"Let alone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... God! he will say we have alone done it, and the world will believe it! So rouse up, I for one do not want to be taxed with the murder of a woman, and still less to be hung innocently for the death of one. I would not risk my little finger for all the women alive, let alone my ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... stacked for the defeat of the Direct Primary bill. Estudillo was, to be sure, Chairman of the Committee, but a lamb herding lions never had a harder job on its hands than did Estudillo. He could not get his committee together to consider the well-backed Direct Primary bill, let alone the worthy but not politically supported local ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... for my billet, about 400 yards away, and in a minute or two Mac followed with another comb. The fellows greeted us with exclamations of delight and surprise; many of us had been two years in the battle line without ever having seen, let alone tasted, such a delicious morsel. Every man in the billet fell to, munching the honey with expressions of sheer joy; every fellow in the bunch had his face and hands littered with the sticky joy like so many kids munching taffy. In the midst of our feasting, visitors called; the ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... etc., want me to undertake what you call a 'great work'? an Epic Poem, I suppose or some such pyramid. I'll try no such thing; I hate tasks. And then 'seven or eight years'! God send us all well this day three months, let alone years. If one's years can't be better employed than in sweating poesy, a man had better be a ditcher. And works, too!—is Childe Harold nothing? You have so many 'divine' poems, is it nothing to have written a human one? without any of your worn-out machinery. Why, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... little lady, the front elevation of whose name is Stella, takes pen in hand and gives the Icon. a red-hot "roast" for having intimated that Platonic Love, so-called, is a pretty good thing for respectable women to let alone. Judged by the amount of caloric she generates, Stella must be a star of the first magnitude, or even an entire constellation. She "believes in the pure, passionless love described by Plato as sometimes existing between the sexes—the affinities of ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... of the women, elaborating the comment, "he does not look old enough to order a dinner, let alone managing mines." ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... applause greet this sentiment. The minds of the listeners, swept away by this gale of declamation, become overheated and ignite through mutual contact; like half-consumed embers that would die out if let alone, they kindle into a blaze when gathered together in a heap.—Their convictions, at the same time, gain strength. There is nothing like a coterie to make these take root. In politics, as in religion, faith generating ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... be all I can do to raise money enough to pay my own expenses, let alone yours. If I get anything I'll come back, and you'll get your share. That's why I want the parents of that brat to fork ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... purse out sums varying from sixpence to half a crown, coaxing him to dismiss such murderous thoughts from his mind; and thereupon he'd take another turn and mope, saying that it ill became a lad of his inches, let alone his tremenjous spirit, to idle out his days while others were dying for their country; to oblige his aunt he would stand it as long as he could, but nobody need be surprised if he ended by drowning himself, And this frightened Aunt Barbree almost worse than did his talk of enlisting, ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the fact that she was apparently to be let alone, free to wander at will within the boundaries ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... cut cos he looked a kindo's though he 'd jest cum down, so he cal'lated to hook him in, but Hosy woodn't take none o his sarse for all he hed much as 20 Rooster's tales stuck onto his hat and eenamost enuf brass a bobbin up and down on his shoulders and figureed onto his coat and trousis, let alone wut nater hed sot in his featers, to make a ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... ten, Jim Faddo,' said he, 'and aw've got an hour an' a half to deal wi' you as a Lincolnshire lad. At twelve o'clock aw'm the Gover'ment's, but till then aw'm Lancy Doane, free to strike or free to let alone; to swallow dirt or throw it; to take a lie or give it. And now list to me; aw'm not goin' to eat dirt, and aw'm goin' to give you the lie, and aw'm goin' to break your neck, if I swing for it to-morrow, Jim Faddo. And here's another thing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Huggins, wife of the farmer at Lac qui Parle, was overjoyed to see me. Think what it must have meant to a woman way off in the wilderness in that early day to see anyone from civilization, let alone her brother. I had not seen her in several years. They had a nice little garden and quite a patch of wheat, which I was told was fine for the climate. The seed came from the craw of a wild swan that they had shot. ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... you might say that is true of most people. It's like the palmist who tells everybody that he is ruled by his head or his heart, as the case may be. But when one approaches the problem of religion (let alone what is called the religious life) one is terribly perplexed to know which is to be obeyed. I don't think that you can altogether rule out emotion as a touchstone of truth. The endless volumes of St. Thomas Aquinas, through ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... others, everything from himself. Justice, law, the world—on all sides he was let alone; nothing was asked of him; that which was owed was paid; but he by a sickly aberration was going to awake the dead who slept in their tomb, from which no one thought of taking them, and to make spectres of them which he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... wanton cruelty of the foreigners did little mischief, when compared with the unpitying and unforgiving distrust of the native conquerors. The temples of Tentyra, Apollinopolis, Latopolis, and Philae show that the massive Egyptian buildings, when let alone, can withstand the wear of time for thousands of years; but the harder hand of man works much faster, and the wide acres of Theban ruins prove alike the greatness of the city and the force with which it was overthrown; and this is the last time that Egyptian Thebes is met ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... said, trying to bring judgment into it, "engaged in evocation, will be in a state of clairvoyant vision. Granted. But shall I, as an outsider, observing with unexcited mind, see anything, know anything, be aware of anything at all, let alone the ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... us, plundered us—do you marvel that, amongst the Irish people, law has been held in "disesteem?" Do you think this feeling arises from "sympathy with assassination or murder?" Yet, if we had been let alone, I doubt not that time would have fused the conquerors and the conquered, here in Ireland, as elsewhere. Even while the millions of the people were kept outside the constitution, the spirit of nationality began to appear; and under ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... newspapers; though how the newspapers come to find out about them all is more than I can understand. I've often wondered at it. Ah! your dear father used to say in his facetious way that he was "lost in the Times," when he wanted to be let alone. I don't mean advertised for as lost, of course, though he might have been, for I have seen him lose his head frequently; indeed I have been almost forced to the conclusion more than once that the Times had a good deal to do with your father's mental confusion; it told such ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... rebelliously to her feet as Nathan moved away farther into the orchard. "If you say a single thing to me, or a word about me to Eldress Abby, I'll run away this very day. Nobody has any right to speak to me, and I just want to be let alone! It's all very well for you," she went on passionately. "What have you had to give up? Nothing but a husband you did n't love and a home you did n't want to stay in. Like as not you'll be a Shaker, and they'll take you for a saint; but anyway you'll ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a gentleman, and I should have been loth to stand idly by when the torture was talked of for a free-born Englishman, let alone a scholar. And where is your fair daughter, Master Warner? I suppose you see but little of her now she is the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her door, and asked the driver if his horse was fresh enough to carry her to the Board of Lunacy: "It is at Whitehall, sir," said she. "Lord bless you, ma'am," said the cabman, "Whitehall? Why, my mare would take you to Whitechapel and back in an hour, let alone Whitehall." ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... baby, and was scared to look at a girl straight, and then sneaked away the last day like as if somebody was going to do something to him. Disgrace, Lena talking about disgrace! It was a disgrace for a girl to be seen with the likes of him, let alone to be married to him. But that poor Lena, she never did know how to show herself off for what she was really. Disgrace to have him go away and leave her. Mary would just like to get a chance to show him. If Lena wasn't worth fifteen like Herman Kreder, ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... Lincoln, calling for seventy-five thousand men, (and a call made on North Carolina among the rest), for the purpose of subjugating our Southern brethren of the Confederate States, who are asking nothing but for their rights to be respected and their institutions let alone, the interest of North Carolina being identified with the said Confederate States, we, as her citizens, deem it highly necessary to express our views to the world, irrespective of former ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe
... paper in 1880, at a time when Ireland was seething with lawlessness, Charles Gordon declared—"I must say that the state of our countrymen in the parts I have named is worse than that of any people in the world, let alone Europe. I believe that these people are made as we are, that they are patient beyond belief, loyal but broken-spirited and desperate; lying on the verge of starvation where we would ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... fire, revealed the hideous truth—his room was empty, the cherished mare gone! The door (as he had found to his cost) stood wide open; along the floor were carefully spread his blankets, and over them no doubt the mare had been led out without making noise sufficient to awaken even a light sleeper, let alone one whose potations had been deep as ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... scalp. Rebecca ventured to chide him for his threats, but offered to bind up his head for him, which she did with her own kerchief. Uncle Rawson then bade him go home and get to bed, and in future let alone strong drink, which had been the cause of his beating. This he would not do, but went off into the woods, muttering as far as ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... to calm Kate down. She's facing him, grabbing each sleeve of his coat. "What am I going to do? What can I do? I don't want his money. I don't want anything from anyone. I just want to be let alone!" ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... anxiously from Britz to the coroner and back again to the detective. They understood the silent appeal of his glance—he was pleading to be let alone with the girl. But they did not see fit ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... Keepers was to hintroduce pretty Gals as Waiters, all us old Fogys, as he rudely called us, woud have to go and git our seweral livings in a more manly employment! Of course boys will be boys, so we kindly forgave him, more specially as he stands six foot one in his stockings, let alone his boots. However he made up for his bad manners by singing with his capital voice, his new Song of "Old Robert the Waiter" being a rayther complementary Parody, as he called it, upon "Old Simon the Cellerer," which was receeved with emense aplause. So he gave, as an arncore, the Waiter's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... should ever be on intimate terms with my own furniture. My views in life are of the snug and slovenly sort—a kitchen chair, you know, and a low ceiling. Man wants but little here below, and wants that little long. That's not exactly the right quotation; but it expresses my meaning, and we'll let alone correcting it till the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... general answer. Is it profitable to fence land? is it profitable to plow land? are questions of much the same character. The answers to them all depend upon circumstances. There is land that may be profitably drained, and fenced, and plowed, and there is a great deal that had better be let alone. Whether draining is profitable or not, depends on the value and character of the land in question, as well as on its condition as to water. Where good land is worth one hundred dollars an acre, it might be profitably ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... same spirit. "I'm no fortune hunter, in the sense you mean. Pah! I have no debts; no crumbling schloss to rebuild. All I ask is to be let alone," with a flash of that moodiness of which he had spoken. "How long will you ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... road is continually jarring with my optimistic thoughts. It is a strongly pro-German piece of road. It supports allegations against Great Britain, as, for instance, that the British are quite unfit to control their own affairs, let alone those of an empire; that they are an incompetent people, a pig-headedly stupid people, a wasteful people, a people incapable of realising that a man who tills his field badly is a traitor and ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... we hoped to be allowed to separate in peace; but it could not be; they forced the war upon us—they endeavoured to destroy us. For this, and for this alone, we burn their ships and destroy their commerce. We have no feeling of enmity against them, and all we ask is to be let alone—to be allowed to tread the path we have chosen for ourselves."—"Cruise of the Sumter," from the ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... geese—an' small blame to him for that same—for twice't a year you can pluck them as bare as my hand—an' get a fine price for the feathers, an' plenty of rale sizable eggs—an' when they are too ould to lay any more, you can kill them, an' sell them to the gintlemen for goslings, d'ye see, let alone that a goose is the most manly ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... never had much to do with banks; indeed, he could count on the fingers of one hand all the times he had ever been inside of one, and as to a directors' private room, he did not even know there was such a place, let alone ever having been in one. It was not to be wondered at then that he was embarrassed when he entered the room a moment later and saw the president and his friend seated in comfortable leather chairs before a ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... looking out for the leader, the man of all whom they desired to capture. But the darkness, which had favored the ambuscade, now defeated their object. In the mob of struggling humanity it was difficult enough to distinguish friend from foe, let alone to discover any one person. The ranks of the "deputies" had closed right in and a desperate hand-to-hand struggle ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... too rapid; it was not justified by his preparatory studies, which had been "anything but deep, solid, systematic." "The theological culture he received was not on a par with that required now by the average seminarian, let alone a Doctor of Divinity." He accepted the title of D. D. very reluctantly, being conscious that he did not deserve it. A feeling of the insufficiency of his education tormented him all through life. "It cannot be denied that he was industrious, ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... it gradually dawned on Ace that he was licked, and he began yelling, "Enough! Enough!" which according to the rules of the game entitled him to be let alone; but I knew nothing about the rules of the game. I saw the blood spurting from one or two cuts in his scalp. I felt it warm and slimy on my hands, and I rained my blows on him, madly and blindly, but with cruel effect after all. I did not see the captain when ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... got by selling clogs won't pay the rent, let alone wages, but if clogs are your orders, Miss Alice—(He ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... and telling how he wanted to be a gentleman; and I turned the talk when you asked what became of him?" Hilda nodded assent "Well," Nurse Lucy continued, "that was because no good came of him, and I knew it vexed Farmer to think on it, let alone Simon's son being there. It was all through his wanting to be a gentleman that Simon got into bad ways. Making friends with people who had money, he got to thinking he must have it, or must make believe ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... said Worry. "I kicked against havin' the game, but 'em fat-head directors would have it. Now we'll be let alone. There won't be no students comin' out to the field, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... harassed by an Admiralty order purposely issued to annoy him, he wrote back: "The biggest fool can see that to obey would defeat all my plans. I shall not do it. It may suit folk who love loafing about shore, but to an honest man such talk is disgusting, let alone that the thing can't be done." He was at that time twenty-six years old, and in charge of the whole North Sea fleet. ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... had best stand up to them, having started off so recklessly, and tried to lash myself into bravery by remembering how full I was of the blood of all the Cholmondeleys, let alone those relations of yours alleged to have fought alongside the Black Prince; so though I wished there were several of me rather than only one, I said with courage and ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... met the second Miss Chew, riding with her father. He was handsome in dark velvet, his hair clubbed and powdered beneath a flat beaver with three rolls, and at his back a queue tied with a red ribbon. He had remained quietly inactive and prudent, and, being liked, had been let alone by our own party. It is to be feared that neither he nor the ribbon was quite as neutral as they had been. Miss Margaret looked her best. I much dislike "Peggy," by which name she was known almost to the loss of that fine, full ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... riding down to it. Now, suppose the noose, instead of catching around the horns of the steer, should circle his neck and draw down to his shoulders? Accidents are, of course, as likely to happen in catching cattle as in anything else, and give a bull such a hold and he could pull a house, let alone a mustang. That would be one case where it would be very handy to let go quickly. Then a man is likely to get his hand caught, and if he can't let his rope go free he is likely to ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... case? We neither mean to set up nor to pull down, neither to make nor to unmake, but to have nothing to do with them. Wherefore, your testimony in whatever light it is viewed serves only to dishonor your judgement, and for many other reasons had better have been let alone than published. ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... they 'ad to put up with. Death in any way would be aisy, compared to what they 'ad to hendure. Poor Jim! I suppose he's dead long ago. Tough as I be myself, I don't believe I could a stood it a week,—let alone tin years. Talk o' knockin' about like a Turk's head. They were knocked about, an' beat, an' bullied, an' kicked, an' starved,—worse than the laziest lubber as ever skulked about the decks o' a ship. ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... already taken shape in previous years, but at no time was Congress prepared to pass definite legislation. The reaction of the railroads to the rising demand was energetic. A costly propaganda was entered upon designed to prove to the public that the roads should be let alone. A powerful lobby worked insistently upon Congress, first to prevent action and later, when action was seen to be inevitable, to weaken the legislation wherever possible. The railroad's campaign of popular education, however, helped ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... chattered an hour or so, mother'd come to look him up and Joel would get into his trousers and go home meek as a lamb. Well, Annabel's the same way. She likes to shiver on the bank and think what a splash she'll make when she goes in, but she hasn't got the courage to risk a wetting, let alone drowning." ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... for a commoner, let alone a peer," said Roland, growing fierce. "If I were no better off than Carrick, I'd drop the title; that's what I'd do. Why, if he could live as a peer ought, do you suppose we should be in the position we are? ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... pink and white and blue things—plenty o' that," and she added fiercely: "My own brother didn' know me—let alone my girl. How should she?—I haven't seen her since she was a baby—she was a laughin' little thing," and she gazed past me with that look in the eyes as of people who are staring back into the bygone. "I guess we was laughin' when we got ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... don't believe Homer could get a poem accepted by a modern magazine, and while the comic papers are still printing Diogenes' jokes the old gentleman couldn't make enough out of them in these days to pay taxes on his tub, let alone earning his bread." ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... hope.' With this, she held her peace, weeping, and Currado said to his lady, 'And thou, mistress, how wouldst thou take it, were I to present thee with such a son-in-law?' The lady replied, 'Even a common churl, so he pleased you, would please me, let alone one of these,[109] who are men of gentle birth.' 'Then,' said Currado, 'I hope, ere many days, to make ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... me tell you something, which may haply serve you well. Knowing that an American accomplishes things which a Mexican like myself must let alone, I advise you to try for the hidden treasure of La Gran Quivira. Seeing that you are in the good graces of Jtz-Li-Cama, you might prevail with the cacique to guide you. He is said to be the only living man who knows the ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... training the mind to habits of impartial historical criticism. To this must be added, that the Middle Ages were now over for Italy, and that the Italian mind could the better appreciate them, because it stood outside them. It cannot, nevertheless, be said that it at once judged them fairly, let alone with piety. In the arts a strong prejudice established itself against all that those centuries had created, and the humanists date the new era from the time of their own appearance. 'I begin,' says Boccaccio, 'to hope and believe that God has had ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... the lane with him, and sure enough there was a ship in the middle of his field, but such a ship as no man had seen on the water for three hundred years, let alone in the middle of a turnip-field. It was all painted black and covered with carvings, and there was a great bay window in the stern for all the world like the Squire's drawing-room. There was a crowd of little black cannon on deck ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... about as unjust to the ocean, as some of AEsop's are to the animals. The ocean is a magnanimous element, and would scorn to assassinate a poor fellow, let alone taunting him in the act. But I don't understand what you say about enmity couched in ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... assumption is not well founded, because at the time of the coming of the Europeans there was no great show of progress. It seems as if no branch of the race could go forward very far without being destroyed by more warlike tribes. Or, if let alone, they seemed to develop a stationary civilization, reaching their limit, beyond which they could not go. As the races of Europe by specialization along certain lines became inadaptable to new conditions and passed ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... consulted, saw no difficulties in the way. A day, she declared, was all she wanted to prepare sufficient food for the party for a week—let alone for ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... mind the part that he would play in the drama that he believed was evolving itself on board the barque, he thenceforth played it to the life, and with a skill so consummate as to deceive the most suspicious. He assumed the role of a man who, if let alone, would be willing enough to do his duty honestly, and to the best of his ability, but who could not and would not tolerate the smallest measure of injustice. And he gave himself all the airs of an aggrieved person—of one who has been harshly treated for a trivial ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... than half finished. There was a collapsium plant at Storisende Spaceport, but Yves Jacquemont said it was only half the size of the one at Barathrum; it would be three months before it could produce armor for one, let alone ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... way: My 'Niram and your Ev'leen Ann have been keeping company—ever since they went to school together—you know that 's well as I do, for all we let on we didn't, only I didn't know till just now how hard they took it. They can't get married because 'Niram can't keep even, let alone get ahead any, because I cost so much bein' sick, and the doctor says I may live for years this way, same's Aunt Hettie did. An' 'Niram is thirty-one, an' Ev'leen Ann is twenty-eight, an' they've had 'bout's much waitin' as is good for folks that set such store by each other. I've thought of every ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... and change,' said Aunt Jane, preventing the howl about to break forth. 'My dear boy, that tap must be let alone. We can't have ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... enough," the Count answered. "It is a frightful strain—you of course realise that—for anyone who has been accustomed to the decencies, let alone the luxuries, of life. This filth"—he pronounced the word with indescribable bitterness—"this herding of men like cattle—they treat us no better than pigs here. The fellows drop their dung in the very room where they sleep. What ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... complete than command of the sea, and command of the sea than command of the air; and endless confusion arose from the use of the same word to describe three different degrees of control. Victory can be achieved on sea, conquest only on land; and nothing like victory, let alone conquest, in war has yet been won in the air. Conquest, however, while it cannot be effected, can be prevented on sea, as it was at Salamis in 1588, at Trafalgar, and Navarino; for sea-power, while conclusive for defence, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... is it you have contracted your kindness, Sending down death and famine, Destroying all through the kingdom? Compassionate Heaven, arrayed in terrors, How is it you exercise no forethought, no care? Let alone the criminals:—They have suffered for their guilt. But those who have no crime Are indiscriminately involved ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... over again painfully the boyhood way of drinking from a brook, and lay face downward on island stones. With the enthusiastic help of my children, I made a dummy stuffed with pine cones, and let him float at the end of a rope. Never a tentacle, let alone octopus, appeared. I had to rest content with Victor Hugo's stirring picture in ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... Fyodorovitch, or the girls either? To spend a sum like that on such coarseness and rudeness! What's the good of giving a peasant a cigar to smoke, the stinking ruffian! And the girls are all lousy. Besides, I'll get my daughters up for nothing, let alone a sum like that. They've only just gone to bed, I'll give them a kick and set them singing for you. You gave the peasants champagne to drink ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... not the sea at all," said Sheila: "that is the storms that will wreck the boats; and how can the sea help that? When the sea is let alone the sea is very ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... ma'am, and if we were to let them out, would soon be at him. No, no, John, sit still and put down your rifle; we can't afford to hurt wolves; their skins won't fetch a half-dollar, and their flesh is not fit for a clog, let alone a Christian. Let the vermin howl till he is tired; he'll be off to the woods again ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... to be able to do anything but admire him and appreciate him and be proud of him as an Englishman. If it wasnt for my respect for him, I wouldnt have stood your cheek for two days, let alone two months. But what I cant understand is why he didnt lick it out of you when you were a kid. For twenty-five years he kept a place twice as big as England in order: a place full of seditious coffee-colored heathens and pestilential ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... form, being the mere pursuit in all things of pleasurable feeling—feeling being always particular and limited to self, in contradistinction to good, which is universal and diffuses itself all round. The Hedonist seeks his own pleasure, where the Altruist forbids him to take thought, let alone for his gratification, but even for his good. Thus an Hedonist cannot be Altruist to boot; and, trying to combine the two characters, the Utilitarian is ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... Sarah?' Only she pronounced it fairly with a true cockney accent, and left out all her h's. 'I don't know w'at women are comin' to nowadays, w'at wi' one thing an' another, w'en it comes to a chit o' sixteen talkin' like that about 'er mother bein' an 'umbug, let alone sayin' she doesn't respect 'er father; an' w'at 'e'd say if 'e 'eard 'er I couldn't say, I'm sure,' ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... indulgence in the excitement of impersonation dulls the sympathy and impairs the imaginative faculty of the comedian." This is very useful in my defense, yet I could find many examples which prove the contrary. I could never imagine Henry Irving leaving the stage for six months, let alone six years, and I don't think it would have been of the slightest benefit to him. But he had not been on the ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... fingers or your noses into this business that I'm in now, I'll give the lobsters and cunners round this island just six good hearty meals. Now, that's the business end, and it's whittled pickid, and you want to let alone ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... come along another boy like the old Harry, who would take all the barn-yard responsibility on his shoulders. Besides, mother is crippled with rheumatism, and can hardly get around to do her housework, let alone to make butter. We are not any too well off since the Union Bank failed; for, besides losing all my stock, I have had to help pay the depositors' claims. But we have enough to keep us comfortable, and much to be thankful for, most of all that our famous son is coming home for a visit. Bring ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... perhaps Mary would forget about Constance," went on Marjorie. "I never dreamed that Mignon was coming back, let alone she and Mary becoming friendly. I saw them go down the aisle to geometry class together and followed them. You see, Mary and I had planned to recite in the same section. I asked her to wait and recite later, but she wouldn't. Then I ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... last five years," chuckled the treasurer of the Great International. "How many calves will you brand next year? And where's your chaps and your spurs? And say, that three hundred won't buy your bridle, let alone a ranch and a hoss. You remember Carter, don't you, Prince? The broncho-buster that we had in the grand opening last year. Why his saddle cost an even grand and he paid fifty per for his Stetsons. ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... gun fight right now," went on Riley Sinclair slowly. "You're all shaking, Quade, and you couldn't hit the side of the mountain, let alone me. Wait a minute. Take your time. Get all settled down and wait till your ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... turned out she would not be let alone. We dine in the public room, but she had her meals sent up to her and we flattered ourselves (or I did) that her net had been laid in vain. Folk dine late in the tropics, and we dallied over coffee and cigars, so that it was going on for ten o'clock when Yerkes and I started ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... we can, but we are constantly having trouble of that kind with our porters. The trick is to give every passenger a whole compartment, and then keep packing them together unless they pay something handsome to be let alone. I shall make an example of that fellow. He is a new one and didn't know me"—and ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Bunny, you have no more to learn from me. Time was when I wouldn't have let you go there without me to retrieve a lost umbrella—let alone ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... Gwyn, wouldn't you ha' been ready to jump at anything as a last sort o' chance, when there was two lads lost away down in a place like that? Why, I'd ha' done anything, let alone depending on a dog. It warn't as if I didn't want to go myself: I did go till I dropped and couldn't do no more, and begun to wish I'd never said a word about the gashly ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... or thirteen year old, an' he was about fifty. By that time he'd got 'bout to the end of his rope, an' the' wa'n't nothin' for it but to come back here to Homeville an' make the most o' what the' was left—an' that's what he done, let alone that he didn't make the most on't to any pertic'ler extent. Mis' Cullom, his wife, wa'n't no help to him. She was a city woman an' didn't take to the country no way, but when she died it broke old Billy up wus 'n ever. She ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... but oh, the cost av it all! The Government puts the land at a dollar and a quarter an acre, wid your courage and fightin' strength and quickest wits, and by and by your heart's blood and a grave wid no top cover, like a fruit tart, sometimes, let alone a tomb-stone, as the total cost av the prairie sod. It's a great story now, aven if nobody should care to read it in ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... finer sense of the occasion. It was literally a charming exhibition of tact, of magnanimity, and quite tantamount to his saying outright: "The true knights we love to read about never push an advantage too far. I know what you mean now: you mean that—to be let alone yourself and not followed up—you'll cease to worry and spy upon me, won't keep me so close to you, will let me go and come. Well, I 'come,' you see—but I don't go! There'll be plenty of time for that. I do really ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... said Jeanne, affecting indignation, "si tu n'etais pas si frileuse tu donnerais ton edredon?" And what about the little poupees polonaises internees, snatched from their beds and carried off without any bedclothes at all, let alone an eiderdown! Presently, "J'y mets mon edredon," Yvonne was understood to say, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... not want to be troubled in this way," she muttered angrily to herself, again and again; "I wish to be let alone, so that I ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... myself that I would punch Blissam's head when I next met him in a good place. There was no getting even with him, let alone getting ahead of him. I dared not go below $2.80, sell or no sell, so I began to ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... was too late to save "this lunatic Adams," he gave orders that Vivie was to be let alone. He even, through Graefin von Stachelberg, transmitted to her his regrets that she and her mother had been treated so cavalierly at the Hotel Imperial. It was not through any ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... mass of the nose of the Thessian ship had caught them full amid-ship, and the powerful ram had driven through the room. Their lux walls had not been touched; only a sledge-hammer blow would have bent them under any circumstances, let alone breaking them. But the tremendously powerful main generator was split wide open. And the mechanical damage was awful. The prow of the ship had been driven deep into the machine, and the ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... of 'Paches, Steve?" demanded Homer roughly. "Come to that, I'll say plain that I'm no murderer, let alone torture. I've killed when I had to, but the other fellow had a run for his money. If I beat him to the draw that was his lookout. He had no holler comin'. But this ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... of that; but if we take him there, it will not do to let him out again, for, if we did, it would be the end of us all; so we should have to both imprison and murder him in the end, which would be much worse than to put him out of the way at once, let alone the risk attending the ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... at this, for her eyes were streaming with tears, and her face, which was doubtless a pretty one under ordinary conditions, looked so distorted with distracting emotions that she was no fit subject for any man's eye, let alone that of a hard-hearted officer of the law on the look-out for the guilty hand which had just appropriated a jewel worth anywhere from ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... religious observance has fallen at the present day is, surely, a real disaster. Religious services in which men and women cannot take part, either honestly or with any spiritual gain, are better let alone. Yet the ideal of a common worship is an infinitely noble one. Year after year the simplest and most crying reforms in the liturgy of the Church of England are postponed, because nobody can agree upon them. And all the time the starving of "the ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... came home to dinner in a mood which Jenny characterized as "thrawart." He barely answered her greeting, and shut his room-door with a bang. He did not want any dinner, and he wanted to be let alone. John looked troubled at this behavior. Jenny said, "It is some lass in the matter; naething else could mak a sensible lad like Davie act sae child-like and silly." And Jennie was right. Towards nine o'clock David came to the parlor and sat down ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... his mother, "ain't fit company for a horse or cow, let alone a sufferin' woman. She just sets and stares and never says nothin'. I have to do all the talkin' and I'm in no condition to talk. You run along and let me set here in peace. It don't hurt so ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... burnt into my mind, once for all, what is meant by a landlord's responsibility. I tried, of course, to move her, but neither she nor her parents—elderly folk—had energy enough for a change. They only prayed to be let alone. I came over the last evening of her life to give her the communion. "Ah, sir!" said the mother to me—not bitterly—that is the strange thing, they have so little bitterness—"if Mister 'Enslowe would jest 'a mended that bit ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... continued Wilfred Carr, yawning. "It's not in my line at all; I never had enough money for my own wants, let alone for two. Perhaps if I were as rich as you or Croesus ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... suddenly thrust upon the people and proclaimed their king. Fortunately for the Hanoverian dynasty, the English people, as a whole, had grown into a mood of comparative indifference as to who should rule them so long as they were let alone. It was impossible that a strong feeling of loyalty to any House should burn just then in the breast of the great majority of the English people. Those who were devoted to the Stuarts and those who detested the Stuarts felt strongly on the subject this way or that, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... ill he is spoken of, he will rush headlong into revolution." He complains that he can do nothing at Formiae because of the visitors. No English poet was ever so interviewed by American admirers. They came at all hours, in numbers sufficient to fill a temple, let alone a gentleman's house. How can he write anything requiring leisure in such a condition as this? Nevertheless he will attempt something. He goes on criticising all that is done in Rome, especially what is done by Pompey, who no doubt was vacillating ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... place, and its subsequent execution. I can conceive, I think, of a lovely picture: you for instance, on a white bench, under a cedar in the starlight, listening to my delightful conversation, but I couldn't possibly draw the picture, let alone paint it. The Great Design, it seems to me, had a tremendous gift for landscape, but fell down a little when ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... name is here would be guilty of a misdemeanour, let alone a crime. You must look outside of our village population for the murderer of ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... Professor Krenner, the teacher of mathematics and architectural drawing at the Lakeview Hall school that the girls were attending. "You can be sure that neither Dr. Prescott nor I would take any chances on that score. A heavy logging team went over it yesterday, and the ice didn't even creak, let alone crack. And every day that passes of this kind of weather makes it thicker ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... quite unlike herself. She started when spoken to, blushed when looked at, was very quiet, and sat over her sewing, with a timid, troubled look on her face. To her mother's inquiries she answered that she was quite well, and Jo's she silenced by begging to be let alone. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... following up her advantage instantly. "You would have had me marry a Trevisan, perhaps, or the son of any of the other great glass-makers? Is there one of them who can compare with Zorzi as an artist, let alone as a man? Look at those things he has made, there, on the table! Is there a man living who could make one of them? Not you, yourself; you know ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... standing there, and hurried down the Lower Road. As I had said to him, I did not feel like talking. I did not want even to see any one. I wanted to be let alone. But it was fated that I should not be, not yet. Sim Eldredge was waiting for me around the corner. He stepped out from behind the fence where he had ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... exploits of the young Frenchmen. The State Papers of the Marine Department, Paris, contain numerous references to Radisson and Groseillers. But, then, the Jesuit Relations were not accessible to scholars, let alone the general public, until the middle of the last century, when a limited edition was reprinted of the Cramoisy copies published at the time the priests sent their letters home to France. The contemporaneous writings of Marie de l'Incarnation, the ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... else, a place by his mother's knee. The moment she, or his father in her absence, entered the room and sat down, he would rise, take his stool, and set it as near as he thought he might. When caressed he never turned away, or looked as if he would rather be let alone; at the same time he received the caress so quietly, and with so little response, that often, when his heavenly look had drawn the heart of some mother, or spinster with motherly heart, he left an ache in the spirit he would have gone to the world's end to comfort. He never sought ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... any man to take care of himself, let alone a Scot. No doubt he is over on St. Kitts, brewing swizzle with Will Hamilton. Will's house is one of the strongest ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... the first answer would probably be, "Is it yesterday you mean?" "Yes." "Yesterday! No, please your honour, I was not at the bog at all yesterday. Wasn't I after setting my potatoes? Sure I did not know your honour wanted me at all yesterday. Upon my conscience, there's not a man in the country, let alone all Ireland, I'd sooner serve than your honour any day in the year, and they have belied me that went behind my back to tell your honour the contrary. If your honour sent after me, sure I never got the word, I'll take ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... infinitely relieved; for she had dreaded some questioning; and a little blame for sharp speaking was what she could well bear, if cross- examination was let alone. ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... doing, and is resolved to do for the Duke of Savoy and the Republic of Venice. If they ask you what we are doing, answer that we with our forces and vigour are keeping off from the throats of Savoy and Venice 2000 riders and 10,000 infantry, with which forces, let alone their experience, more would be accomplished than with four times the number of new troops brought to the field in Italy. This is our succour, a great one and a very costly one, for the expense of maintaining our armies to hold the enemy in check ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... achieve their ideals! Where does the cause of failure lie? Surely not in the lack of high ideals. Multitudes of young people have "Excelsior!" as their motto, and yet never get started up the mountain slope, let alone toiling on to its top. They have put in hours dreaming of the glory farther up, and have never begun to climb. The difficulty comes in not realizing that the only way to become what we wish or dream that we may become is to form the habit of ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... expected to live to see a man that had been shipwrecked," said Mrs. Weaver, "let alone shipwrecked on a desert island—an' a ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... be, for that is the meaning and object of his life, his happiness, his enthusiasm. How fine it is to be a workman who gets up at daybreak and breaks stones in the street, or a shepherd, or a schoolmaster, who teaches children, or an engine-driver on the railway.... My God, let alone a man, it's better to be an ox, or just a horse, so long as it can work, than a young woman who wakes up at twelve o'clock, has her coffee in bed, and then spends two hours dressing.... Oh it's ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... writer paced, baring his inmost thoughts ... His wife was desperately ill and the future looked completely black. How could he summon the strength of will to go on, let alone to write? ...
— The Man from Time • Frank Belknap Long
... discourses as mine, which only call past evils to mind and give warning of what may follow, have nothing in them that is so absurd that they may not be used at any time, for they can only be unpleasant to those who are resolved to run headlong the contrary way; and if we must let alone everything as absurd or extravagant which by reason of the wicked lives of many may seem uncouth, we must, even among Christians, give over pressing the greatest part of those things that Christ hath taught us, though He has commanded us not to conceal them, but to proclaim ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... compatriot children in a playing-field - what a sudden, what an overpowering pathos breathes to him from each familiar circumstance! The assaults of sorrow come not from within, as it seems to him, but from without. I was proud and glad to go to school; had I been let alone, I could have borne up like any hero; but there was around me, in all my native town, a conspiracy of lamentation: "Poor little boy, he is going away - unkind little boy, he is going to leave us"; so the unspoken burthen followed ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have not over-much deep feeling of any other kind; many mothers have little understanding of the problems of life which confront themselves, let alone those which confront their husbands, or their children; very few mothers have more than a confused idea of the influences at work in forming character, in developing ideals and generous impulses, on the one hand; or ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... nonsense, it's nonsense. How can a man marry an archangel, let alone a lady. My mother was a lady and she married a dying fiddler who tramped the roads; and the mixture plays the cat and banjo with my body and soul. I can see my mother now cooking food in dirtier and dirtier lodgings, darning socks ...
— Magic - A Fantastic Comedy • G.K. Chesterton |
