moment, and then, ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... be really the pretext under which I am restrained from my liberty, nothing but the sedate correctness of my conduct can remove the prejudices which these circumstances may have excited in the minds of all who have approached me during my illness. I have heard—dreadful thought!—of men who, for various ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... and indeed every physical law seems to have its correlate in the moral world. We may make the children see it very clearly through the seven poor, weak little bricks that fell down because they were touched by the first one. They really could not help it; now, how about seven little boys or girls? They can help doing ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... disgusted with his cowardice, gave him a few blows over the back with a rope's end and sent him forward. He was not much hurt, but a good deal frightened, and made up his mind to run away that very night. This was managed better than anything he ever did in his life, and seemed really to show some spirit and forethought. He gave his bedding and mattress to one of the Lagoda's crew, who took it aboard his vessel as something which he had bought, and promised to keep it for him. He then unpacked his chest, putting all his valuable clothes into a large canvas bag, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... doing injustice to your owners, as well as to my own, keeping you here, Captain Daggett," returned Roswell, innocently, for he had not the smallest suspicion of the true motive of all this apparent good-fellowship, "and I really wish you would ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... other self-governing communities. If that fund of goodwill to which I have referred had been lacking, if ever a Conference had been called together when there was an actual anti-colonial party in existence, when there was really a deep hatred in the minds of a large portion of the people of this country against the Colonies and against taxation which was imposed at the request or desire of the Colonies, then I think it is quite possible that a Conference such as this ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... It was really a gay rural sight. The circular target stood, with its bright concentric rings, in conspicuous isolation, about a hundred yards away, against the green slope of the hill. The competitors in their best Sunday suits, some armed with muskets and some ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... should elect a President and both Houses of Congress, the constitutional amendments would be disregarded, the freedmen would be nominally citizens but really slaves; innumerable claims, swollen by perjury, would be saddled upon the treasury, the power of the general government would be crippled, and the honors won by our people in subduing rebellion would be a subject of reproach ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... assist at elections, I would expire myself in the midst of the flames, or, at least, it would be my duty so to do, though I might fail in the courage to perform it. But, why should a city be burnt down, unless protected by soldiers? Why suppose any such case? Really, to hear some men talk now-a-days, one would be almost tempted to think that they look upon soldiers as necessary to our very existence; or, at the least, that they are necessary to keep us in order, and that ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... new friend and looking very eager and anxious. He saw that her heart was set on being "adopted," and, wise man that he was, it occurred to him that it might be well to grant her wish in part, and let her find out by experiment what was really the best and happiest thing. So he did not say "No" decidedly, as he at first meant, but took Johnnie ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... expert with the needle and did some really neat mending, while with the aid of some woollen thread and a mug he darned holes in his socks most artistically. He was the authority on how, when and where to place a patch or on the only method of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... red mists began to clear away. Another change took place in the tortured lieutenant's mind. The blind hot rage faded into more deadly, cold wrath. A plan began to bud into thought. It was a futile plan, really. It could not possibly accomplish anything vital. But it might give him a chance for a little revenge before his life was snuffed out—might give him a chance to strike a blow for the dead Journeyman and the other gallant explorers who ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... of India-rubber. That chance conversation with the agent of the Roxbury Company fixed his destiny. If he were alive to read these lines, he would, however, protest against the use of such a word as chance in this connection. He really appears to have felt himself "called" to study India-rubber. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... PERFECTLY sober, a circumstance that was solely owing to his having had no access to liquor for eight-and-forty hours. With the return of a clear head, came juster notions of the dangers and difficulties in which he had involved the two self-devoted women who had accompanied him so far, and who really seemed ready to follow him in making the circuit ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... porches, and spreading eaves, and contrast them with the ambitious, tall, proportionless, and card-sided things of a modern date, and draw the comparison in true comfort, which the ancient mansion really affords, by the side of the other. Bating its huge chimneys, its wide fire-places, its heavy beams dropping below the ceiling overhead, and the lack of some modern conveniences, which, to be added, would give all that is desired, ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... there were many cases of felo de se, or 'temporary insanity,' and my wife's tea-cup was full of victims; Bacheet, wishing to be attentive, picked out the bodies with his finger and thumb!—'Now, my good fellow, Bacheet,' I exclaimed, 'you really must not put your dirty fingers in the tea: you should take them out with the tea-spoon. Look here,' and I performed the operation, and safely landed several flies that were still kicking. 'But mind, Bacheet,' I continued, 'that you wipe the tea-spoon ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... the prejudices, which really incapacitate them, from forming impartial and true judgments on systems alien to their own habits of thought. And philosophers who may pride themselves on their freedom from prejudice, may yet fail to understand; whole classes of psychological phenomena which are the result of religious ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... occupying the post of chaplain, were without exception faithful and entirely devoted to the duties of their holy calling. I had no intention of traveling as a priest, and when I told the driver as much he would not believe it, but insisted that I was really a priest traveling incognito; therefore, when we stopped at a small wayside tavern, about twelve miles from Cork and two to Fermoy, he privately informed the mistress that I was a priest who did not want the fact to become known. Accordingly the good woman treated me with marked attention during ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Your 8 is just within one point of being 7; your 44 is in substance 11, for 4 times 11 are 44 exactly; and your 26 is nothing more or less than precisely 62 reversed;—what would you ask more?" And by his own mode of reasoning, the poor contadino sees as clearly as possible that he has really won,—only the difficulty is that he cannot touch the prize without correcting the little variations. Ma, pazienza! he came so near this time, that he will be sure to win the next,—and away he goes to hunt out more sympathetic numbers, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... of Ali Tepelini spoken the truth?' said the president. 'Is she, then, the terrible witness to whose charge you dare not plead "Not guilty"? Have you really committed the crimes of which you are accused?' The count looked around him with an expression which might have softened tigers, but which could not disarm his judges. Then he raised his eyes towards the ceiling, but withdrew then, immediately, as if he feared the roof would ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and his radiant wife—and Philip and Howard, smiling Quakers, and Anne and Margaret and Ellen with a trio of husbands, and beyond a laughing jester in cap and bells, whose dark, handsome face was a little too reckless and tired about the eyes, Roger thought, for a really happy ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... popular is the hexagonal or triangular system. More trees can be planted on an acre by this plan than by any other, it being very economical of space. It makes all adjacent trees equally distant from each other and is really a system of equilateral triangles. This plan is better adapted to small areas and especially to irregular ones, and should be employed where land is expensive and culture very intensive. It is more difficult to set an orchard after this ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... so doing. Sometimes, however, this rule could not altogether be conformed to. Cases, in some instances, would appeal so loudly and forcibly to humanity, civilization, and Christianity, that it would really seem as if the very stones would cry out, unless something was done. As an illustration of this point, the story of the young girl, which is now to be related, will afford the most striking proof. At the same time it may be seen how much anxiety, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... done. So easefully had she delivered her whole being up to him that it pleased her to think he was regarding her as his absolute possession, to dispose of as he should choose. It was consoling, under the hovering terror of to-morrow's separation, to feel that he really recognized her now as his wife Tess, and did not cast her off, even if in that recognition he went so far as to arrogate to himself ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... and tiniest box of all contains the germ,"—the elementary principle of life. But this was hardly a legitimate characterization. A nest of boxes presents no idea of "continuous adjustment," nor are the internal relations of one box adjusted to the external relations of another. The definition is really that of a piece of working machinery—any working machinery—and was designed to cover Mr. Spencer's theory of "molecular machinery" ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... and shaking their heads at each other in the most amusing manner, every now and then alternately descending to the nest and scrutinizing every portion of the cavity with their heads on one side as if to make sure that the eggs were really gone." ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... Jock was not so much an out-door boy as he ought to have been, and he preferred walking with his sister, his arm thrust through hers, his head stooping over her. It was perhaps the last opportunity they would have of discussing their family secrets, a matter (they thought) which really concerned nobody else, which no one else would care to be troubled with. Perhaps in Lucy's mind there was a sense of unreality in the whole matter; but Jock was entirely in earnest, and quite convinced that in such an important business he was his sister's natural adviser, and ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... add four times the amount (or multiply by five) to bring the sum from sterling to New England currency, at the rate here assumed; L3. 5s. sterling was really worth only about ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... more than a century (A.D. 1205-1333), governed really in the name of the descendants of Yoritomo, who proved unworthy of their great ancestor "by the so-called 'Regents' of the Hojo family, while their liege lords, the Shoguns, though keeping a nominal court ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... a plan of war against the success of which there was something little short of mathematical demonstration. They refused to take any step which might strike at the heart of affairs. They seemed unwilling to wound the enemy in any vital part. They acted through the whole as if they really wished the conservation of the Jacobin power, as what might be more favorable than the lawful government to the attainment of the petty objects they looked for. They always kept on the circumference; and the wider and remoter ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... confined anchorage we were detained by constant westerly gales for a fortnight, during the whole of which there was only one really clear day, when I got angles to all the distant points from a hill near the south-east extreme of the group, nine hundred and ten feet high and quite precipitous on its seaward face. We named it Lighthouse Hill, its admirably conspicuous situation suggesting the purpose to which it might ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... were received as very witty, and at every opportunity he uttered in that way the first words that entered his head. "It may turn out very well," he thought, "but if not, they'll know how to arrange matters." And really, during the awkward silence that ensued, that insufficiently patriotic person entered whom Anna Pavlovna had been waiting for and wished to convert, and she, smiling and shaking a finger at Hippolyte, invited Prince Vasili ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... spectator. The mass of red hot iron should be concealed from the observer's eye, both for the purpose of rendering the eye fitter for observing the effect, and of removing all doubt that the inscription is really read in the dark, that is, without receiving any light, direct or reflected, from any other body. If, in place of polishing the depressed parts, and roughening its raised parts, we make the raised parts polished, and roughen the depressed parts, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... last, added to the goods already mentioned, make a really heavy deck cargo, and one is naturally anxious concerning it; but everything that can be done by lashing ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... once drove the nations apart seem now to be drawing them together. The discord of disputes seems to be disappearing in the harmony of cooperation. It is no longer possible to determine easily what a nation's interests really are. And it is of the forces that are bringing about this change in the policies of nations, of this new nationalism and its bearing upon the peace movement, ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... Haldane is a brave fellow, and I had no idea that there was so much of him," remarked Mr. Beaumont in his quiet and refined tones. "Really, take it all together, this has been a scene worthy of the brush of ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... asleep again. There wasn't anything else to do. Not really asleep this time, you know; just, just asleep enough to be wide awake to any chance there was ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... something about that the other day—quite in passing—little affair at a Polytechnic. Trying to make it clear the stuff was really highly beneficial. Not in the slightest degree dangerous, in spite of those first little accidents. Which cannot possibly occur again.... You know it would be rather good stuff—But he's ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... marry Roy," she said. "I did want you for a sister. But you are quite right. He would bore you to death. I love him, and he is a dear sweet boy, but really he isn't a bit interesting. He looks as if he ought to ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of Congress and to swear support to the Constitution, and that other respectable citizens are willing to vote for them and send them. To send a parcel of Northern men as Representatives, elected, as would be understood, (and perhaps really so) at the point of the bayonet, would be ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... "Really, when I saw a wharf on what might have been an uninhabited island, I couldn't believe my eyes. I doubted its existence. I thought it was a delusion till the boat actually drove between the piles, as you see her ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... have known. As these pass me I appear to have the power of looking into their hearts, and there I read strange things. Sometimes they are beautiful things and sometimes ugly things. Thus I have learned that those I thought bad were really good in the main, for who can claim to be quite good? And on the other hand that those I believed to be as honest as the ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... You don't know what that means. I go about in the schoolroom, and up and down the streets, and see things—horrible things. The world gets to be one big torture chamber, and then I have to cry out. I come to you to cry out,—because you really care. Now I can go away, and keep silent ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... these words from their governess as she entered, and stared at her—partly perhaps because they were not conscious of having been less troublesome than they usually were, but more because of her last sentence. Did Mademoiselle really say, "We will go out?" She had been their governess for six weeks now, and during all that time had not once been ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... from his stupor the sergeant was still by his side, and, as his eyes grew used to the darkness, he noticed that Whitley was really kneeling rather than sitting, crouched to meet danger, his finger on the trigger of a rifle. Dick's brain cleared and ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... this was not the main thing that kept me from going to the Brazils, but that really I did not know with whom to leave my effects behind me; so I resolved at last to go to England, where, if I arrived, I concluded that I should make some acquaintance, or find some relations, that would be faithful to me; and, ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... That it was "really a heavy shadow cast upon a thin veil of clouds by some unseen object away in the west, which was ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... if you like; it is not conventionally beautiful, but there is something in its quaint old face which pleases me. If it could play the piano, I am sure it would really play." And when she gazed on it, when her eyes followed the gentle tension, the fervent inclination of its stony slopes which drew together as they rose, like hands joined in prayer, she would absorb herself so utterly in the outpouring of the spire that her gaze seemed to leap upwards ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... he had already become the great chief of the South; but this cause of his strength was likewise his weakness, since it was felt that the North was fairly entitled to present the next candidate. The others, who at one time and another had aspirations, like De Witt Clinton and Tompkins, were never really formidable, and may be disregarded as insignificant threads in the complex political snarl which must ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... marking the highest point reached in the attempt to govern Europe by an international committee of the powers. The detailed study of its proceedings is highly instructive in revealing the almost insurmountable obstacles to any really ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... belittle him in the presence of attendants and patients, but I even created such opportunities; so that before long he tried to avoid me whenever possible. But it seldom was possible. One of my chief amusements consisted in what were really one-sided interviews with him. Occasionally he was so unwise as to stand his ground for several minutes, and his arguments on such occasions served only to keep my temper at a vituperative heat. If there were any epithets which I failed to apply to him ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... weakness, but to-day as one looks at the initials scratched by the prisoner on the door of his cell, one's heart expands with pity for the man, and one wonders long and long whether the vessel on which he sailed was really lost, or whether he escaped on it to foreign shores, there to expiate as best he could his sin against himself and ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... found out by a right operation, and then it is so plain we wonder we did not understand it earlier." How hard, how impossible without that Divine grace which makes all such central and revolutionary acts easy and genial to the soul,—how hard it is to cease from our own works, and really become docile and recipient children, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, and trusting in Him, simply ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... "No really, is it as bad as all that? I was thinking that marriage meant just one extra person. It would have been fun having you both here, and this is the only place in Tokyo fit ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... picturing the possibilities of that time, don't, for pity's sake, spoil the picture." Her voice sank almost to a whisper as she added, with an incipient pout upon her full lips, "Let me think at least that if you had really loved me at all seriously, you would have loved me for ever ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... I had not been thinking of that, but in spite of everything it had been revealed to me in my dream. Was it a dream, or was it real? Had my spirit travelled home, the spirit that knows no boundary or limits, had I seen a vision of what really existed? ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... sacred towers, which were really denominated Tauri from the worship of the mystic bull, the same as the Apis, and Mneuis of Egypt. Such was probably the temple of Minotaurus in Crete, where the [236]Deity was represented under an emblematical figure; which consisted of the body of ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... years ago, when it was decently cold, and the climate was fit for gentlefolk; but now, what with the heat, and what with these vulgar-winged things who fly up and down and eat everything, so that gentlepeople's hunting is all spoilt, and one really cannot get one's living, or hardly venture off the rock for fear of being flown against by some creature that would not have dared to come within a mile of one a thousand years ago—what was I saying? Why, we have quite gone ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... reader understands that these woodcuts are merely facsimiles of the sketches I make at the side of my paper to illustrate my meaning as I write—often sadly scrawled if I want to get on to something else. This one is really a little too careless; but it would take more time and trouble to make a proper drawing of so odd a boat than the matter is worth. It will answer the purpose well enough ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... seen—I have seen such a delightful person; he is like everything beautiful—like the smell of sweet flowers, and the view from Ben Lemond;—or no, better than that—he is like what I think of and see when I am very, very happy; and he is really like mamma, too, when she sings; and his forehead is like that distant sea,' she continued, pointing to the blue Mediterranean; 'there seems no end—no end; or like the clusters of stars I like best to look at on a warm fine ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... you are, Mary Louise. But this case is really puzzling, because Chicago is such a big city that criminals may securely hide themselves here for months—even for years—without being discovered. Mrs. Orme was clever enough to leave few traces behind her; as far as clews are concerned she might have evaporated into thin air, taking Alora with ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... only a critical and antiquarian interest: it has no bearing on the interpretation of the parable, and therefore we pass it without further notice. The absolute amount of the debt has no influence on the meaning of the parable; the point which is really important is the proportion between the amount owned by the debtors and the amount exacted by the steward. Olive oil and wheat were two of the staple products of the country, and the obligations in regard to them may have been ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... himself when he attacked Sumner. The Northern radicals were wont to say, "Let the South go," the more profane among them interjecting "to hell!" The Secessionists liked to prod the New Englanders with what the South was going to do when they got to Boston. None of them really meant it—not even Toombs when he talked about calling the muster roll of his slaves beneath Bunker Hill Monument; nor Hammond, the son of a New England schoolmaster, when he spoke of the "mudsills of the North," meaning to illustrate what he was saying by ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... from Venice. This is indubitable, and, lately, an English chemist, Mr. W. Martindale, in a communication to the Chemical Society of London, expressed doubts as to the authenticity of the turpentine used in the treatment of cancer. If turpentine can really somewhat relieve this disease, and if this treatment is generally accepted in Europe, I much fear you will only obtain substitutions of very inferior quality to the turpentine produced in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... naval service. When he was first left with the command, and bills were brought him to sign for money which was owing for goods purchased for the navy, he required the original voucher, that he might examine whether those goods had been really purchased at the market price; but to produce vouchers would not have been convenient, and therefore was not the custom. Upon this Nelson wrote to Sir Charles Middleton, then Comptroller of the Navy, representing ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... there was really anything substantial at the bottom of Wertheimer's wild yarn about the pretentiously named "International Underworld Unlimited"? Was this really a demonstration of purpose to crush ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... respect and fear for them, met the party, and, shielding Cilo with his cavalry cloak,—he was wearing military garb,—cried out: "Insult not my father! Strike not my nurse!" The tribune charged with slaying him and the soldiers in his contingent lost their lives, nominally for making plots but really for not having ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... uneasy on his feet and smothers a yawn. "All very interesting, I'm sure," says he; "but really, you know, Pyramid Gordon's theories ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... the principal badge of their dependency, and it is the sole fruit which has hitherto been gathered from that dependency. Whatever expense Great Britain has hitherto laid out in maintaining this dependency, has really been laid out in order to support this monopoly. The expense of the ordinary peace establishment of the colonies amounted, before the commencement of the present disturbances to the pay of twenty regiments of foot; to the expense of the artillery, stores, and extraordinary ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... exercised by the hypothetical Irish Parliament occupied the Convention and its committees for the greater part of its eight months of existence. In January 1918 Lord Midleton and Mr. Redmond came to an agreement on the subject which proved the undoing of them both, and produced the only really impressive scene ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... girlies—What! your tears Are dropping on the grass, Over my more than "fairy" tale, A tale that "really was!" ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... giving a certain share of their yearly crop and a certain number of beeves, hogs, sheep, etc., to the lord, as rent for the land, much as the free farmers in other countries paid tribute to the robber chieftains. Thus the one class of people who really earned their right to live, by producing wealth, were oppressed and robbed by all the others. Note this point, for there are wrongs existing today that are due to the fact that the feudal system is not wholly stamped out in ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... his silliness since ever the shock of the battle came on him; Stewart was so much of an unscrupulous liar that no word of his could be trusted; and the minister alone could give us any idea of what had been the sentiment in the army when the men of Montrose (who were really the men of Sir Alas-dair, his major-general) came on them. But, for reasons every true Gael need not even have a hint of, we were averse from querying this dour, sour, Lowland cleric on points ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... stubborn, skilled, going on between two spirit princes in the spirit realm. And by Paul's explanation the two are vitally connected. Daniel and his companions are wrestlers too, active participants in that upper-air fight, and really deciding the issue, for they are on the ground being contested. These men are indeed praying with all prayer and supplication at all times, in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication, and at length ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... while doctors slave patiently for a pittance on the unsavoury task of keeping overfed people in health; just as Milton got L5 for "Paradise Lost," while certain modern novelists are rewarded with thousands of pounds for writing romances which would never be printed in a really educated community; so in finance the more questionable—up to a certain point—be the security to be handled, the greater are the profits of the issuing house, the larger the commissions of the underwriters and brokers, and the larger ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... miracles,—of the fallibility of human testimony,—of the proneness of most minds to exaggeration,—and of the critical arguments affecting the genuineness or the date of the narrative itself. But it forgets the divine part, namely, the power and providence of God, that He is really ever present amongst us, and that the spiritual world, which exists invisibly all around us, may conceivably, and by no means impossibly, exist, at some times and to some persons, even visibly. These considerations, which the understanding is ignorant of, would often modify our judgment as to the ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... "Oh, no, really we don't mind it!" declared Alice, impulsively, and again she blushed as the broadside of eyes was trained in ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... suspected our little game; that he knew how anxious you were for his safety, and that he appreciated your interest. "But," says he, "don't you see that if there is danger abroad to-night, it is Masters who runs the risk?" I saw that he was really uneasy, and so when he proposed that we should hasten on to Fifty-seventh Street and go down past Miss Jenrys' once more, I agreed, thinking, I will admit, that it was a ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... greeted his. An eager hunt after smiles and greetings accompanied the hunt for tutti frutti. But the minister confined his attentions to Marianne, chafing under the eagerness of his desires, though bearing them with good grace, as if he were really the ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... rather busy. I have just heard one let off a few hundred rounds, but I don't think one round in a thousand hits a man. There is one busy popping off now. It is funny being a sort of spectator. Things are pretty quiet really at present, as I saw in a captured German letter from a German soldier to his mother. "In the spring the curtain will rise"—I wonder who will pull the string. They are noisy to-night, a lot of waste of ammunition, both rifle and machine guns ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... must have been something more powerful than ordinary conviction that suggested these opinions. Whatever reports might have been circulated by the French ministry, in order to amuse, intimidate, and detach the attention of the English government from America and the Mediterranean, where they really intended to exert themselves, yet, the circumstances of the two nations being considered, one would think there could have been no just grounds to fear an invasion of Great Britain or Ireland, especially when other intelligence seemed to point out much more ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... it shut. They 're early people, I 'm glad to say"; and his eyes seemed to muse over the proper fold for these damp sheep. "Are you Oxford men, by any chance?" he asked, as if that might throw some light upon the matter. "Of Mary's? Really! I'm of Paul's myself. Ladyman—Billington Ladyman; you might remember my youngest brother. I could give you a room here if you could manage without sheets. My housekeeper has two days' holiday; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... seemed to be to the gaping crowd; and all in spite of Brace, whom they had supposed to be the most adroit and skilful man in the world; and who, although he objected, and blustered, and blowed, really appeared to be a man without ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... room about a dozen feet by twenty in size. The bunks were cleaned up, the blankets put out of the way, and the centre of the room given over to a table, small and home-made, but very full of good cheer for that time and place. At the fireplace, McKinney, flushed and red, was broiling some really good loin steaks. McKinney also allowed his imagination to soar to the height of biscuits. Coffee was there assuredly, as one might tell by the welcome odor now ascending. Upon the table there ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... do is to reach him before he gets really started," said Doc Carson, who was ever thoughtful and far-sighted. "When he starts he works fast. I don't think he's really begun yet. He believes in fair play and he wouldn't start before ten o'clock—that's refreshment time, ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... moral force. Almost the only men who showed judgment, decision, and energy were the officers of the Black Sea fleet, which had been less subjected to the prevailing system. As the struggle went on, it became evident how weak the country really was—how deficient in the resources necessary to sustain a prolonged conflict. "Another year of war," writes an eye-witness in 1855, "and the whole of Southern Russia will be ruined." To meet the extraordinary demands on the Treasury, recourse was had to an enormous issue ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... that without extending his faction he could not hope to make head successfully against the Court, he next endeavoured to engage M. de Rohan and the Protestants in his interest, believing the Duke to be much more powerful with the reformed party than he really was; and Rohan so far yielded as to attempt a convocation of the General Assembly in Gascony; but the prudence of Du Plessis-Mornay, who represented to the Huguenots the impolicy of embroiling themselves with the Government in order to gratify the ambition of an individual, decided them to refuse ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... to fall in love, ma'am, as you are doing, as fast as you can, with a person who has no serious intentions, and is going to be married to another woman. For shame, Miss Barton; is this behaving with proper propriety? Besides, I've really great regard for that poor young man that you have been making a fool of; I'm sure he is desperately ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... gold," he continued. "There's nothing to be made in gold just now, especially with fifteen thousand dollars: if we had a million, it might be worth talking of. I really don't just know where to put our little fifteen thousand dollars to make it pull the hardest. Suppose we run down and have a talk with our legal friend, Mr. H——" (the same who had advised us relative to ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... restored his strength, so that he issued from the elaeothesium, that is, the last division of the bath, as if he had risen from the dead, with eyes gleaming from wit and gladness, rejuvenated, filled with life, exquisite, so unapproachable that Otho himself could not compare with him, and was really that which he had ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... diplomats here is intrinsically hostile to the Union. Not one really wishes its disruption. Some brag so, but that is for small effect. All of them are for peace, for statu quo, for the grandeur of the country (as the greatest consumer of European imports); but most of them would wish slavery to be preserved, and for this reason they ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... this denunciation had by no means the desired effect. The vizier, on the contrary, felt deep pity for the wretched Armenians, and indignation against the priest who had betrayed them. He put the accuser into a room which adjoined the court, and sent for the Armenian bishop to ask what confession really was, and what punishment was deserved by a priest who betrayed it, and what was the fate of those whose crimes were made known in this fashion. The bishop replied that the secrets of confession are inviolable, that Christians burn the priest ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... his content, pass out of being, rather himself cease to exist, than that another should. He could do without knowing himself, but he could not know himself and spare one of the brothers or sisters God had given him. The man who really knows God, is, and always will be, content with what God, who is the very self of his self, shall choose for him; he is entirely God's, and not at all his own. His consciousness of himself is the reflex from ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... given an alarm. Like a flash Slone leaped into the saddle. A faint cry, away from the wind, startled Slone. It was like a cry he had heard in dreams. How overstrained his perceptions! He was not really sure of anything, yet on the ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... the meeting of Orestes and Electra, on his return from Phocis. Orestes, mistaking Electra for one of the domestics, and desirous of keeping his arrival a secret till the hour of vengeance should arrive, produces the urn in which his ashes are supposed to rest. Electra, believing him to be really dead, takes the urn and, embracing it, pours forth her grief in language full of tenderness ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events and are glad of any pretext to do it I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... opened my eyes I failed for some time to realize that I was conscious in the true sense of the word, that I was really awake. ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... finest in Pere-Lachaise!" said the little Mme. Sonet. "But you really ought to honor the memory of a friend who ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... was really sorry for her brother, she could hardly help smiling at the idea of fat little Lubin puffing, panting, and blowing, under such a formidable burden. "I fear that you have no time to-day," she replied, ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... bishop means that at all!" said Mrs. Clarke. "But he is perfectly right about a mother knowing what is best for her child. Take Mac, for instance. Nobody has ever understood him, but me. What other people call wilfulness is really sensitiveness. He can't bear to be ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Protestantism, to which I was gradually left, was really a practical principle. It was a strong, though it was only a negative ground, and it still had great hold on me. As a boy of fifteen, I had so fully imbibed it, that I had actually erased in my Gradus ad Parnassum, such titles, under the word "Papa," as "Christi Vicarius," ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... stand in my way—she intends to look for a job, too. Tell me, Michael, do you really believe they will take you back into the Service after your adventure in Upper Burma—and ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... life, his personal courage frequently shown during the War of Independence, nor the fact that, though a soldier on occasion, he probably never had the opportunity to form correct soldierly standards. To the credit account should also be carried the timely and really capable presentation of the conditions of the field of operations already quoted, submitted by him to the Government, which should not have needed such demonstration. The mortification of the country ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... kept up a constant sentry duty, not that they really expected anything to happen, but just because it seemed to be better on the safe side—a case of rather be safe then be sorry. Morning came, and they prepared their breakfast. They did not dare to ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... continually being asked, especially by novitiates in spiritual investigations, How shall we know that the spirits who communicate with us are really the ones whom they purport to be?... In giving the results of our own experience and observation upon this subject, we would premise that spirits unquestionably can, and often do, personate other spirits, and that, too, often with such perfection as, for the time being, to defy every ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... which would appear to show A fancy vest scenario, Is really quite another thing, A flock of pigeons ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... way, come to think of it, is there really any upstate Democrats left? It has never been proved to my satisfaction that there is any. I know that some upstate members of the State committee call themselves Democrats. Besides these, I know at least six more men above the Bronx who ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... embarked about six o'clock in the month of September, and it was not without emotion that he found himself benighted upon the great deep, of which, before the preceding day, he had never enjoyed even the most distant prospect. However, he was not a man to be afraid, where there was really no appearance of danger; and the agreeable presages of future fortune supported his spirits, amidst the disagreeable nausea which commonly attends landsmen at sea, until he was set ashore upon the beach at Deal, which he entered in good health about ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... good of the party, I had better shut the door, and conduct you to the opera, which is really a striking spectacle. However, it being addressed to the sight alone, I was soon tired, and gave myself up to conversation. Bedini, first soprano, put my patience to severe proof, during the few minutes I attended. You never beheld such a porpoise. ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... has survived its own apathy, on the one side, and Roman Catholic inquisition on the other, and appears before the world as what it really is—the only indigenous Christian Church in the peninsula of India. It enjoys the unique distinction of having lived more than a millennium and a half in a heathen land, for a thousand years of which it was entirely surrounded by ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... for the general to speak, but the older man nodded his head for him to go on. "He has just said that fiction is stranger than truth," continued the novelist. "He says that I—that people who write could never interest people who read if they wrote of things as they really are. They select, he says—they take the critical moment in a man's life and the crises, and want others to believe that that is what happens every day. Which it is not, so the general says. He thinks that life is commonplace and uneventful—that is, ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... might have seen had he given himself the trouble; but, wrapped up entirely in his leonine-hunger, the son of Tarascon went straight on, looking to neither right nor left, his eyes steadfastly fixed on the imaginary monsters which never really appeared. ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... asked a few nights later. "Still experimenting with it?" I had really come out to see Hope, of course, but she was still upstairs, ...
— The Infra-Medians • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... She was really very happy and thought a good deal of Rummage Sales. She had the best place in the hall;—a good many people had spoken to her. She had won Tom Walker, body and soul, and she knew that her escorts, Howard and Jack, added eclat to her position. She had scarcely thought of her foot, which at last ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... promised. And really they meant to, but you know how it often is—things happen that ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope
... formation of the bony deposits. The lameness will often yield to the blistering action of cantharides, in the form of ointment or liniment, and to the alterative preparations of iodin or mercury. If the owner of a "spavined" horse really succeeds in removing the lameness, he has accomplished all that he is justified in hoping for; beyond this let him be well persuaded ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... constructed on a similar principle; but they are really very wonderful boats for ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... late, and he whom we were commanded to meet is not here. His Imperial Majesty's name forced us to this house. Now he has not come. Is the thing a trick? Michael Petrovitch Gregoriev, have you been capable of this? Dared you dream that such folly of deceit could really help you?" ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... efforts. Nevertheless, we hope for an interesting competition in the near future. We need original work, however, more than translations. Meanwhile we offer a Prize (the Will o' the Wisp English-Esperanto Dictionary, which really ought to be ready by Christmas) to all friends who can send us the annual subscriptions of ten new subscribers. Of course secretaries and officials of groups are not included ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 2 • Various
... failed, even beauty with money in its hand, Lady Mary hesitated, and then fell back on goodness. But either the goodness was not good enough, or, as Lady Mary feared, it was not sufficiently High Church to be really genuine: even goodness failed. For three years she had strained every nerve, and at the end of them she was no nearer the object in view ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... have been put into better English; it might almost have sounded like poetry had Guy Oscard been possessed of the poetic soul. But this, fortunately, was not his; and all that might have been said was left to the imagination of Meredith. What he really felt was that there need be no rivalry, and that he for one had no thought of such; that in the quest which they were about to undertake there need be no question of first and last; that they ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... pessimism. For, as soon as we inquire into the meaning of this "all," we find that it is only a negation of everything we can know or be. Such a pantheism as this is self-contradictory; for, while seeming to level all things upwards to a manifestation of the divine, it really levels all downwards to the level of mere unqualified being, a stagnant and empty unknowable. It leaves only a choice between akosmism and atheism, and, at the same time, it makes each of the alternatives ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... heart, which I had brought from the West Indies, went like the handle of the chain pumps up and down. "What do you please to want, sir," said she, with a most musically toned voice. I blushed and modestly requested to have a horse as soon as he could be got ready. "I am really sorry, sir," answered she, "that all our horses are post-horses, but" continued she, with the gentlest accent in this world and probably many more, "we will procure you one." "Many thanks," said I; "and will you oblige me by sending up some bread ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... about one hundred and twenty roles, in most of which I have sung many times in Italy. Some I wish might be brought out at the Metropolitan. Verdi's Don Carlos, for instance, has a beautiful baritone part; it is really one of the fine operas, though it might be considered a bit old-fashioned to-day. Still I think it would be a success here. I am preparing several new parts for this season; one of them is the Tschaikowsky work—Eugene Onegin. So you see I am ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... trying to find a way round Africa to India for the sake of the new knowledge itself and for the power which that knowledge would give. As his mind was above all things interested in the scientific question, it was this side which was foremost in his plans. He was really trying to find out the shape of the world, and to make men feel more at home in it, that the dread of the great unknown round the little island of civilised and habitable world might be lightened. He was working in the mist that so long had hung ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... body in acquiescence, while the Signor Gradenigo paced the room, in a manner to show that he really felt concern. ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... declines he so From all his olden prowess? Why, again, Did he give battle at Busaco lately, When Lisbon could be marched on without strain? Why has he dallied by the Tagus bank And shunned the obvious course? I gave him Ney, Soult, and Junot, and eighty thousand men, And he does nothing. Really it might seem As though we meant to let this Wellington ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... years before this shy and taciturn man fully realized what the young chief and the English girl really were to him, for affliction had laid a heavy hand on his heart. First, his gentle and angel-natured wife said her long, last good-night to him. Then an unrelenting scourge of scarlet fever swept three of his children into graves. Then the eldest, just on the ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... through careful nursing, she really regained her consciousness and came up from those unfathomable abysses where she had been wandering, she opened her eyes upon the walls of a little chamber that looked out through an alcove into the living ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... not necessary, as there was no smell perceptible, they were as fresh, so to speak, as if they were still alive. We remarked especially that the body of Brother Jean Marie, (the lay Brother) was supple. I touched it myself, and saw that it was really so, for while I held him his legs swayed as would those ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... existence, which he always could do with extraordinary fluency, he would plunge you into a boiling bath till your imaginary skin turned a deep imaginary scarlet, and then send you home with some microscopic doses of aconite. The best that could be said of him was that he never really harmed anybody, scalded the poor for nothing, and was willing (and even pressing) to turn over serious cases to ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... From time to time it happened that one or another of those who used this language rose to be of the chief magistracy, and so soon as he obtained this advancement, and saw things nearer, became aware whence the disorders I have spoken of really came, the dangers attending them, and the difficulty in dealing with them; and recognizing that they were the growth of the times, and not occasioned by particular men, suddenly altered his views and conduct; a nearer knowledge of facts freeing him from the false impressions he had ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... own, though he flashes about dexterously three or four thousand pounds, part of which sum he has obtained by specious pretences, and part from certain individuals who are his confederates. But in the year forty- nine, he is really in possession of the fortune which he and his agents pretended he was worth ten years before—he is worth a million pounds. By what means has he come by them? By railroad contracts, for which he takes care to be paid in hard cash before he attempts to perform ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... and the eyes and expectations of all were fastened on the oven. At the same time they sang "Lord, have mercy," and prayed for pardon for the grievous sin which they were obliged to commit. "What does it really matter to me?" said the General to himself; "I only wish I had not seen it." He returned to his ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... this had been done General Joubert led General Wood into the open and introduced him to the corps. Sir Evelyn was sceptical for some time, and imagined that General Joubert was joking, but when it was explained to him that the youths really were the much-vaunted Penkop Regiment he advised them to return to ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... who really comprehends the spirit of the great people for whom we are appointed to speak can fail to perceive that their passion is for peace, their genius best displayed in the practice of the arts of peace. Great democracies are not belligerent. They do not seek or desire war. Their thought is of individual ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... much. I forgot your daughter at that time, because I found I loved her less. Through force of circumstances I lived with this other woman very closely for some months. We foresaw no immediate release. I loved her, and she loved me—the only time I knew what love really meant, I admit it. We made this contract of marriage between us. It was never enforced. We never were married, because that contract was never signed by us both. Here ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... a wizard, I really can't say; but concerning Quelch, we shall find him, never fear. When did ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... of the greatest of romancers in a new and not very desirable sense, however excusable he may have been in his party-prejudice. But a romance may be displaced, only to substitute perhaps matters of fact more really touching, by reason of their greater probability. The following is the whole of what modern inquirers have ascertained respecting Paulo and Francesca. Future enlargers on the story may suppress what they please, as Dante did; ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... eyewitnesses did not agree in every particular with the accounts given in the public papers of this masquerade, they might be regarded as the ravings of some diseased brain, and not as the notice of a fact which really occurred. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... before seen one of those whiskered, toad-like natives of the Canadian waters (so common to the Bay of Quinte, where they grow to a great size), that I was really terrified at the sight of the hideous beast, and told Sol to throw it away. In this I was very foolish, for they are esteemed good eating in many parts of Canada; but to me, the sight of the reptile-like thing is enough—it ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... who was married when only five years old. This youthful bridegroom was Richard, the son of Henry II. and Eleanor of Aquitaine; and his bride was a maiden of three, Alice, daughter of Louis VII. of France. The ceremony was a curious one, for of course such babies could not really take the marriage vows. But the parents of the small couple made the required vows in the name of their children, and solemnly promised that the little prince and princess should marry as soon ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... led to perceive that I had been living life with an entirely distorted standard of values; I had been ambitious, covetous, eager for comfort and respect, absorbed in trivial dreams and childish fancies. I saw, in the course of my illness, that what really mattered to the soul was the relation in which it stood to other souls; that affection was the native air of the spirit; and that anything which distracted the heart from the duty of love was a kind of bodily delusion, and simply hindered the ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson |
