"Thing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looks at a watch, he sees a single object. It is something there, a something altogether detached from his consciousness, from the table, from other objects around. It is a brute fact, one single thing, complete in itself. Such is the child's perception. But a man of understanding looks at it differently. Its detached singleness is not to him the most important truth in regard to it. Its meaning must rather be found in the relations in which ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... before. Henry observed things of the kind and Edison noticed some curious phenomena, and said it was not electricity but 'etheric force' that caused these sparks; and the matter was rather pooh-poohed. It was a small part of THIS VERY THING; only the time was not ripe; theoretical knowledge was not ready for it." Again in his "Signalling without Wires," in giving the history of the coherer principle, Lodge remarks: "Sparks identical in all respects with those discovered by Hertz had been seen in recent times both by Edison ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... course, all smiles and good humour, and Gertrude not less so. The day after he heard of the engagement Uncle Bat went to town, and, on his return, he gave Gertrude L100 to buy her wedding-clothes, and half that sum to her mother, in order that the thing might go off, as he expressed himself, 'slip-slap, and no mistake.' To Linda he gave nothing, but promised her that he would not forget her ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... He jumps from one thing to another, finding all the world so interesting and amusing, and most folk so ready to make friends with him, that he always feels sure of landing softly somewhere over ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... could not believe that it was good. "Just a little story," he said to Corydon, when he read it to her, and he was surprised to see how it affected her—how the tears welled into her eyes, and she clung to him sobbing. It meant more to her than any other thing that he had written; it was the very voice of their ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... through tears at her own face in the glass loving it on his behalf. She took her passion with the weight of a thing ordained; she had come upon it where it waited for her, and they had gone on together, carrying the secret. There might be farther to go, but the way could ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... little thing to those who know the truth," the speaker resumed. "To the purblind laws of the West it may seem a great thing. We seek in Rome to do as Rome does. We judge every man as we find him. Therefore, recognizing that your total disappearance ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... oddness came out in this way—although the thing had really a great success, from that day to this he's never painted another life-size picture of a policeman ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... The authentic bust which is preserved of him bears in its harassed expression unmistakable evidence of a mind ill at ease. And those who study his works cannot fail to find many indications of the same thing, though the very energy which results from such unhappiness gives ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... thus: "Though you may think me the captain of this brigantine, young gentleman, I am not really so, but am under orders, and so have only carried out those orders of a superior in all these things that I have done." Having so begun, he went on to say that there was one thing yet remaining for him to do, and that the greatest thing of all. He said that Barnaby and the young lady had not been fetched away from the Belle Helen as they were by any mere chance of accident, but that 'twas all a plan laid by a head wiser than his, and carried out by one whom he must obey ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... know a little of life. And I have learned some things that I fear you have not. Beside, I know now that I do not love you. I have been slow to find the truth, but I have found it. And this is the one thing that matters, that I found it ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... eighth century. Men change subtly as nations succeed to nations, religions to religions, philosophies to philosophies; and it is a property of immortal poetry to shift its appeal. It does not live by continuing to mean the some thing. It grows as we grow. We smile, for instance, when some interlocutor in a dialogue of Plato takes a line from the Iliad and applies it seriously au pied de la lettre. We can hardly conceive what the great line conveyed to him; but it may mean ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... It was difficult to imagine we were midway between the Hun lines and our own. It was practically inconceivable. The shell-fire seemed just as bad as ever behind in the trenches, but here it was simply heavenly. The only thing one had to do was to keep as low as possible and wriggle along. The ground sloped downwards. The end of the sap came in sight. My guide was crouching there, and in front of him, about thirty feet away, running at right angles on both sides, was ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... thing that has happened is that you gave your head a tremendous thwack," said the Baron; "but my object is to invite you on deck to enjoy the beautiful scenery we are passing through, before we put out into the open ocean, when we shall see ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... I didn't like to say no, out of respect to her family. So I wrote home from Gibraltar that I was agreeable, only it must be done by proxy and she mustn't make it no precedent. That must be ten years back; and what with one thing and another I never set eyes 'pon mother or child till yesterday when— having to run down to Dock to order Bill's grave—I thought 'twould be neighbourly to drop 'em a visit. I found the boy growed to be a terrible plain ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... One thing which gave Bonaparte great pleasure when in the country was to see a tall, slender woman, dressed in white, walking beneath an alley of shaded trees. He detested coloured dresses, and especially dark ones. To fat women he had an invincible antipathy, and he could not endure ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... little thing to you, perhaps, but it came like a sudden blow to me. The only light near us was a lantern at the wheel. The creature's face was turned for one brief instant out of the dimness of the stern towards this illumination, and I saw that the ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... of certain elements which are an integral part of our modern literature. This poem, for instance, is, as far as I know, the only love poem before the Conquest which has come down to us. There is no romance either, and there is, we may say, no humour. Life is a very serious thing, so often lying close to the sword-edge; and the duties of life are simple. There is to be a great, very great enlargement of the borders of English literature later on. Prose and poetry are to have new developments. Romances ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... was deeply touched by these attentions, which the Church, as a general thing, grants only to royal personages. The folding doors between the salon and the dining-room were open, and she could see a vista of the ground-floor rooms filled with the village population. Her friends had thought of everything; the salon was occupied exclusively ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... wildest tribes of savages, even in those more degraded communities which wither under the influence of a corrupt half-civilisation, retains a certain authority over the human mind. A pretext was the last thing that Hastings was likely to want. The insurrection at Benares had produced disturbances in Oude. These disturbances it was convenient to impute to the Princesses. Evidence for the imputation there ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... will vary with the nature of the assertion to be refuted; the important thing is to state the assertion so clearly that your critic can judge the relevancy and force of your refutation. (For examples, ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... slopes, in the low places, on the swells and higher hills, the earth sparkled with a strange enamelling. Look where he would outside the walled space, he saw no patch of brown soil, no rock, no green thing; he saw only thousands of eyes in ruddy faces; off a little way in the perspective only ruddy faces without eyes; off a little farther only a broad, broad circle, which the nearer view instructed him was also of faces. And this was the ensemble of three millions of people; under it three ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the full six years' term to begin on the 4th of the following March. A majority of the caucus, however, now completely under the influence of Edwin Croswell and Horatio Seymour, concluded to do one thing at a time, and on the first ballot Dix was nominated for Wright's place, giving him a term of four years. The second ballot named Dickinson for the remaining month of Tallmadge's term. Then came the climax—the motion to adjourn. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and help me to tear this handkerchief into bandages. Now's the time to show off your surgery, my little AEsculapius. By Jupiter, life's a capital thing, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... ingredients thoroughly together, adding the yolk of egg; beat the white to a stiff froth, and stir in last thing. Place in a greased pie-dish, and bake in a moderate oven until set. Allow to cool, then cut into square pieces or stamp out into fancy shapes, and fry until brown. Serve hot ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... Luckily for me I did not love him, and only liked, nor did the title weigh with me. So little, at least, that my disappointment did not affect my spirits more than an hour or two, I believe. I did not cry, I assure you, which I believe you will, as I know you were more set on it than I was. The thing I am most angry at is looking so like a fool, as I shall, for having gone so often for nothing, but I don't much care. If he was to change his mind again (which can't be, tho') and not give me a very good reason for his conduct, I would ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... not make martyrs—if we can avoid it. In killing Satni you would have killed only a man. If what I dream succeed, I shall kill his work. That is a better thing. ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... necessary as a police to keep them in order. When the dance was half over about twenty soldiers came into the gate and produced quite a panic among the squaws and children, who shrieked with terror and rushed toward the larger gate. The braves did not think it the correct thing to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... pretexts enough, you bet. For one thing, we shall signal them to clear out of the way, and when they have their trawl nets down and can't move! That will be lively. There will be a collision ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... "It won't do, Dickie, and you know it as well as I. That's too big a thing to go into for anything but itself. What is it mother used to say? No other Gods before me, ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... my finish in about a minute if he ever got good an' woke up, so I resolved to do somethin' desprit. I jest naturally grabbed onto that foot and twisted it around and stuck it into his mouth myself! Afraid? Ump-um, not me—the only thing I was afraid of was that he'd git my hand and go to suckin' it by mistake. But when I steered his paw around in front of him he jest grabbed onto that big black pad on the bottom of his foot like it was m'lasses candy, and went off to sleep again ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... enough to marry the keeper of the same establishment; for I was only a keeper then, though now I've a dozen other irons in the fire as steward here for my lord, what with the timber sales and the yearly fellings, and the gravel and sand sales and one thing and 'tother. However, d'ye think Fancy picked up her good manners, the smooth turn of her tongue, her musical notes, and her knowledge of books, in ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... in a tone of positive discouragement, "I don't know what I will do if I have to undo another one of Tom Mayberry's prescriptions to-day. But you couldn't expect a man to untangle a children quirk like that; and oil woulder been the thing for the cherry stones in children's stomachs, but not for ones throwed on the back walk. I hope the Squire won't hear about it," ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... in the great International Convention some resolution to the effect that, in whatever condition, whether of Peace or War between the nations, the Telegraph should be deemed a sacred thing, to be by common consent effectually protected both on the land and beneath ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... I'm not. You see, at first it wasn't a tombstone but a marble-top dresser. Ma had always wanted one so badly; for she always thought that housekeeping would be so much easier if she had just one pretty thing to keep house toward. If I had not been so selfish, she could have had the dresser before she died. I had fifteen dollars,—enough to buy it,—but when I came to look in the catalogue to choose one I found that for fifteen dollars more I could ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... arrangement could by possibility have produced so much advantage, or tended so much to fulfill the design in view. Previous to being enlightened by such an enlarged view of the whole facts, it would thus be a rash and unphilosophical thing in the reasoner whose existence we are supposing to pronounce an unfavorable opinion. Still more unwise would it be if numerous other observations had evinced traces of skill and goodness in the fish's structure. The true and the safe ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... One thing, and one alone, could make Charles dangerous—a violent death. His tyranny could not break the high spirit of the English people. His arms could not conquer, his arts could not deceive them; but his humiliation and his ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... pasture; but she turns quiet and shy, cares no longer for rough play or exercise, takes droll little sentimental fancies into her head, and likes best the books which make her cry. Almost all girls have a fit of this kind some time or other in the course of their lives; and it is rather a good thing to have it early, for little folks get over such attacks more easily than big ones. Perhaps we may live to see the day when wise mammas, going through the list of nursery diseases which their children have had, will wind up triumphantly with, "Mumps, measles, chicken-pox,—and ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... to go. It was an aerial burial, in a canoe. The canoe was about 25 feet long. The posts, of old Indian hewed boards, were about a foot wide. Holes were cut in these, in which boards were placed, on which the canoe rested. One thing I noticed while this was done which was new to me, but the significance of which I did not learn. As fast as the holes were cut in the posts green leaves were gathered and placed over the holes until the posts ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... that improper sexual relations with children under fourteen constituted an offence against the law. All that is necessary is that he should possess a sufficient degree of intelligence to understand his culpability, which is quite another thing from his possessing knowledge of his legal liability to punishment. Generally speaking, however, the public prosecutor is disinclined to initiate proceedings in such cases, for the most part because it is held that the necessary understanding of culpability ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... active service, many of whom are nearing mid-life, and have long been married, mother's influence is still a supremely potent thing! ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... Mr. Joel Giles, with whom I had studied. He had been a lecturer at Cambridge, a member of the House and the Senate, and of the Constitutional Convention. He was a bachelor, economical in his expenditures, rigid in his opinions, just in every thing, and a most careful student and conscientious practitioner. He was a patent lawyer, and as lawyer and mechanic he was the superior of any other person that I have known. As an advocate his services were not valuable. He seemed timid, and his style was not adapted to jury ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... The regrettable thing about Gaelic is its hopelessly bewildering spelling. The sounds are pleasing and melodious in a high degree, but they hide themselves behind most peculiar disguisements of print. Most people will admit, I think, that a language which spells Avon, Amhuinn, and Rory, Ruaridh, would ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... circle the needle-point slips out of the paper, it is because the pencil-point is too long; or, what is the same thing, the needle-point does not protrude far enough out from the leg. Or if the instrument requires to be leaned over too much to make the pencil or pen mark, it is because the pen or pencil is not far enough ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... I learn, I am quite persuaded his Ministers have now made up their minds to try the experiment of fighting the question of the Liturgy. It is certainly right that he should know that the thing is not totally to be abandoned if they fail—for this was his impression, I am quite sure, when I last wrote to you. I have no doubt I shall, somehow or other, have the means of letting him know this, and your opinions; ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Mr. Murdoch," replied the Captain "do you think it is a reasonable thing to ask me after the secrets of our army, and I engaged to serve for the whole campaign? If I taught you how to defeat Montrose, what becomes of my pay, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... a few days at home, and entered into the spirit of the thing. When Corny was done, James and I cross-ploughed the land, and got a stump or two, a big log, and some scrub out of the way at the upper end and added nearly an acre, and ploughed that. James was all right at most Bushwork: he'd bullock so long ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... of them, but nobody remembered to have seen any. Children, nevertheless, used to listen, open-mouthed, to stories of the golden apple tree, and resolved to discover it, when they should be big enough. Adventurous young men, who desired to do a braver thing than any of their fellows, set out in quest of this fruit. Many of them returned no more; none of them brought back the apples. No wonder that they found it impossible to gather them! It is said that there was a dragon ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... case with the octagon at Ely, the three spires at Lichfield, the situation and western Galilee of Durham, and the almost perfect unity of design at Salisbury. Sometimes, if not unique, there is no question as to the justice of the claim for superiority; whether it be for a thing of beauty, like the cloisters at Gloucester, or the Norman tower at Norwich, or the east window of Carlisle, or the angel-choir at Lincoln; or for size or extent, when the question narrows itself to a ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... Madame, mercy, don't put any value on a thing that my love finds unworthy of you, and allow... Here's the master ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... One thing, at any rate, I have done, 'that way' or this way! I have made what is vulgarly called a 'piece of work' about little; or seemed to make it. Forgive me. I am shy by nature:—and by position and experience, ... by having ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... ourselves. We arrange to have rifle-grenades fired along three hundred yards of trench except for fifty yards where is our gateway. Here we sneak up and carefully roll hand-grenades into two or three bays. The Germans on either side do not take any notice of these explosions as the same thing is happening all along the line, and the Germans in the bays are not in condition to take much notice either. We may have to administer the "coup-de-grace" ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... Sultana insinuated that the Sultan should appease the rebels by handing over to them the detested Kiaja and any of the other great officers of state whose heads the mob might take a fancy to. And that, of course, was a very different thing. ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... tactical employment of troops must be instinctive. I know that in putting the Science of War into practice it is necessary that its main tenets should form, so to speak, part of one's flesh and blood. In war there is little time to think, and the right thing to do must come like a flash—it must present itself to the mind as perfectly obvious" (Marshal French). The same idea is expressed by the Generalissimo of the largest victorious force that was ever ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... said he, 'the fairy-ring that rendered the possessor invisible, and enabled him to hear every thing that was said, and all that was thought of him, would you throw it away, or put it ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... had gone overland with Mackenzie in 1793? The men fell into one another's arms with gruff, profane embraces. Thompson was haled in to a sumptuous midday dinner of river salmon, duck and partridge, and wines brought round the world. The absence of Mackay was the only thing that took from the pleasure ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... she didn't suspect me of trying to make fun of her? On the other hand, surely she hadn't conspired with Braxton to make a fool of ME? And yet, how could Braxton be here without an invitation, and without her knowledge? My brain whirled. One thing only was clear. I could NOT have mistaken anybody for Braxton. There Braxton had stood—Stephen Braxton, in that old pepper-and-salt suit of his, with his red tie all askew, and without a hat—his hair hanging over his forehead. All this I had seen ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... woman rose and faced me. I saw then that she wore a veil—not a heavy veil, but a fluffy, attractive thing that was yet sufficient to ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... this move would seem to lose time, as it does nothing towards the main object of opening strategy, namely, the development of pieces. But we shall find that it does contribute to that aim, although indirectly. For one thing it could, by a transposition of moves, lead into an opening in which P-QB4 is played in any case; in other openings it is of use, in that it acts from the first against the formation of a strong white centre. Concurrently it prepares the ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... impossible not to recognize the portrait. It is of little consequence whether every trait is an exact copy from his own features, but it is so obvious that many of the lines are direct transcripts from nature that we may believe the same thing of many others. Let us compare his fictitious hero's story with what we have read of his ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... two-story houses of wood and brick, in dull rows, with thresholds but little elevated above the street. Rarely a front yard or blooming garden-plot relieves the dreary monotony. Occasionally there is a three-story house, comfortable, no doubt and sufficiently expensive, about which the one thing remarkable is the total absence of taste in its construction. In this respect Gettysburg is but a fair sample of a large class of American towns, the builders of which seem never once to have been conscious that there exists such a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... much the same thing had happened. Hundreds of thousands of civilians vanished during that seven days of anxious waiting for the hour of deliverance, and in their place sprang up orderly regiments of grey-clad soldiers, who saw the red knot in each other's button-holes, and welcomed each other ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... the continuous-fire stud of this pistol—his third tonight—pressed down. The merrymakers in the courtyard wavered and went down in windrows. Thal opened fire with a stun-pistol. The others bellowed and began to fling bolts at every living thing they saw. ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... I know what that is. It is something that something else revolves around, isn't it? That's the sort of thing the world is supposed to revolve about. I know, for I read it in ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... whatsoever, provided the delinquent had not committed a crime nine times. The sentinel of Rue Richelieu has, therefore, eight citizens more to kill before he can be brought before a court-martial. It is a good thing to be a soldier, but not so good to be a citizen. At the same time, however, this unfortunate army is dishonoured. On the 3rd of December, they decorated the police officers who arrested its representatives and its generals; though it is equally true ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... elected by the flower of a nation, be precipitate? If precipitate, what senate could stay an assembly so chosen? No, no, no! the thing has been tried over and over again; the idea of restraining the powerful by the weak is an absurdity; the question is settled. If we wanted a fresh illustration, we need only look to the present state of our own House of Lords. It originates nothing; it has, in fact, announced ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... he feared they had, forgotten something preparatory to their debate; and that was to lay down what should be all along understood by the word Principle or Element. Carneades thank'd him for his admonition, but told him that they had not been unmindful of so requisite a thing. But that being Gentlemen and very far from the litigious humour of loving to wrangle about words or terms or notions as empty; they had before his coming in, readily agreed promiscuously to use when they pleased, Elements and Principles as terms equivalent: and to understand ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... Historically the book is interesting as one of the predecessors of the modern novel. But we need to keep in mind that it is really a precursor of the novel and not the thing itself. We have no right, therefore, to demand a well-constructed plot or skill in characterization, because these did not appear in English fiction till a much later time. It was two centuries before the novel, in the time of Richardson, came into being; and it ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... some time or other with the beauty of person or thing, and the thought is common; but that the winds of March be taken with the beauty of daffodils, this was a delicate secret which those winds would confide only to one so sympathetic as Shakespeare. This is poetic imagination, the intellect sent on far errands by a sensibility which is at once generous ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... for you, monsieur, and for the young lady too," he said. "I am not married myself—but the loss of wife and mother must be a dreadful thing. Excuse ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... home. There it seems like the very happiness of nature—a pause between the burning passions of meridian day and the dark, sorrowing loneliness of night; but in London on it comes, or rather down it comes, like the mystic medium in a pantomime—it is a thing that you will not gaze on for long; and you rush instinctively from daylight to candle-light. I stopped in front of an old-fashioned public-house, and soon (being a connoisseur in these matters) satisfied myself that if comfort were the desideratum, "The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the young couple out of doors, and had never given them a penny. Great importance was attached to Lambert's safe detention: probably the remaining republicans looked upon him as to be their next Cromwell, if such a thing were to be. There were standing orders to shoot him at once on the first appearance of any enemy before the island. See Notes and Queries, 3d ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... eaten in silence. For one thing the campers were ravenously hungry. In the second place, though each kept as quiet as possible, he was deep in the thrall of the fever to ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... are all the rage these days, so General Products just had to have one. But the blamed thing almost put them out of business. Why? It had no tact. It ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... The second thing that I saw in the Gazette (the first was of course the 'Entremets' column of wit, humour, and parody, very uneven in its excellence) was the death of Simon Fuge. There was nearly a column about it, signed with initials, and the subheading of the article ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... easy thing to tell a daughter, but it must be told. It is thought by some, then, that your father helps to their death a few of those ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... "It's a queer thing altogether—I don't know what makes me think of it," he began, "and I wouldn't have dared tell it when it happened. Now I can tell anything—I suppose—being sixty and an eminent alienist. Lord! Times goes and goes, and just as you get to where ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... von der Lancken the first thing in the morning, and told him the whole story, in order that he might be thinking over what he was going to do about it before the Minister went over to see him at eleven. The Minister said his say in plain ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... little Nina—at that part of himself, at that small and unconscious particle of humanity that seemed to him to contain all his soul. And it was as if he had been bathed in a bright and warm wave of tenderness, in a tenderness greater than the world, more precious than life; the only thing real, living, sweet, tangible, beautiful and safe amongst the elusive, the distorted and menacing shadows of existence. On his face, lit up indistinctly by the short yellow flame of the lamp, came a look of rapt attention while he looked into her future. ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... in life is to find your proper mate. Generations of conventional treatment will try to prevent you from doing so, by pretending it is impossible. But down in your hearts, in their depths where truth is not perverted by the veneer of convention, I know and you know that it is the simplest thing on earth. Here you are full of talent and longing; here is a woman, ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... Maury's voice dropped down to them as from a great height. "What a feeble thing intelligence is, with its short steps, its waverings, its pacings back and forth, its disastrous retreats! Intelligence is a mere instrument of circumstances. There are people who say that intelligence must have built the universe—why, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... we are offending the Southerners in three ways: Todd's revived Blair Bill is too good a thing for niggers; the South is clamoring for a first classy embassy appointment; and the President's nomination of Alwyn as Treasurer will raise a howl from Virginia ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... eternity of the world, really intends to teach it. So that, however clear the meaning of Scripture may be, he would not feel certain of having grasped it, so long as he remained doubtful of the truth of what was written. For we are in doubt whether a thing is in conformity with reason, or contrary thereto, so long as we are uncertain of its truth, and, consequently, we cannot be sure whether the literal meaning of a passage be ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... and that the admission of anything so near doubleness would act as a spiritual blight. Yet the music would swell out again, like chimes borne onward by a recurrent breeze, persuading her that the wrong lay all in the faults and weaknesses of others, and that there was such a thing as futile sacrifice for one to the injury of another. It was very cruel for Philip that he should be shrunk from, because of an unjustifiable vindictiveness toward his father,—poor Philip, whom some ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... very core, would yield nothing. The more senseless and abominable any of its corruptions were, the more tenaciously did pope and cardinals cling to them. At last the emperor, in despair of seeing any thing accomplished, requested that the assembly might be dissolved, saying, "Nothing good can be expected, even if it continue its sittings ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... place, and at this moment, that a strange thing happened to my fancy. I thought it a strange thing then, and I thought it a stranger thing long afterwards. I turned my eyes—a little dimmed by looking up at the frosty light—towards a great wooden beam ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... character, had so toughened his natural strength as to put him almost beyond the reach of mortal ills; otherwise he must have broken down under the mental strain thus forced upon him. It is no light thing to do faithfully the utmost to save a man one has good reason to hate, and whose death would be an undoubted blessing to every one who has anything to do with him. Walter Goddard was to Charles Juxon at once an enemy, an obstacle and a ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... know, shine infinitely larger and closer and brighter than in most other places—the darkness below is lifted somewhat by reason of the majestic width and height of the glittering dome above. But when moon and stars alike are wanting, then the darkness of a Sark lane is a thing to be felt, and—if you should happen to be a little girl of eight, with a large imagination and sharp ears that have picked up fearsome stories of witches and ghosts and evil spirits—to be ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... the world; I have always taught in the synagogue, and in the Temple, whither all the Jews resort; and in secret I have spoken nothing. Why askest thou me? Ask them who have heard what I have spoken unto them; behold, they know what thing I have said.' ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... The heart is a noble organ—bears a great deal—but still its endurance has limits. Heart-complaints are more common than they were;—over-education and over-civilisation, I suspect. Very young people are not so subject to them; they have flurry, not worry—a very different thing. A good chronic silent grief of some years standing, that gets worried into acute inflammation at the age when feeling is no longer fancy, throws out a heart-disease which sometimes kills without warning, or sometimes, if the grief be removed, will rather prolong than shorten life, by inducing ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "One thing only," wrote Messer Galeazzo, "was wanting to our pleasure, and that was the sweet company of yourself, fair Madonna Marchesana." And with a sigh he tells her how much she is missed in the Castello of Milan, and how often he wishes he could find her in Madonna the Duchess of Ferrara's rooms, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... 'It's a dreadful thing to have a father you don't respect,' said Sarah Clay, as she walked into the gilded and beautifully painted drawing-room of the ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... well. I will try to tell you the facts; but I warn you, you'll think me mad. It's a fact, though, that since I first saw you four or five months ago I have made you, in an utterly absurd way, I expect, my ideal. I'm almost ashamed to tell you what lengths I've gone to. It's become the thing that matters most in my life." He checked himself. "Without knowing you, except that you're beautiful, and all that, I've come to believe that we're in some sort of agreement; that we're after something together; that we see something.... I've got into the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... thing to get rid of this coat. On the table are twenty guineas, take them, and just so soon as Barrymaine is fit to travel, get him away, but ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... answer, "I'm all right. I haven't anything to hurt. My wounded members are gone—just plain gone. But that chap has got something—he got the real thing!" ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... She was a thing to dream of, not describe; to dream of in some faint and breathless eve of early summer, beside the margin of some haunted streamlet, beneath the shade of twilight boughs in which the fitful breeze awakes that whispering melody, believed by the poetic ancients to be ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... level. "If the poor dear Princess wants to dine at the Nouveau Luxe why shouldn't we give her that pleasure?" Mrs. Hicks smilingly enquired; "and as for enjoying her buttered scones like a baby, as she says, I think it's the sweetest thing about her." ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... elements of the mind, and have been attacked as denying the existence of the sentiment. Hobbes, in particular, has been subjected to this treatment. Because he held pity to be a form of self-love, his opponents charged him with declaring that there is no such thing as pity or sympathy ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... name of a republic: he had therefore no comparison between monarchies and republics to make. That what was done in France was a wild attempt to methodize anarchy; to perpetuate and fix disorder. That it was a foul, impious, monstrous thing, wholly out of the course of moral nature. He undertook to prove that it was generated in treachery, fraud, falsehood, hypocrisy, and unprovoked murder. He offered to make out that those who had led in that business had conducted themselves with ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... she seized it, and, dancing a jig, Exclaim'd, "With this money I'll purchase a pig." So saying, away to the market she went, And the fruits of her fortunate sweeping she spent On a smooth-coated, black-spotted, curly-tailed thing, Which she led off in triumph, by ...
— The Remarkable Adventures of an Old Woman and Her Pig - An Ancient Tale in a Modern Dress • Anonymous
... same at other towns and villages along the Creek. Churches or schools were going up and congregations being formed. The notable thing was that women were taking a prominent part in the meetings; this, no doubt, was due to the fact that the pioneer missionary was a woman. And the cry from all the districts was for women and not men—"A White Ma to teach our women book and ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... finding it no longer possible to conceal his personal presence, disposed of every thing so as to be ready at a minute's notice. Half his soldiers he caused to dismount, and had the horses put into quarters; the other half were directed to keep their horses saddled, and themselves ready to mount at a moment's notice. The men were brought into the house by turns, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... black, but he said nothing. Luncheon was promptly served, and done justice to in spite of much preoccupation; for if there is one thing that gives a better appetite than another, it is a Sunday morning's service with a charity sermon to follow. As the guests might not talk on the subject they wanted to talk about, and were in no humour to speak of anything else, they ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... be, or heareth from me. 7 And by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted overmuch. 8 Concerning this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 9 And he hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... unworthy, Nisus, to be join'd? Thinkist thou I can my share of glory yield, Or send thee unassisted to the field? Not so my father taught my childhood arms; Born in a siege, and bred among alarms! Nor is my youth unworthy of my friend, Nor of the heav'n-born hero I attend. The thing call'd life, with ease I can disclaim, And think it over-sold ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... Passage Point. The 7th, on Cone Point, where the number of seals exceeded every thing we had, any of us, before witnessed; and they were smaller, and of a different species from those which frequented Armstrong's Channel. Instead of the bull-dog nose, and thinly-set, sandy hair, these had sharp-pointed noses, and the general colour of the hair approached to a black; but the tips were ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... stand here till you'd be bringin' me my orders, I'll have the whole kit av thim buzzin' round to know fwhat's the matther," said Callahan; but there was no other thing to do, and Durgan hurried back to the telegraph office to ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... here, sir, especially in that gross literal way! The new lights here have taught us that Scripture's saying one thing, is a certain proof that it means another. Except, by the ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... Feats rehearse, Had with an equal all-applauding Verse, Great Davids Scepter, and Sauls Javelin prais'd: A Pyramide to his Saint, Interest, rais'd. For which Religiously no Change he mist, } From Common-wealths-man up to Royalist: } Nay, would have been his own loath'd thing call'd Priest. } Priest, whom with so much Gall he does describe, 'Cause once unworthy thought of Levies Tribe. Near those bright Tow'rs where Art has Wonders done, } Where Davids sight glads the blest Summers Sun; } And at his feet proud Jordans Waters run; } A Cell there stands ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... system from consideration in studying the chronology of the codices, although there are a number of the numerical series of the Dresden manuscript which cannot be made to fit into it on any hypothesis so far suggested. The same thing is also found to be true in regard to some, in fact most, of the series found in the Mexican manuscripts. This confusion probably arises in part from the apparently well established fact that two methods of counting time prevailed among both Mexicans and Mayas: one, the solar year in ordinary ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... whispered, "how wondrous a thing is this our love, so great and fierce it frighteth me—see how I tremble!" and she held out ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... Government. Public opinion at home, strongly supported by that of the colonies, and especially of the army, felt that the extreme step had been taken in the direction of conciliation, and that to do more would seem not to offer peace, but to implore it. Unfortunately, however, the one thing which the British could not offer was the one thing which the Boers would insist upon having, and the leniency of the proposals in all other directions may have suggested weakness to their minds. On March 15th an answer was returned by General Botha to the effect that ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... under a King, a dangerous citizen of a Commonwealth, ridiculing both the friend of equality and the defender of prerogatives; no exact definition can be given, from his past conduct and avowed professions, of his real moral and political character. One thing only is certain;—he was an ungrateful traitor to Louis XVI., and is a submissive slave ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre |
