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Merely   /mˈɪrli/   Listen
Merely

adverb
1.
And nothing more.  Synonyms: but, just, only, simply.  "It is simply a matter of time" , "Just a scratch" , "He was only a child" , "Hopes that last but a moment"






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"Merely" Quotes from Famous Books



... sick of the Old Man. You mark my words, dear boy: there will be a great revolt against him before many months have passed. I see it working. I find it in the House, in the clubs, in the drawing-rooms; and I don't speak merely as my wishes ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... rescue. Altogether they were divided into two groups, one under the command of Major Fequant, the other under that of Captain Brocard, appointed chief of battalion. It becomes impossible to enumerate all Guynemer's victories, and we can merely emphasize the days on which he surpassed himself. September 28 was a remarkable day, on which he brought down two enemies and had a fall from a height of 3000 meters. Little Paul Bailly would hardly have believed that; he would have said it ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... convex, smooth or merely downy, dark red, fading when old, often marked with yellow; flesh yellow, slowly ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard

... sinister and repellent name! His views on this general subject were merely those common to his communion and his environment. He took it for granted, for example, that in the large cities most of the poverty and all the drunkenness, crime, and political corruption were due to the perverse qualities of this foreign people—qualities accentuated ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... soon led amongst different scenes. By merely turning to the left we came upon a flat, in which another water- course, similar to that we had been tracing (Balmy Creek), came from the west, apparently out of that inaccessible country, across which I had previously looked in vain for a passage. Several other ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... she pleased in all external matters, and left him to the free enjoyment of his personal tastes, preferences and friendships. The house they lived in, the furniture it contained, the style and equipage assumed by the family, were all of her choice, Mr. Dinneford giving merely a half-constrained or half-indifferent consent. He had learned, by painful and sometimes humiliating experience, that any contest with Mrs. Helen Dinneford upon which he might enter was sure to end ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... 35: Even I myself)—Ver. 116. Cooke remarks here: "A complaisant father, to go to the funeral of a courtesan, merely to oblige his son!"] ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... should not be communicated to the queen, "lest it should disquiet her." A refugee had informed him, "that there was a great conspiracy in hand against the queen, which without doubt would deprive her of her estate." He had asked for names, but these his informant would not give, saying merely, "the best of England were in it," and "such a {p.271} number agreed thereupon, that it was impossible but that it would take effect." There was no chance of discovery; "the matter had been in hand for a year or thereabouts," yet no one "had uttered a word of it;" should it become known, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... all went well; then it began to rain. About the middle of November it settled down in earnest and rained steadily for a month; sometimes it merely drizzled, at other times it poured; but it never stopped, except for an hour or so. The constant tramp of many feet speedily churned into mud the clay turf overlaying the chalk, and the rain could not percolate through this ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... Cephalus at the Piraeus. Socrates criticizes and punctures the definitions advanced by the others until Thrasymachus, apparently with some heat, challenges Socrates to give an answer of his own to the question "what is justice?" and not to content himself, nor to consume time, with merely refuting others. After some further discussion of various aspects of the question, Socrates finally says, "I have gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of justice. I left ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery

... for any further difficulty, gentlemen. I merely want to say'—and he held up the paper—' that I have enlisted in the army of the Confederate States, and taken this horse to ride—given him to the Government. And I want to say further, that if Jay Timlow wants to do any fighting, and will go and enlist, I'll furnish ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... better, a war of religion and principle. It was generally supposed that Biscay was the stronghold of Carlism, and that the inhabitants were fanatically attached to their religion, which they apprehended was in danger. The truth is, that the Basques cared nothing for Carlos or Rome, and merely took up arms to defend certain rights and privileges of their own. For the dwarfish brother of Ferdinand they always exhibited supreme contempt, which his character, a compound of imbecility, cowardice, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... Under-Secretary remained motionless, his arm extended, as though frozen in the act. "You fear for the State, for the Monarchy, for liberty, you fear the socialists and the anarchists, but you should be far more afraid of your colleagues, who scoff at God! for socialism and anarchism are merely fevers, while scoffing is even as gangrene! As for you," he added, turning to the Under-Secretary, "you deride One who is silent. Fear ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... the Congress to a Committee of three—all known to be opposed to any reconciliation with England. This Committee made, the next day after its appointment, a report which was adopted by Congress, that the British acts were merely intended to operate upon the hopes and fears of the American people, and to produce divisions among them; "that those who made any partial convention or agreement with the Commissioners of Great Britain would be regarded as enemies; and that the United States could hold no conference ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... Eads to see her there in safety. Eads, who was so deeply interested in his boats that on another occasion he was narrowly prevented from going into action with one of them, gladly agreed. Before long the Benton grounded. As Eads was merely a guest, and as there were naval officers aboard, he did not feel called upon to interfere with any suggestions. But after the officers and crew had labored all night trying to float her, then with his aptitude for emergencies ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How

... for a new expedition into the world always with a concealed unexpressed hope that one will see something new. But in our little European world one never sees anything new. There is merely a little difference in the emotions, a little finer or a little coarser, a little more open or a little more restrained, a little more or a little less charm in the expression of them. But they are everywhere just the same human emotions manifested ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... can hardly credit my own senses when you talk in that calm way about a person who—of course I know who you mean. What are you made of, I wonder—are you merely a wax figure and not a human being at all? Once I imagined that you loved me, but now I see what a delusion it was; only those who can hate are able to love, and you are as incapable of the one as ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... architecture, means giving the various pieces of a ship their proper figures, so that by their combination and disposition they may be united into a firm and compact frame. In regimental affairs it implies merely the number ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... guilty. But Kit Bellew was romantic. He was fascinated by the froth and sparkle of the gold rush, and viewed its life and movement with an artist's eye. He did not take it seriously. As he said on the steamer, it was not his funeral. He was merely on a vacation, and intended to peep over the top of the pass for a "look see" ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... was merely frozen with terror. I did not fully grasp the significance of these lines of writing in which he who loved me so well had endeavored to soften for me his warning against the latent horrors that had been locked up within me. At first I did not realize that the same night which marked his ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... so awful, it may be imagined how an impressive address, like that delivered by the grocer, would be received by those who saw in the pestilence, not merely an overwhelming scourge from which few could escape, but a direct manifestation of the Divine displeasure. Not a word was said. Blaize Shotterel, the porter, and old Josyna, his mother, together with Patience, the other woman-servant, betook themselves silently, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... countries, and the figures never being used for any other subjects but countries. Thus 45 is England wherever it occurs; e.g. F being history and G geography, F45 is the history of England, G45 the geography of England. This local notation can be used not merely with the main classes, but in every subdivision, no matter how minute, which is worth dividing by countries. Whenever one wishes to separate what relates to England from other works on any subject one has only to add the two figures 45. Whenever one sees 45 ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana

... Aborigines of Mexico and Central America as an ornament, was not at all an object of worship among them. Besides, there is a vast difference between the cross and the crucifix. What has been taken for the latter on sculptures, like the 'Palenque tablet,' is merely the symbol of the 'Newfire,' or close of a period of fifty-two years. It is the fire drill more or less ornamented." According to this view, these interesting tablets have reference to the ceremonies observed by the Mayas at the expiration ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... time in which the only court of honor is a police-court, to express myself with the utmost moderation of language upon this the last occasion that I shall have to communicate with you. Allow me, therefore, merely to remark that our ideas of the conduct which is becoming in a gentleman differ seriously; and permit me on this account to request that you will consider yourself for the future as a stranger to my family and ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... long as he had her on his back; she would not leave him. She pleaded her best, which Mr. Saunders heard as if it was amusing, and without making any answer, kept the horse capering in front of the bars, pretending every minute he was going to whip him up to take the leap. His object, however, was merely to gratify the smallest of minds by teasing a child he had a spite against; he had no intention to risk breaking her bones by a fall from her horse; so in time he had enough of the bar-place; took the bridle again, and walked on. Ellen drew breath ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... been fairly presented, it will doubtless appear to our readers, that, so far as the hostile and semi-hostile Indians are concerned, the government is merely temporizing with a gigantic evil, pocketing its dignity from considerations of humanity and economy, and awaiting the operation of causes both sure and swift, which must within a few years reduce the evil to dimensions in which it can be dealt with on principles ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker

... have progressed, it has been convenient to speak of the railway in a general manner as having been laid or extended to various points, and merely to indicate the direction of the lines of communication. The reader is now invited to take a closer view. This chapter is concerned with boats, railways, and pack animals, but ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... brethren, if ye could be healed by merely casting about your eyes that ye might be healed, would ye not behold quickly, or would ye rather harden your hearts in unbelief, and be slothful, that ye would not cast about your eyes, that ye ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... two skins along the sides of the fish's gums, between the tongue and the teeth; a hole must be cut inside at the back part of the head below the eye, the crooked scraper inserted, and all the flesh dragged out bit by bit. Remember, this is merely a thin membrane, and the slightest awkwardness ruptures it; in large fish, however, the finger may be introduced with advantage, to pull out pieces of flesh. Many taxidermists cut the whole of this away, and replace it with ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... descending from the heavenly world that world never becomes full, it follows that that third place does not, for the origination of bodies, depend on the fifth oblation. The clause, 'in the fifth oblation,' moreover, merely states that the connexion of water with the fifth fire is the cause of the water 'being called man' (i. e. becoming an embryo), but does not deny the origination of embryos in other ways; for the text contains no word ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... be uneasy, and you must not think of this merely as an interesting experiment just because you have not heard of it before. My old preceptor, Fuller of Johns Hopkins, did this operation often, and almost always with success. He could do it better than I, but I am the best that offers, and ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough

... girl, with a fairly intelligent face whose expression was doubtful. Sometimes it showed a willingness to please, oftener it was sullen, now and then merely thoughtful. Just at this moment, as she looked up at the young organist, it was crafty and greedy. "I'm taking a note," she said. "Miss Crawford's always a-sending me ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... was a great disappointment to poor Pauline and her brothers, who, as may be imagined, were burning with anxiety to get back to England. Feeling, however, that it would be unreasonable as well as selfish to expect the emigrants to give up their long-delayed plans merely to meet their wishes, they made up their minds to accept the ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne

... ill has the character of punishment in regard to both the one punished and the one he is punished for. But if they do not take part in the sin, it has the character of punishment in regard to the one for whom the punishment is borne, while, in regard to the one who is punished, it is merely medicinal (except accidentally, if he consent to the other's sin), since it is intended for the good of his soul, if he ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... approached the glass, as if attracted there, unable to detach his eyes from his victim. He did not suffer; he merely experienced a great inner chill, accompanied by slight pricks on his skin. He would have thought that he would have trembled more violently. For fully five minutes, he stood motionless, lost in unconscious contemplation, engraving, in spite of himself, in his memory, all the horrible ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... see—the deaf imagined that they heard—the lame that they walked straight, and the paralytic that they had recovered the use of their limbs. An idea of health made the sick forget for a while their maladies; and imagination, which was not less active in those merely drawn by curiosity than in the sick, gave a false view to the one class, from the desire of seeing, as it operated a false cure on the other from the strong desire of being healed. Such was the power of the Irishman over the mind, and such was the influence of the mind upon the body. Nothing was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... a bunch of legs a couple of inches long. A stallion abruptly stands on his forelegs and thrusts his hind legs skyward. He withdraws them from the sky long enough to make one wild jump ahead, and then returns them to their index position. It is nothing. His thick hide has merely been punctured by a flaming lance of wasp virility. Then a second and a third stallion, and all the stallions, begin to cavort on their forelegs over the precipitous landscape. Swat! A white-hot poniard penetrates my cheek. Swat again!! I am stabbed in the neck. I am bringing ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... business, and said nothing about his son. That was all. Mrs. Dallas never wrote. Esther would have been yet more bewildered if she had known that the lady had been in New York two or three times, and not merely passing through, but staying to do shopping. Happily she had ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... still more holy ground, he dared impiously to explain away the resurrection of our blessed Lord by the hypothesis that his death was only apparent. These are a specimen of the mode of exegesis adopted in this school, which is usually specifically called Rationalism. In this mode Jesus appeared to be merely a wise and virtuous man; and his miracles were merely acts of skill or accident. Paulus presented this as the original Christianity. The theory did not last long, save in the mind of its author, who lived until a recent ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... de, Lauzun, Sire, for whom you created the charge," said Tesse, all embarrassment. On the instant, the good Lauzun vanished, bursting with laughter, and the King assured Tesse that M. de Lauzun had merely been joking with him. I never saw a man so confounded as Tesse at this. He remained with downcast eyes, looking at his hat, with a sadness and confusion that rendered the scene perfect. He was obliged to treat the matter as a joke, but was for a long ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... grew quite still. Moritz merely felt the girlish body lean a little more heavily on him. At last Billy began, and it sounded like the faint wail of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... her drawings, and so to bed mighty merry. I was much troubled this day to hear at Westminster how the officers do bury the dead in the open Tuttle-fields, pretending want of room elsewhere; whereas the New Chappell churchyard was walled-in at the publick charge in the last plague time, merely for want of room and now none, but such as are able to pay dear for it, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... inconsistent with my subsequent conviction. My life will I hope be sufficiently extended for the recording of my sincere opinion of his virtues and merit, in a style which is not the result of a mind merely debilitated by misfortune, but of that Christian philosophy on which alone I ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... follow up, even from this time, a detail of his trials, adventures, captures by the Indians, and hair-breadth escapes, to the close of his eventful career, would be sufficient to fill a volume; therefore we shall drop him for the time—merely remarking, by the way, that he will be found to figure ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... on the throne. Memphis declined, became impoverished, and dwindled in population. Its inhabitants ceased to build those immense stone mastabas in which they had proudly displayed their wealth, and erected them merely of brick, in which the decoration was almost entirely confined to one narrow niche near the sarcophagus. Soon the mastaba itself was given up, and the necropolis of the city was reduced to the meagre proportions of a small provincial cemetery. The centre of that government, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the articles of a statutory constitution. If, further, the spirit of nationality has the vivifying power ascribed to it by its votaries, then Ireland might gain from it blessings which cannot be conferred by any scheme of merely Parliamentary independence, since no form of Home Rule can transform Ireland into ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... looked puzzled, and Foster explained that he had come with a packet, but had merely been given Graham's name and the number of the house. He added that he had found he must look for ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss

... joyne in y^e bussines, and gave him supplies in what they could, & overlooked his proceedings as well as they could; the which they did y^e better, by joyning an honest yonge man,[CO] that came from Leyden, with him as his fellow (in some sorte), and not merely as a servante. Which yonge man being discreete, and one whom they could trust, they so instructed as keept Ashley in some good mesure within bounds. And so they returned their answer to their freinds in ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... know about that, sir," answered the chauffeur, while the gardener merely shrugged his shoulders. He was an old man and one who had been trusted by ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer

... and may lead us far; but our present purpose is merely to find an explanation of ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... native laborers to ward off the feeling of lassitude that comes with severe labor in a tropical climate. A native porter will carry a load of one hundred pounds a distance of sixty miles with no food or rest, but merely chewing a few coca-leaves. The plant yields the substance cocaine, now in demand all over the world as an anaesthetic in eye ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... said the Prince; "is there such depravity in man as that he should injure another without benefit to himself? I can easily conceive that all are pleased with superiority; but your ignorance was merely accidental, which, being neither your crime nor your folly, could afford them no reason to applaud themselves; and the knowledge which they had, and which you wanted, they might as effectually have shown by warning ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson

... and marchings, and countermarchings, sappings, and minings, assaults, sometimes surrenders, and sometimes repulses. All the solemn and studied hypocrisies were to him infinitely wearisome; and if the movements were not merely formal, they irritated him, distracted his feelings, disturbed the tenor of his mind, deranged his nervous system. Something of the old Oriental vein influenced him in his carriage towards women. He was oftener behind the scenes ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... put all I had into your plan, you told me repeatedly the ravine was worth nothing, you were not even keeping up the taxes on it until I came and urged you to, the dam is used merely for water, the engine furnishes the real power, and if you are thrown out, you have thrown yourself out. You have ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... the law should be defied and the prisoners released by force. Cooler counsels prevailed, and the law, odious as it was felt to be, was allowed to take its course. In this exciting time the charges and judgments of Judge Willson were calm and dispassionate, wholly divested of partisanship, and merely pointing out the provisions of the law and the necessity of obedience to it, however irksome such obedience might be, ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... audience might as well go home. But presently the Duke sees something at the rear of the cabin. He looks as you or I would look if we saw a yellow elephant taking its after-dinner coffee in the sitting-room; but, as he is a pirate, he is not frightened—merely interested and intent. He brushes his hand before his eyes, to make sure it is no delusion—not grog or rum. Then he rises softly. He crosses to the window. Very gently he touches the glass. He finds it ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks

... also furnish advantages for individual exertion. Here a minister's influence may at once reach, not merely to his own congregation, but far beyond. Every month he is brought in contact with some thousands, who may be affected by his faithfulness. And under his influence, many benevolent and pious institutions may rise and shine to ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2. No. 6., Nov. 1827 - Or Original Monthly Sermons from Living Ministers • William Patton

... I see nothing so wonderful in the story, though much that is sad. You must allow that Waife may have been a good actor: you became quite excited merely at his attitude and bow. Natural, therefore, that he should have been invited to try his chance on the London stage; not improbable that he may have met with an accident by the train, and so lost his chance forever; natural, then, that he should press into service his poor little grandchild, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... gives himself very little chance of making a favorable impression on his immediate hearers if he reads his speech from a written manuscript. Mr. Sumner did so on this occasion, and I must confess that I was not edified. It seemed to me that he merely repeated, at greater length, the arguments which I had heard fifty times during the last thirty or forty days. I am told that the discourse is considered to be logical, and that it "reads" well. As regards the gist of it, or that result which Mr. Sumner thinks to be desirable, I fully ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... beginning to discover that, where his brother was met with a genial smile by all whom he encountered, he, who was particular and precise and, as he considered it, gentlemanly in his ways, was either not noticed, or met with merely the coldest reception. ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... let it speak for itself. Merely to set this story on paper opens old wounds, deep, but mercifully healed these many years. Yet, if other women may find here comfort and illumination and a certain philosophy, I am glad, and I shall ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown

... son turned, and found that the two young gentlemen in livery had actually vanished, the lady smiled a delicate smile of gentle scorn, and Mr. Tiffany, regarding his aged grandfather steadily, merely remarked, in a tone of most friendly and familiar condescension, "Baden-Baden wouldn't have done ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews

... got the same tastes as your else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which—I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman—just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen

... test No. 3 was 2.12 ohms. The drop, CR, will be 2.12 x 1/4 0.53 volt per inch length of solution between electrodes. Hence, the electrodes will have to be 40/0.53 75 inches apart. This would require about three barrels connected in series. This was taken merely as an illustration, because its specific resistance was known when the current density was 1/4 ampere per square inch. This solution, however, will carry safely 1/3 ampere per square inch, but I used the previous figure, since ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... end of March, when the males may be heard uttering a feeble kind of rambling song, which in reality is merely modified repetitions of a ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... home flushed with his oratorical efforts, and also from other causes, found a mild curate seated opposite in the tram-car. "It may interest you to know," he said truculently, "that I don't believe in the existence of a 'eaven." The curate merely nodded, and went on reading his newspaper. "You don't quite realize," said the park orator, "what I'm trying to make clear. I want you to understand that I don't believe for a single, solitary moment that such a place as 'eaven exists." "All right, all right," answered the curate pleasantly, ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... Eleanor Scaife decided to keep silence for the present about Mrs. Puttock's strange remark. That lady had deluged her with such a flood of gossip, that Eleanor felt that a thing was not likely to be true merely because Mrs. Puttock asserted it, while, if the suggested scandal had a basis in fact, it was probable that some of the men of the Governor's household, or indeed the Governor himself, would be well informed on the matter. If so, Lord Eynesford would use his discretion in telling his wife. ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... gave orders to his female slaves to prick Smaragdine's flesh with pins, and then to tie her up in the corner of the kitchen, but on no account to give her a morsel to eat. But even this last blow had no effect on Smaragdine, who merely exclaimed as she ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... Laborers. 3. Stationary state of wealth and population dreaded by some writers, but not in itself undesirable. Chapter V. On The Possible Futurity Of The Laboring-Classes. 1. The possibility of improvement while Laborers remain merely receivers of Wages. 2.—through small holdings, by which the landlord's gain is shared. 3. —through co-operation, by which the manager's wages are shared. 4. Distributive Co-operation. 5. Productive Co-Operation. 6. Industrial Partnership. 7. People's Banks. Book V. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... manoeuvre in the front seat was merely for the purpose of obtaining a prolonged stare at Natalie. The insolence of the little, swimming, pig-eyes infuriated Garth. The young man opposite him too, a sullen, scowling bravo, was staring boldly at Natalie. Garth stiffened himself to ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... four months, since the two girls migrated together into Mantles, Logan had been conspicuously absent. Apparently he had not invented a cloak as well as a toy! Win no longer connected Lily Leavitt's occasional invitations with him. Her refusals were prompted merely by a disinclination for Lily's society out of business hours and the conviction that her friends would be no more congenial than herself. Winifred now, however, particularly wished to show her companion that she bore no animosity for the filched ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... self-respect left, and I consented, since I saw no way of refusing. And on the whole, I cannot say, even now, that I had any grave reason for finding fault with the use Brutus made of my concessions; he showed more tact than I could have expected in disguising the merely ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... emits this heavenly light, men see the true man (i.e., the atman; the Self). When a man has cultivated himself to this point, thenceforth he remains constant in himself. When he is thus constant in himself, what is merely the human element will leave him, but Heaven will help him. Those whom Heaven helps, we call the sons of Heaven. Those who would, by learning, attain to this, seek for what they can ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... It is merely an application of the principle which enables a fly-fisher to place his fly directly under such and such over-hanging boughs, or gives the experienced driver such control over his whip that he can flick a midge off the ear of one of his ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn

... the play is to let Ellis win a home-stake an' quit. At last they begins, Ellis seein' thar's no chance for faro- bank. Dan plays but little; usual, he merely picks up his kyards, cusses a lot, an' passes out. Now an' then, when it's his ante, or Cherokee stays out for the looks of the thing, Dan goes to the front an' sweetens Ellis for a handful ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... quoted the tapestry, but has varied from it in a manner which proves that he had never seen it. The instances given of this variation are, however, a little unfortunate. The first of them is very unimportant, for the difference merely consists in placing a figure at the stern instead of the prow of a ship, and in giving him a bow instead of a trumpet. From an authority quoted by the Abbe himself, it appears that, with regard to this latter fact, the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... he must have given up the Daun Enterprise; for without Czernichef as a positive quantity, much more with Czernichef as a negative, it is impossible. But, at any rate, most luckily for himself, he came upon a milder thought: "Stay with us yet three days, merely in the semblance of Allies, no service required of you, but keeping the matter a dead secret;—on the fourth day go, with my eternal thanks!" This is his milder proposal; urged with his best efforts upon the obliging Czernichef: who ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... perfectly capable of doing anything I've suggested. I'm merely biding my time. Parents are pardonably fussy about the sort of person they turn their children over to, so I must have a care. I mean to dig for buried treasure this summer, realizing ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... rather the woman, for they had long grown familiar with her appearance, whom they used to see in the garden while they were at play. They assumed that she came in and went out at the stable door, but they never actually saw her enter or depart. They merely saw a figure—that of a very poor woman, soiled and ragged—near the stable wall, stooping over the ground, and apparently grubbing in the loose clay in search of something. She did not disturb, or appear to observe them; and they left her in undisturbed possession of her nook ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... were lighted from above; the side rooms received their light from these, and not through windows looking into the street. The windows of rooms in upper stories were not supplied with glass until the time of the Empire. They were merely openings in the wall, covered with lattice-work. To heat a room, portable stoves were generally used, in which charcoal was burned. There were no chimneys, and the smoke passed out through the windows or the ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell

... have been avoided; indeed, we passed around it immediately afterward, crossing the river at a ford about two miles below the bridge. Morgan assailed it merely in accordance with his habitual policy when advancing of attacking all in his ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... confused her. It was unexpected, and she was at her wit's end how to reply to it. Moreover, he kept his eyes so pertinaciously fixed upon her that she felt her blood rising to her cheeks and brow in a hot flush of—shame? Oh no!—not shame, but merely petulant vexation. The proper way for him to behave at this juncture, so she reflected, would be that he should take her tenderly in his arms and murmur, after the penny-dreadful style of elderly hero, "My darling, my darling! Can you, so young and beautiful, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... the existence of the fact here stated, but is decidedly of opinion in favour of the sex implicated by it. In his judgment, it is merely a harmless remnant of their earlier days. If so, and far be it from the writer to think otherwise, it betokens the innocency of fancy much more than the effrontery of licentiousness. Besides, there is reason to think, that dissoluteness in the particular now alluded to, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... happened to live in Bury Street. At that moment the enigma of the universe was wrapped up for him in the question, Why should he have been compelled to walk all the way from Bury Street to Argyll Street merely in order to walk all the way back again? And he became a trinity consisting of Disgusted, Indignant, and One Who Would Like to Know, the middle term predominating. When he discovered that No. 15, Bury Street, was exactly opposite ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... Sally was not merely a past mistress of dissimulation; she was the undisputed reigning queen in that realm. She served the table with a strictly professional air, in no way betraying the fact that two of the guests had lately enjoyed the hospitality ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... Merely to characterize as ungenerous this aspersion upon the courage of such men as then served under Hooker, savors of error on the side of leniency. And, inasmuch as these words strike, as it were, the keynote of all the ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... how strong a hold he had upon her heart. He called her hard and cruel, and left her so; and she smiled softly to herself, when his back was turned, to think how little he guessed how deeply he was loved. For Susan was merely comely and fine looking; Michael was strikingly handsome, admired by all the girls for miles round, and quite enough of a country coxcomb to know it and plume himself accordingly. He was the second son of his father; the eldest would have High Beck ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell

... banister with her cheek against the smooth hand-rail, as if she would make a friend of it in her misery. Rigid in this position, more and more words fell successively upon her ear. But what amazed her most was the tone of her husband. He spoke merely in the accents of a man who made ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... same family will cry a halt, none will attempt to come to its aid. Among the carnivorous insects the matter may develop to a tragic termination. With them, the passers-by will often run to the cripple. But do they do so in order to help it? By no means: merely to taste its flesh, and, if they find it agreeable, to perform the most radical cure of ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... with two new paviors. These recruits (countrymen from Cheshire) were much alarmed at a sudden change in the demeanour of their master, whose eyes began to roll and lips to move under the pressure of some strange emotion. Baker was merely rehearsing Falstaff; but the two men made up their little minds that he had lost his head, and they felt quite sure that their employer was a dangerous lunatic, when he gave them ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... it was urgently necessary to bring the emperor to a decision. It looked on the electors as merely his agents, and on the emigrants as his instruments; for the prince von Kaunitz recognised as legitimate "the league of sovereigns united for the safety and honour of crowns." The Girondists, therefore, wished to anticipate this dangerous adversary, in order not to give him time for more ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... judiciously blending his colours, heightening his effects, and skilfully managing his transitions or consciously introducing an abrupt outburst of a new mood. The smoothness of the verses imposes monotony even upon the varying passions which are supposed to struggle in Eloisa's breast. It is not merely our knowledge that Pope is speaking dramatically which prevents us from receiving the same kind of impressions as we receive from poetry—such, for example, as some of Cowper's minor pieces—into which we know that a man is really putting his whole heart. The comparison ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... nations was held at Berlin last winter to discuss methods whereby the Kongo basin might be kept open to the world's trade. Delegates attended on behalf of the United States on the understanding that their part should be merely deliberative, without imparting to the results any binding character so far as the United States were concerned. This reserve was due to the indisposition of this Government to share in any disposal by an international congress ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane

... loss was, was shown by the rapid succession of finance ministers who, in the course of the next seven years, successively held the office of comptroller-general. All were equally incompetent, and under their administration, sometimes merely incapable, sometimes combining recklessness and corruption with incapacity, the treasury again became exhausted, the resources of the nation dwindled away, and the distress of all but the wealthiest classes became more ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... nurse: "The mention of his umbrella seems to agitate your father." She turned quite pale. "It does," she said. "I hope you haven't mentioned it." I said that I had merely asked for information. "And did you get it?" asked she. I said that I had—since it was apparent that one has to carry an umbrella if one wishes to have it handy to jump upon. She didn't laugh at all, and looked so withdrawn that ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... though, for the most part, it is done merely out of ostentation: yet, sometimes (which makes not the case much better), it is done in compliment and civility to the all-wise Patron, or all-understanding Justice of the Peace in the parish; who, by the common farmers of the town, must be thought to understand ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... Remember it took thousands of years for someone on your Earth to discover electricity. But observe the wonders you have accomplished with it in the relatively few years since it was discovered. The same principle applies to your conquest of space. We are not here to do you harm, Mr. Payne. It is merely our intention to warn you, when the time comes, of the dangers you face should you decide to venture ...
— The Observers • G. L. Vandenburg

... always dreaded wildness as the enemy of talent; and he nearly always cherished women solely in his heart and in his head, even in his youth. He pursued chastity on principle; and his relations with the fair sex were those merely of curiosity. When he found a curiosity equal to his own, he exploited this mine with the cynicism of a father-confessor. But, when he met with health of mind and body, he was as happy as a child to speak of real love and to rise into the lofty ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... tight as banjo strings, had an awful instant of not knowing whether she would be able to be a man or whether she would be merely a shrieking and running little mad girl. For the respectable Ugly-Wugly shook her limply ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... deserted, because they have long learned to be slaves to others, do yet despise death, that they may be so no longer; and do make sallies into the very midst of us frequently, no in hopes of conquering us, but merely for a demonstration of their courage; we, who have gotten possession of almost all the world that belongs to either land or sea, to whom it will be a great shame if we do not conquer them, do not once undertake any attempt against our enemies wherein there is much danger, but sit still idle, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... of the "Boxer" movement is obscure. Its name is derived from a literal translation of the Chinese designation, "the fist of righteous harmony." Like the kindred "Big Sword" Society, it appears to have been in the first instance merely a secret association of malcontents chiefly drawn from the lower classes. Whether the empress Tsz'e Hsi and her Manchu advisers had deliberately set themselves from the beginning to avert the danger by deflecting what might have been a revolutionary movement into anti-foreign channels, or whether ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... it beforehand,—having resolved not to think of it. And indeed the occasion was one of no great importance. The Speaker was not in the chair, and the House was thin, and he intended to make no speech,—merely to say something which he had to say. Till he had finished he hardly remembered that he was doing that, in attempting to do which he had before failed so egregiously. It was not till he sat down that he began to ask himself whether ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... arranging them in bowls, jars, and vases. When he found his desk heaped with a tangle of clematis and wild lilies,—Peggy had dropped them there "just for a minute," half an hour before,—this excellent man merely said "Charming," and rescued his pet Montaigne from the wet sprays which covered it. In the course of the morning, Fernley House was transformed into a bower of greenery, lit up with masses of splendid color. Everywhere drooped or ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... memory and dashes of poetry that lead him past the mark. In this first scene, as we noticed, he puts fine lyric phrases in Falstaff's mouth; but he never repeats the experiment; Falstaff and high poetry are anti-podes—all of which merely proves that at first Shakespeare had not got into the skin of his personage. But the real Falstaff had probably tags of verse in memory and lilts of song, for Shakespeare repeats this trait. Here we reach the test: Whenever a ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... these birds were found in the months of March and April 1871. The first was placed on the ground, close against a bush. The nest, consisting of dry leaves and grass, appeared to be merely a canopy for the eggs, which, were almost on the bare ground, having only a very few pieces of straw under them. The eggs were three in number, and covered profusely with innumerable small dark spots, making it difficult to say what the ground-colour really was. The nest ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... from sitting down? Their tailors and shoemakers would and could, I hope, sit down, as well as those of Tigrosylvania. Why not? Ay, but my brother had insisted already that they had no tailors, that they had no shoemakers; which, then, I did not care much about, as it merely put back the clock of our history—throwing us into an earlier, and therefore, perhaps, into a more warlike stage of society. But, as the case stood now, this want of tailors, &c., showed clearly that the process ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... these events I will speak merely of what came under my own observation. The One Hundred and Sixteenth (colored) Infantry, in which I commanded a company, belonged to the Third Brigade, Second Division of the Twenty-fifth Army Corps, and during the winter of 1864-65 held the lines on ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... the Northumberland to Spithead, where she arrived on 24th October, her Master, James Cook, was discharged, the Muster Roll merely noting "superseded" on 11th November, and the pay sheet records the deductions from his wages as: "Chest, 2 pounds 1 shilling 0 pence; Hospital, 1 pound 0 shillings 6 pence. Threepence in the pound, 3 pounds 14 shillings 9 pence," leaving ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... broad band. In No. 5 will be observed an Egyptian fellah woman carrying a jar of water on her head. Compared with her, the Norwegian peasant in No. 6 looks prosaic and businesslike. The last two are not sellers of water, but are merely taking home a supply for their own households. How fortunate those towns are where the water is conveyed by pipes from house ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... sail deserves mention. It was Bill's idea, and it came near to ending his career the first day he tried it. It had no spars at all, but was merely a strip of cloth of somewhat triangular shape. The upper side was tied to the head, and the two corners to the wrists, while the lower portion was tied to the ankles. This converted him into a huge white-winged bat. Bill had to try it at once, even though the rest of the sails were not ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... silly condemnation of the marriage ceremony, merely because some sanctified Uncle Foozle once inserted the word 'obey' in it—just because, under the marriage laws, tyranny and cruelty ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... for the baby or young child it should be boiled. Give the youngsters a drink from your own supply before stopping for food. Don't let them drink water from drinking fountains, hotels, or tourist homes. This does not mean that the water may not be all right; it is merely a precautionary ...
— If Your Baby Must Travel in Wartime • United States Department of Labor, Children's Bureau



Words linked to "Merely" :   just, mere, simply, only



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