"Good-for-nothing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... work so? Look and see, There in the corner, children three! Plump and furry and full of fun, (A good-for-nothing is every one.) And all those ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... me, Shemuel!" moaned Simcha, wringing her hands. "You'd give away the shirt off your skin to a pack of good-for-nothing Schnorrers." ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... ever now, since she has taken those two girls of her good-for-nothing brother's. If they had been boys, they might have been some use on her mite of a farm. When I said so to her, she said: 'Yes, my dear, that's just the reason their mother's family don't want them; but, you know, girls have to live as well as boys. We're pretty ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... there ALONE, with that good-for-nothing stepfather? How do they get enough to EAT?" said Cousin Ann, ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... neck, she strained her closely. "But you poor dear auntie! Come, sit down. I'm going to do all the work now—mine and yours, both. Oh! the beautiful gardening! Rows and rows and rows! With all the other work beside. And me an idle good-for-nothing!" ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... could not resist a tribute of admiration for the courage with which, during this time, she fought her uphill fight against poverty and opposition. Her affection for her children and her loyalty to her good-for-nothing husband were touching in the extreme; and, if not quite sincere, were most ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... father tells him. If I complained, he would say that I did not want him to learn. I really require some one to take care of the house; and if the boy had no mind for this sort of work, they ought not to have put me to expense. But they are good-for-nothing, and are working toward a certain end of their own. Enough, I beg you to relieve me of the boy; he has bored me so that I cannot bear it any longer. The muleteer has been so well paid that he can very well take him back to Florence. Besides, he is a friend of the father. Tell the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... lost her father. He was a rough idle good-for-nothing, and one stormy night on his way home from the tavern he went astray and was found dead in the snow. Her mother had died when she was so small a child that Mary could scarcely remember her face. So it happened that she was left alone in the world, and all she possessed was a ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... chorus of female voices rose, bewailing the scarcity and dearness of provisions, cursing the emigres and devoting to the guillotine the Commissaries of Sections who were ready to give good-for-nothing minxes, in return for unmentionable services, fat hens and four-pound loaves. Alarming stories passed round of cattle drowned in the Seine, sacks of flour emptied in the sewers, loaves of bread thrown into the latrines.... ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... of the Bridge Farmer was directed not merely against the teachers at Freising; the priest had enlightened him as to the fact that Matt was deficient in everything except tarot playing and beer-drinking. The ragamuffin, the good-for-nothing! ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... forgive me if you're worse off than you ever expected to be. But it's the fault o' the law,—it's none o' mine," he added angrily. "It's the fault o' raskills. Tom, you mind this: if ever you've got the chance, you make Wakem smart. If you don't, you're a good-for-nothing son. You might horse-whip him, but he'd set the law on you,—the law's made ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... I have loved you, by the black stone of Rennes I should be rich by now. Indeed, indeed, I have loved you all! You, the workers, all puffed up and dyspeptic and ready for the asylums; and you, the good-for-nothing lazy drones; you, the strong silent men, who have heads quite empty, like gourds; and you also, the frivolous, useless men that chatter and gabble to no purpose all day long. Even you, that, having begun to read this book, could get no further than ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... no capital so valuable as the physical soundness of his stock; the moral was easily enough forged or counterfeited. Little Mammy's good-for-nothing mother was sold as readily as a vote, in the parlance of to-day; but no one would pay for a crippled baby. The mother herself would not have taken her as a gift, had it been in the nature of a negro-trader to give ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... do that than pay as Florine does. There, go away with you, good-for-nothing that one loves; or give me a carriage ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... an idle, good-for-nothing fellow you must think me," said Philip, putting down little Mary, who had been sitting on his knee, and ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... minerals; four pianofortes of different sizes, and an excellent harp. All this to study does Desdemona (that's me) seriously incline; and the more I study the more I want to know and to see. In short, I am crazy to travel in Greece! The danger is that some good-for-nothing bashaw should seize upon me to poke me into his harem, there to bury my charms for life, and condemn me for ever to blush unseen. However, I could easily strangle or stab him, set fire to his castle, and run away by the light of it, accompanied by some handsome pirate, with ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... London, a good-for-nothing lad, idle and dissolute. When leaving England his father warned him that if he didn't alter he'd end his days on the gallows. Served various sentences on all sorts of charges. Over six years ago we took him in hand, admitted him into ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... pretends that, with kindness and patience, he succeeds in turning Duvauchel and fellows of his kidney into his best soldiers! What humbug! As though there were any way of taming those beggars, short of discipline! A pack of good-for-nothing scoundrels, who would fly across the frontier the moment the ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... don't feel much for the young and the sturdy poor, and I make it a rule never to give a farthing to young beggars, not even to little children, for I know full well that they are sent out to beg by idle, good-for-nothing parents. I stand up only for the aged poor, because, be they good or wicked, they cannot help themselves. If a man fell down in the street, struck with some dire disease that shrunk his muscles, unstrung his nerves, made his heart tremble, and his skin shrivel up, would you look ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... calloooh, callay,'" cried Hippy shaking hands all around. "It seems ages since I saw you girls. How well you all look, only you're not looking at me. These other good-for-nothing fellows are getting all the attention. Hello, Miriam," he called to Miriam Nesbit, who ran eagerly across the floor to meet the newcomers. "There's a prize package for you, too. It's outside the door shaking the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... the maid was taking a saucepan from the shelf, the housewife pinched her arm and whispered sharply: "Not that, you good-for-nothing! Get the old one out of the cupboard. It leaks, and the Hillmen are so neat, and such nimble workers, that they are sure to mend it before they send it home. So one obliges the Fairy People, ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... and like most really worthless young men he exercised an extraordinary charm on every one who knew him, both women and men. For to be a real good-for-nothing, without being a criminal, implies a native genius for wasting other people's time as agreeably as one's own, and for helping rich men to get rid of their money with infinite pleasure and no profit at all, and for making every ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... "is quite in harmony with my own views. Come along then with me to the palace of the Monitory Vision Fairy, and let us deliver up this good-for-nothing object, and have done with it! And when the company of pleasure-bound spirits of wrath descend into human existence, you and I can then enter the world. Half of them have already fallen into the dusty universe, but the whole number ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... foolish mind of the citizens, but sometimes with reason, themselves becoming incapable of preserving the state, I indeed chiefly groan for hapless Greece, who, wishing to work some doughty deed against these good-for-nothing barbarians, will let them, laughing at us, slip through her hands, on account of thee and thy daughter. I would not make any one ruler of the land for the sake of necessity,[25] nor chieftain of armed men. It behooves the general ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... kind of a man? I am a good-for-nothing; I have lost my good name [weeping]. My good name is gone. ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... would have gone to church that beautiful morning—satisfied and happy—if they hadn't had their son to think of. Father complained that he was dull and lazy; he had not cared to learn anything at school, and he was such an all-round good-for-nothing, that he could barely be made to tend geese. Mother did not deny that this was true; but she was most distressed because he was wild and bad; cruel to animals, and ill-willed toward human beings. "May ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... increased, that she was often unable to stand on her feet. A bottle of wine, holding more than a quart, in the morning, and another in the evening, together with a pound of sugar, was her usual allowance. She addressed letters to Alva complaining that her husband had impoverished himself "in his good-for-nothing Beggar war," and begging the Duke to furnish her with a little ready money and with the means of arriving at ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... has decided republican leanings, and considers Le Progres a masterpiece of journalistic literature; but, as he says simply and strongly, "it is not because a man is a marquis that one is not to keep faith with him; a bad action is not good because it harms a good-for-nothing of a noble; the more when that good-for-nothing is no longer a noble, but pour rire." At the easy price of acquiescence in these sentiments, the stranger hears one of the most authentic, best-remembered, ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... would have pleased me to play the grand and generous; this is melodrama, after all; because I should have thought of no one but myself, the idea! for the sake of saving from a punishment, a trifle exaggerated, perhaps, but just at bottom, no one knows whom, a thief, a good-for-nothing, evidently, a whole country-side must perish! a poor woman must die in the hospital! a poor little girl must die in the street! like dogs; ah, this is abominable! And without the mother even having seen her child once more, almost without the child's having known her mother; and all ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Flora," said his wife, restraining herself by an effort. "One unfortunate marriage in the family is enough; and here, instead o' walking out with young Ben Lippet, who'll be 'is own master when his father dies, she's gadding about with that good-for-nothing ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... fasted, or gone to an alehouse.—You never said one word of Goody Stoyte in your letter; but I suppose these winter nights we shall hear more of her. Does the Provost(3) laugh as much as he used to do? We reckon him here a good-for-nothing fellow.—I design to write to your Dean one of these days, but I can never find time, nor what to say.—I will think of something: but if DD(4) were not in Ireland I believe seriously I should not think of the place twice a year. Nothing there ever makes the subject of talk in any ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... to, you good-for-nothing trash! I've been that worried about you I didn't know what to do. Your traps has been here ever so long, and I've had supper cooked fresh about four times so as to have it hot and good when you come, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to think the Private an irresponsible good-for-nothing, look hard at the next Commissionaire you meet on the street. That smart, clean, well-brushed man, with his bronzed face, his bright keen eyes, and general look of self-respect, was once a soldier, and indeed it is soldiering that has made him what you see. Look hard, ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... too," replied Mrs. Bateson, waxing more indignant. "There's dear Miss Elisabeth has been like an own daughter to Miss Farringdon ever since she was a baby, and yet Miss Farringdon leaves her fortune over Miss Elisabeth's head to some good-for-nothing young man that nobody knows for certain ever was born. I've no patience with ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... a woman's own fault if she had a lover, did not escape. I had not my mother to shield me, and nobody had anything to do, so it was the universal fashion; and M. de Lamont thought proper to pursue me. I knew he was dissipated and good-for-nothing, and I showed the coldest indifference; but that only gave him the opportunity of talking of my cruelty, and he even persuaded Mademoiselle to assure me that ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Montmorency. I wouldn't take a 'good-for-nothing' under my care for so long a time. You forget I already have a 'muff' on hand. I congratulate myself, this time, on having secured a 'good-for-something.' Ah! ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... wants no rivals, not even paper rivals. And so often when you talked of poetry I have felt lonely and chilled and far away from you, and I have been half envious, dear, of your Heros and your Helens, and your other good-for-nothing Greek minxes. But now I do not mind them at all. And I will make amends, quite prodigal amends, for my naughty jealousy; and my poet shall write me some more lovely poems, so ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... the little black-haired baby from its foldings of white muslin, Tulee exclaimed: "He looks jus' like his good-for-nothing father; and so does Missy Rosy's baby. I'm 'fraid 't will make poor missy feel bad to see it, for she don't know nothin' ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... captain's letter. "It settles the thing in my mind. We'll go back to Sibley to-morrow; and as for you, Sergeant-Major Fred, your name has gone in for a commission, and I've no doubt a very deserving sergeant will be spoiled in making a very good-for-nothing second lieutenant. Get you back to your regiment, sir, and call on Captain Armitage as soon as you reach Fort Russell, and tell him you are much obliged. He has been blowing your trumpet for you there; and, as some of those cavalrymen have sense enough ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... good-for-nothing skipper;" "That's a harmless yellow-bird;" "That's the flicker of the sunshine, When the alder-leaves are stirred;" "That's the shadow of a cloudlet;" "That's a squirrel come to drink;" "That—look ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... That present air of hers would take in London; better even than in this out-of-the-world hole, it would be more appreciated. And what thousands she has to carry it off well, or I ought to say, to carry it on well. That good-for-nothing," he added, "does not even understand his luck." There was an undertone in his voice which gave the bitter laugh with which he tried to hide it an intensity that made Bulchester look ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... her father, gravely enough. "I suppose when the trees wave their arms and shake themselves so violently they are saying to each other something like this: 'See how these good-for-nothing children go in good-for-nothing boats over this ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... 'You good-for-nothing boy, you! It's always meal-times when you come home: that's all you care about here. Look at the knees of your trousers; why, playing marbles in the street with all the other filthy little brats is about all you're fit ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... Miss Hepsy," said Carrie briskly, not choosing to mind the snappy greeting she received. "I declare I always feel a lazy, good-for-nothing creature when I come to Thankful Rest.—Here, Lucy child, sit down and let me do your work while I am here; you ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... should have any such effect. But I do know that as the law stood until very recently in many of the States a husband was not the best guardian for his wife in many cases, and frequently the greatest hardships that I have ever known in the community have arisen from the fact that a good-for-nothing, drunken, miserable man had married a respectable lady with property, and your law turned the whole of it right over to him and left her a pauper at his will. While I was at the bar I was more conversant with the manner in which these domestic affairs were ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... other members of its family: goodly, goodish, goody-goody, good-hearted, good-natured, good- humored, good-tempered, goods, goodness, goodliness, gospel (good story), goodby, goodwill, goodman, goodwife, good-for-nothing, good den (good evening), the Good Book. The connection between these ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... another, it is common in Malay to adopt an impersonal and not a direct mode of address. Instead of saying, "You are a lazy, good-for-nothing boy, and deserve a good thrashing," the Malay says, "What manner of boy is this? If one were to beat him soundly ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell
... the pretty girls with their apple cheeks, who laughed and prattled round the fountain! What was the book? Do you suppose it was Livy, or the Greek grammar? No; it was a NOVEL that you were reading, you lazy, not very clean, good-for-nothing, sensible boy! It was D'Artagnan locking up General Monk in a box, or almost succeeding in keeping Charles the First's head on. It was the prisoner of the Chateau d'If cutting himself out of the sack fifty feet under water (I mention the novels ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said. "Hello! It is that good-for-nothing young Cooper fellow from the next block. They say he is a millionaire. Well, he isn't even going to ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... equal to the sum dissipated. It was then that he discovered the secret which Sarah had carefully concealed from him,—her mad passion for Maxime de Trailles, whose earliest steps in a career of vice showed him for what he was, one of those good-for-nothing members of the body politic who seem the necessary evil of all good government, and whose love of gambling renders them insatiable. On making this discovery, du Tillet at once saw the reason of Gobseck's insensibility to ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... they baptize holy matrimony, which the Pope himself calls a sacrament, infamiam imperil.] For the arguments which they use we shall afterwards review. Now let the wise reader consider this, namely, what shame these good-for-nothing men have who say that marriages [which the Holy Scriptures praise most highly and command] produce infamy and disgrace to the government, as though, indeed, this public infamy of flagitious and unnatural lusts which glow among these very holy fathers, who feign ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... think not," assented Marzio proudly; then catching sight of the expression on the young man's face, he turned sharply upon him. "You are mocking me, you good-for-nothing!" he cried angrily. "You are laughing at me, at your master, you villain you wretch, you sickly hound, you priest-ridden worm! It is intolerable! It is the first time you have ever dared; do you think I am going to ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... existence is it for any human being, with power to do otherwise, to pass through life a worthless, good-for-nothing nonentity, living for self, shirking the sacred duties of paternity, defrauding nature and God and sowing corruption where he might be laying the foundation of a race that may never die? There is no one to whom he has done ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... great holiday in Florence and the artist had his best suit of clothes on; but not caring for this he threw off his coat, and went to work to clear away the rubbish from that marble. His friends were surprised. They said to him:—"Come on, let's go; what's the use of wasting your time on that good-for-nothing lump ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... holding my tongue during the last few years. What is the use of raking up bygones? Do you suppose I am so proud of my past life that I care to talk about it? Why can we not start afresh? You know me for what I am, the good-for-nothing Mat O'Brien. I know I am no fit companion for you and Prissy; and if you tell me to go, I will shift my quarters without a reproachful word. Shall ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... good-for-nothing, and find out on dry bread that a noun's a name of anything, like helefunt, hantelope, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... Quinnepeg Pond was the name of it, but the young ladies of the Apollinean Institute were very anxious that it should be called Crystalline Lake. It was here that the young folks used to sail in summer and skate in winter; here, too, those queer, old, rum-scented, good-for-nothing, lazy, story-telling, half-vagabonds, that sawed a little wood or dug a few potatoes now and then under the pretence of working for their living, used to go and fish through the ice for pickerel every winter. And here those three young people were drowned, a few summers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... forth, not to go into deep water, for fear a great greedy pike or some other great fish might be there and swallow him up at a mouthful. He kept away from the shallow places in hot weather, lest the sun should dry them up. When he saw a shadow on the water, he said to himself, 'Halloo! here are the good-for-nothing fishermen with their nets!' and immediately he sculled away and got under the banks, where he sat trembling in all his scales; and when he saw a tempting fly skimming on the water, or a nice fat worm, he did not dare to bite, although he was half-starved. 'No, no,' said the little ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... would have been offered to Herr Courvoisier, only, you see, he has turned out a good-for-nothing. But perhaps you heard ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... indeed, as loud as he could—"You impudent little blackguard! I am a copying-clerk at the police-office; and you know you cannot insult any belonging to the constabulary force without a chastisement. Besides, you good-for-nothing rascal, it is strictly forbidden to catch birds in the royal gardens of Fredericksburg; but your blue uniform betrays where you come from." This fine tirade sounded, however, to the ungodly sailor-boy like a mere "Pippi-pi." He gave the noisy bird a knock ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... to make some different arrangements for you," he added in a slightly milder tone. "Can't afford to have you get sick and knock your act out. It's too important. I'll fire some lazy, good-for-nothing performer out of a closed wagon and give you ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... not," retorted the other. "The Commissary swears to his own signature on the identity book. The concierge at the Abbaye swears that he knows Mole, so do all the men of the Surete who have seen him. The Commissary has known him as an indigent, good-for-nothing lubbard who has begged his way in the streets of Paris ever since he was released from gaol some months ago, after he had served a term for larceny. Even your own man Hebert admits to feeling doubtful on the point. You have had the nightmare, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... lamentations, rose, placed her hands defiantly on her hips, and poured forth a torrent of invective upon Gevrol and his agents, accusing them of persecuting her family ever since they had previously arrested her son, a good-for-nothing fellow. Finally, she swore that she was not afraid of prison, and would be only too glad to end her days in jail ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... Wilkie. On the latter's return Bridget told her the whole story, adding that she supposed the old lady had come to herself and got tired waiting; in time, however, the baby was missed, and that threw a new light on affairs. Mrs. Wilkie was frantic; she denounced Bridget as a good-for-nothing, refused to sit down to dinner, and set off with her mother in the ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... Clutterbuck, I am sure, I don't know what else you are, muddling your head all day with those good-for-nothing books. And now do tell me, how you could think of asking Mr. Pelham to dinner, when you knew we had nothing in the world but hashed mutton and an apple pudding? Is that the way, Sir, you disgrace your wife, after her condescension in ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with money and put into the hospital, from which he came out apparently cured, but fell again. The plan for him to come to the hospital seemed to the doctor a rather dangerous one, for the man was a positive good-for-nothing. But in the meantime Anna had returned from America, and was, with her sister, willing to try him; for it seemed his last chance, and the mother had begged so hard for him. So he came to the hospital—a poor wretch, ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... inducing serious complications. It is better to take no medical treatment, but rely solely on the hygienic advice we have given, rather than to resort to any of the so-called "specifics" found in the drug shops, or to any such silly, good-for-nothing trash as the various "Pastilles," "Boluses," "Curative Rings," "Voltaic Belts," or other ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... tackle it in earnest till to-night. To-morrow, we have a thundering big job ahead of us; the last job, perhaps, for me. Old Jonathan, you have been the best friend a man ever had, the only one I love as much as my own brothers—and even more. It was from knowing you that I came to see what good-for-nothing fools some fellows are. You were always so unselfish and straight! and you made me feel that I was the contrary, and that you knew it, and that I should lose your friendship if I didn't improve a bit. So, if we don't meet again ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... good-for-nothing lover to make his mistress look so sad. If I were you, I'd give ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... about, you good-for-nothing?" he shouted. "Why didn't you stay with the others? You might have lent me a hand with the ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... therefore prepared for loss. But here the benefaction lies only in the difference between the price paid for the work and its actual value. Instead of giving the beggar two sous, the institution supplies him with work on which it loses two sous. But at the same time it converts the good-for-nothing beggar into an honest breadwinner, who has earned perhaps 1 franc 50 centimes. 150 centimes for 10! That is to say, the receiver of a benefaction in which there is nothing humiliating has increased it fifteenfold! That is to ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... put them away in the cupboard, wrung out the dishcloth according to orders, and hung it on its nail. When this was finished she looked about with pride. The children were unusually peaceful; altogether, the day promised well. "Mother'll not say that I'm a good-for-nothing girl this time," thought Mell, and tried to recollect what should ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... as dismal as I could be after I got home, longing to go back to that dreary, dismal, good-for-nothing Culm Rock. The shells, etc., got here all right. Give my respects to Uncle Richard, and tell him I'll come down and turn his house topsy-turvy for him again next summer, if he wants me to. Don't you forget to send a letter back by ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... in, with an indifferent smile. "I was standing in the door; he was full; he ought to have been kicked out; you done right; he's a lazy, good-for-nothing scamp, but don't talk to me about him. I pay him what is coming to him, board him for next to nothing, and there my responsibility ends. I'm not fighting his battles—huh, I guess not! How's ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... very angry,—the Bon-Di: he spoke very crossly; he scolded Y a great deal. But he was so kind for all that,—he was so generous to good-for-nothing Y, that he took the pains to repeat the words over and over again for him:—"Tam ni pou tam ni b."... And this time the Bon-Di was not talking to no purpose: there was somebody there well able to ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... just taken a good swallow of hot tea. My father rushed from me to Juschka. "You rascal! you ought not to have taken the watch," he cried, seizing him by the hair; "and you sold it to the watchmaker, you good-for-nothing fellow!" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... sis," said she, "but a poor ugly fool, a shiftless, good-for-nothing old man. O, me! O, me! I could easily have known that this would be the case, from the dreams ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... how Tobbia was getting on. Finding him at work, unharmed, and without even knowing anything about the matter, the messenger went back and told the Pope, who turned round to Pompeo and said: "You are a good-for-nothing rascal; but I promise you well that you have stirred a snake up which will sting you, and serve you right!" Then he addressed himself to Cardinal de' Medici, and commissioned him to look after me, adding that he should ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Peckover, "it's almost as great a surprise to me to be in London, as it is—Be quiet, young Good-for-Nothing; I won't even shake hands with you if you don't behave yourself!" These last words she addressed to Zack, whose favorite joke it had always been, from the day of their first acquaintance at Valentine's house, to pretend to be violently ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... quarrel with La Normande with respect to the ten-sou dab, they had at once made friends again with Lisa, and they now had nothing but contempt for the handsome fish-girl, and assailed her and her sister as good-for-nothing hussies, whose only aim was to fleece men of their money. This opinion had been inspired by the assertions of Mademoiselle Saget, who had declared to Madame Lecoeur that Florent had induced one of the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... of respect for superiors, the pride that the spirit of darkness infused in the young, the lack of manners, the absence of courtesy, and so on. From this he passed to coarse jests and sarcasm over the presumption which some good-for-nothing "prompters" had of teaching their teachers by establishing an academy ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... a bit does she care whether they do or not; and no wonder, when Mr. Lyddell himself never goes in the afternoon, and has gentlemen to speak to him. And then down at the stables—'tis a pretty set of drinking, good-for-nothing fellows there. I hope from my heart Sir Gerald won't be for getting down there among them; but they say Master Lionel and Master John are always there. And ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of the school board and a political power in the town. Among other things Mr. Tincup is bitterly opposed to football as a sport that's "absolutely barbarious." Football, in Mr. Tincup's exalted opinion, is a machine which manufactures a lot of good-for-nothing rowdies. He's made the air blue at many board meetings, voicing his protest against continuance of the sport as an athletic activity at Burden High but he's never quite been able to get a majority vote against it. Just the same his attitude has stirred up considerable feeling ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... the dead redskins was a Wanderer, and a dead white man was that good-for-nothing Baptiste Masson I have often ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... is better than a turned coat! (Thunders of applause.) I say that this paper is full of wholesome things, and that when it denounces the Minister as a good-for-nothing, as a slanderer, as a thief—it does but ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... said these awful words, when he realized they were a counsel of perfection, and felt embarrassed at the unapproachable grandeur of his idea. So he hastens to add that, of course, "the true pilot" will be called "a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing." [Footnote: 2 Bk. VI, 488-489.] But this wistful admission, though it protects him against whatever was the Greek equivalent for the charge that he lacked a sense of humor, furnished a humiliating tailpiece to a solemn thought. He becomes defiant and warns Adeimantus that ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... the streets of Seville, in company with a Spanish friend, a curious investigator of the popular traditions and other good-for-nothing lore of the city, and who was kind enough to imagine he had met, in me, with a congenial spirit. In the course of our rambles we were passing by a heavy, dark gateway, opening into the courtyard of a convent, when he laid his hand upon ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... man." He was therefore sentenced to death for blasphemy and beheaded on July 26, 1547, "calling on God as his Lord." After his death one of his books was found and condemned. To justify this course Calvin alleged that Gruet said that Jesus Christ was a good-for-nothing, a liar, and a false seducer, and that he (Gruet) denied the existence of God and immortality. Evangelical freedom had now arrived at the point whore its champions first took a man's life and then his character, merely for writing ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... difficult and perplexing, Don Luis knew, besides, how to keep his seat so admirably on the back of a fiery horse, his veneration and his affection for his cousin knew no bounds. Currito was an idler, a good-for-nothing, a very block of wood, but he had an affectionate ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... "You good-for-nothing boys! You are always bursting out upon me in some ridiculous way, and I always get taken in because I'm not used to such pranks. Uncle is as bad as the rest, and it's great fun," she said, as the lads came round her, half scolding, half welcoming, ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... believe now thou wouldst have all the money thou hast of mine go in thy wages. If so, and if that be thy pleasure, I give it to thee now, once and for all, and much good may it do thee, for so long as I see myself rid of such a good-for-nothing squire I'll be glad to be left a pauper without a rap. But tell me, thou perverter of the squirely rules of knight-errantry, where hast thou ever seen or read that any knight-errant's squire made terms with his lord, 'you must give me so much a month for serving you'? ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... has no business here. He's a good-for-nothing sot. If I kept a tavern, I'd refuse to ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... your husband than the veriest beggar in the street. You have disappointed me terribly, Virginia. I believed you to be sensible and clever; but the admission you have just made proves you to be little short of a goose. Bah! you couldn't have chosen worse. A dissipated, mercenary good-for-nothing!" ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... restless figure pacing the darkened hall, moaning, moaning—seeing nothing, hearing nothing, doing nothing but walk and sorrow, sorrow and walk, hour in and hour out. "It's enough to tear a body's heart to hear her, poor dear. And that good-for-nothing Spanish piece racing and shrieking round the tennis court like a she tom-cat, the heartless hussy. Her and that simpering silly that's trotting round after her had ought to be put in a bag and shaken up, that they ought. It's downright scandalous ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... came back she cried out with vexation, for the cakes were burned and spoiled. "You lazy, good-for-nothing man!" she said, "I warrant you can eat cakes fast enough; but you are too lazy to help ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... to her hard little bed, perhaps some angel, sent to minister to the motherless child, may have known that the "good-for-nothing," ignorant little girl, oppressed with the feeling of her own sinfulness, and full of the thought of her new-found heavenly Friend, was nearer the kingdom of heaven than the petted, admired, winning Stella Brooke, who had never yet learned her need of the Saviour, who came "not to call ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... stables and garrets, or oftener in the open air; sometimes charitably sheltered in a kind man's barn, and perhaps—oh bliss!—honestly employed with him for a week or two; at others rudely repulsed as a good-for-nothing and vagabond. Vagabond! That truly was his profession now. He forgot the charms of a fixed abode. He came to like his gypsy freedom, the open air and complete independence. He laughed at his misery, provided ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... Rouquin," said Mr. Bingle, drawing back to look more intently into the unfriendly eyes of the once amiable Rouquin. "Napoleon shall have the best I can give him, no more. He is as well with me as he could ever have been with his good-for-nothing father, and if I choose to get rid of him later on to the best advantage I won't be doing anything more despicable than his father and mother did before me. ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... thought she. And when she saw that he was coatless, had only her jacket on, brought no parcel, stood there silent, and seemed ashamed, her heart was ready to break with disappointment. "He has drunk the money," thought she, "and has been on the spree with some good-for-nothing fellow whom he ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy
... protecting her young,—'I am not going to talk of Bob: lads will get into trouble sometimes. If Mr. Eric had not been so interfering at that time, ordering Bob off the premises whenever he caught sight of him, and calling him a good-for-nothing loafer and all sorts of hard names,—why, he gave Bob a black eye one day when he was doing nothing but shying stones at the birds in the kitchen-garden,—if it had not been for Mr. Eric's treatment of Bob I might have acted better ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... only mystery about it is the prisoner's father. He is a fine-looking man, with the manner and the head of an old Roman. He has the reputation of being the straightest and squarest man in the county; and how he ever came to be the father of such a good-for-nothing scum-of-the-earth as the prisoner I can explain only on the supposition ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... dear girl, and never seems to think him good-for-nothing, as most people do. Perhaps it is sham though—no, he can't think that when he remembers how patiently and kindly she has borne with his senseless fits of temper and tried to laugh ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... speak after all," said Herbert. "Well, now, that's jolly; I thought you were going to be a good-for-nothing stupid creature. Come now, say it again; but give us ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... "I have it in my power to repair the loss occasioned by the failure of this good-for-nothing banker! Nay, positively, Mad. de Coulanges, I must not be refused," continued she, in a peremptory manner. "You make an enemy, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... Why else should she be here? D'ye think I've not had enough trouble and care put upon me bringing up my own girls, let alone you and your good-for-nothing brother, ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... a parvenu, whose sole object in life, to be recognised by "Society," is thwarted by the marriage of his good-for-nothing son with the daughter of an Irish lodging-house keeper. The struggles of Mr. and Mrs. Bompas to conceal this mesalliance, and the assistance given them in their difficulties by the Hon. Montague Trimble, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... he also more justly hated Alkibiades for his overbearing ways, and his want of all real respect for gods or men. It was very hard on Socrates that the faults of his pupils should be charged against him; but Aristophanes had set all Athens laughing by a comedy called "The Clouds," in which a good-for-nothing young man, evidently meant for Alkibiades, gets his father into debt by buying horses, and, under the teaching of Socrates, learns both to cheat his creditors and to treat respect for his father as a worn-out notion. The beauty and the lisp of Alkibiades ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said, slowly, "until father and mother went away I had been the lazy one of the family, the good-for-nothing—the drone—and I've not yet learned to work in the quiet way my sister does, which accomplishes so much without any fuss. Now that she can get about again she does twice as much as I do, but she doesn't make such a ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... numerous arrows[376] whereas now, having grazed the broad part of my foot, thou boastest thus. I regard it not, as though a woman had wounded me, or a silly boy: for idle is the weapon of an unwarlike, good-for-nothing man. From me, indeed, it is otherwise; for if one be touched but slightly, the weapon is piercing, and forthwith renders him lifeless; and the cheeks of his wife are furrowed on both sides, and his children are orphans; but crimsoning the earth with his blood, he putrefies, and the birds ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... in idleness, teach them to despise labor, let them depend upon someone for a continuously happy time, and you will cultivate the good-for-nothing young man. ...
— Plain Facts • G. A. Bauman
... man: 'Is he gone?' and he says, 'Happen and he is gone.' I pulled him by the hand; he opened his eyes and said: 'I feel better now.' Then he remained quite still for about five paters and aves, and smiled toward the ceiling. This made me angry, and I says: 'Oh, you good-for-nothing, how can you laugh at my misery? But he only smiled at death, not at my misery, for he began breathing very hard, and that was all he did until ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... believe you ought to go to the picnic this afternoon if you are feeling so played out," Mother Jenkins added. "Your Ma will think I haven't taken good care of you. It was them good-for-nothing boys a-coming that wore you ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... you've come to help an old man die! Yes, I am dying, Job; the old man's near the end. I'll no more hang around the Miners' Home and beg a drink from the stranger. Curse the rum, Job! It's brought me here where you find me, a good-for-nothing, dying without a friend in the world—yes, one friend, Job; you're ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... there is a curiously dry look about it! The unnaturally yellow skin resembles a piece of good-for-nothing wrinkled parchment. The lips partake of the prevailing sallow tint, and the mouth hangs a little awry. From the cloth in which the head is so elaborately bandaged up strays forth, here and there, an arid lock of hair. The lack of united expression in his features produces an effect ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... idle good-for-nothing scoundrel, and I hope to see him hanged!" shouted Mr. Hayes. "And pray, madam, whose carriage was that as you came home in? I warrant you paid something for the ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... man's voice, crooning his tuneless song as he trudges home in the twilight, his well-filled creel at his side,—the good-for-nothing dog in his arms; or it is that look of sweet contentment on his face,—the deep and thoughtful eyes, filled with the calm serenity of his soul. And then the ease and freedom of his life! Plenty of air and space, and plenty of time to breathe ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... schools, of prisons, of hospitals, all of whom have but too guilty consciences, and they all decide on measures of escape from his wrath. They march in file to the hotel where the supposed Revisor lodges. There for some days had been dwelling a young penniless good-for-nothing whom the officials mistake for the dreaded Revisor. The young man is surprised, but soon accepts the situation, and plays his part admirably. Presents and bribes are sent him from all sides; he borrows money right and left, makes love to the mayor's wife as well as to his daughter, and finally ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... what he was, all right. He took sides with that good-for-nothing scoundrel who had shot a man that was almost his father. Why, I never saw such a case of ingratitude in ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... mounts the Engine up too fast, and indangers Precipitation: But 'tis happily observed, That these ill Feathers are but a very few, compar'd to the whole number; at the most, I never heard they were above 134 of the whole number: As for the empty ones, they are not very dangerous, but a sort of Good-for-nothing Feathers, that will fly when the greatest number of the rest fly, or stand still when they stand still. The fluttering hot-headed Feathers are the most dangerous, and frequently struggle hard to mount the Engine to extravagant heights; but still the greater ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... am. It's that makes me so glad this morning. I had that good-for-nothing Sam up at four o'clock, helping me saw the boards to build them bins to put the garden sass in. He reckoned you'd a much sight better have been staying in them foreign parts than be giving decent folks such bother. ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... "they'll be all right." In truth he had no picketing pins. Now, the animals are merrily trotting homewards. I saw them two miles off an hour ago with him after them. His wife, who is also after them, goaded to desperation, said, "He's the most ignorant, careless, good-for-nothing man I ever saw," upon which I dwelt upon his being well meaning. There is a sort of well here, but our "afternoon tea" and watering the horses drained it, so we have had nothing to drink since yesterday, for the canteen, which started without a cork, lost all its contents ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... I believe in Mr. Surrey, and what's more, I believe in Miss Ercildoune,—have reason to; and when I hear anybody mixing her up with these onry, good-for-nothing niggers, it's more'n I can stand, so don't let's have any more of it"; and turning with an air which said that subject was ended, Jim took up his forgotten coffee, pulled apart some brands and put the big tin cup on the coals, and then bent over ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... the time the sun had melted it away again, her father had married another wife. This new wife had two daughters of her own, that she brought home with her: they were fair in face but foul at heart, and it was now a sorry time for the poor little girl. "What does the good-for-nothing thing want in the parlour?" said they; "they who would eat bread should first earn it; away with the kitchen maid!" Then they took away her fine clothes, and gave her an old frock to put on, and laughed at her and turned her into ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... and if you'll take us in we'll promise to stand by you to the end, no matter what comes. We know they've got the best of it—having the ship's stores—but we don't care for that. They are a drunken, good-for-nothing crowd, and we ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... the field manager, Mr. Ashton, who all lived at the foot of the hill, the Orbans had no white neighbours nearer than five miles off. The field hands were coloured men of some five or six different races, chiefly Chinese or Malays—the good-for-nothing riff-raff of their own countries come to ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... Some merry good-for-nothing Devils we have indeed, which we might, if we had room, speak of at large, and divert you too with the Relation, such as my Lady Hatt's Devil in Essex, who upon laying a Joiner's Mallet in the Window of a certain ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... with a low, crooning voice, gentle fingers, and soft, restful hollows about her shoulders and bosom for the heads of tired babies; Meg thin, rickety, and sneak-eyed, with a broken tail that hung at an angle, and but one ear (a black-and-tan had ruined the other)—a sandy-colored, rough-haired, good-for-nothing cur of multifarious lineage, who was either crouching at her feet or in full cry for some hole in a fence or rift in a wood-pile where he could flatten out and sulk ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... said her mother's voice, sternly, "thou good-for-nothing! Thou'st let the syrup burn, and the smell is all over the house. Charles, what dost thou mean by loafing indoors at this hour of the day? Go about ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... virgin souls, and of that bride chamber and marriage, from whence they that have stained their wedding-garment are piteously cast out, bound hand and foot, into outer darkness. When he had thought thereon, and shed bitter tears, he smote upon his breast, driving out evil thoughts, as good-for-nothing drones from the hive. When he rose, and spread out his hands unto heaven, with fervent tears and groans calling upon God to help him, and he said, "Lord Almighty, who alone art powerful and merciful, the hope of the hopeless, and the help of the helpless, remember me thine ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... any of the folks 'round here about Jerry Morton," the boy exclaimed. "They'll tell you what a good-for-nothing lazy-bones he is. They'll say he isn't worth the powder and shot to blow him ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... must be a scale that the dragon had scraped off his back, wriggling among the stones, when both children were startled by a loud voice calling out, "What are you doing, children? You will fall into the well and break your good-for-nothing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... Egyptian priesthood. People are beginning to find out now that you can't study any religion by itself to any good purpose. You must have comparative theology as you have comparative anatomy. What would you make of a cat's foolish little good-for-nothing collar-bone, if you did not know how the same bone means a good deal in other creatures,—in yourself, for instance, as you 'll find out if you break it? You can't know too much of your race and its beliefs, if you want to know anything about your ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... received a pretty little letter from C. C., all on nice, pretty figured paper, such as you love, and she talks a great deal about you; the substance of it is, that you are an ugly, little, lazy, stupid, good-for-nothing knurle, and that she is very sorry she ever wrote you a line. I can't vouch for the very words, but I think this is a fair abridgment of that part of her letter which concerns T. B. A. I wish you would teach half a dozen ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... means, it is the devil who prowls round about your soul, peeping and prying to see if he can find an open door. He did this with Job, with St. Anthony, with St. Catherine of Siena, and with an infinity of good souls whom I know, as well as with my own, which is good-for-nothing, and which I do not know. And have you, my good daughter, to distress yourself about what the devil attempts? Let him wait outside and keep all the avenues of your soul fast shut. In the end he will be tired out, or if not God will force him to ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... lightly, "don't put on such a long face. I foresee that you are about to give me a lecture, and I don't want the tone of remonstrance to be the last that I shall hear. I know that I'm a wild, good-for-nothing fellow, and can guess all you would say to me. Let us rather talk of your speedy return to Hellas, for, to tell you the truth, I feel as if the loss of you would leave me like a poor man who has been crippled in the wars. I shall be a mere shadow ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... "And where have you been, you good-for-nothing boy, all this time? putting me to all this useless expense that you have; all my money thrown away for nothing." I looked at the table and perceived that she had been making a black dress and bonnet, to put little Virginia into mourning; for she never let slip an opportunity to dress ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... not spend a farthing on funeral services. They were accordingly borne to the paupers' graves which he had caused to be prepared for them, and when he saw them both interred, he cried out that he was well rid of such good-for-nothing children, but that he should be perfectly happy only when the remaining five were buried with the first two, and that when he had got rid of the last he himself would burn down his palace as a bonfire to celebrate ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... gave him a tap with the toe of her shoe and said: "Go away, then, you good-for-nothing; you are one as bad as the other, all good-for-nothings." And as she turned away from him, Reinhard went slowly up the steps of ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... (worthless good-for-nothing wretch), "Bodo!" (fool). I hear these words repeated incessantly in tones of thunder and fury, with accompaniments which need not be dwelt upon. The Malays are a revengeful people. If any official in British service were to knock them ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... rushed at me and nearly choked me with his embraces. I did not like so much affection, and as I had not recognized him at first on account of the darkness of the room, I took him by the arm and led him to the window. It was my youngest brother, a good-for-nothing fellow, whom I had always disliked. I had not seen him for ten years, but I cared so little about him that I had not even enquired whether he were alive or dead in the correspondence I maintained with M. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to the ground before the terrible old chief and quavered a recital of the facts. Her good-for-nothing boy Lamai had picked the dog from the water. It had been the cause of much trouble in her house. But now Lamai had gone to live with the youths, and she was carrying the dog to Agno's house at ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... convent and he at once promises to assist his new friends. Meanwhile Javotte appears in the mask of an oriental Queen and Benoit makes love to her, but he is very much stupified when she takes off her mask, and he recognizes Javotte. She laughingly turns away from him, when the good-for-nothing youth's new parents appear, to reproach him with his levity. But Benoit, nothing daunted rushes away, telling the Marquis that he intends to visit his sisters in the convent. Miton tries in vain to recall him. Then the two old suitors of Agathe and Chimene ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... ran. Screed, rip, rent. Sede, seed. Semescope, jacket. Sets, patterns. Seventeen-hunder, very fine (linen). Shachled, feeble, shapeless. Shaw, show. Shiel, shelter. Shool, shovel. Shoon, shoes. Shouther, shoulder. Sic, such. Siller, silver, money. Sin', since. Skeigh, skittish. Skellum, good-for-nothing. Skelp, run quickly. Skiffing, moving along lightly. Skirl, squeal, scream. Skriech, screech. Slaes, sloes. Slap, gap in a fence. Slea, slay. Sleekit, sleek. Slid, smooth. Smeddum, powder. Smethe, smoke. Smoor, smother. Smothe, vapor. Snaw, snow. Snell, bitter. Snooded, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... people had arisen, a friend of my mother came to the house and washed out the clothes. During all this time, Mrs. Mitchell was scolding vigorously, saying over and over again, "Lucy, you do not want to work, you are a lazy, good-for-nothing nigger!" I was angry at being called a nigger, and replied, "You don't know nothing, yourself, about it, and you expect a poor ignorant girl to know more than you do yourself; if you had any feeling you would get somebody to teach me, and then ...
— From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom • Lucy A. Delaney
... flung himself into an armchair and cocked one leg over the arm of the chair: "It is all that good-for-nothing Hatszegi!" he cried. "The fellow is a ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... to publick Shame: And indeed I should be glad to have them handled a little tenderly at the first; but if fair means will not prevail, there is then no other Way to reclaim them, but by making use of some wholesome Severities; and I think it is better that a Dozen or two of such good-for-nothing Fellows should be made Examples of, than that the Reputation of some Hundreds of as hopeful young Gentlemen as my self should suffer thro' their Folly. It is not, however, for me to direct you what to do; but, in short, if our Coachmen will drive ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele |
