Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Lay claim   /leɪ kleɪm/   Listen
Lay claim

verb
1.
Demand as being one's due or property; assert one's right or title to.  Synonyms: arrogate, claim.  "Mr. Smith claims special tax exemptions because he is a foreign resident"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Lay claim" Quotes from Famous Books



... Brownson's road to the Church the philosophical road. Finding that doctrines which his philosophical mind perceived to answer the deepest questions of the soul were taught only in one society, and there taught with authority, he argued validly that that society could lay claim to the right to teach. From the doctrine to the teacher, from the truth to the external authority that teaches it, is an inference of sound reason. This applies to Father Hecker's case also, for he was ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... wonder if you and your husband can put me up for the night. I'm Frank Holliwell. I'm on a round of parish visits, and, as my parish is about sixty miles square, my poor old pony has gone lame. I know you are not my parishioners, though, no doubt, you should be, but I'm going to lay claim to your hospitality, for ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... Scuderi with all the great respect to which the venerable lady, highly honoured as she was by the king himself, might justly lay claim. He listened quietly to all that she had to adduce with respect to the terrible crime, and Olivier's relations to the victim and his daughter, and his character. Nevertheless the only proof he gave that her ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... feared that vain attempts of this kind and unjustifiable claims may do harm to what is styled at present the cause of women. There is no doubt that women have certain rights and that they are suffering injustice. They ought to lay claim to a better future, to a wise independence, to a greater participation in knowledge, and to more respect, interest and esteem from men. This future, though, is ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... only a quarter month, and we have some L500 in the Treasury. It is quite a miracle. We have lost two battles, suffering severe losses in these actions of men and arms, and may have said to have scrambled through, for I cannot say we can lay claim to any great success during the whole time. I believe we have more ammunition (Remington) and more soldiers now than when I came up. We have L40,000 in Treasury in paper and L500. When I came up there ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... consulted the gods without any priestly intervention, and Queen Boudicca had priestly functions.[526] Without giving these hints undue emphasis, we may suppose that the differentiation of the two offices would not be simultaneous over the Celtic area. But when it did take effect priests would probably lay claim to the prerogatives of the priest-king as incarnate god. Kings were not likely to give these up, and where they retained them priests would be content with seeing that the tabus and ritual and the slaying of the mock king were duly observed. Irish kings were ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... as the first director of the Harvard Observatory, was at that time making observations with a small telescope, first near Boston and afterwards at Cambridge. But with so meagre an outfit his establishment could scarcely lay claim to being an astronomical observatory, and it was not surprising if Airy did not know anything ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... wondering whether he was again about to lay claim to the previous embarrassing acquaintance. "I have several things in view," he said sketchily, "from which a man in my position ought to ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... insult towards the man and towards the sovereign; and finally, because—and the word, too, burnt like a hot iron—because, in fact, it was nothing but a mystification after all. This girl, therefore, who, in strictness, could not lay claim to beauty, or birth, or great intelligence—who had been selected by Madame herself, on account of her unpretending position, had not only aroused the king's regard, but had, moreover, treated him with disdain—he, the king, a man who, like ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... characters of the play, and the actors who perform them, lay claim to the first and most particular investigation. Those upon whom the more enlightened part of the public have bestowed the greatest approbation, require the most severe scrutiny, since they only can affect the public taste. Birds of passage ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattling down the mountain road, and the driver sounded his horn, while echo caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim to little share. The great hills played a concert among themselves, each contributing a ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... dare I lay claim to holiness or love? A man of endless craving, who never tires of teaching, I might be called, but ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius

... in the field; once in an eastward direction, and once along the south sea-board to Adelaide—the latter, I was told, being considered a very small undertaking, quite a coasting trip, and one on account of which we could not lay claim to much credit. I therefore was desirous of penetrating the mystery that shrouded the interior, and, with that object in view, I used my utmost endeavours to organize an expedition in that direction. Without the support and co-operation of one who I am sorry not to see here this evening, ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... He may wed her if he will, but he will be a duke no longer. In fact, he will be an outcast with no title to lay claim to, if indeed the Babbianians will leave him a head at all; whilst I, at least, though not a duke with a tottering throne, am a count with lands, small but securely held, and shall become a duke if Gian Maria refuses to relinquish me your niece. So that if he be disposed to ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... according to his heart, Ortrud, descended from Radbot, Prince of the Frisians. Telramund presents to the King the sombre-browed, haughty-looking Princess at his side. "And now," he declares, "I here arraign Elsa von Brabant. I charge her with the murder of her brother, and I lay claim in my own right upon this land, to which my title is clear as next of kin to the deceased Duke; my wife belonging, besides, to the house which formerly gave sovereigns ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... astrological opinions, it is an agreeable transition to proceed to the examination of his high merits as an astronomer and a philosopher. As an experimental philosopher, or as an astronomical observer, Kepler does not lay claim to our admiration. He himself acknowledges, "that for observations his sight was dull, and for mechanical operations his hand was awkward." He suffered much from weak eyes, and the delicacy of his constitution did not permit ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... decent in the same rather depressing way as the appointment of her room, put it beyond doubt that she spent her days in some one of the manifold kinds of teaching; a roll upon her lap plainly consisted of music. She could not lay claim to good looks, save in the sense that her features were impressed with agreeable womanliness; the smile which followed speedily upon her expression of surprise when Mrs. Ormonde appeared, was natural, homely, and sweet. ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... thing, you know, Mr. Vandemark; and the truth being a seamless web, if a lawyer knows all about the law in one book, he's prone to make a hell of a straight guess at what's in the rest of 'em. Hence beware of the man of one book. I may safely lay claim to being that man—in a figurative way; though there are half a dozen volumes or so back there—the small pedestal on which I stand reaching up toward a place on the Supreme Bench of the ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... figures in the tennis world that have held their public in their hands, all have been men of marked personality. Not all great tennis players have personality. Few of the many stars of the game can lay claim to it justly. The most powerful personality in the tennis world during my time is Norman E. Brookes, with his peculiar sphinx-like repression, mysterious, quiet, and ominous calm. Brookes repels many by his peculiar personality. He never was the popular hero that other men, notably ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D

... how my absurd riches encumbered 170 me! I dared not lay claim to above half my possessions. Let me but once unbosom myself, glorify Heaven, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... Literary laborers lay claim, therefore, to the same protection for a full and free enjoyment of the results of their labors as is demanded by those who work with their hands and who are in the strict sense of the term manufacturers. ...
— International Copyright - Considered in some of its Relations to Ethics and Political Economy • George Haven Putnam

... perfection, forever on the wing, presents itself to the human mind. Continual changes are then every instant occurring under the observation of every man: the position of some is rendered worse; and he learns but too well, that no people and no individual, how enlightened soever they may be, can lay claim to infallibility;—the condition of others is improved; whence he infers that man is endowed with an indefinite faculty of improvement. His reverses teach him that none may hope to have discovered absolute ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... the fullest and most authentic details on all the points I have mentioned—a book written at a time, and under circumstances, when the author (himself a British subject and familiar on the Columbia) had no more idea that the British would lay claim to that river, than Mr. Harmon, the American writer whom I quoted, ever thought of our claiming New Caledonia. It is the work of Mr. FRANCHERE, a gentleman of Montreal, with whom I have the pleasure to be personally acquainted, and one of those employed by Mr. ASTOR in founding his ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... heads of the people and the tribes of Israel gathered together." hence his unique position in Jewish legend, neither Abraham, the friend of God, nor Solomon, the wisest of all men, nor Elijah, the helper in time of need. can lay claim to such a position. ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... have enough ships and men here to take Gram," Rathmore said. "Proclaim yourself King of Tanith and then lay claim to the throne of Gram and the whole ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper

... had been discovered and to proclaim that he did not know the culprit's name. But, as between man and man, between Lupin and Shears, between burglar and detective, there was, in all fairness, neither victor nor vanquished. Each of them could lay claim to ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... father; and now the empress has been crowned at Presburg, so that there may be no link wanting in the chain which holds the several portions of the empire together. Again, the king of Hungary, while he enjoys various privileges, to which the king of England cannot lay claim, is likewise subjected to various restraints, from which the king of England is free. The former, for example, as he appoints arbitrarily to vacant bishoprics, so he inherits the whole of a bishop's professional savings, who may chance to ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... native tribes conterminous oppression, slavery, alias apprenticeship, etc. Many a tale of woe could be told arising, as they express it, from the English allowing their subjects to spoil and exterminate. Hitherto, the natives have been the sufferers, and might justly lay claim for compensation. With every expression of respect and esteem, I remain, ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler

... Philip, how does it fare with my Lady Rich? Rumour is busy, and there are tale-bearers, who have neither clean hearts nor clean tongues. Sure you can pick and choose amongst many ladies dying for your favour; sure your Queen may lay claim to your devotion. Why waste your sighs on the ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... the ruins of Clifford Castle, which was the birthplace of "Fair Rosamond." Here the Wye enters Herefordshire, the valley broadens, and the stream gradually leads us to the ancient town of Hereford, standing chiefly on its northern bank and in a delightful situation. This city does not lay claim to Roman origin, but it was nevertheless one of the fortified outposts of England on the border of Wales, and was often the scene of warfare. It was walled and vigorously defended, while hostelries and chapels were erected for the accommodation of ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... property, and who, generally speaking, have been no benefit to the society in any way, but, on the contrary, after having enjoyed its hospitality, and brought no small share of trouble upon the people, have had the assurance to lay claim to wages which they never earned, or property to which they never had any just ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... no doubt that there have been hundreds of persons, and thousands of letters, which might equally contribute to this most interesting, and sometimes most brilliant, portion of our literature. The French lay claim to superiority in this as in every thing else; but we must acknowledge that it is with some toil we have ever read the boasted letters of De Sevigne—often pointed, and always elegant, they are too often frivolous, and almost always local. We are sick of the adorable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... him, nor seek to alter his laws; but that they should own, confess, stand by, and acknowledge him for their rightful king, in defiance to any that do or hereafter shall, by any pretence, law, or title whatever, lay claim to the town of Mansoul; thinking, belike, that Shaddai had not power to absolve them from this covenant with death, and agreement with hell. Nor did the silly Mansoul stick or boggle at all at this most monstrous engagement; but, as if it had been a sprat in the mouth of a whale, they swallowed ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... I know your falsity; I know that, like others, you too would be capable of breaking your plighted troth; but I did not know that so basely you could lie! I have been listening by your uncle's door! So what about that child Zosia? Has she attracted your regard? And do you traitorously lay claim to her! Hardly had you deceived one unfortunate, when already beneath her very eyes you were seeking new victims! Flee, but my curses will reach you—or remain, and I will publish your perfidies to the world; your arts will ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... of what has been said above, it may be pointed out that woman, even intelligent woman, nurses all sorts of misconceptions about herself. She, for instance, is constantly picturing to herself that she can as a worker lay claim to the same all-round efficiency as a man—forgetting that woman is notoriously unadapted to tasks in which severe physical hardships have to be confronted; and that hardly any one would, if other alternative offered, employ a woman in any work which imposed upon her a combined physical ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright

... perished, and two or three fugitive pieces inserted in collections are the only legacy bequeathed to posterity by his muse. Of these, "The complaint of a lover wearing black and tawny" has ceased, in the change of manners and fashions, to interest or affect the reader. "Fancy and Desire" may still lay claim to the praise of ingenuity, though the idea is perhaps not original even here, and has since been exhibited with very considerable improvements both in French and English, especially in Ben Jonson's celebrated ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... Mississippi; he was a man of blood, and his blood was shed. Some score of years later Spaniards massacred the Huguenot colony at St. Augustine, and built that oldest of American cities. Beyond this, on the Atlantic slope, they never proceeded, having enough to do further south. But they lay claim, even in these closing years of the Nineteenth Century, to the entire American continent—"if they ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... of argument, by saying, as we have already said, that these would undoubtedly be faults in another style of poetry, but not in this. The late M. de Voiture is a proof in point. We need only read the works in which he brings to life again the character of Marot. For our Author does not lay claim to praise for himself, nor to rounds of applause from the public for having put a few tales into rhyme. Without doubt he has entered on quite a new path, and has pursued it to the utmost of his power, choosing now one road, now another, and always ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... service. Let us do our work like men,—till the soil, build homes, refine brute matter, be learned in law, in medicine, in theology; but let us never chain our souls to what they work in. No earthly work can lay claim to the whole life of man; for every man is born for God, for the Universe, and may not narrow his mind. We must have some practical thing to do in the world,—some way of living which will place us in harmony with ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... the letter, found the gold pieces and put them carefully into his pocketbook. He did not mention the letter to Grace at present, for he knew not but Deacon Pinkerton might lay claim to the money to satisfy his debt ...
— The Cash Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.

... of Ontario cannot lay claim to the honour of having established the first Colleges with University powers in British North America. King's College at Windsor, in Nova Scotia—the old home of 'Sam Slick'—was the first institution of a high order founded in the provinces, its history as an academy going as far back ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot

... conflict after conflict—as to the respective rights of the Federation and the individual States. From the history and from the immobility of the constitution, we may perceive the extent to which the existence of a Federal pact checks change, or, in other words, reform. Every institution which can lay claim to be based upon an organic law acquires a sort of sacredness. Under a system of Federalism, the Crown, the House of Peers, the Imperial Parliament itself, when transformed into a Federal Assembly, ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... his terms. A combination is supposed to have been entered into by the chief demanders of indemnities, by which they have bound themselves to resist all farther extortions. They do not, however, know the man they have to deal with; he will, perhaps, find out some to lay claim to their own private and hereditary property whom he will produce and support, and who certainly will have the same right to pillage them as they had to the spoils ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... but a perpetuation of the temple form of Astral worship, we can readily see that, while some of its symbols are as old as the ancient Egyptian religion, it did not, as a secret order, take its rise until Christian persecution made it necessary. Hence it cannot justly lay claim to a greater antiquity than the fifth century ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... upon this view, the Sophist may be regarded as the answer to the problems about One and Being which have been raised in the Parmenides. Any of these arrangements may suggest new views to the student of Plato; none of them can lay claim to an exclusive ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... it with thee I must tug for Empire? For I lay claim to all this World of Beauty. [Takes La Nuche, looking ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... Into which of the three historical groups mentioned could the Jewish people be put? Are we to call it one of the most ancient, one of the ancient, or one of the modern nations? It is evident that it may lay claim to the first description, as well as to the second and the last. In company with the most ancient nations of the Orient, the Jewish people stood at the "threshold of history." It was the contemporary ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... family in a casual way, and said he had done some business for them, but stated that he had not heard of their tragic death until some years after the sinking of the Geiser. He had then ascertained that no one had appeared to lay claim to Mrs. Petersen's estate, and he had accordingly taken it upon himself to adveritse for heirs. In due course Charles A. Clark had appeared and had deeded the property to Keilly, who in turn had conveyed ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... wonder," replied Mrs. Starkweather; "beside the Bible there are few books in any household in the settlement. I doubt if the minister can lay claim to a half dozen. He has his knowledge ...
— A Little Maid of Province Town • Alice Turner Curtis

... this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... replied, but without making much headway on account of the agitation and excitement, produced by the orator's speech; that by the common usages of war they might lay claim to a much larger extent of territory; that their demand was characterized by great moderation, and insisted on their yielding to the ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... the bride well; for there are heretics who lay claim to her good will. I met a rover of strange rig and miraculous fleetness, in rounding the headlands of Otranto, who seemed to have half a mind to follow the felucca in her ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... rule, but for a few remarkable exceptions, like Sir Robert Peel and Gladstone. And yet it would be unwise to decry college honors, since not one in a hundred of those who obtain them by their industry, aptness, and force of will can lay claim to what is called genius,—the rarest of all gifts. Moreover, how impossible it is for college professors to detect in students, with whom they are imperfectly acquainted, extraordinary faculties, more especially if the young men ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... lay claim to a hereditary aristocracy. She has, however, what is infinitely better for the purposes of commercial, political, and social progress—an aristocracy of energy, talent, and moral worth. There are very few of her merchants and manufacturers who have not ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... adjourn with you to the neighbouring coffee-house, and there, over a pipe and a cup of coffee, the bargain is concluded on much better terms than in public, where, possibly, the merchant's pride would not relish the exposure of abating some hundred piastres, and where the sharks of brokers might lay claim to a good recompense, for bringing the Ingles capu dou to ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... convinced, ready enough to learn, but we justly object to sink our opinions and our judgment in those of a counsellor who has only "crammed" for his article. Moreover, we must be sure that he can fairly lay claim to the three requisites of an adviser—capacity to advise rightly, honesty to advise truly, and courtesy to advise decently. Now the Saturday Review has neither this, that, nor the other qualification. Indeed his ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... queried Don Ruy. "I hold it best that the bond be understood lest the beauty be sent beyond reach—and some of our best men squander time on her trail! Since you, good father, have Jose,—I will lay claim to this Cleopatra who calls herself by another name,—a fire brand should be kept within vision. Your pardon, Eminence—and you to the head of the council in ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... not what it had been. [See Arp and all his works.] There had come, as the years went by, a few recruits; but faces were missing: the two Tabors had gone, and Uncle Joe Davey could no longer lay claim to the patriarchship; he had laid it down with a half-sigh and gone his way. Eskew himself was now the oldest of the conscript fathers, the Colonel and Squire Buckalew pressing him closely, with Peter Bradbury no ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... come unto him shall never be cast out. I do go to him and commit my sinful soul to his keeping; I shall not be cast out. As many as receive the gift of his Son, receive at the same time power to become the children of God. I do receive his gift, and lay claim to his promise. He is my reconciled Father, and I am his adopted child, and he hath sent his Spirit into my heart, by which I can ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... the British colonisation of Tasmania. Although Bass and Flinders had in 1798 circumnavigated the island, adding extensive discoveries to those already made by Furneaux, Hayes, Bligh, and other British seamen, it was realised in Sydney that the French might lay claim to some ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... your hearty support, so that you may not only assist in securing for yourselves and the public the great end of its establishment, but that you may, by and by, safely, and without the fear of successful contradiction, lay claim to the honor of being among its early friends and upholders. There is something noble and magnanimous in rendering substantial aid and support to a cause in the hour of its weakness and in the time of ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo

... down." The little cobbler turned upon his tall friend like a roused lion. Then he added, "I beg your pardon, Cantercot, I don't mean that. After all, I've no grounds. The judge is an honest man, and with gifts I can't lay claim to. But I believe in Tom with all my heart. And if Tom is guilty I believe in the Cause of the People with all my heart all the same. The Fads are doomed to death, they may be reprieved, but they must ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... called 'Manhood,' is one of the few books now coming before the public on such a subject which can lay claim to the character of being strictly professional, at the same time that it is fully intelligible to all who read it. The moral and medical precepts given in it render ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... not worthy of you, Frona Welse," she continued; "of me, yes. He is not a nice man, a great man, nor a good. His love cannot match with yours. Bah! He does not possess love; passion, of one sort and another, is the best he may lay claim to. That you do not want. It is all, at the best, he can give you. And you, pray what may you give him? Yourself? A prodigious waste! But ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... prisoner, and for five years he was not restored to his kingdom. In the mean time, Matilda, the widow of Henry I., encouraged by the prelates, landed in England to lay claim to the throne, and after a great deal of ill feeling and much needed assassination, her son Henry, who had become quite a large property-owner in France, invaded England, and finally succeeded in obtaining ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye

... who neither walked well nor spoke distinctly. A school supported by the profession, at which it would be possible for an actor to take lessons in any of these accessories from accredited masters, for a small fee, would be invaluable, but it could not by any possibility lay claim to the title "School of Dramatic Art." After a few general hints, which are not in the nature of an academical lecture, Shakespeare himself says, in that memorable address to the players, "But let your own discretion be ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... and a German. As we have mentioned his wife, it will be necessary to say a word or two about her. Unfortunately, little is known of her beyond the fact that Petrovitch has a wife, who wears a cap and a dress; but cannot lay claim to beauty, at least, no one but the soldiers of the guard even looked under her cap ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... omissions from the text; and it is only in our own age—one or two centuries after the death of the writers—that these works have been made known to the world in their integrity from the original manuscripts. I know not if these Journals are destined to so long a life; they certainly do not lay claim to so great and lasting an historical and literary fame; but it is probable they will be read and referred to hereafter as a portion of the materials of history of England ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... the Black Gang Chine when their lives are secure from Dutch Bill," he answered. "Don't be terrified, my queen; though I cannot lay claim, like Prospero, to having raised this storm by my art magic, yet it perforce gives me time to make you understand who and what I am, and how I have recovered my better angel to give her no mean nor desperate career. It will be better ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... feeling for the "All" for which he demands the piety that the old believer demanded for his God. On the pages in question, however, he cannot claim to be altogether scientific; but if only he could lay claim to being a little stronger, more natural, more outspoken, more pious, we should be content. Indeed, what perhaps strikes us most forcibly about him is the multitude of artificial procedures of which he avails himself before he ultimately gets the feeling ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... cannot lay claim to such reward." His eyes slowly uplifted to the face of his questioner. "Jesu hath not as yet opened before my understanding the way which leadeth to their hearts. I can but work, and pray for guidance. I have only ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... irresponsible powers, either outside or within one's breast. We have all heard of simple men selling their souls for love or power to some grotesque devil. The most ordinary intelligence can perceive without much reflection that anything of the sort is bound to be a fool's bargain. I don't lay claim to particular wisdom because of my dislike and distrust of such transactions. It may be my sea training acting upon a natural disposition to keep good hold on the one thing really mine, but the fact ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad

... there is nothing in connection with the mysteries of religion which thou dost not know." The fowler replied, "O good and great Brahmana, thou shalt perceive with thine own eyes, all the virtue that I lay claim to, and by reason of which I have attained this blissful state. Rise, worshipful sir, and quickly enter this inner apartment. O virtuous man, it is proper that thou shouldst see my father and my mother."' Markandeya continued, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... recall the days when they had entered upon manhood and yet the name itself of their nation had no existence. How many, indeed, are still among us, to whom nations owe the impetus that gave them birth! Prominent, at least, among those who can lay claim to such distinction, there still stands one whose career it were well, perhaps, to study. We will endeavor to profit ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... have, however, now begun to feel their degraded position. Many of them, if they can do so, bring up their sons in any other profession but their own. There are, perhaps, a dozen among the whole body of professional priests who lay claim to a knowledge of the Zend-Avesta: but the only respect in which they are superior to their brethren is, that they have learnt the meanings of the words of the books as they are taught, without knowing the language, either philosophically ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... customs, the atheist, as he is called, could not pass for a virtuous being: but if virtue actually consists in doing to society all the good of which we are capable, this miscalled atheist may fairly lay claim to its practice: his courageous, tender soul, will not be found guilty, for hurling his legitimate indignation against prejudices, fatal to the happiness of the ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... be deemed discourteous, either, on the one hand, to those who value themselves on their powers of reflection, or, on the other, to those who lay claim to what, in modern phrenological jargon, is called the Organ of Locality, when we venture to surmise that the two are rarely found in combination; nay, that it seems to us a very evident truism, that in proportion to the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a little too conspicuous, seen like balls of light among the crowd of minor figures which fill the background of the picture. The tone of the whole is sober and majestic in the highest degree; the dresses are all broad masses of color, and the only parts of the picture which lay claim to the expression of wealth or splendor are the head-dresses of the women. In this respect the conception of the scene differs widely from that of Veronese, and approaches more nearly to the probable ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... investigation, they awarded to their formidable client such a monopoly of fisheries, mines, customs, taxes, and other dues, under the name of regalities, that hardly anything in the entire country remained over, to which the emperor could not lay claim under that title. The consequence was, that the various towns, dioceses, convents, and chapters saw themselves deprived, at a blow, of rights and property which they had long possessed, and fairly acquired. It was impossible for Adrian not to look with ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby

... shall have to bring Cap into court face to face with that demon to bear witness against him! Suppose losing one ward, he should lay claim to another! Ah, but he can't, without foully criminating himself! Well, well, we ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... against" this problem, and "up against" it so hard and so constantly that we interpret everything in the greatly foreshortened perspective of immediate necessity. Most of us in this room are confronting this problem of making a living. At any rate, I am confronting it, and consequently I may lay claim to some of the authority that comes ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... his room, Fink called out cheerfully, "How goes it, man of business? Am I to be tenant, or will the baron himself undertake the matter? He would like it dearly. In that case, I lay claim to compensation—free room for myself and my horse as long as they play ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... Godhead bodily, in other words, that our Redeemer and our Creator; though two persons are one God. It is true that Divines of our 'Reformed Protestant Church,' call everything but gentlemen those who lay claim to the equivocal privilege of feasting periodically upon the body and blood of Omnipotence. The pains taken by Protestants to show from Scripture, Reason and Nature, that Priests cannot change lumps ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... odd?—the very fate I said she had escaped from * *, she has now undergone from the worthy * *. Like Mr. Fitzgerald, shall I not lay claim to the character of 'Vates?'—as he did in the Morning Herald for prophesying the fall of Buonaparte,—who, by the by, I don't think is yet fallen. I wish he would rally and route your legitimate sovereigns, having a mortal hate to all royal entails.—But I am scrawling a ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... you liked my speechment. It was written hastily and is, like its speaker, I fear, more forcible than eloquent, but it can lay claim to the merit of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... three cheers and the "tiger" have died away finds me wet-footed and engaged in fording a series of aggravating little streams, that obstruct my path so frequently that to stop and shed one's foot-gear for each soon becomes an intolerable nuisance. I should think I can lay claim, without exaggeration, to crossing fifty of these streams inside of ten miles. A good-sized stream emerges from the Elburz foot-hills; after reaching the plain it follows no regular channel, but spreads out like an open ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... outrageous! You can't lay claim to that money. I told you if he was found and you were willing to give in your evidence just as you gave it to me that day, I'd give you your fair share of the reward, as you asked for it, but I never gave you any reason to think you were to take half. I've spent all the money ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... not quite so stupid as I seem to be. She mustn't imagine she can "vamp" my Kaikobad with impunity. It's a case of any port in a storm, I suppose, for she has to practise on somebody. But I must say she looks well on horseback and can lay claim to a poise that always exacts its toll of respect. She rides hard, though I imagine she would be unwittingly cruel to her mount. Yet she has been more offhanded and friendly, the last two or three times ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... Tyburn, the only Place that we poor Rogues can claim for an Inheritance. Trust a Woman, and with a Matter of such Importance, what a simple Dog am I? I cou'd find in my Heart to run away: And that were base to run from a woman; I can lay claim to nothing but her Vows, and those the ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris

... affections. This is the nature of every religious covenant, but especially of the covenant of grace. But now, for a Christian to call in, as it were, his surrender, to disclaim his resignation, to steal away himself from God, and lay claim to himself after his alienation; to fulfil his own lusts, to walk after his own ways, to do what he lists, and not what he hath covenanted to do, and so to rob God of what is His: this is the highest degree of sacrilege, which God will never suffer to go unpunished. ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... "No; they lay claim as far as Horsethief Canyon, but they'd just as well claim all our lease—they've got just as much right ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... murdered his two nephews, he was crowned king, as Richard III, much pleased that his plans had succeeded so well. He thought that now nobody could lay claim to the throne. But he was mistaken. One person did claim it. This was Henry Tudor, ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren

... youngest and noblest that was going on perpetually across the Channel:—these traits in him made it very easy to understand why, after years of philandering with Cicely Farrell, he was now, apparently, alienated from her, and provoked by her. But then, why did he still pursue her?—why did he still lay claim to the privileges of their old intimacy, and why did Cicely allow ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... how I can love you. She doesn't think you either handsome or particularly attractive otherwise. She is telling me from morning till night about the glamour of the frivolous life in the capital, hinting at the advantages to which I could lay claim, the large parties which I would find there, and the distinguished and handsome admirers which I would attract. But of what use is all this, since it ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

... optimistic note is set upon with a ferocity which becomes clear if we bear in mind that hope is the pioneer's preserving arm. I do not mean to discredit the validity of hope and optimism. I can honestly lay claim to both. America was builded on a dream of fair lands: a dream that has come true. In the infinitely harder problems of social and psychic health, the dream persists. We believe in our Star. And we do not believe in our experience. America is filled with poverty, with social disease, with oppression ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... Wagner's writings: they are among other things a school of shrewdness. The system of procedures of which Wagner disposes, might be applied to a hundred other cases,—he that hath ears to hear let him hear. Perhaps I may lay claim to some public acknowledgment, if I put three of the most valuable of these procedures into a ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.

... not always exercised it and had permitted the earlier councils a certain freedom. No council, they urged, could be considered a general one which was called against the will of the pope, because, without the bishop of the Roman or mother church, the council obviously could not lay claim to represent all Christendom. The defenders of the papal power maintained, moreover, that the pope was the supreme legislator, that he might change or annul the act of any council or of a previous pope, that he might judge others but might not himself be ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... opportunity. I feel that I have a right to appeal to you for some protection against the insults to which your conduct has exposed me. I write in the hope that you may possibly possess some of the generosity which you have several times denied that I can lay claim to. I will keep whatever appointment you may make at any time ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper

... can lay claim to the title of "Fathers of the Biplane", then it is certain that M. Bleriot, the gallant French airman, can be styled the ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... for these continual excursions is that I lay claim to no rigidity of purpose; and I should almost be ashamed to come with principles and axioms to those whom I am carrying away. Then why alter the course of their destiny? Why appeal to their sympathy and their confidence? What better lot have I to offer them and what can I hope for even if ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... cases of great and valuable inventions in science and art the English lay claim to the honor of having first discovered that of Photogenic drawing. But we shall see in the progress of this history, that like many other assumptions of their authors, priority in this is no more due them, then the invention of steamboats, or the ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling

... confused and stumbling; but it gave to the principle of consent a permanent place in English politics. It is the age which saw the crystallization of the party-system, and therein it may perhaps lay claim to have recognized what Bagehot called the vital principle of representative government. Few discussions of the sphere of government have been so productive as that in which Adam Smith gave a new basis to economic science. Few controversies ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... understand you wish to retain me as your counsel in this matter, and lay claim to this estate, Mr. Terry?" ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... or another, interested in horses, and who is not, in a greater or less degree, an admirer of them. Now, I hold opinions in reference to these particular members of the quadruped creation, which may lay claim (as I believe) to the disastrous distinction of being unpartaken by any other human being, civilised or savage, over the whole surface of the earth. Taking the horse as an animal in the abstract, Francis, I cordially despise him from every ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens

... the next form. That, on the very face of it, is a viler and more sordid one. For Patriotism at least can lay claim to some expansiveness beyond mere individual interest; whereas property stops dead short at the narrowest limits. It is not "Us against the world!" but "Me against my fellow-citizens!" It is the final result of the industrial war in its most hideous avatar. Look how it scars the fair ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... spade and pick over his shoulder in the evening, and came back to the little cottage, he was met afar off, and lovingly welcomed. And when he had finished his canal and drawn off the marshy water, he looked upon his work as proudly as if it was the only one in all his life which could lay claim to be called a good action, and which he could confidently submit to his inward judge. The day of the opening of this canal was a festival on the little island. They had no church festivals and did not count Sundays: ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... million compliments," but was discreetly silent concerning the fifty francs, though I am certain he pocketed them with unaffected joy. Had I sent him double the money, he might have been induced to announce me as a king or emperor in disguise. Editors of newspapers lay claim to be honorable men; they may be so in England, but in Italy most of them would do anything for money. Poor devils! who can blame them, considering how little they get by their limited dealings in pen and ink! In fact, I am not at all certain but that a few English newspaper editors ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... neckerchief of a rich pattern. A band, also, about the top of the head, with a cross, star, or other ornament in front, is common. Their complexions are various, depending— as well as their dress and manner— upon the amount of Spanish blood they can lay claim to, which also settles their social rank. Those who are of pure Spanish blood, having never intermarried with the aborigines, have clear brunette complexions, and sometimes even as fair as those of English women. There are but few of these families in California, being ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... acknowledged to exist in the mass of our people with the power claimed by other sovereignties, even by those which have been considered most purely democratic, we shall find a most essential difference. All others lay claim to power limited only by their own will. The majority of our citizens, on the contrary, possess a sovereignty with an amount of power precisely equal to that which has been granted to them by the parties to the ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... ought to have been there at all. Still, I'm glad I showed him he'd got something in himself beside the stale accumulations of many banker ancestors; if it's only for the sake of the next litte banker, who may want to lay claim to ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... horrible! I looked at her and recoiled. That such a one as this should have the right to lay claim to so holy a ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... Little Miss Grouch, aggrieved, "and you want my lawyer. Is there anything else of mine you'd like to lay claim to?" ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... commonplace. His sensibility to the claims of his art is exquisite, the adaptation of his style to his subject shows the hand of a master, and if these are not the highest gifts of a poet, they are gifts to which none but a poet can lay claim. ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis

... impressed by this conversation. He was resolved, when the time came, to assert his rights, and lay claim to his dead ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.

... presidents of the council, and generals of an army lead just such a life as I do; have just such crowds of visitants in a morning, all soliciting of past promises; which are but a civiller sort of duns, that lay claim to voluntary debts. ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve

... a series of such overwhelming effects in it; its pages contained matter to please every variety of taste—flippancy and learning, sensation and sentiment, careful dissection of character and audacious definition and epigram—failure seemed to him almost impossible. And when he could feel able to lay claim legitimately to the title of genius, surely then the memory of his fraud would cease to reproach him—the means would be justified by the result. He amused himself by composing various critiques on the book (all ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... sanctity and defended with all the armour of pride. It is of supreme importance that the side of school life, the religious side, which sometimes appeals to a boy with a greater force than any other, should have a building of its own. The Parish Church can never lay claim to the same devotion, and therefore can never exercise the same influence. A School Chapel develops a feeling of unity and brotherhood; such unity is less ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell

... Caukins had her trials, but they were of a kind some people would call "blessed torments." The middle-aged mother of eight children, six boys, of whom Romanzo was the eldest, and twin girls, Elvira Caukins might with justice lay claim to a superabundance of a certain kind of trial. Every Sunday morning proved the crux of her experience, and Mrs. Caukins' nerves were correspondingly shaken. To use her own words, she "was all of a tremble" by the time she was dressed ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... greatest honor to which Athens could lay claim was that she had been a democracy of sailors, her freemen serving their country as rowers and all her famous ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... crowded appearance, or to be too near each other; a defect that sensibly lessens the grandeur of the north front. A few feet, more or less, in such a case, may carry the architect too much without, or too much within, the just proportions. I lay claim to very little science on the subject, but I have frequently observed since, that, to my own eye, (and the uninitiated can have no other criterion,) these towers, as seen from the parks, above the tops of the trees, have ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... pains to be more "proper" than she was at first. Her improprieties, so far as I could ever learn, arose from nothing more heinous than her possession of an intelligence more powerful and a courage more daring than that to which any of her neighbours could lay claim. Her outspokenness was a stumbling-block to many; and the offence of speaking her mind was aggravated by the circumstance, not always present at such times, that she had a mind to speak. To quote the language in which Farmer Perryman once explained the situation to me: "She'd given ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks

... of Mrs. Wardour, Godfrey's mother, that she had seen the growth of an intimacy between the two young women. The society of a shopwoman, she often remarked, was far from suitable for one who, as the daughter of a professional man, might lay claim to the position of a gentlewoman. For Letty was the orphan daughter of a country surgeon, a cousin of Mrs. Wardour, for whom she had had a great liking while yet they were boy and girl together. At the same time, however much she would have her consider ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... God call to account a person who, being dead, no longer exists? Hence, punishment of sin after this life could be indicated here. But it seems to me that philology militates against this explanation. Though I do not lay claim to a perfect knowledge of the Hebrew tongue, yet I am certain that such a meaning is not ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... advantages to which the present race, regarded as a unity and in the balance of the understanding, may lay claim over what is best in the ancient world; but it is obliged to engage in the contest as a compact mass, and measure itself as a whole against a whole. Who among the moderns could step forth, man against man, and strive with ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... tragic ingredients of the New Comedy, or Comedy in general. There is yet a third, however, which in itself is neither comic nor tragic, in short, not even poetic. I allude to its portrait-like truthfulness. The ideal and caricature, both in the plastic arts and in dramatic poetry, lay claim to no other truth than that which lies in their significance: their individual beings even are not intended to appear real. Tragedy moves in an ideal, and the Old Comedy in a fanciful or fantastical world. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... to reach the red man's home, there were no girls suited to his mind, save only the one betrothed to Indian Michel! He would have asked, too, if it were not enough to invade his country, build houses, plant his barley and potatoes, and lay claim to his moose-deer and bear, his furs and peltries, but he must needs touch, with profane hands, his home treasures, and meddle with that which "even an Indian" holds sacred? It might, perchance, have been better for Michel if ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas

... should appear from anything I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close observation, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I undoubtedly lay claim to ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood

... little increase from this poetic activity among Jews. In the period under discussion a single Hebrew drama was produced which can lay claim to somewhat more praise than is the due of mediocrity. Asireh ha-Tikwah, "The Prisoners of Hope," printed in 1673, deserves notice because it was the first drama published in Hebrew, and its author, Joseph Pensa de ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... claims the honour of the invention of the screw steamer. At Trieste and Vienna are statues erected to Joseph Ressel, on whose behalf his countrymen lay claim to the invention; and patents for some sort of a screw date back ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... to be neither slaves nor beggars, but to dominion and to plenty. This is our rightful heritage, if we will but recognize and lay claim to it. Many a man and many a woman is to-day longing for conditions better and higher than he or she is in, who might be using the same time now spent in vain, indefinite, spasmodic longings, in putting into operation forces which, accompanied by the right ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine

... best volume of short stories that Mr. Cobb has yet published. Since "The Escape of Mr. Trimm," which was his first short story, was printed in the Saturday Evening Post seven years ago, Mr. Cobb's literary development has been rapid, if not sure; but he may now with this volume lay claim fairly to the mantle of Mark Twain for the rich humanity with which he has endowed his substance and the inimitable humor of his characterizations. In "The Family Tree" and "Cinnamon Seed and Sandy Bottom" Mr. Cobb has added two stories of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... ancient Opus Pulvinarium of the Middle Ages, likewise called "Cross Stitch"—may lay claim to be one of the most ancient known in embroidery. There have been many varieties, but the principle is the same in all. It is worked on and through canvas, of which the threads, as in tapestry, ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin

... murmur against fate. What was irrevocable had to be accepted, and welcome made to the daughter, who, instead of the expected heir, would now lay claim to the rights of primogeniture. As an inheritance reserved for him who had not come, the daughter received the name which had been destined to the son. For two hundred years the name of Joseph had been given to the eldest son of the family of Tascher de la ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... I preach, whether or no," said Billy stoutly, "an' I can't lay claim to creating nothing lawful or unlawful in my Maker's image. 'Tis something to say that, in these godless days. I've allus kept my foot on the world, the flesh, an' the Devil so tight as the best Christian in company; an' if ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... her and send it to Lena anonymously? No thought of keeping it or converting it to her own use had for one instant entered Bessie's mind; to her it seemed Heaven-sent, and as if destined for the very purpose for which she had been longing for it. To the bonbons she felt that she could lay claim for herself and her brothers and sisters, but for her own part she could not really enjoy them until the more valuable portion of the contents of the box was on ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews

... heard the news of the accident from the doctor. Altogether it was a delightful afternoon for Mrs. Alwynn, who assumed for the time an air of superiority over Mrs. Thursby to which that lady's well-known chronic ill-health seldom allowed her to lay claim. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... because one of them had appeared not on the date fixed, but ten days later; and this for a reason which Don Luis knew. Besides, it was not a question of all this. It was not a question of seeking the truth amid this confusion of dates and letters, amid this intricate tangle in which no one could lay claim to any certainty, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... comprehend. During the early years of the nineteenth century the Poodle was fairly plentiful in England, and we had no other curly-coated dog of similar size and type apart from the Irish Water Spaniel, who may himself lay claim to Poodle relationship; while as to the Retriever, either curly or flat coated, he can in no sense be assigned to any country outside of Great Britain. The presumption is strong that the "gentleman ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... of it; nor Elmhurst; nor anything you can possibly lay claim to, my dear. My mother and I are amply provided for, and I am only here to find rest from my social duties and to get acquainted with my dead ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne

... worship was maintained long after the recollection of his connection with Eridu had all but disappeared. At the same time, for the very reason that he was cut loose from local associations, no place could lay claim to being the seat of the deity. Ur-Bau, when erecting a sanctuary to Ea at Girsu, significantly calls the god 'the king of Eridu.' The sanctuary is not, in this case, the dwelling-place of ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... the present work: it is devoted to an account of what befell me in Spain whilst engaged in distributing the Scripture. With respect to my poor labours, I wish here to observe, that I accomplished but very little, and that I lay claim to no brilliant successes and triumphs; indeed I was sent into Spain more to explore the country, and to ascertain how far the minds of the people were prepared to receive the truths of Christianity, than for any other object; I obtained, however, through the assistance of kind ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... Catullus, of the grimmer in Lucretius—those greatest and most un-Roman of Roman poets.[204] In all the wide and splendid literature of French before the nineteenth century only Rabelais and Moliere[205] can lay claim to it. Romanticism brings humour in its train, as Classicism brings wit; but it is curious how slow was the Romanticisation of French in this respect, with one exception. There is no real humour in Hugo, Vigny, George Sand, Balzac, scarcely even in Musset. Dumas, though showing decidedly ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... Queen. And I beg your Majesty may be so good not to believe any misrepresentations of me, which nothing but party hatred and my zeal for the interest of the Crown doth occasion; and I hope I may presume to lay claim to your royal favour or protection. As your accession to the Crown hath been quiet and peaceable, may your Majesty's reign be long and prosperous; and that your people may soon have the happiness and satisfaction of your presence amongst them, is the earnest ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... swallowed with avidity by me. Too late I remembered that I was already enslaved by inextricable obligations. It was easy to have hidden this impediment from the eyes of my companion, but here my integrity refused to yield. I can, indeed, lay claim to little merit on account of this forbearance. If there had been no alternative between deceit and the frustration of my hopes, I should doubtless have dissembled the truth with as little scruple on this as on a different occasion; but ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... place, marriage outside the tribe is exceptional in America and common in Australia; in the second place, the stranger gains entrance to the American tribe only by adoption; and we may probably add, thirdly, that the American tribe does not invariably lay claim to ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas

... senses that excellence which I think is proved to have depended on the admirable training of his intellectual faculties. And, in the next place, if I have established the fact, whilst it affords us better means of judging of such observations as lay claim to an accuracy "MORE THAN HUMAN," it also opens, to the patient inquirer into truth, a path by which he may acquire powers that he would otherwise have thought were only the gift of nature to ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage



Words linked to "Lay claim" :   call for, take, assign, request, pretend, requisition, bespeak, forfeit, quest



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com