"At the worst" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clandestinely formed, and such a period chosen for its completion, placed Julia's feelings in a most unfavourable light, and severely aggravated the folly of her choice. He called it a bad thing, done in the worst manner, and at the worst time; and though Julia was yet as more pardonable than Maria as folly than vice, he could not but regard the step she had taken as opening the worst probabilities of a conclusion hereafter like her sister's. Such was his opinion ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... is your best guide, daughter, and it would be an ill task for me to stand between sire and child. Enter then, for I am sure that the Saints and your own innocence will protect you from all harm. At the worst you can come or send to ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Duke said. "This is to my mind convincing proof that he was ignorant of the woman's antecedents. At the worst he probably regarded her as an ordinary adventuress. As for the rest, I look upon it as the most extraordinary mare's nest which the mind of man could possibly conceive. Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Ducaine, that Colonel Ray went so far as ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... say that it is the hope of every one of us and most of all the exile and the wanderer. At the best it may be glory; at the worst it must be sleep. Moreover, am I so happy that I should fear to die? Quilla cannot read this writing, and therefore I will answer, No. I am a Christian, but she and those about her, aye, my own children ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... Rome. In Florence Roderick seemed to have won back his old innocence and his preference for the pleasures of study over any others. Rowland began to think of the Baden episode as a bad dream, or at the worst as a mere sporadic piece of disorder, without roots in his companion's character. They passed a fortnight looking at pictures and exploring for out the way bits of fresco and carving, and Roderick recovered all his earlier fervor of appreciation and comment. In Rome he went eagerly to work ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... daylight; but the more appalling destruction which lay beneath was not visible. The rent, torn, and dislocated stonework looked worse than before; the upheaved foundations, the piled-up fragments of masonry, the fissures in the torn earth—all were at the worst. The Worm's hole was still evident, a round fissure seemingly leading down into the very bowels of the earth. But all the horrid mass of blood and slime, of torn, evil-smelling flesh and the sickening remnants of violent death, were gone. Either ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... provisions of the India Bill, a chance of being able to transmit it as an heir-loom to his party, which, though conscious of the hazard, he was determined to try. If his intention, therefore, was, as his enemies say, to establish a Dictatorship in his own person, it was, at the worst, such a Dictatorship as the Romans sometimes created, for the purpose of averting the plague—and would have been directed merely against that pestilence of Toryism, under which the prosperity of England had, he thought, languished ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... less pretentiously on the door-step of a temple. If innocent of all claims to a knowledge of the written language, he may take them for cheap editions of Confucius, with which literary chair-coolies are wont to solace their leisure hours; at the worst, some of these myriad novels of which he has heard so much, and read—in translations—so little. It possibly never enters our barbarian's head that many of these itinerant book-sellers are vendors of educational works, much after the style of Pinnock's Catechisms and other ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... afraid?" demanded Fred. "A wolf cannot harm you, and at the worst, a wildcat or two are no ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... surgeon. "They would be more favorable if he had not lost his legs so long ago. At the worst the experiment wouldn't kill him. He would merely have undergone a useless operation. At the best he would be able to walk, run perhaps, and look like a whole man. If anything is to be done for him, the time has come. He has only to tell ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... news of the landing of Napoleon he really seems to have believed that the enterprise would immediately end in disaster, and he pressed on the outlawing of the man who had overwhelmed him with riches, and who had, at the worst, left him when in disgrace in quiet possession of all his ill-gotten wealth. But, as the power of Napoleon became more and more displayed, as perhaps Talleyrand found that the Austrians were not quite so firm as they wished to be considered, and as he foresaw the possible chances of the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... grasp at a straw, and he battled with his despair. His father was not dead—he would recover—at the hospital he would have the best medical assistance possible. The coachman who sent the telegram would be sure to make things out at the worst. Yes, when he got to Saint Nathaniel's he would find it was a false alarm, that there was nothing much the matter at all, and when his mother and Reginald arrived by the next train, he would be able to meet them with reassuring news. It ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... or a few dozens. It cannot be worth sixpence to whoever has it. One of the engravings was a greyhound with an arrow through him, a crest of my grandmother's, whose maiden name was Noble. If you pass by, pray ask about it—not that I am ever disappointed at the worst result of an inquiry. I am afraid the ladies of your house will think me imprudent; and what must be their opinion, if you let it transpire that I have furthermore invested a part of my scrip in ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Vernocq left the private hospital and took refuge near the Ile Saint-Louis, where he awaited the result of an enterprise which, at the worst, might tell against Florence, but which did not seem able to compromise ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... to the patriotism of the Germans. Perhaps their hearts will practically respond—they may hear our voice and follow us. But if fortune have decided against us, if we succumb without delivering our country, very well! 'An end with terror is better than terror without end!' Before us is honor, and at the worst, a glorious death; behind us, contumely ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... told to women." There is a certain broad field of literature so grossly androcentric that for very shame men have tried to keep it to themselves. But in a milder form, the spades all named teaspoons, or at the worst appearing as trowels—the young woman is given the same fiction. Love and love and love—from "first sight" to marriage. There it stops—just the fluttering ribbon of announcement, ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... contended with the gale hardily—in fact, foolhardily—coming out of the contest with scarce a sail. Captain and crew at last decided to give up the unequal struggle: the gale appeared to have almost spent itself: conversations for peace were at that moment in progress between the belligerents: at the worst, things would go on much as they had been going on, until the end of the War put an end to the sorry drama. So, on 10 January, after an all-night sitting of the Crown Council, Greece made her {171} unconditional surrender: she would drain the cup of humiliation ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... unpleasant circumstance attended his resignation of his secretaryship, and though it must have been a disappointment to find that the place did not suit him, as he and his family were then situated, it was only at the worst an experiment fairly tried and not proving satisfactory. He left St. Petersburg after a few months' residence, and returned to America. On reaching New York he was met by the sad tidings of the death of his first-born child, a boy of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... resemblance ceased, for whereas then she looked forward, with a child's anticipations, to nothing more definite than new sights and new and excitingly delightful adventures, now she saw ahead—what? Great care and anxiety and trouble certainly, these at the best; and at the worst, failure and disappointment and heartbreak. And behind her she was leaving opportunity and the pleasant school life and ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... also there were other things—her fatalism, and stronger still, her weariness. She believed that they were doomed. Well, let the doom fall; she had no fear of the Beyond. At the best it might be happy, and at the worst deep, everlasting rest and peace, and she felt as though she needed thousands of years of rest and peace. Moreover, she was sure no harm would come to Rachel, the very apple of her eye; that she was marked to live ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... draws on the rest. And this is to lose consciousness of oneself. In the best of times, it is but by flashes, when our whole nature is clear, strong, and conscious, and events conspire to leave us free, that we enjoy communion with our soul. At the worst we are so fallen and passive that we may say shortly we have none. An arctic torpor seizes upon men. Although built of nerves, and set adrift in a stimulating world, they develop a tendency to go bodily to sleep; consciousness becomes engrossed among the reflex and mechanical parts of life; ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... John Harvey, a member of the Virginia commission of 1624, was the King's next choice for Governor, but pending his arrival, the office fell to one of the Council—Dr. John Pott. This man had long been a resident of Virginia, and had acted as Physician-General during the years when the sickness was at the worst. He is described as "a Master of Arts ... well practiced in chirurgery and physic, and expert also in the distilling of waters, (besides) many other ingenious devices".[249] He had made use of these accomplishments to poison large numbers of Indians after the massacre of ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... my head began to turn; my brain seemed to be on fire; and the public basins of Caneville, where only the lowest curs used to quench their thirst, danced before me to add to my torture; for I thought, though I despised them once, how I could give treasures of gold for one good draught at the worst ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... utterly unconscious of his short-comings in point of intellect, that he could not have treated an educational scheme of which he was himself to be the subject as anything but an amiable lunacy on Jack's part, or at the worst, as a practical joke. Jack was good company; that was with him the chief consideration; his madness was harmless and had the advantage of being entertaining; he was moreover at heart a good fellow, and the stanchest and most loyal of friends. Harry was often heard to express the most cheerful ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... are an evidence that that number of home-grown men will readily appear. In South Carolina, to give a generous estimate, we need 5,000 voters. It is the only State which we never heard my man wish to emigrate to. It is the hardest region, therefore, of any to redeem. At the worst, till the 5,000 appear, the new Georgia will be glad to govern all the country south of the Santee, and the new North Carolina what is north thereof. Georgia will need 10,000 loyal voters. There are more than that number now ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... the fashion of the torment, Think of what follows; think that at the worst It cannot ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... no—you don't understand. At the worst, this is some virtuous but silly school-girl, who, though she may be intending only an innocent flirtation with him, has made this man actually and deeply in love with her. Yes; it is a fact, Joan. I know Dick Demorest, ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... your brother, my daughter; go home to Saint-Pol-la-Marche. At the worst, remember that there are always two arks for a woman in flood-time, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... from violence in the streets of Rome. Although, Fausta, you believe not with us, you must, scarcely the less for that, pity us in our present straits. Can the mind picture to itself, in some aspects of the case, a more miserable lot! Were the times, even at the worst, so full of horror in Palmyra as now here in Rome? There, if the city were given up to pillage, the citizen had at least the satisfaction of dying in the excitement of a contest, and in the defence of himself and his children. Here the prospect is—the actual scene is almost arrived and present—that ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... to his late calling—a jacket of black velveteen, ill-fitting and ill-fashioned, loose fustian trousers, coarse shoes, his hat set deep over his pent eyebrows, his raven hair long and neglected. He was just at that age when one with strong features and robust frame is at the worst in point of appearance—the sinewy proportions not yet sufficiently fleshed, and seeming inharmonious and undeveloped; precisely in proportion, perhaps, to the symmetry towards which they insensibly mature: the contour of the face sharpened from the ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... may seldom wed their true loves, or if they do, it is but to lose them. At the least we love, and let us be thankful that we have learned what love can be, for having loved here, perchance at the worst we may love otherwhere when there are ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... day when my husband first put on the green shade. A listless, hopeless sensation would steal over me; but why write about it? Better to try and forget it. There is always to-morrow to look to when to-day is at the worst. ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... not frightened at the prospect. I daresay that I shall have a little money and at the worst I can always earn a living; my voice would help me to it, if nothing else does. Father, dear, you mustn't be vexed with me; and pray—pray do understand that no earthly thing would make me marry a man whom I dislike rather than otherwise; ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... illustrated papers could divert her mind from its dazzling anticipations. But before Christmas could come, must come her father; and from noon onward she would keep running to the door every few minutes to peer expectantly down the trail. She was certain that, at the worst, he could not by any possibility be delayed beyond supper-time, for he was needed to get supper—or, rather, as Lidey expressed it, to help her get supper for mother! Lidey was not hungry, to be sure, but she was getting mortally ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... knighthood, by seeking to cajole the usurper; no, but rather boldly to denounce his perjury and startle his liegemen. Perchance they may compel him to terms—perchance they may desert his banner; at the worst they shall be daunted with full sense of the guilt of ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... der menschlichen Gesellschaft vom Sozial-biologischen Standpunkt aus,' and the like—you will hardly be able to realize that you are dealing with human beings at all. I have seen an unmarried woman called a 'female non-childbearing human.' And at the worst, men actually cease to be even animals; they become mere numbers; they are calculated by the theory of combinations; they are masses, averages, classes, curves, anything but men! For every million of the ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... head is crammed with the most useless lumber. It is odd that when I do read, I can only bear the chicken broth of—any thing but Novels. It is many a year since I looked into one, (though they are sometimes ordered, by way of experiment, but never taken,) till I looked yesterday at the worst parts of the Monk. These descriptions ought to have been written by Tiberius at Caprea—they are forced—the philtred ideas of a jaded voluptuary. It is to me inconceivable how they could have been ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... calls himself your father, it is a matter of faith or of doubt. But when the Duke of Devonshire in a letter calls himself yours obediently, you know that he means the opposite of what he says. Religious forms are, at the worst, fables; they might be true. Secular forms are falsehoods; they are not true. Take a more topical case. The German Emperor has more uniforms than the Pope. But, moreover, the Pope's vestments all imply a claim to be something purely mystical and doubtful. ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... goodish chance that the husband-elect may run up against a French cannonball and get out of the scrape that way. Anyhow, we've come to the end of our tether. The alternative's ruin. It's pretty black to windward, whichever way you look at it, but one way spells ruin for the lot of us; the other, at the worst, means disaster for only one. I vote we draw lots, and the man who draws the shortest lot wins—er ... at least he marries the lady," said the cheery-faced boy, with rather a ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... aroused between the two heads of the body politic. But what if official power, under either of its aspects, could make a compromise with greed? The rough features of both might be softened; but, at the worst, a stronger, more permanent and, in the long run, more profitable monopoly of the good things of the empire would be the result of the union. The admission of wealthy capitalists could not be considered a very marked social detraction ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... "I wish very much for a little delay if possible. At the worst, if you do meet him, it will be only hasty flight. Can you be prepared ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... favourite amusement. His lungs thus exercised had become developed, and as a run of six or seven miles across country was not more than he was used to, he did not despair by the help of the short cuts of overtaking the carriage, or at the worst of catching Ellen at the station before the train left. So he ran and ran and ran till his first wind was gone and his second came, and he could breathe more easily. Never with "the hounds" had he run so fast and with so few breaks as now, but with all his efforts and the help ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... displayed the spirit of the extortioner, and must feel all the stings of conscience which haunt the mind of a murderer, should his heart be not too much hardened already. He has acted a worse part than a murderer, for the assassin kills his victim through revenge, or at the worst, for pay. Here, Mr. Elder—a possessor of wealth and not needing the money—turns a tenant from his roof because she is penniless. I say nothing against him for doing so, for it was an indisputable right of his, but when we view the brutality of the act—when we think of the hardness of ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... pleased to call) "our oppression of the Indian." But, in the first place, the decay of the American races is neither so rapid nor so universal, as is generally supposed;[48] and, in the second place, if the fact were otherwise, we could, at the worst, be charged only with accelerating a depopulation already begun. "The ten thousand mounds in the Mississippi Valley, the rude memorials of an immensely numerous former population, but, to our view, no more civilized than the present races, are proofs that the country ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... bethought me of the work I had to do, and prayed that I might be given strength to do it swiftly and featly, that the suffering of my love might not be long. Also I thought of the lecherous evil demons of the Black Riders, and thereat was somewhat comforted. At the worst I could give my love a ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... the girls play the natural and delightful trick of being coy—and they behave in a manner which human beings understand. Supposing that the duke uses a language which ordinary dukes do not affect save in moments of extreme emotion, it is not tiresome, and, at the worst, it satisfies a convention which has not done very much harm. Now on what logical ground can we expect people who were nourished on a literature which is at all events hearty even when it chances ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... was even more desponding; the physician had spoken of the case as hopeless, and likely to terminate rapidly; and Gilbert, who was always at the worst in the morning, had shown no symptom that could lead his father ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... quartz without machinery or capital? Besides, his Kaffir servants had deserted him, worn out with hard work and fever, and there were no others to be had at this season. Well, it was only one more disappointment; he must go back to Natal and take his chance. At the worst he could always earn his living as a transport-rider, and at the best he wearied of this search for wealth which was to build up their ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... certain extent in Dutch. From there, too, there might be a chance of getting a passage to England or Holland. If we found that impossible owing to the vessels being too carefully searched before sailing, we might at the worst take passage as sailors on board a Spanish ship bound for the Indies, and take our chance of escape or capture there or on the voyage. That, at least, is what I ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... prospects are at the worst, it often happens that some unexpected success breaks on his path like a bright sunbeam. Alas! it often happens, also, that when his hopes are high and his prospects brightest, a dark cloud overspreads him like a funeral pall. We might learn a lesson from this—the lesson ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... called at the hour mentioned by himself, and declared he had never known such an order neglected, "marchant-man, privateer, or man-of-war." Rose prevailed over his scruples, however, and there was a meeting of the three females to make the final arrangements. Mrs. Budd, a kind-hearted woman, at the worst, gave her assent most cheerfully, though Rose was a little startled with the nature of the reasoning, with which it ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... from the Bishop, and that looked well. By one ruse and another, as the day went on, he led her away from contemplating the remote possibility of hearing from Swithin, and induced her to look at the worst contingency as her probable fate. It seemed as if she really made up her mind to this, for by the afternoon she was apathetic, like a woman who neither ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... overtake; nothing by which to reckon their advance; no sight for repose or for encouragement; but stage after stage, only the dead green waste under foot, and the mocking, fugitive horizon. But the eye, as I have been told, found differences even here; and at the worst the emigrant came, by perseverance, to the end of his toil. It is the settlers, after all, at whom we have a right to marvel. Our consciousness, by which we live, is itself but the creature of variety. Upon ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... along the Labrador coast that day, the wind becoming a trifle easterly, so as to allow us to "start our sheets" and at the same time steadily increase our offing, getting such a weatherly position for Canso that the moment the expected change of direction began we promptly "tacked ship" and at the worst had a leading ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... to be convinced. "That was jocose though. Even at the worst." The words came with effort. "This was—serious. I owe ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... and supplied with ammunition. In portions of the country the British were isolated, as in the camp before Delhi, and in the works at Agra, Allahabad, and Lucknow. The mutiny extended over an area of 100,000 square miles, with a population of 40,000,000. It came at the worst season of the year; and if it had not been speedily suppressed, it would have spread over the whole country. Many believed that the knell of ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... direct touch with Winston Churchill, all would be well. Their faith in the First Lord is, in every sense, touching. But they can't get the contact and they are thoroughly imbued with the idea that the Sea Lords are at the best half-hearted; at the worst, actively antagonistic to us and to the whole of our enterprise. The photographs, etc., I have studied make it only too clear that the Turks have not let the grass grow under their feet since the first bombardment; ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... Malcolm lay at the point of death some three stories above his sister's room. There, in the morning, while he was at the worst, she was talking with Clementina, who had called to see whether she would not go and hear the preacher of whom he had spoken with such ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... steamer shook under the blows of the waves, and I thought that probably no one on board could say how much of this thumping and straining the "Urgent" would be able to bear. This uncertainty caused me to look steadily at the worst, and I tried to strengthen myself in ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... strong, and I was dizzy with weakness; he was mounted, and I was on foot: it seemed a poor hope that I should get away. There was little chance from a wandering patrol, for I knew if we were followed I should have a bullet in my head, while Laputa got off on the Schimmel. I must wait and bide events. At the worst, a clean shot on the hillside in a race for life was better than the unknown mysteries of the kraal. I prayed earnestly to God to show me His mercy, for if ever man was sore bested by the heathen it ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... monarchs, but her weakness was exhibited only on the side of foreign politics: it being absurd to suppose that the country which could produce Hampden and Cromwell, Strafford and Falkland, and the men who formed the Cavalier and Roundhead armies, was then in a state of decay. At the worst, she was but depressed, and the removal of such dead weights from her as Charles I. and James II. was all that was necessary to enable her to vindicate her claim to a first-rate place in the European family. In 1783, at the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... of the Elector of Mainz that he would obey no pope but John XXIII, the proposal was made to proceed to a new election. John had to fall back upon his last expedient. If he departed from Constance he might throw the council into fatal confusion; at the worst he could maintain himself as an antipope, as Gregory and Benedict had done against the Council of Pisa. His ally Frederick of Tyrol was prepared to assist him. Frederick arranged a tournament outside the walls; and while this absorbed public ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... any man, for at the worst, He still is brother. Will a glance not find Whole peoples alchemied from heart and mind To steal projectiles by a craft, accursed By Human Nature? Aye, for, as they burst At dusk, or midnight, slamming Heaven behind And crashing Hell wide open, 'tis mankind ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... good!—necessary!" murmured Pondevez in complete dismay. The situation was critical. This important visit was occurring at the worst possible moment, just as the system had utterly broken down. The poor Pompon, exceedingly perplexed, tugged at his beard, thoughtfully gnawing wisps ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... his innings; there was no better way of getting out. He had scored off an African millionaire, the Players, a Queensland Legislator, the Camorra, the late Lord Ernest Belville, and again and again off Scotland Yard. What more could one man do in one lifetime? And at the worst it was the death to die: no bed, no doctor, no temperature—and ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... the whole of it; but the part which I can tell isn't much. Once upon a time there was a thief, and he stole a quantity of money out of a bank. It was the Atterbury Bank, of which I am the president. The theft came at the worst possible time, and there was great danger, if the money could not be recovered, that the bank would have to stop payment. Fortunately, we got a clue to the thief's whereabouts, and I started in search of him, and caught him in ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... one can do is to thank God, silently, in some safe place in one's thoughts, that after all there is a great deal of the human race—always is—in every generation who by mere circumstance cannot be educated—bowled over by their memories. Even at the worst only a few hundred persons can be made over into reductio-ad-absurdum Stanley Halls (that is, study science under pupils of the pupils of Stanley Hall) and the chances are even now, as bad as things are and are getting to be, that ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... that we have no choice now but to accept the peace, even if it is not all we could desire, and if another campaign might have got us better terms. She feels certain that the bad accounts of the French Army in the Crimea, which appears to suffer now all the misery which ours suffered last year at the worst time of the siege, will more than ever indispose the Emperor from risking a renewal of hostilities. It is affirmed that the French have ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... Mr. Smithson's presence was hardly correct. It would have been 'better form' if he had stayed away; and yet she was glad to have him here. At the worst he was some one—nay, according to Lady Kirkbank, he was the only one amongst all her admirers whose offer was worth having. All Lesbia's other conquests had counted as barren honour; but if she could have brought herself ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... of Wales introducing Lord Lothian into the King's room when it was darkened, in order that he might hear his ravings at the time that they were at the worst. Do not let this fact come from you; it begins to be pretty well known here, and no doubt will find its way to Ireland; but it is important that we should not seem to spread the knowledge of anything which can injure His Royal ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... gainer by the change, most of the expense of it in blood and in money falls upon the home country. On the face of it, therefore, Great Britain had every reason to avoid so formidable a task as the conquest of the South African Republic. At the best she had nothing to gain, and at the worst she had an immense deal to lose. There was no room for ambition or aggression. It was a case of shirking or fulfilling a ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... chance it. He could not stop under the table for ever, and even at the worst that map, that precious map, was out of harm's way. He crept stealthily from his hiding-place, dealt the kneeling Bosch a terrific kick in the small of the back, dived headlong out of the window and galloped down the street towards our Lewis gunners, squealing, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... should say, and it's deuced hard luck on him to go through life with a memory of that sort rankling in his soul. Ah, well, we all have our private memories—ghosts which haunt us and will not be laid; and at least there is no disgrace in that story of his. At the worst it could only be called a miscalculation—a mistake. But what if my mistake has been a more grievous one—what if Chloe is innocent and I have misjudged her cruelly? If that should be so," said Major Carstairs, ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... or the smoothest grass-plot, the poor mother scarcely breathes; she imagines that these first efforts of nature are attended with every danger to the object most dear to her. Fond mother, calm your anxious fears! Your infant son can, at the worst, only receive a slight hurt, which, under your tender care, will speedily be healed. Reserve your alarms, your heart-beatings, your prayers to Providence, for the moment when your son enters upon the scene of the world to select a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... corruption in our civilization; dowagers turn out to be the fluffy and painted keepers of brothels; the misses sink into grinning hussies, who are branded on the cheeks and forehead with the ineradicable mark of shame; and the warm and coy pages, whom at the worst he might have supposed to be imprudent or improvident girls, stare at him with the deathly-cold implacability of the commonest street-walkers—those in fact who glory in their shame, and whose very contact is vile to anything with ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... once held the country were in the position of a conquered and vassal people; for the times and the manners of those times well used by their conquerors, especially in the country of the Dorsaetas, where at the worst they were treated as useful slaves, and at the best the masters were but rustic imitators of their forerunners, the Romans. To the most careless observer a good proportion of the country people of Dorset are unusually swarthy and "Welsh" ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... Mere Giraud wept, Valentin had no tears. He was faithful, untiring, but silent even at the worst. ...
— Mere Girauds Little Daughter • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Laurens and Kitty Livingston were sitting back and staring at each other as they had stared many times before. The others were gazing at their plates or at Hamilton. It was, indeed, a Headquarters dinner at the worst. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... intellectual representation can be given to the public. Photographs have an inimitable mechanical refinement, and their legal evidence is of great use if you know how to cross-examine them. They are popularly supposed to be "true," and, at the worst, they are so, in the sense in which an echo is true to a conversation of which it omits the most important syllables and reduplicates the rest. But this truth of mere transcript has nothing to do with Art properly so called; and will never supersede it. Delicate art of design, or of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... vi., 351; vii., 171, 871; cf. v., 216, where Chapuys says Anne hated the Princess Mary more than she did Queen Catherine because she saw that Henry had some affection for Mary, and praised her in Anne's presence. At the worst Henry's manners were generally polite; on one occasion, writes Chapuys, "when the King was going to mount his horse, the Princess went on to a terrace at the top of the house to see him. The King, either ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... had played her, bringing her here against her will! Yet she had thought of coming as a last resort. The furnished house should be hers for some months yet; it had been taken for six months from July, and this was only the end of November. At the worst—if no one ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... too, seeing our sorrow, for he had a most kind and gentle nature; and he did not want to banish the fairies, and said so; but said he had no choice, for it had been decreed that if they ever revealed themselves to man again, they must go. This all happened at the worst time possible, for Joan of Arc was ill of a fever and out of her head, and what could we do who had not her gifts of reasoning and persuasion? We flew in a swarm to her bed and cried out, "Joan, wake! Wake, there is no moment to lose! Come and plead for the fairies—come ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Little of good do we find to our hands, and much of evil; nor know I for what ill-doing these burdens are laid upon us. Yet must we needs breathe such an air as is blown about us, Gudruda, clasping at this happiness which is given, though we may not hold it. At the worst, the game will soon be played, and others will stand where we have stood, and strive as we have striven, and fail as we have failed, and so on, till man has worked out his doom, and the Gods cease from their wrath, or Ragnarroek come upon them, and they too ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... lose heart. When things are at the worst, they will mend. Perhaps the storm will ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... yet he the same Abideth, yea, and still at God's right hand, As thy most perfect holiness will stand. It is, I say, not like to that in thee, Now high, then low, now out, then in, but he Most perfect is, when thou art at the worst The same, the very same; I said at first, This helpeth much when thou art buffeted, And when thy graces lie in thee as dead; Then to believe they are all perfect still In Christ thy head, who hath that blessed skill, Yet to present thee by what is in him Unto his Father, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... said Gudbrand, "at the worst, I can only go back home with my cow. I've both stable and tether for her, and the road is no farther out than in." And with that he began to ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... their bundles by the fugitives, there was a fair supply of food and water on board; for although every portable article of value had been taken on shore when the grab anchored in Gheria, it had not been thought necessary to remove the bulkier articles. Thus, if at the worst the vessel were driven far out to sea, there was no danger of starvation, even if she could not make ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... first week or two. Now and then occasionally, for an hour or so, she would be wild, wanting to get out. But she gave that over altogether; and she has had her liberty now for a long time. But, Heaven bless her! at the worst she was always ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... alone might be negligible, but supported by that of a disinterested party it would be a very different matter. Still, there was no help for it. They would have to take care of the man until he was able to travel. Perhaps he would go in with them as an additional guard. At the worst Big Bill could give him a letter to Selfridge explaining things and so pass the ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... a sigh of relief. She put no faith whatever in Adrian's promises, but at the worst it would ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... seriously ill, and in great danger. I would not alarm you, as there were hopes when he was at the worst. I doubt he is not free yet from his complaint, as the humour fallen on his breast still oppresses him. They talk of his having a levee next week, but he has not appeared in public, and the bills are passed ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... wedding of the former cook. So well aware of it is he, that he defrays the wedding expenses, and himself names the day. You will perhaps say that it was by chance that this money was sent to Valfeuillu on the very night of the crime. At the worst that might be admitted. But believe me, there was no chance about it, and I will prove it. We will go to-morrow to the count's banker, and will inquire whether the count did not ask him, by letter ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... officers so backed up his statements that young Heywood, a boy of fifteen, be it remembered, came near to being hanged. Bligh's suppression of facts which would have proved that the youngsters Stewart and Heywood were mere spectators at the worst of the mutiny, Sir John Barrow suggests, has "the appearance of ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... be handed over to the keeping of priests who would teach them to commit idolatry, and forbid them to read the Bible— that seemed a far worse prospect in his eyes than even the agony of seeing them suffer. That, at the worst, would be an hour's anguish, to be followed by an eternity of happy rest: but the other might mean the loss of all things—body and soul alike. Little Will did not enter into the matter. He might have understood something ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... rose with a bound. How extraordinarily foolish she had been, she told herself, to have been filled with such forebodings last night! It was more than likely that the seance had taken place without Laurie; and, even at the worst, as Mr. Cathcart said, he was probably only a little more ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... with great thankfulness; and there was no need to look forward (but for one thing) save with hope. They must know soon now the fate of the missing one. At least the waiting and fearing would be over. The knowledge might leave their hearts sick; yet, even at the worst, it would be no longer ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... She had agonies in these minutes of which no one near her knew anything. She would seize with her arm the part of the bed near which she would stand, and hold by it, grasping it, as though she were afraid to fall; and then, when it was at the worst with her, she would go to her closet,—a closet that no eyes ever saw unlocked but her own,—and fill for herself and swallow some draught; and then she would sit down with the Bible before her, and read it sedulously. She spent hours every day with her Bible before her, repeating to herself ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... It passes unharmed through the fire, the air, the water. Sword and spear cannot kill or wound it. It cannot die. The trials of the physical life are but as dreams to it. Resting secure in the knowledge of the 'I,' Man may smile at the worst the world has to offer, and raising his hand he may bid them disappear into the mist from which they emerged. Blessed is he ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... and see. Others would have begged, argued, or threatened. But Jeff had schooled himself to master impulses of rage. He knew when to fight and when to yield. Nor did he give way sullenly or passionately. It was an outrage—highhanded tyranny—but at the worst it was a magnificent adventure. As he flung his weight into the ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... retreat—atheists who had been banished from Athens, devotees from the Ganges, monotheistic Jews, blasphemers from Asia Minor. Indeed, it has been said that in this heterogeneous community blasphemy was hardly looked upon as a crime; at the worst, it was no more than an unfortunate, and, it might be, an innocent mistake. But, since uneducated men need some solid support on which their thoughts may rest, mere abstract doctrines not meeting their wants, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... at the worst place, too. He had got the stove wedged into the entry-way door, and couldn't get it either way. He had acted awkward with it, and I told him so, and he see it when it wuz ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... consideration you will see that this is not only just but generous. The chances are perhaps against you, and somewhat in favor of a more unpleasant death; but it is quite possible that the storm may pass before it finishes you, and that you may then hit the fence before you die of thirst, and at the worst we leave you no worse off than we found you. And that, I hold, is more than you had any ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... seat watch out behind, there's not much chance of that. And after all, suppose he does happen to "get pinched," what of it? There are plenty of others. His father will have to pay a fine and there will be a little scolding and unpleasantness in the family, at the worst. ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... business of matrimony and now was bordering on her twenty-seventh year. Everybody was delighted, everything went smoothly as a sledge sliding down a slope of frozen snow and the mists of time hid whatever might be at the end of that slope. Probably a plain; at the worst the ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... fears perhaps in some measure moderated my own. "Hush your fears, my boy," I said, "we will get across safe, though it is not going to be easy. No right way is easy in this rough world. We must risk our lives to save them. At the worst we can only slip, and then how grand a grave we will have, and by and by our nice bones will do ...
— Stickeen • John Muir
... back of it. From the new road one can look down upon the cluster of large buildings on the side of the mountain, but the old roads are so very steep, with such interesting names as "Devil's Elbow," and the like, that they would not tempt an automobile. Many with horses get out and walk at the worst places. ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... "minutes are precious. We will await thee here, and, at the worst, if they should be captured, we can but die in attempting ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... with her winning appearance, easily find her way over the frontier of Poland. If she learned of the discovery of Clayton's body, she might, in her love craze, denounce me, even here. That would mean death for me; at the worst only a ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... was completely lost, and in the heart of Fairyland, when suddenly I remembered that everyone that strikes root in Fairyland loses something, at the least his love and at the worst his soul, and that it is a perilous business to linger there, so I asked them in that hotel how they worked it when they wanted to go west into the great towns. They put me into an omnibus, which charged me fourpence for ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... my own guilt also. On the other hand, I should be left as King (ah! for a moment my pulse quickened) and it would be for the future to witness the final struggle between him and me. He seemed to have made triumph possible and ruin impossible. At the worst, he would stand as well as he had stood before I crossed his path—with but one man between him and the throne, and that man an impostor; at best, there would be none left to stand against him. I had begun to think that Black Michael was over fond of leaving the fighting to his friends; ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... odd question, and Leam's grave intensity made it all the more odd. But Mrs, Corfield was not easily disconcerted, and it was "only Leam" at the worst. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... and at the worst even, if you do attempt to realize the scheme of going to and remaining at Gunville, for God's sake, my dear dear friend, do keep up a correspondence with one or more; or if it were possible for you, with several. I know by a little ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... the coin in the air, and as it fell at Paul's feet he felt constrained to stoop and pick it up. To do anything else might have aroused the suspicions of the man who stared. And at the worst it meant another contribution toward the various funds which the boys were raising for ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... and the hooker the slip, and take his luck with the outward bound. And now he was here, and no blame for it, why would he hurry home? The race of the O'Moores was not likely to become extinct for the loss of him, at the worst; and the Squire wouldn't grudge him a few months' diversion and a peep at the wide world. Far from it; he'd send him some money, and why not? He (Dennis) was a bit of a favourite for his mother's sake, and the Squire had a fine heart. ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Church-plagues, farewel; Bad at the best, but at the worst a Hell; Thou truss of wormwood, bitter Teaz of Life, Thou Nursery of humane cares a wife. Thou Apple-Eating Trayt'riss who began The Wrath of Heav'n, and Miseries of Man, And hast with never-failing diligence, Improv'd the Curse to humane Race e'er ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... the pleasure of this very peculiar interview. My mother would ask no consideration from you, and I ask none for her any more than for myself. To be plain for the last time, sir, you're making a fool of yourself at the best, and at the worst a blackguard into the bargain." He paused and broke into a laugh. "Well, then, where are the proofs? Show them me. Or send them down to Blent. Or I'll come up to Merrion. We'll have a look at them—for your sake, ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... look at the worst now, Walter; but I will look at the best if disappointments come to try us—suppose no one can help ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... to last his whimsicality never deserted him. In his worst hours, some innate optimism and humour held him steady in his fight. It was not depression that possessed him at the worst, but the violence of an appetite most like a raging pain which men may endure with a smile upon their lips. He carried in his face the story of a conflict, the aftermath of bitter experience; and through all there pulsed the glow of experience. He had grown handsomer, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Bah! at the worst he has only acted a little insincerely; white lies, my dear, white lies may be pardoned. Forgive him his peccadillo. He will have much to forgive in you, as you have confessed to me yourself. Tell him you are ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint |
