"Undertake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to understand," he said, "that if I take up this work it will be very largely for a personal reason. I daresay I shall, as you say, 'take fire' when I know more about it; but at present I am not so moved. Commissions do not attract me; and what I undertake I shall do solely on faith—faith in you. Are you content ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... Hesperia, the Roman name would have been familiar to the Greeks before the reign of Alexander; [18] and the faintest evidence would have been explored and celebrated by the curiosity of succeeding times. But the Athenian monuments are silent; nor will it seem credible that the patricians should undertake a long and perilous navigation to copy the purest model of democracy. In the comparison of the tables of Solon with those of the Decemvirs, some casual resemblance may be found; some rules which nature and reason have revealed to every society; some proofs ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... its prosperity for a century to come. You have been spared from that chastisement. You have escaped also from the imminent danger of peace with a military tyrant, which would inevitably have led to invasion, when he should have been ready to undertake and accomplish that great object of his ambition, and you must have been least prepared and least able to resist him. But if the seeds of civil war should at this time be quickening among you—if your soil is everywhere sown with the dragon's teeth, and the fatal crop be ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... there is not business enough to induce private parties to take up the enterprise. But as we suppose that there was not business enough in the first place to support one steamer line unaided, it is certain that none will undertake to establish a rival line to compete with that already sure of profits by reason of the government aid. Hence this line will have a monopoly of the trade; and unless some proper restrictions as to rates accompany the subsidy, the monopoly may lay an extortionate tax on the ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... mighty warrior, Jarasandha, possessing the strength of ten thousand elephants. Related to Vasudeva and having the sons of king Drupada as their brothers-in-law, who that is subject to decrepitude and death would undertake to cope with them in battle? O bull of the Bharata race, let there be peace between thee and Pandavas! Follow thou my counsels and ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... left them and finding no one to take his place, the bush-raiders having grown bolder in their depredations, in their despair, the managers were offering double their previous pay for a man who would dare to undertake the work of getting a train through from St. Resa ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... deliverance was to be expected, being the safe arrival of the cutter, the choice of an officer to conduct her was next considered. Lieutenant Fowler proposed, and it seemed to be the general wish, that I should undertake the execution of the task; and being satisfied that the preservation of order on the bank, and the saving of the stores would be left in good hands, the hope of being instrumental to the general ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... sv. I, interrupt, intermingle. {underst[a]n}, sv. VI, step in between, hinder. {undert[ae]nic}, aj. humble, subject, submissive. {undert[a]n}, part. aj. humble, submissive. {underwinden}, sv. III, refl. undertake. {unfuoge} (also used as a proper noun), sf. unseemliness, indecorum, misconduct; coarseness. {unfuore}, wf. badness, roughness; wicked mode of life. {ungeb[ae]re}, sf. despairing lamentation. {ungebant}, aj. unbeaten, untrodden. {ungebatten}, aj. useless, worthless. ...
— A Middle High German Primer - Third Edition • Joseph Wright
... able to mannage an iron worke and soe turned good honest tobaccoe mongers." The results of their fishing "in the North Colony," for which they had special "lycence," are less clear. The plantation did have its own shipping. Again, this time early in 1622, they were called on to undertake the education and rearing of some 30 of the "infidelles ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch
... else she sometimes thought that this course would be the most terrible, the most efficient warning. She must speak; to that she was soul-compelled; but to whom? She dreaded addressing any of her former female acquaintance, even supposing they had sense, or spirit, or interest enough to undertake ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... an opportunity of explaining my position, sir," said Paul, "I would undertake to clear your mind directly of such a monstrous idea. I am trying to assert my rights, Dr. Grimstone—my rights as a citizen, as a householder! This is no place for me, and I appeal to you to set me free. If you only knew ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... "that for such a sum as that I can undertake that you shall have a home which will satisfy you." And he proceeded to put the usual questions as to site, soil, available building materials, the accommodation that would be required, ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... says (Coel. Hier. viii) that the "name 'virtues' signifies a certain virile and immovable strength"; first, in regard of those Divine operations which befit them; secondly, in regard to receiving Divine gifts. Thus it signifies that they undertake fearlessly the Divine behests appointed to them; and this seems to imply ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... up our first correspondence, and he will see I reserved explicitly, as was my habit, the right to republish as I choose. Had the same arrangement with Henley, Magazine of Art, and with Tulloch, Fraser's.—For any necessary note or preface, it would be a real service if you would undertake the duty yourself. I should love a preface by you, as short or as long as you choose, three sentences, thirty pages, the thing I should like is your name. And the excuse of my great distance seems sufficient. I shall return ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Rome (you tell me) to obtain the post of Governor of Cnossus. You are not content to stay at home with the honours you had before; you want something on a larger scale, and more conspicuous. But when did you ever undertake a voyage for the purpose of reviewing your own principles and getting rid of any of them that proved unsound? Whom did you ever visit for that object? What time did you ever set yourself for that? What age? Run over the times of your life—by ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... only because of the deliberate pledge I gave in p. 51.—Never again, I undertake to say, will the "Scholion of Eusebius" which has cost my friend at Moscow, his Archimandrites, and me, so much trouble, be introduced into any discussion of the genuineness of the last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark. As the oversight of one (C. F. Matthaei) who was singularly ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... tried you, and make good bread, and you are naturally neat and dainty, which goes for much. Take my cookbook home, and study up a few simple, nice recipes this winter, so's to be ready. Don't try for too much, but do excellently well all you undertake; and try it. You know I'll help you all I can; I ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... no selfish absorption in her own family affairs, no neglect of essential duty. The Prince of Wales and "the Princess" relieve the Queen of many irksome social functions; but she does not shun these when it is clear to her that her people wish her to undertake them. Witness her willingness to take part in the Jubilee Thanksgiving services and pageant, despite the ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... Dosson as well, so that Francie was not guilty of any particular irreverence in regarding her sister rather than her father as the controller of her fate. A fate was rather an unwieldy and terrible treasure, which it relieved her that some kind person should undertake to administer. Delia had somehow got hold of hers first—before even her father, and ever so much before Mr. Flack; and it lay with Delia to make any change. She couldn't have accepted any gentleman as a party to an engagement—which was somehow as ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... Elizabeth, her captor. Anthony Babington, in his boyhood a ward of Shrewsbury, resident in the household at Sheffield castle, and thus subjected to the charm before which so many victims had already fallen, was now induced to undertake the deliverance of the Queen of Scots by the murder of the Queen of England. It is maintained by those admirers of Mary who assume her to have been an almost absolute imbecile, gifted with the power ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... rebellious, and be unable to give the required service; but the disease is incurable, and my art is not omnipotent. I do not see the justice of disinheriting one who, when he cannot do a thing, refuses to undertake it. ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... from you at Doncaster, I imagined, long before this, to have met with some oddities worth acquainting you with. It is grown a fashion of late to write lives; I have now, and for a long time have had, leisure enough to undertake mine, but want materials for the latter part of it; for my existence now cannot properly be called living, but what the painters term still life; having ever since February 13, been confined in this town-goal for ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... laid on me, of introducing, among the elements of education appointed in this great University, one not only new, but such as to involve in its possible results some modification of the rest, is, as you well feel, so grave, that no man could undertake it without laying himself open to the imputation of a kind of insolence; and no man could undertake it rightly, without being in danger of having his hands shortened by dread of his ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... leave from the navy, Radisson met one of his old cronies of Quebec—Aubert de la Chesnaye, a fur trader. 'He proposed to me,' Radisson says, 'to undertake to establish the beaver trade in the great Bay where I had been some years before on account of the English.' It may be supposed that naval discipline ill-suited these wild wood-wanderers, and after this it is not surprising that we find Radisson ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... possessing a given quantity of cash, and every year wantonly burning the half of its produce; I will undertake to prove by the protective theory that this nation will not be the less rich in consequence of such a procedure. For, the result of the conflagration must be, that everything would double in price. An inventory ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... again; Sapt was ready with the means, and would hear nothing of the difficulty and risk in finding a hand to perform the necessary ceremony. If we quailed in our courage: we had but to look at the alternative, and find recompense the perils of what we meant to undertake by a consideration the desperate risk involved in abandoning it. Persuaded the substitution of Rudolf for the king was the only thing would serve our turn, we asked no longer whether it possible, but sought only the means to make ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... to the highest success to undertake anything merely because it is profitable. If the vocation does not supply a human want, if it is not healthful, if it is degrading, if it is narrowing, ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... off how scared Pete is for his kid and thinks here's a chance to make some big money. He looks at the little patient and says yes, he can cure him, sure; but it'll be a hard job and he can't undertake it unless Pete comes through with forty dollars and his span of mules. But Pete ain't got forty dollars or forty cents, and the Kulanche doctor has got to the mules already, having a lien on 'em ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... I saw the interior of her room as plainly as though looking through the door—saw her assume the garb of a Sister—saw her try on that horrible face-mask before a mirror, and realized that the clever actress, Pauline Potter, was about to again undertake some quixotic crusade in the furtherance ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... of him. Tell him to come to this office with you. If he don't come he will be arrested, and I will have no mercy upon him. If you undertake to play me false, the same fate ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... he said. "Now, I rather like the way you talked to me, and, if it wouldn't be disloyalty to the Colonel, I should be pleased if you would undertake to put me in due possession ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... two alternatives," he said. "The first is that I should arrest you and hand you over to the police. The second is that you should undertake most solemnly to marry me, in which case I will take ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... approaching time to tap the maples again; but owing to the disaster which had befallen our effort to make maple syrup for profit the previous spring, neither Addison nor myself felt much inclination to undertake it. The matter was talked over at the breakfast table one morning and noting our lukewarmness on the subject, the old Squire remarked that as the sugar lot had been tapped steadily every spring for twenty years or more, it would be quite as well ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... prevail among the Portuguese of whom two hundred soon died, and many more were incapacitated from service, he began to fall off from the completion of the agreement, and as the prince of Melinda durst not undertake to defend the place without a considerable force of Portuguese, Nuno destroyed the city by fire and returned to Melinda, carrying with him those he had formerly left sick at Zanzibar. Leaving Melinda, he left 80 of his men there sick, to be carried to India on their recovery by Tristan Homem: who ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... so the story runs, determined one day to undertake some great and stupendous work, for the like of which he is famous throughout the world. In this devil we can still discern the Scandinavian "giant" legend, which in later Christian times became "devil" legends. The work had to be great, puzzling, and amazing to all beholders, for as the ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... referring to the writings of others, they see how little probability there is in the reasons that are adduced in explanation of the same questions by principles different from mine. And that they may the more easily undertake this, I might have said that those imbued with my doctrines have much less difficulty in comprehending the writings of others, and estimating their true value, than those who have not been so imbued; and this is precisely the opposite of what ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... the Englishman. "I am convinced that such a thing is impossible. Only madmen would undertake to accomplish such a horrible thing. True, we have enemies who employ submarines in this war, but they do not dare to use them in attacking battleships. Nor would plotters without the backing of a government dare ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... feel themselves justified in assisting a man who they considered was setting out with an intention of committing suicide. I was not, however, blind as to the difficulties of the journey which I was determined to undertake; on the contrary, and I hope my readers will believe me to be sincere, I thought they would be many and great—greater indeed than they eventually proved to be; but, during my recent excursions through the Squatting districts, I had ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... to anything else," Terence said, "though, of course, I am ready to undertake any other duty that you might intrust ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... a cowardly attachment to life. The disorder from which I am suffering, and which will soon carry me off, is an aneurism of the heart; violent emotions are interdicted to me. If I were myself to undertake the grand operation whose process I have traced in a memorandum annexed to this instrument, I would, without any doubt, succumb before finishing it; my death would be an untoward accident which might trouble my assistants and cause your ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... tail of the problem, Buck finally gave it up for the time being. He put back the fence with care and then headed straight for the ranch. There was no time left for the desired inspection of the north pasture. To undertake it now would mean a much longer delay than he could plausibly explain, and he was particularly anxious to avoid the need of any explanation which might arouse suspicion that the criminal action of the two men had ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... interest in the city was more personal. She was eager to see her son Franklin play his part in a real play on a real stage. For that reward she was willing to undertake considerable extra fatigue and so to please her, to satisfy my father and to gratify myself, I accompanied them to San Francisco and for several days with a delightful sense of accomplishment, my brother and I led them about the town. We visited the Seal Rocks ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the letters that night. She, too, wrote kindly and lovingly; but at the end she said that much as she and father would like to see them, it did not seem wise to undertake to entertain such a family gathering just now. It would ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... No, my boy, I have no such intention. I can make up the whole thing with perfect plausibility, here under your own roof; and by little study of the foreign telegrams, I would undertake to convince Thiers and Jules Favre themselves that I watched the play of their features from my private box at the French opera, night before last, that I had my eye at the key-hole while they performed their morning ablutions, and was present as eavesdropper at their ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... a benevolent neutrality, and we undertake not to take any of the possessions of France in Europe," said Germany to Great Britain, without allowing herself to be troubled by so much as a qualm about the iniquity of asking us to trade with her in the French colonies. And when we rejected Germany's infamous proposals, and called on ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... undertake in the present treatise. We stand in the Unitarian position, but shall endeavor to see if there be not some truths in Orthodoxy which Unitarians have not yet adequately recognized. To use the language of our motto—we come "not as deserters, but as explorers" into the camp of Orthodoxy. ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... to David Sechard, moved thereto by this thought. Eve saw them, knew that her stratagem had succeeded at once, and felt a thrill of the keenest joy. They stated their proposal. They had more work than they could undertake, their presses could not keep pace with the work, would M. Sechard print for them? They had sent to Bordeaux for workmen, and could find enough to give full employment to ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... Rat-catching was a skilled occupation, and I also offered any of them a five-pound note if they would only follow me under the floors at midnight, not to speak of taking the live Rats out of the traps in the dark; but I can assure you that none of these gentlemen would venture to undertake ...
— Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher - After 25 Years' Experience • Ike Matthews
... of the jugglers we find no suggestion in the Chinese extracts. We learn from them that Nasruddin had represented the conquest of Mien as a very easy task, and Kublai may have in jest asked his gleemen if they would undertake it. The haziness of Polo's account of the conquest contrasts strongly with his graphic description of the rout of the elephants at Vochan. Of the latter he heard the particulars on the spot (I conceive) shortly after the event; whilst the conquest took place some years later than his mission ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... to the discussion of our subject during the next two or three days. The girls endeavoured earnestly to persuade us to ask Mr. Hardinge's permission for the step we were about to undertake; but all in vain. We lads were so thoroughly determined to "relieve the divine from all responsibility in the premises," that they might as well have talked to stones. We knew these just-minded, sincere, upright girls would not betray ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... the other eagerly. "I want to meet a good, honest, and smart lawyer, who will undertake ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... for home purposes for commercial growing. A few of the state experiment stations have taken up definite experimental and demonstration nut projects and are doing valuable work in this line. This association should memorialize the directors of the other stations to undertake definite nut projects and surveys and get the work under way as soon ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... the sake of the work I should have preferred Susan, but I wanted to help you to get the better of your failings. I wanted it so much that I was prepared to undertake the extra work which your carelessness might involve, for the magazine could not be allowed to suffer. I am afraid it is painful to you, dear, to hear this, but if your vanity is wounded, you can comfort yourself with the remembrance that I was so much interested in you, so anxious for your improvement, ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... explain to the Marquis that these enquiries should be made for his, the Marquis's, own benefit. But Lord George felt that this was impossible. It was evident that Lord George would be afraid to ask Mr. Stokes to undertake ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... humiliation in the defeat of his principal. For my own second, Lieutenant Berrian, of our brigade, did me the honour to go out with me. A young New York surgeon, Doctor Williams, obliged us by assuming the risk which it would have been too much to ask Doctor McLaughlin to undertake a second time. At my desire, the place and hour set were those at which Tom Faringfield had met his death. I felt that the memory of his dying face would be strongest, there and then, to make my arm and sight quick ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... leave her; he dared not ask her to accompany him back to Oxford, which had been one of the plans he had formed on the journey to Milton, her physical exhaustion was evidently too complete for her to undertake any such fatigue—putting the sight that she would have to encounter out of the question. Mr. Bell sate over the fire, considering what he had better do. Margaret lay motionless, and almost breathless by him. He would not leave her, even for the dinner which Dixon had prepared for him down-stairs, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and had made her so appealingly helpless, they were drawn to her as surely as bee to flower. Old and young, dignified and happy-go-lucky, all were moved irresistibly to do something for her, to coddle her, to undertake impossible missions, self-imposed. ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... things with prudence and temper; they have been wronged; they have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of Prior, on a man's behaviour to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies, that I cannot help ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... words which might form a Complete Letter-Writer for every army-officer who has turned traitor, from Beauregard downward,—"Bad times, my dear friend. The displeasure I feel in the small share I have in our present insignificancy is so great, that I do not know the thing so desperate I would not undertake, in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... would have to be content to wait until they reached some place where a photographer held forth, who would undertake to do the job, ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... order to live as long as a crow, if she were allowed to do so, to which the seneschal replied that if the foreigner would wholly commit herself to the Christian religion there would be a gallant ceremony of another kind, and that he would undertake that it should be royally magnificent, because he would be her sponsor at the baptismal font, and that a virgin should be his partner in the affair in order the better to please the Almighty, while himself was reputed never to have lost the bloom or innocence, in fact to be a coquebin. In ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Josephus, lib. 5, alledge, he was served at one meal with 2,000; (if you please to believe there are so many species of fish;) but he had indeed a large country to make his provision in, the whole then known world. . . . But for the other supper of 7,000 divers kinds of fowls, I will not undertake to name them here, nor in Africa, and Asia, with all the assistance that ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... able to take his part in this terrible reckoning with the king. So he ran to his first and truest friend of all, and said, 'Thou wottest, friend, that I ever jeopardied my life for thy sake. Now to-day I require help in a necessity that presseth me sore. In how many talents wilt thou undertake to assist me now? What is the hope that I may count upon at thy hands, O my dearest friend?' The other answered and said unto him, 'Man, I am not thy friend: I know not who thou art. Other friends I have, with whom I must needs make merry to-day, and so win their friendship for the time to come. ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... misgivings in his mind; a consciousness that he did owe explanation and apology to Feltram, and an insurmountable reluctance to undertake either. The old dislike—a contempt mingled with fear—not any fear of his malevolence, a fear only of his carelessness and folly; for, as I have said, Feltram knew many things, it was believed, of the Baronet's Continental and Asiatic life, and had ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... believe in yourself a little more," she said earnestly and prettily. "Why don't you undertake something instead of drifting? Some of the people you go with are not especially good ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... should be thought too burdensome for a company in so flourishing a condition, and consequently engaged in so extensive a commerce as the East India Company is, to undertake such an expedition, merely to serve the public, promote the exportation of our manufactures, and increase the number of industrious persons who are maintained by foreign trade; if this, I say, should be thought too grievous for a ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... all imaginable pains to counteract these designs, and solicited the court to deliver up Magellan and his companion as deserters, even representing Magellan as a bold talkative person, ready to undertake any thing, yet wanting capacity and courage for the performance of his projects. He even made secret proposals to Magellan, offering him pardon and great rewards to desist from his present purpose, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... and charity is refused. The experience there shows that city people and men of trades have been successful as farmers and farm workers. Mr. Lord says: "It may be a novel function of government to undertake the distributing of labor, but it is none the less more rational than an edict of exclusion would be, or the tolerance of congestion and slums ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... burning zone, another fanciful obstacle beset the mariner who proposed to undertake a long voyage upon the outer ocean. It had been observed that a ship which disappears in the offing seems to be going downhill; and many people feared that if they should happen thus to descend too far ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... infinitudes of 1789 lived on only in the form, and by the pleasure, of the First Consul? Here surely is a political incarnation unparalleled in the whole course of human history. The riddle cannot be solved by history alone. It belongs in part to the domain of psychology, when that science shall undertake the study, not merely of man as a unit, but of the aspirations, moods, and whims of communities and nations. Meanwhile it will be our far humbler task to strive to point out the relation of Buonaparte to the Revolution, and to show how the mighty ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... called sometime before day and I left my bed very reluctantly. The morning was cloudy and dark and so far favorable to the enterprise we were about to undertake, and of the nature and plan of which I had not the slightest suspicion. We were soon settled in the diligence and left Saarbruck for the frontier. I composed myself to sleep and had just got into a doze when suddenly the coach stopped, and, the door opening, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... that must be your motto. But do you say, "I shall become a wretch in seeing this child suffer"? Well! if your useless pity proves too much of a burden, six months hence you can break your bonds, resume your liberty, and with three hundred crowns in your pocket, you can undertake that journey to Italy,—object of your secret dreams and most ardent longing. Happy man! arming yourself with the white staff of the pilgrim, you will shake the dust of Geierfels from your feet, and go far away to forget, before the facades of Venetian palaces, the dark mysteries of ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... Lake and the Coppermine, on the borders of the country which had been the scene of Hearne's exploits. The northern forest is here reduced to a thin growth of stunted pine and willow. It was now the end of August. The brief northern summer was drawing to its close. It was impossible to undertake the navigation of the Arctic coast till the ensuing summer. Franklin and his party built some rude log shanties which they called Fort Enterprise. Here, after having traversed over two thousand miles in all from York Factory, they spent their second winter in the {97} north. ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... from the mizzenmast. The gradual progress and growth of the energetic sea-robbers, from the looting of vessels riding peacefully at anchor in the harbors to the management of large and seaworthy craft, permitted them to undertake long and seemingly endless cruises, the most daring of which being undertaken, no doubt, by that notorious chieftain, Captain Nathaniel North, who cruised from Newfoundland to the West Indies, then across the Southern Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope, thence via Mozambique to ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann
... is no malice Like unto woman's wicked crabbedness. O Woman! how shalt thou thyself chevice; Sith men of thee so mochil harm witness? Beth ware! O Woman! of their fickleness. Kepeth thine owne! what men clap or crake! And some of them shall smart, I undertake! ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... hours. It would be well for Esther to put on her hat and jacket and go off at once. Mrs. Jones gave her the address of a respectable woman who used to take charge of children. But this woman was nursing twins, and could not possibly undertake the charge of another baby. And Esther visited many streets, always failing for one reason or another. At last she found herself in Wandsworth, in a battered tumble-down little street, no thoroughfare, only four houses and a coal-shed. ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... brother Thorkel she bade him seek her goods again from Bersi—her pin-money and her dowry, saying that she would not own him now that he was maimed. Thorkel Toothgnasher never blamed her for that, and agreed to undertake her errand; but the winter slipped by and his going was ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... with my whole soul." There is ten times more poetry, he thinks, in the "Essay on Man" than in the "Excursion"; and if you want passion, where is to be found stronger than in the "Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard"? To the sneer that Pope is only the "poet of reason" Byron replies that he will undertake to find more lines teeming with imagination in Pope than in any two living poets. "In the mean time," he asks, "what have we got instead? . . . The Lake school," and "a deluge of flimsy and unintelligible romances imitated from Scott and myself." He ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... mattress in a shelter, chopping firewood, eating bread and treacle, and being forced to kneel down from time to time to thank heaven for it: knee drill, I think you call it. It is cheap work converting starving men with a Bible in one hand and a slice of bread in the other. I will undertake to convert West Ham to Mahometanism on the same terms. Try your hand on my men: their souls are hungry because ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... their territory from the constant raids of the Veientines, the noble house of the Fabii offered to undertake the war themselves. The consul Kaeso Fabius marched out of the city at the head of his clan, followed by the blessings and good wishes of the admiring people. He erected a fortified camp near the R. Cremera (atributary of the Tiber), and from ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... are alike. There ought therefore to be as many Hands, and Subsidiaries to such a Design (and those Matters too) as there are distinct Parts of the Whole (according to the subsequent Table) that those who have the Means and Courage, may (tho' they do not undertake the Whole) finish a Part at least, and in time Unite their Labours into one Intire, Compleat, and ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... remaining volume of P. Pindar. Peter is a delightful fellow, and a first favourite of mine. I am much pleased with your idea of publishing a collection of our songs in octavo, with etchings. I am extremely willing to lend every assistance in my power. The Irish airs I shall cheerfully undertake the task of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... ransom for them; and they would have been glad to have employed what money they received, in purchasing wheat and barley, which may be had in abundance at Santa Cruz in Barbary. But the Vice Consul, by his negligence, prolonged our misfortunes. The Arabs, our masters, were very unwilling to undertake so long a journey, which is at the same time both troublesome and dangerous, without the hope of some reward. The Sieur Mure contented himself with informing the minister, that he had given the strictest orders that a proper search should be made for us. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... will bring it in his pocket when he comes over. I should likewise be glad of some cuttings of the best figs, especially la Pica gentile and the Maltese; but as this is not the season for them, Mr. Mann will, I dare say, undertake that commission, and send them to me at the proper time by Leghorn. Adieu. Endeavor to please others, and divert yourself as much as ever you can, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... reserve of pretty cloths, though all the common ones had been expended; so, to keep in good terms with him who was to be our intercessor, I said I would give him the last I had got if he would not tell Suwarora or any one else what I had done. Of course he was quite ready to undertake the condition, so I gave him two pretty cloths, and he in return gave me two goats. But when this little business had been transacted, to my surprise he said: "I have orders from Suwarora to be absent five days to doctor ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... me to die forthright, the money will be lost and thou wilt be the cause of its loss; wherefore the little one will sue thee for his due on the day when God shall judge His creatures. But, if thou wilt grant me three days' delay, I will appoint one to undertake the boy's affair, in my stead, and return to answer my debt; and I have one who will be my ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... can do with it is, to refer it to the War Department. The Rock Island case referred to, was my individual enterprise; and it caused so much difficulty in so many ways that I promised to never undertake another. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... said Springall, whose youth joyed in perpetual hope—"were we all aboard, I would undertake to pilot that vessel over and under or through any one or any number of ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... England acting together," he observed, "it would be impossible to execute the plan proposed by Ridolfi." The chief danger to be apprehended was from France and Germany. Were those countries not to interfere, he would undertake to make Philip sovereign of England before the winter. Their opposition, however, was sufficient to make the enterprise not only difficult, but impossible. He begged his, master not to be precipitate ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... clambered up from the chasm when we had been buried by the fall of the hill-that is, by cutting steps in the face of the soapstone with our knives. The extreme hazard of the attempt can scarcely be conceived; but, as there was no other resource, we determined to undertake it. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... penance," I cried eagerly. "There is none I will not undertake, to purchase pardon and some little ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... to do his best, and to write word to Robson, who, satisfied with his willingness to undertake the commission, bade him go on and see if he could not find the lass. Her father was right in saying that she might not have set out for Yesterbarrow. She had talked about it to Kinraid and her father in order to cover her regret at her lover's accompanying ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... it all bitter and callous and sore, in the most fitting of moods to undertake a difficult and deadly enterprise. Miss Sampson completely slipped my mind; Sally became a wraith as of some one dead; Steele began to fade. In their places came the bushy-bearded Snecker, the olive-skinned Sampson with his sharp eyes, and dark, evil faced ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... journeys. For you have no doubt travelled much since then. Your dear father," he lowered his voice reverentially, "was a great traveller, as well as a very learned man. Ah, well, my dear lady—we must all make up our minds to undertake that great journey one of these days. But I pain you. I was very much attached to your dear father. Command all my service. I will come again in the ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... had been granted in April, Cardinal Campeggio was in no hurry to undertake the work that was assigned to him. He did not leave Rome till June, and he proceeded so leisurely on his journey through France that it was only in the first week of October that he arrived in London. In accordance with ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... were chained three luckless slaves—seventy-five down each side, and a hundred and fifty in all. The benches were intended for four rowers apiece, and could at a pinch accommodate five. The supply of able-bodied prisoners was small, and the Indians refused to undertake the work at a wage, so three men were compelled to manage oars that were a heavy tax on the strength of four. There was a slight compensation in this—the three had room to lie more comfortably at night-time. Between ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... Some persist in assigning it to the duke of Normandy; others seek for some other Robert upon whom to foist it. However that may be, in 1034 or 1035, after having led a fair life enough from the political point of view, but one full of turbulence and moral irregularity, Duke Robert resolved to undertake, barefooted and staff in hand, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, "to expiate his sins if God would deign to consent thereto." The Norman prelates and barons, having been summoned around him, conjured him to renounce his plan; for to what troubles ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... you that this is a really-truly story, though I do not undertake to force you to believe it; neither do I purvey many grains of salt. If Truth went about her affairs laughing, how many more persons would turn and listen! For my part, I believe it all nonsense the way artists have pictured Truth. The idea is pretty ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... I am not unaware how much easier it is to point out a grievance than to provide a remedy; but perhaps some of your readers more conversant with such matters, may form an opinion whether it would answer to any one to undertake to compile such a catalogue as I have described. Though much would remain to be done, a great deal of information is to be gleaned from printed works, and doubtless lists of portraits might be in many instances procured ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... to come the Church of England may be in a specially favourable position for getting into touch with these Churches and assisting them to recover from the effects of the War, and to make progress; and Englishmen generally would, I am sure, rejoice that she should undertake such work. But the question of the duty to one another of all those bodies of English Christians which I have specified comes nearer home and should press upon our minds and hearts more strongly. ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... thought of "Cavalleria rusticana" had been in my head for several years. I wanted to introduce myself with, a work of small dimensions. I appealed to several librettists, but none was willing to undertake the work without a guarantee of recompense. Then came notice of the Sonzogno competition and I eagerly seized the opportunity to better my condition. But my salary of 100 lire, to which nothing was added, ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... sense-perception. The problem, therefore, is that of sense-perception, and not as I had said a minute ago, that of the freedom of the will. It is to the former that analytic mechanics may be applied.'' And the study of sense-perception is just what we lawyers may be required to undertake. ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... too much wine, and in bravado wagers his house and all that it contains that he will drink up the waters of the sea. Out of this scrape Esop rescues him by suggesting that he should demand that all the rivers be stopped from flowing into the sea, for he did not undertake to drink them too, and the ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... reason to congratulate myself upon my acquisition of them; for while Svorenssen revealed an almost professional skill in the use of carpenters' tools, the Dutchman explained that if I would cut out the cutter's sails he would undertake to make them to my entire satisfaction. Both men did much more and far better work than I in the least anticipated; and when at length we knocked off work for the day, and I surveyed the result of that one day's work, I felt that I might now at last begin to ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... depth of twenty feet where I had waded a year before. Most of the horses had to be swum over, as there was little room in the ferry-boats for them. The river was so high that this was very dangerous, and only expert swimmers dared to undertake it. Twenty dollars was paid for swimming a horse over, and I saw numbers swept down by the current and landed hundreds of yards below, many on the side from which they had started. I crossed in a ferry-boat on my ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... comparatively comfortable; the sky above us was serene, and our hopes were buoyant; the venture I was proposing to make would cost but a trifling sum, and, if failure came, the loss could not be great It was not farming that I was to undertake. There was no land to be bought; it was merely the better cultivation of what we already had. There was not even a tool to be purchased. Now no one would be surprised at the conversion of our whole garden into a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... book printed in order to secure the copyright before Good Words published the novel as its Christmas annual in its entirety. I tried Messrs. Harper & Brothers, and several other publishers by turn, but none of them could undertake to print the book in the time. At last some kind friend told me to go to the Trow Directory Binding Company, which I did. They said they could not print the story in the time. I begged them to reconsider. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... could make for him, when she went home. Ruth gave herself up completely to him. Feeling that as she had hindered, so now she must be a great help to him in every way. She copied and read for him, and would not have hesitated to undertake a case in court, so that it was ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... you to accept the service of someone to undertake your defence," he said; and he mentioned one or two names of those whom he felt sure would be willing to act for him. To Paul this seemed like a repetition of a formula. It was ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... latter days of the Peloponnesian war, when the Athenians were full of bitterness, and had no great deeds to undertake outside their city, a foolish set of arguing pretenders to philosophy arose, who were called the Sophists, and who spent their time in mere empty talk, often against the gods; and the great Socrates was mixed up in people's fancy with them. A comic ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... service, and freely risked life and liberty in the discharge of his duties. Lord Canning, to mark his high sense of Sir Richmond Shakespear's public services, had lately offered him the Chief Commissionership of Mysore, which he had accepted, and was about to undertake, when death ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... need of such formalities to present a d'Esgrignon at court," the Marquis broke in.—"A hundred thousand livres," he muttered; "this Chesnel makes very free. This is what comes of these accursed troubles. M. Chesnel protects my son. And now I must ask him. . . . No, sister, you must undertake this business. Chesnel shall secure himself for the whole amount by a mortgage on our lands. And just give this harebrained boy a good scolding; he will end by ruining himself if he goes on ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... put it in my mouth else. Stand further off yet, and stand quietly, And look another way, or I'le be with you, Is this all? I'le undertake within these two daies To furnish any Cutler in ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... appearing to the eye scarcely bigger than so many pigmies; while their white thatched dwellings, dwarfed by the distance, looked like baby-houses. As we looked down upon the islanders from our lofty elevation, we experienced a sense of security; feeling confident that, should they undertake a pursuit, it would, from the start we now had, prove entirely fruitless, unless they followed us into the mountains, where we knew they ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... of Admiral Paul Jones first, and afterwards of Mr. Barclay, to whom the mission to Algiers, explained in the enclosed papers, was successively confided, have led the President to desire you to undertake the execution of it in person. These papers, being copies of what had been delivered to them, will serve as your guide. But Mr. Barclay having been also charged with a mission to Morocco, it will be necessary to give you some trouble ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Miss Henley after a short pause, during which she seemed to have experienced some deep and perhaps painful emotions—"I cannot undertake to give you a reason for my conduct—very possibly I have no good one; but I feel that I should be doing you injustice by encouraging what you are pleased to call hopes—I wish to be understood now, as saying that ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... ornament of any age; one who, of all the men I ever knew, was perhaps the kindest, of the most feeling heart, of the most engaging and unaffected manners, and the most unblemished life. The name of this man was Brightwel. Were it possible for my pen to consecrate him to never-dying fame, I could undertake no task more grateful to my heart. His judgment was penetrating and manly, totally unmixed with imbecility and confusion, while at the same time there was such an uncontending frankness in his countenance, that a superficial observer would have supposed he must have been ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the Italian republics, and some of the princes, sent embassadors, and seemed to recognise pretensions which were tolerably ostentatious. The King of Hungary and Queen of Naples submitted their quarrel to the arbitration of Rienzi, who did not, however, undertake to decide it. But this sudden exaltation intoxicated his understanding, and exhibited feelings entirely incompatible with his elevated condition. If Rienzi had lived in our own age, his talents, which were really great, would have found their proper ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... never in my life looked before, here caught my eye, to this effect—"Teacher wanted, Maryhill Free Church school; apply at the Manse." A coach or bus was just passing, when I turned round; I leapt into it, saw the Minister, arranged to undertake the School, returned to Glasgow, paid my landlady's lodging score, tore up that letter to my parents and wrote another full of cheer and hope; and early next morning entered the School and began a tough and trying job. The Minister warned me that the School was a wreck, and had been broken up chiefly ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... elegantly and scientifically, and with so much more correct knowledge of the technicalities necessary for such descriptions, than it is possible that seafaring men can ever attain, that if one of the latter, in a moment of mental hallucination, was to undertake to convey an idea of the element that has been his home for years, he would be hissed off the stage as another Munchausen. For this reason nautical men, who have laid aside the marlinspike and taken up the pen, very prudently avoid that portion of the literary arena, leaving Daddy ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... of the Imperial House, with a view to a peaceful settlement. According to the memorial now submitted to Us by the Cabinet embodying the articles of courteous treatment proposed by the Republican Army, they undertake to hold themselves responsible for the perpetual offering of sacrifices before the Imperial Ancestral Temples and the Imperial Mausolea and the completion as planned of the Mausoleum of His Late Majesty the Emperor Kuang Hsu. His Majesty the Emperor is understood to resign only his ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... with the Huguenots, whom he was resolved to punish for having joined my brother, had ceased to move in it further to the King, and addressed himself on the subject to my brother. My brother, with that princely spirit which led him to undertake great achievements, readily lent an ear to Mondoucet's proposition, and promised to engage in it, for he was born rather to conquer than to keep what he conquered. Mondoucet's proposition was the more pleasing to him as it was not unjust, it being, in fact, to recover to France ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... pain that I undertake the transcribing of the commands of the Holy Father, and I much desired Monsignor Gherardi to follow you to London and lay these matters before you privately, with all the personal kindness which his friendship for you makes possible, but I regret to say, and you will no ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... at Lord Holderness's at Sion, and as my virtue has not yet been able to root out all my good-breeding—though I trust it will in time—I could not help promising that I would write to you—nay, and engaged that you would undertake it. When I venture, sure you may, who are out of the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... themselves interested in defeating such practices. They promised fidelity and diligence, from which the scorn of their fellow-prisoners should not induce them to swerve, and began with a confidence of success the duty which they had themselves offered to undertake. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... may think of my plan of observation I cannot undertake to say. It appears to me to unite the invaluable merits of boldness and simplicity. Fortified by this conviction, I close the present communication with feelings of the most sanguine description in regard to the future, ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... going any further that this mission, if you undertake it, in all probabilities, will mean death for one of you. It is for this reason that the task in hand requires the services of at least two men. One to go and come back, and the other to go — and come back if he can. It may be that neither will return, and yet one must return if the safety ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... the accident had caused to himself, not lessened by his generous anxiety to assuage the severer sufferings inflicted by it on others;[258] and that he should nevertheless have determined, on the close of his book, to undertake a series of readings involving greater strain and fatigue than any hitherto, was a startling circumstance. He had perhaps become conscious, without owning it even to himself, that for exertion of this kind the time left him was short; but, whatever pressed him on, his ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... of sincere pleasure, however far short of perfection our attempts may fall; and, generally speaking, our choice of a profession is mainly dictated by a certain feeling of aptitude for and interest in what we propose to undertake. ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... require you at home here. Venables has no family, and is rather inclined to take it easy. Possibly in a few years he may retire altogether, and I may want you at home. At five or six and twenty you should be able to undertake the management of the Russian part of the business, running out there occasionally to see that everything goes on well. I hope I need not tell you to be steady. There is a good deal too much drinking ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... on your part, Maude Helm, to try and belittle her! You won't get much glory for yourself by sticking pins in other people; and I can tell you, if you're going to set up in opposition to Gipsy, you've no chance. I'll undertake there's hardly a girl in the Lower School now who won't side ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... dislike those to whom they are crushingly indebted; your father dislikes Mr. Cossey because his name is Cossey, and for no other reason. But that is not quite what I meant—I do not think that the Squire is the right person to undertake a negotiation of the sort. He is a little too outspoken and incautious. No, Miss de la Molle, if it is to be done at all /you/ must do it. You must put the whole case before him at once—this very afternoon, there is no time for delay; you ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... facilitated by the conscientious work of my late friend Spitta Bey. I tried hard to persuade the late Rogers Bey, whose knowledge of Egyptian and Syrian (as opposed to Arabic) was considerable, that a simple grammar of Egyptian was much wanted; he promised to undertake it) but death ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... To undertake to tell of the varieties of the fruit and the relative hardiness of the trees—as estimated from the behavior of varieties we knew something of—of the many varieties and races we studied on this extended trip would make ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... We were obliged to move elsewhere, and to undertake alterations, for which money was indispensable, but we had no money. In that predicament, we began to speculate upon the Exchange, and the Exchange proved a kind mother to us; it sustained us until we were on our feet again. As soon as we had established ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... same time that they reported to their Monthly Meeting the attention they had paid to this service, they received its sanction to undertake a ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... taste more will be said as this essay is developed. These introductory words must not be left, however, without an explanation of the word "Influence," as it is used in the subject-title. This paper will not undertake to prove that the course of English literature was diverted into new channels by the introduction of Old Norse elements, or that its nature was materially changed thereby. We find an expression and a justification of our present purpose ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... that Scott is very far from being an historical novelist only. An acute French critic, well acquainted with both literatures, once went so far as to say that there were a good many professed "philosophical" novels which did not contain such keen psychology as Scott's: and I would undertake to show a good deal of cause on this side. But short of it, it is undeniable that he can do perfectly well without any historical scaffolding. There is practically nothing of it in his second and third novels, Guy ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... not, of course, include the changes which resulted from the war between Japan and China, and which have not even yet been incorporated in modern history. The pacha had been invited to give the lecture on China; but he declared that it was too difficult a subject for him to undertake, and he begged to be excused, and Professor Giroud had willingly undertaken it. It had required all his time on the voyage from Saigon, and all his spare time at Manila, to prepare himself for the difficult task. With the three siamangs ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... obtained by going down in the morning, when the herring boats came in, and helping the men to strip the nets. The men were generally tired out and sleepy with their long night's work; and if they had had anything like a good haul, they were glad to give these lads twopence or threepence apiece to undertake the labour of lifting the nets, yard by yard, out of the hold, shaking out the silvery fish and dexterously extricating those that had got more firmly enmeshed. Moreover, it was a work the boys delighted in. If it was not the rose, ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... that Miss Meredyth owes me a certain sum of money. I want that money. It doesn't matter to me whether I get it from her or from you. If you like to pay her debt, I will guarantee silence. I shall carry this true story no further if you will undertake to pay me immediately following your marriage with her the sum of ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... now settled at Providence Plantation, where he was joined by Mrs. Hutchinson, who also believed that the church and state should not be united, but that the state should protect the church and that neither should undertake to boss the other. It was also held that religious qualifications should not be required of political aspirants, also that no man should be required to whittle his soul into a shape to fit the religious auger-hole ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... Every hedge he scrutinizes with a careful eye; behind it may lurk an assassin. Every division wall is watched for suspicious indications, his alertness being quickened by the knowledge that he is guarding his own life. He is compelled to undertake duties obnoxious to his own feelings and sense of justice, and to risk life and limb to carry out repugnant orders. A bad year comes, a tenant is in arrears and cannot pay rent; the agent determines on an eviction and sends for the police. The constables arrive in force, but the tenant ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... brave to play at hide-and-seek with yonder miscreants on the other shore, Jasper," continued the guide, into whose character there entered no ingredient which belonged to vain display or theatrical effect, "will you undertake to bring ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... can't find her, or suppose I fail, even if I can bring myself to undertake that horrible work all over again?' said Djama, looking almost fearfully at the Inca, who was still sitting up in the bed glancing mutely from one to the other, as though waiting for an answer to his question. ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... indefinitely increased, would be rationed and divided equally among the population. Thus Anarchism would not impose any OBLIGATIONS of work, though Anarchists believe that the necessary work could be made sufficiently agreeable for the vast majority of the population to undertake it voluntarily. Socialists, on the other hand, would exact work. Some of them would make the incomes of all workers equal, while others would retain higher pay for the work which is considered more valuable. All these different systems are compatible with the common ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... progress to Medeshamstede."[6] The Queen is said to have overheard the Bishop's fervent prayers for the success of his object, and to have used her influence with the King; but he probably required very little persuasion to undertake what was so much to his taste. It may be mentioned that if we accept the date 972 for the completion of the re-building (the Chronicle gives 970 for its commencement), the very same year witnessed that well-known scene on the River Dee, ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... stopped her doing anything yet. Stopping a wife is one of the bride-notions a man had better give up early in the matrimonial state—if he expects to hold the bride. And bride-holding ought to be the life-job of a man who is rash enough to undertake one." ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... refute such a sophism. Yet, it is the error involved in this sophism which obscures our intellectual vision, and causes so perplexing a darkness to spread itself over the moral order and beauty of the world. Hence, in grappling with the supposed great difficulty in question, we do not undertake to remove a veil from the universe—we simply undertake to remove a sophism from our own minds. Though we have so spoken in accommodation with the views of others, the problem of the moral world is not, in reality, high and difficult in itself, like the great ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... disappointment, or unsatisfied desire. "They shall never become blue" means that they shall never fail in anything they undertake. In love charms the lover figuratively covers himself with red and prays that his rival shall become entirely blue and walk in a blue path. The formulistic expression, "He is entirely blue," closely approximates in meaning the common English phrase, ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney |
