"At worst" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the black midnight— It was only a dream at worst or best— But I lay and thought till the dawn of light, Had the dream been true we had ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Here, at worst, we have the picture, or series of pictures, demanded by Wagner's genius; here also is a dramatic idea of sorts. His imagination immediately flamed. The music is not like that of the symphony, dry and barren wood: on the contrary, it contains many passages of rare beauty and feeling. ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... has "difficulties" is the distrustful—sometimes actually suspicious—person who locks everything tight and treats all those with whom she comes in contact as though they were meddlesomely curious at least, or at worst, dishonest. It is impossible to overstate the misfortune of this temperament. The servant who is "watched" for fear she "won't work," listened to for fear she may be gossiping, suspected of wanting to take a liberty of some sort, or of doing something else she shouldn't do, is psychologically ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... weakest of the whole. But the commons, little obnoxious to any other order, though they sunk under the violence of tempests, silently reared their head in more peaceable times; and while the storm was brewing, were courted by all sides, and thus received still some accession to their privileges, or, at worst, some confirmation ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... all the above traits, many hackers have difficulty maintaining stable relationships. At worst, they can produce the classic {computer geek}: withdrawn, relationally incompetent, sexually frustrated, and desperately unhappy when not submerged in his or her craft. Fortunately, this extreme is far less common than mainstream folklore paints it — but almost all hackers will ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... the banker, hopefully, "if we must face this thing, we must. The probabilities are that it will turn out as Hobart says. At worst it can only be a sad interruption and episode. Hobart will be better satisfied in the end if he does what he now ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... one, for aught I know or care," said the youth bluntly. "But what of that?—they say Old Noll likes in others what he hath not yet practised himself—a thing called honesty; and at worst, he could but take my life, which, after all, is little worth in comparison to those he has ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... had its Davies and its Morgan, the unhappy Charles, faultless as a man, and at worst only ill-advised as a Monarch, found himself, after much ineffectual submission, and many unconstitutional abridgements of his lawful rights, required to surrender the scanty remains of his prerogative, and consent to be a state-engine, in the hands of his enemies. When, driven from his capital by ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... since no one came to the Club, and it was impossible to read or write, he spent most of the evening in brooding.... If the rebellion were not speedily suppressed, it might be impossible for him to get to Boveyhayne in time for his marriage ... but the rebellion could not last very long now, and at worst his marriage would only be postponed a little while. His mind moved from thought to thought, from Mary to Gilbert and Ninian, then to John Marsh and his father and to the boy in Stephen's Green who ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... but she turned her shoulder to me, and I could see the red blood mount to her cheek. With the foolish inconsistency of love I held my peace when I might have plead ignorance of the nature of my offense, or at least the gravity of it, and so have effected, at worst, a half conciliation. ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a few of these houses to the United States! Our country architecture is not only hideous, but frequently unpractical, being at worst shanties, and at best city residences set in the fields. An Appenzell farmer lives in a house from forty to sixty feet square, and rarely less than four stories in height. The two upper stories, however, are narrowed by the high, steep roof, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... absorbing interest Detains me here, fills up my mind, and sways My inmost thoughts—has got, as 'twere a gripe Upon my very life, as strange as new. I scarcely know how well to speak of this, Fearing your raillery at best—at worst Even your contempt; yet, spite of ...
— A Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem - First Century • W. W. Story
... of Pascal; and in Seraphita we have sermons as long and tedious as those of an Elizabethan divine. The result is that even novels containing the presentment of love in its most passional phases lose their right to the name. At best they can be called only disparate chapters of fiction; at worst, they ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... collect the insane patients, and suitable additions are now being made to insure their safety and comfort. In another village, two hours' drive from here, is their school, where more than sixty boys and girls are taught, fed, and clothed, in most cases gratuitously, at worst at a ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... insuperable; but why this should be so, seemed to her one of the dark and mournful enigmas of life. It implied such a lack not only of good sense, but of right feeling. In her own experience she had met with no doubt, no worry, which did not yield to tact, or generous endeavour, or, at worst, to the creed by which she lived. One solicitude, and one only, continued to affect her as wife and mother; that it could not overcome her happy temper was due to the hope perpetually inspired by her husband's love—a hope inseparable from her profoundest convictions. She ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... dropped into a fitful doze. His eyes were shut, his lips were parted, his long, lean fingers twitched at times as a tremor seemed to shoot through his entire frame. Another day like the last or at worst like this, without food or nourishment, and even such rugged strength as had been his would be taxed to the utmost. There might be no to-morrow for the sturdy soldier who had so gallantly served his adopted country, his chosen ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... even at the sight of the enemy's shipping did not lose all hope. There were no soldiers aboard; Butler's army could not dare the passage of the forts in the shells of transports that contained it; the fleet, cut off as it was from all re-enforcement and supply, could, at worst, only shell the city and retire—again running the gauntlets of the two forts; and then the only loss to the city—for the flotilla in its incomplete state could not have been made effective as ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... Even the Holy Alliance, the pet offspring of his pietism, does not deserve the sinister reputation it has since obtained. To the other powers it seemed, at best "verbiage'' and "exalted nonsense,'' at worst an effort of the tsar to establish the hegemony of Russia on the goodwill of the smaller signatory powers. To the Liberals, then and afterwards it was clearly a hypocritical conspiracy against freedom. Yet to Alexander himself it seemed the only means of placing the "confederation of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... be ingenious, it may still have a kind of beauty remembered from the great design of past art; but it will lead nowhere, since it is cut off from the very experience, the passionate personal interest in people and things, which gave design to the great art of the past. It is at best satirical, at worst parasitic, using up all devices of design and turning from one to another in a restless ennui which of itself can give no enrichment. It may have its uses, since it insists upon the supreme importance of design and provides a new method for the expression of three dimensions; but this method will ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... happen to be endowed with neither wisdom nor symmetry, is it becoming of you, my reader, to institute an arbitrary standard of gracefulness, and despise every one who has not attained it! Is it for you to aggravate as a crime, what reason teaches is, at worst, a misfortune? Is it for you to calumniate those who have given you no personal offence; who are, notwithstanding their disadvantages, good members of society; and if in some respects defective, may not be vicious? But if the latter ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... would have become my master. But I, in my will should be constrained, I, the creator should be constrained in my development, my working out. Because I was a fool yesterday, I must remain one all my life. So that in my life in relation to the State I am at best—I might as well say at worst—a slave to my own self. Because yesterday I had a will, I am to-day without one; ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... sketch of little Jerry on canvas and then calling in a house painter to smear on a daub of blue for his coat, a bit of yellow for his hair, white for his collar, and just anything for the background. At worst, though, this futuristic result can be taken to the attic, turned face to the wall and forgotten; but a botched house won't let you forget. You have to live in it along with your mistakes, day after day and, possibly, year after year. When and if ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... interposition by resentment or contempt; and that every man should determine the choice on which so much of his happiness must depend, by his own judgment and observation: yet it happens, that as these proposals are generally made with a shew of kindness, they seldom provoke anger, but are at worst heard with patience, and forgotten. They influence weak minds to approbation; for many are sure to find in a new acquaintance, whatever qualities report has taught them to expect; and in more powerful and active understandings ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... almost wanton to suggest the desirableness of revising a system at once so simple, so logical, and apparently so well bottomed on facts. But there can never be any real harm in studying masses of evidence from fresh points of view. At worst, the failure of adverse criticism must help to establish the doctrines assailed. Now, as we shall show, there are two points of view from which the evidence as to religion in its early stages has not been ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... who earnestly advised a guide. The Causses, he declared, were treacherous; men sometimes lost their way upon those lofty plains and were never heard of more. Duchemin didn't in the least mind getting lost, that is to say failing to make his final objective; at worst he could depend upon a good memory and an unfailing sense of direction to lead him back the way he ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... righted so many? Here are thousands of miserable men all around us; but they have every path opened to them. They have their advocates; they have their votes; they make the laws, and, at last and at worst, they have their strong right hands for defense. And here are thousands of miserable women pricking back death and dishonor with a little needle; and now the sly hand of science is stealing that little needle ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... an illicit act and under threat of arrest. The consequences—of a truth—would not be vastly severe for the frequenters of this secret club; fines mayhap, which most of those present could ill afford to pay, and at worst a night's detention in one of those horrible wooden constructions which had lately been erected on the river bank for the express purpose of causing sundry lordly offenders to pass an ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... was no knockabout business; nobody entered the room with a somersault, tripped over a pin or hung his hat on the scenery. They all behaved as if they were presenting us with what is known as a human document, to be regarded au grand (or, at worst, au petit) serieux. The fun—and there were some very pleasant touches—was not so much the fun of a huge and preposterous joke, but rather the humour of character or incidental detail. The part of Lord Glandeville, who might ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... malevolently to compass his death. Onate maintained, on the other hand, that their prisoner was worth more to them alive than dead. There was a chance that he might weaken before morning and tell secrets. At worst they would still have his life as a card to hold in case of need over the head of the rebels. If it should turn out that this was not needed, he could be executed in the morning ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... writers; or whether it be, that the effects of a wicked or unskilful administration, are more public, visible, pernicious and universal. Whereas the mistakes in other sciences are often matters that affect only speculation; or at worst, the bad consequences fall upon few and private persons. A nation is quickly sensible of the miseries it feels, and little comforted by knowing what account it turns to by the wealth, the power, the honours conferred on those who sit at the helm, or the salaries paid to their penmen; while ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... have been related of the intense repugnance persons have been found to entertain to these, at worst, harmless animals. One shall be given in the very words of the Rev. Nicholas Wanley, who, in his authentic Wonders of the Little World, has recorded a number of other facts quite as marvellous, and sustained by testimony not one ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... defection in a Polish noble. In a discontented tone he pointed out to his son that as it was he had an unlimited leave. The right thing would have been to keep quiet. They had too much tact at Court to recall a man of his name. Or at worst some distant mission might have been asked for—to the Caucasus for instance—away from this unhappy struggle which was wrong in principle and therefore destined ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... clouds; and this is surely the right way. And if by any chance a simple intelligent person from the country comes in contact with any aspect of Nature unfamiliar and arresting, such a person's comment is always worth remark. It is sometimes an epigram, and at worst it is ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... at times he did casually allude to some expected unpleasantness when he arrived in England; yet he treated it, Granville noticed, as though hanging were at worst but a temporary inconvenience. Granville wondered whether, after all, he could have some complete and crushing answer to that appalling charge; on any other supposition, his spirits and his talk were really little short of what one might ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... was wont to come occasionally, express from Dresden, for a week or two, and give the young man lessons on the flute. The young man's Mother, good Queen Feekin, had begged this favor for him from the Saxon Sovereignties; and pleaded hard for it at home, or at worst kept it secret there. It was one of the many good maternities, clandestine and public, which she was always ready to achieve for him where possible;—as he also knew full well in his young grateful heart, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... were Commission'd, with a very great aversion, so they have still been under Heart-breaking Sollicitudes, how they might therein best serve both God and Man? In fine, Have there been faults on any side fallen into? Surely, they have at worst been but the faults of a well-meaning Ignorance. On every side then, why should not we endeavour with amicable Correspondencies, to help one another out of the Snares wherein the Devil would involve us? To wrangle the Devil out of the Country, will be truly a New Experiment: ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... thing to be done,' she said. 'It is childish to attempt to deceive a creature who is evidently not what he seems. Let me go myself, my parents. Trust me to do my best. And, at worst, if I perish, it will be in a good cause. Better it should be so than that our people should be driven from their homes, the whole country devastated, and all its ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... adventure that came to hand; he knew Fear just as little as he knew Consequence. Well, now he found himself for the first time in his life face to face with Fate. All his adventures up to this had been little things involving at worst loss of life by accident. This was different; it involved his whole future and the future of the girl who had mastered ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... the portrait; the lights are heightened, the shadows overcharged; the chosen expression, continually forced, may degenerate at length into a grimace; and we have at best something of a caricature, at worst a calumny. Hence, if they be readable at all, and hang together by their own ends, the peculiar convincing force of these brief representations. They take so little a while to read, and yet in that little while the ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the knight, we may yet be forgiven, Or at worst buy the bishop's reversion in heaven; Our frequent escapes in this world show how true 't is That gold is the only Elixir Salutis. Derry down, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... well aware that the drudgeries of such honest work as is within their reach are likely enough to lead them eventually to lung disease, premature death, and domestic desertion or brutality, that they would still see reason to prefer the primrose path to the strait path of virtue, since both, vice at worst and virtue at best, lead to the same end in poverty and overwork. It is true that the Board School mistress will tell you that only girls of a certain kind will reason in this way. But alas! that certain kind turns out on inquiry ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... effect, (I do not profess to report his very words,) that federation of those British communities widely separated by geography, but alike in race, language, laws, principles, has always attracted him as a project of excellent intentions. It is at worst a noble dream. That dream has become less impracticable than it was formerly, he thinks, by reason of the essential diminution of the world, diminution of distances and ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that the native is seen less often; that it is long since he ventured to cross the last line, where death set up landmarks in the slain. At length the secret comes out: the tribe which welcomed the first settler with shouts and dancing, or at worst looked on with ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... give the word 'Pax vobiscum.' You, Giles," he spoke to the one-armed soldier, "go with him, and, do you hear, aim low, at the third man's horse. From the sound there are not more than five or six of them. We can but fail, at worst, and the wood is thick behind us, where none may pursue. You, Norman de Pitcullo, have your whinger ready, and fasten this rope tightly to yonder birch-tree stem, and then cross and give it a turn or two about that oak sapling on the other side of the way. That trap will bring down a horse ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... Goldburg were not for the most part mere thralls and chattels, as in the lands beyond the mountains behind them, yet were they little more thriving for that cause; whereas they belonged not to a master, who must at worst feed them, and to no manor, whose acres they might till for their livelihood, and on whose pastures they might feed their cattle; nor had they any to help or sustain them against the oppressor and the violent man; so that they toiled and swinked ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... this level then, I thrust my way through what I impatiently dismissed as the "flummery"; by which I meant the poetry, the picturesqueness, the sacrosanct glamour surrounding his Reverence and St. Jude's; and found, or thought I found, that Sylvia's religion was at worst a selfish gratification of the senses of the individual worshipper, and at best a devout and pious ministration to the worshipper's own soul; in which the loving of one's neighbour and caring for one another seemed to play precisely no ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... present God. But, as I judge, though more by hope than sight, It seems much harder to the lookers on Than to the man who dies. Each panting breath We call a gasp, may be in him the cry Of infant eagerness; or, at worst, the sob With which the unclothed spirit, step by step. Wades forth into the cool eternal sea. I think, my boy, death has two sides to it— One sunny, and one dark—as this round earth Is every day half sunny and half dark. We on the dark side call ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... of the Whig's exposure was brilliantly fulfilled. People did laugh over it and say that it was a good speech, whatever its source. In popular conception literary theft is at worst a venial sin whose very iniquity is doubtful unless found out. The culprit's average fellow-townsman accepted the incident as fresh evidence of his acknowledged cleverness and promptly forgot it in the nine days' wonder over his exploit ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... are at strife, the one that has the fewest ships must always avoid doubtful engagements; it must run only those risks necessary for carrying out its missions, avoid action by manoeuvring, or at worst, if forced to engage, assure itself of favorable conditions. The attitude to be taken should depend radically upon the power of your opponent. Let us not tire of repeating, according as she has to do with an inferior or superior ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... been taught to laugh and make sport; they saw that which the heading of every newspaper column, the lie of every cub reporter, the exaggeration of every press dispatch, and the distortion of every speech and book had taught them was a mass of despicable men, inhuman; at best, laughable; at worst, the meat of mobs ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... matter how fierce the frosts of the winter, how thick the armour of ice over the surface of the pond. In the neighbourhood of the house were springs bubbling up through the bottom, and keeping the temperature of the pond fairly uniform throughout the coldest weather, so that the ice, at worst, never attained a thickness of more than a foot and a half, even though in the bigger lakes of that region it might make to a depth of three feet ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... thought, as no girl on earth had ever had, or would have, after her. And she could show this grave, soldier-hero of hers, something new in life—something quite new, which it would not harm him to know. Then, let come what would out of this adventure, at worst she should always have an Olympian episode ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... Officials, how can I testify that a courtezan is my friend? But at worst, it is youth that bears the ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... Peppe," said he. "You over-estimate the harm. At worst, we have but anticipated by a little what the Duke must have learnt from ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... across the space of water. "That's the way to talk! Whatever happens, shoot straight if you have to shoot at all—and remember, at worst, the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... grant too that, for a mediocre character, the continual training and tutoring, from language-masters, dancing-masters, posture-masters of all sorts, hired and volunteer, which a high rank in any time and country assures, there will be produced a certain superiority, or at worst, air of superiority, over the corresponding mediocre character of low rank; thus we perceive, the vulgar Do-nothing, as contrasted with the vulgar Drudge, is in general a much prettier man; with a wider perhaps clearer outlook into the distance; in innumerable superficial ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... the directions given. So far I had done nothing to get back my own. I had been driven from pillar to post without making a single step forward. At worst I could but fail, while it might be possible that by this step I might ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... she brought me flowers. I never had any constitution—trust a Latin race for that—and I became very ill indeed. With a man like you, a chill at worst; with me, pneumonia in a day. Then she came to see me herself, saw the doctor, got in all sorts of things, and was coming to nurse me through the night herself. God bless her for the thought alone! I was supposed not ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... believe any of it; but we can't afford not to run down every clew. I can't believe that my daughter is wilfully consorting with such men. She always has been full of life and spirit; but she's got a clean mind, and her little escapades have always been entirely harmless—at worst some sort of boyish prank. I simply won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes. If she's with them she's being held ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mild here. We have a capital room and all the sunshine that is to be had, plus a good fire when needful, and at worst one can always get a breezy walk on ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... that amaz'd thou miss Of thy good purpose, hearing how just God Decrees our debts be cancel'd. Ponder not The form of suff'ring. Think on what succeeds, Think that at worst beyond the mighty doom It cannot pass. "Instructor," I began, "What I see hither tending, bears no trace Of human semblance, nor of aught beside That my foil'd sight can guess." He answering thus: "So courb'd to earth, beneath their heavy teems Of torment stoop they, that mine eye at ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... almost always directed to men whose lack of pulchritude makes them easier to bring down, and, what is more important still, easier to hold down. The weight of opinion among women is decidedly against the woman who falls in love with an Apollo. She is regarded, at best, as flighty creature, and at worst, as one pushing bad taste to the verge of indecency. Such weaknesses are resigned to women approaching senility, and to the more ignoble variety of women labourers. A shop girl, perhaps, may plausibly fall in love with a moving-picture actor, ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... President who kept himself innocent of any knowledge of secret treaties during the war, could be naive enough to believe that the promise to return complete sovereignty retaining only economic rights is a satisfactory solution. It threw fresh light upon the contention that at most and at worst Japan had only taken over German rights, and that since we had acquiesced in the latter's arrogations we had no call to make a fuss about Japan. It revealed the hollowness of the claim that pro-Chinese propaganda had wilfully misled Americans into confusing ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... flanks. Even our Militarists and diplomatists would have had reasons for such an intervention. An aggressive Franco-Russian hegemony, if it crushed Germany, would be quite as disagreeable to us as a German one. Thus Germany would at worst have been fighting Russia and France with the sympathy of all the other Powers, and a chance of active assistance from some of them, especially those who share her hostility to the Russian Government. ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... is good to be with you again, Signorina!" cried I, as I came with quick strides into the moonlit garden. I caught both her hands in mine, and laughed like an ineffably contented person. There was nothing very subtle about the boy that then was I; at worst, he overacted what he really felt; and just at present he was pleased with the universe, and he saw no possible reason for ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... what Qualitie soever, Interlarded with Poetry." Per contra, the learned Acidalius published a book in Latin and afterwards in French, to prove that women are not reasonable creatures. Modern theologians are at worst merely sub-acid, and do not always say so, if they think so. Meanwhile most persons have been content to leave the world to go on its old course, in this matter as in others, and have thus acquiesced in that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... protected, would itself protect individuals, as far as such protection is possible, against the errors and superstitions of State medicine, which are at worst no worse than the errors and superstitions of private practice, being, indeed, all derived from it. Such monstrosities as vaccination are, as we have seen, founded, not on science, but on half-crowns. If the Vaccination ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... consecutively in my black-bound volume I can no longer be sure, but it became a companion whose society I valued, and at worst it was a thousand times more congenial to me than Jukes' 'On the Pentateuch' or than a perfectly excruciating work ambiguously styled 'The Javelin of Phineas', which lay smouldering in a dull red cover on the drawing-room table. I dipped my ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... chunks of cold fried fish had been part of her conception of the Day of Rest. Visions and odours of her mother frying plaice and soles—at worst, cod or mackerel—were inwoven with her most sacred memories of the coming Sabbath; it is probable she thought ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... sure of is that the MS. contains many new and curious facts, and I am sure the Essay would have interested me, and will interest those who feel lively interest in the wonders of nature; but how far the public will care for such minute details, I cannot at all tell. It is a bold experiment; and at worst, cannot entail much loss; as a certain amount of sale will, I think, be pretty certain. A large sale is out of the question. As far as I can judge, generally the points which interest me I find interest others; but I make the experiment with fear and trembling,—not ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... that it is almost always the result of some avoidable error or misconception. With the rare exception of a man who is by nature a criminal or a waster, there need be no such thing as failure. Every man has a career before him, or, at worst, every man can find a niche in the social order into which he can fit himself ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... 'a more convenient season,' when the pleasures of life should have lost their charm, and they themselves should be drawing near the close of their pilgrimage. That theory which made a deadly sin of that which was at worst but a pardonable misdemeanor and perhaps wholly innocent in its nature, could not fail in time to react violently, first through the process of disgust, then through that of inquiry, and finally to the carrying of speculation to extremes, and practically pronouncing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... night, surround the house and negro cabins at the landing, (to prevent an alarm from being given,) then to take the side path, and if all went well, to surprise the camp; but if they got notice of our approach, through their pickets, we should, at worst, have a fight, in which the best man ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... lawyer to defend her, but like many assigned counsel he couldn't think of anything to say in her behalf. As regards the little pigs he did enter the plea that no animus was shown, that they had merely followed the example of their mother, and that at worst they were under age and irresponsible. However, the court found them all guilty, and the sow was publicly hanged in ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... hapless James had fallen in battle, or gone on a pilgrimage to merit absolution for the death of his father. And when this other more modern mark was affixed, the Gowrie conspiracy must have been the topic of the day, and the mechanics were probably speculating,—at worst not more doubtfully than the historians have done after them,—on the guilt or innocence of the Ruthvens. It now rose curiously enough in memory, that I was employed in fashioning one of the stones marked by the anchor,—a corner stone in a gate-pillar,—when ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... he should be rewarded for long expectation, and boundless expense; for he should then, he said, be sure of her person, and had long secured her heart. He knew he had strong prejudices and strange scruples to combat; but was prepared, and should not find them difficult to conquer; at worst, his steward in a parson's habit would lull them all ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... lacking, that one man has a thing which another has not. But all men are equal, therefore, argues the democrat, I have no failing; therefore I need not try to conceal and control my alleged failings, as they are at worst merely ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... circumstances and difficulties; sensitive in the highest degree to the forms of courtesy, and incapable by nature as by training of an act or word which could offend the sensibilities of even a discourteous interlocutor,—capable at worst of an indignant silence, but incapable of invading the personality of another; not serene, but of an invincible tranquillity; with no sympathy for mystery or obscurity; supremely above the general and commonplace by the exquisite refinement to which he carried the expression of ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... group, I went forward to get the report of the mail agent. He had put things to right, and told me that, though the mail had been pretty badly mixed up, only one pouch at worst had been rifled. This—the one for registered mail—had been cut open, but, as if to increase the mystery, the letters had been scattered, unopened, about the car, only three out of the whole being missing, and those very probably had fallen into ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... cruelty, in the first place, to introduce them into a sphere where no adequate provision could be made for their comfort and culture; but to shoulder them, after they get here, with the load which belongs to their parents is outrageous. Earth is not a paradise at best, and at worst it is very near the other place. The least we can do is to make the way as smooth as possible for the new-comers. There is not the least danger that it will be too smooth. If you stagger under ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... produce some occasion of communicating them to you. The true occasion of doing it with advantage to the party will probably be lost; but they will remain a monument of my justification to posterity. At worst, if even this fails me, I am sure of one satisfaction in writing them: the satisfaction of unburdening my mind to a friend, and of stating before an equitable judge the account, as I apprehend it to stand, ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... revive this noblest of the beautiful arts, and people the world with new shapes of delicate grace and massive grandeur. Perhaps," he added, smiling, "mankind will consent to wear a more manageable costume; or, at worst, we sculptors shall get the skill to make broadcloth transparent, and render a majestic human character visible through the coats and trousers ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... have, at this moment, but the one objection to it; the FRACAS with which it proceeds. I do not love noise; I am like my grandfather in that; and so many years in these still islands has ingrained the sentiment perhaps. Here are no trains, only men pacing barefoot. No carts or carriages; at worst the rattle of a horse's shoes among the rocks. Beautiful silence; and so soon as this robustious rain takes off, I am to drink of it again ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... proceeding I conceive (if any can) will be effectual—but whether it meets with the approbation or disapprobation of the congress, I most humbly conjure them not to attribute the proposal to arrogance, or self-conceit, or pragmatical officiousness, but, at worst, to an intemperate zeal for the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... At worst an unhappy victim of his own carelessness in loosing a peril upon his neighborhood. You're forgetting a connecting link; the secretive red-dot communications from New York City addressed by Moseley to himself on behalf of some customer who ordered simply by a code of ink dots. He was the man ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... transient view, bribery is rather a subject of disgust than horror,—the sordid practice of a venal, mean, and abject mind; and the effect of the crime seems to end with the act. It looks to be no more than the corrupt transfer of property from one person to another,—at worst a theft. But it will appear in a very different light, when you regard the consideration for which the bribe is given,—namely, that a Governor-General, claiming an arbitrary power in himself, for that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... pistol- bullet—what is it? Perhaps it may save the wretch after all from the pangs of some lingering disease; and then again I shall have the character of a murderer, if known to have shot him; he will with many people have no such character, but at worst the character of a man too harsh (they will say), and possibly mistaken in protecting his property. And then, if not known as the man who shot him, where is the shadow even of vengeance? Strange it seemed to me, and passing strange, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Lovelier by far than Rye, not only in itself, but because of what it offers you, those views of hill and marsh and sea with Rye itself, like I know not what little masterpiece of Flemish art, in the middle distance eastward, Winchelsea is a place never to be left or at worst never to be forgotten. One comes to it from Rye on a still afternoon of spring when the faint shadows are beginning to lengthen, expecting little. In fact, if the traveller be acceptable, capable of appreciating anything so still and exquisite, Winchelsea ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... is the weakest thing that Ibsen admitted into the canon of his works. He wrote it in 1870 as "a study which I now disown"; and had he continued in that frame of mind, the world would scarcely have quarrelled with his judgment. At worst, then, my collaborator and I cannot be accused of marring a masterpiece; but for which assurance we should probably have shrunk from ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen
... Kirkwood's anger cooled apace; at worst it had been a flare of passion—incandescent. It was seldom more. His brain clearing, the temperature of his judgment quickly regained its mean, and he saw his chances without distortion, weighed them ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... effusions my aunts used to sing; Farewell, for the fame of the bard does not linger, My favourite minstrel's no longer the thing. But though on his temples has faded the laurel, Though broken the lute, and though veiled is the crest, My Bayly, at worst, is uncommonly moral, Which is more than some new poets are, ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... They were then only passengers in a common vehicle. They were then carried along with the general motion of religion in the community, and, without being aware of it, partook of its influence. In that situation, at worst, their nature was left free to counterwork their principles. They despaired of giving any very general currency to their opinions. They considered them as a reserved privilege for the chosen few. But when the possibility of dominion, lead, and propagation, ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... no evil will to defeat the course of nature; at worst there is merely an absence ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... conceal nothing from them, I was at great ease how to draw it up without any inventions or practise to put me to future pain or thoughts how to carry on, and now I only discover what my profit was, and at worst I suppose I can be made but to refund my profit and so let it go. At noon home to dinner, where Mr. Jackson dined with me, and after dinner I (calling at the Excise Office, and setting my wife and Deb. at ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Katherine). This your free, And sweet ingenuous confession, binds me Forever to you; and it shall go hard, But it shall fetch you back your husband's heart, That now seems blindly straying; or, at worst, In me you have still a sister.—Some wives, brother, Would think it strange to catch their husbands thus Alone with a trim widow; but your Katherine Is arm'd, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... another trembled on the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong hold on his credulity. The neighbour hearkening with white face beside his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible surmise on the pavement—these could at worst suspect, they could not know; through the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate. But here, within the house, was he alone? He knew he was; he had watched the servant set forth sweet-hearting, in her poor best, ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... propensity for picking up what lies temptingly in their way. And some few are so honest that they pass by as harmlessly as a wedge of high-flying wild duck. And I have heard it said that to places like Lisconnel their pickings and stealings have at worst never been so serious a matter as those of another flock, finer of feather, but not less predacious in their habits, who roosted, for the most part, a long way off, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... melancholy pines, beside stagnant lagoons, across sluggish streams, and into cypress swamps, the lurking-place of reptiles, the dreary haunt of bats and vultures. The road, at best, was an indifferent bridle path, and at worst, a blind labyrinth of seldom trodden ways in the woods. Arlington carried in his saddle-bags a supply of bread and cheese, and he kept ready primed, in holster at his pommel, a ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... amount of organic matter allowed to putrefy in the very heart of our cities. The dust bins—a necessary accompaniment of the water-carriage system of disposing of sewage—are theoretically supposed to be receptacles mainly for organic refuse, such as coal-ashes, broken crockery, and at worst the sweepings from the floors. In sober fact they are largely mixed with the rinds, shells, etc., of fruits and vegetables, the bones and heads of fish, egg-shells, the sweepings out of dog-kennels and henhouses, forming thus, in short, a mixture of evil odor, and well adapted ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... they are worth—not to mention the librarians who are so engaged in making out triple cards and bibliographies and fitting titles to vague recollections that they have no time left to read. Furthermore, if reviewing is a chore at worst, and at best a desire to gratify a craving for the unappeasable, editing reviews is still more chorelike, and seeking the unobtainable—a good review for every good book—is quite as soul-exhausting ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... induce deliberately the "Christmas feeling." We have to remind ourselves that "it will never do" to let the heartiness of Christmas be impaired. The peculiarity of our attitude towards Christmas, which at worst is a vacation, may be clearly seen by contrasting it with our attitude towards another vacation—the summer holiday. We do not have to brace and force ourselves up to the enjoyment of the summer holiday. We experience no difficulty in inducing the holiday feeling. There is ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... vouch for him. He was sent here by his city editor to cover our reunion. That he comes here at such an unfortunate time is a coincidence. We may speak to him frankly. We are perhaps exaggerating and magnifying what is at worst only a normal thing in the lives of old men. We have all lived our lives and death is—" He paused and at several nods from members of the group he ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew |
