"Nine times" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who do not live in quotation marks most of their lives. They would die in them and go to heaven in them, if they could. Nine times out of ten it is some one else's heaven they want to go to. The number of people who would know what to do or how to act in this world or the next, without their quotation marks on, is ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... stood under the second princess's window nine times nine days and nine times nine nights and tapped for the ninth time at her window, she opened it and said ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... from this same personage. There are the every-day expressions, 'Not at home,' which the housemaid is instructed to give the caller; and a score of other social lies which in truth deceive nobody, nine times out of ten. Society would lose little and gain much if the polite lie could be banished, and every man say what he thought and speak ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... or over-developed boob, too proud to work and not able to take a real man's place in the world because he hasn't been taught how. And in the course of time he marries a female boob who has been raised according to the same general specifications, and nine times out of ten she's too refined to be bothered with a family. And presently there's a trip out to Reno and the little squib in the paper and—er—ahem! Drat your picture, Joe, you're the responsible party. You created a ten-thousand-dollar-a-year parasite on the body ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... right!" said Gertrude, slowly. "And besides, there is strength and strength, Bell. For long endurance of pain or hardship, the woman will outlast the man nine times out of ten, I believe; and I heard Doctor Strong say once that women would often bear pain quietly that would set a man raving. Yes, I come over to your side, May Margaret. I would take Joan of Arc, if it were not for the stake. Let me see—oh, ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... Plymouth's ould rock, We'll blast it, if they are not civil; While boys of the raal ould stock Will hurroo for ould Ireland the turfy. Whoo! Jibralthar is taken to-day, Our commandther's the conqueror MURPHY— Now a tiger and nine times hoorray! ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... "J'avais vu disparaitre parmi les nuages la tete de ce bon vieillard qu'on appelle Dieu"—"I had seen the head of that good old man called God disappear amongst the clouds." His naive material conception of the Eternal had dissolved—and dissolved into nothingness. May we not surmise that nine times out of ten this is precisely what has happened when we hear the question asked, "But how can ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... she remarked icily, "that in the original voting papers your name occurs only nine times, and in the substituted ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... impossible to carry him forwards. Left him at a village called Sanjeekotta. I regretted much being under the necessity of leaving in the hour of sickness and distress, a man who had grown old in the service of his country. He had been thirty-one years a soldier, twelve times a corporal, nine times a serjeant; but an unfortunate attachment to the bottle always returned ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... an opportunity of inspecting it, which they seemed never tired of doing, and then it was turned round at right angles to cut in the cross direction. In the experiments upon barley, it showed itself capable of reaping the enormous space of fifteen acres, which we believe is from eight to nine times the power of the most vigorous and skillful reaper. Afterwards the machine was taken into a large field of clover, which it cut to within two inches of the ground, and with still ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... laughed and zed I wur a fool not to be revenged on Farmer Jory, and not to make 'im suffer more'n I'd suffered. I axed her ow I cud do it, and she tould me to become a witch. Then I axed her ow I could be a witch, and she tould me to go to Logan Rock nine times at midnight and tich it wi my little vinger, an' she laughed ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... Paducah or Cairo, against an enemy at Bowling Green, is a plain case of exterior lines, like that of McDowell and Patterson, which, unless each of the columns is superior to the enemy, leads to disaster ninety-nine times in a hundred." ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... remarked the yellow-faced one. "I was just thinking as I set here how it all comes of people being suspicious of one another. Now I've always held that the world would be a better place if there wasn't no suspicion in it. Nine times out of ten the suspicion ain't got a leg to stand on—if suspicion can be said ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... you can. Mistykes in our life is often like the twists we'll give to our bodies. They'll ache most awful, but let nyture alone and she'll tyke care of 'em. It's jest so with our mistykes. Let life alone and she'll put 'em stryght for us, nine times out o' ten, better than we can do it by workin' up ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the ash-bar'l and was dead, that's two times; an'—an' then I et the stove-polish, that's four times; an' I can't 'member, but the nex' time will be seven. I don't keer how much I git killed, till it's eight times, then I'm goin' to be good all the time, 'cause when you are dead nine times they put you in a hole ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... pistol. As the passenger was about leaving the boat, the captain presented a pistol to his breast, which snapped. Instantly the enraged and wronged individual seized Capt. Crosly by the throat, and brought him to the ground, when he drew a dirk and stabbed him eight or nine times in the breast, each blow driving the weapon into his body up to the hilt. The passenger was arrested, carried ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... a pound-full other; and that in the breast of the p.a.h., between the flesh-pots of commerce and the world-well-lost-for-Chelsea. It is typical of Mr. OHLSON'S care that, though one would in such a situation nine times out of ten be safe in backing Art for the double event, he makes so even a match of it between Hubert and Ralph that he leaves the heroine ringing the door-bell of the one immediately after kissing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... the stalks, and heat the Syrup again, scalding hot, and return the stalks into it, letting them lie there till next morning; (Note, that the stalks must never boil in the Syrup,) Repeat this six, or eight, or nine times, that is to say, till they are sufficiently Imbibed with the Syrup. When they are at this pass, you may either keep them as a wet sucket in Syrup, or dry them in a stove upon Papers, turning them continually, in such sort as dried sweet-meats are to be ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... having received those numerous boons ruled his kingdom like a father. Some time after when king Kansa was slain by Vasudeva, an enmity arose between him and Krishna. Then, O Bharata, the mighty king of Magadha from his city of Girivraja, whirling a mace ninety-nine times, hurled it towards Mathura. At that time Krishna of wonderful deeds was residing at Mathura. The handsome mace hurled by Jarasandha fell near Mathura at a distance of ninety-nine yojanas from Gririvraja The citizens beholding the circumstance ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Carlo, and married her. It was a regular elopement, as if of a young miss from her papa. Do not look so shocked. Rossini could not help his changeability. You women always throw away a real gem, and receive, nine times out of ten, a mock one in return. But the fault lies not with us, but with you; you almost invariably select the wrong person. Now such men as Montresor and I knew how to return a real gem for Adelaide's heart-gift; but such men as Rossini ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... thought of loving Princess Gloria, but realizing it would be impolite not to return her love, I did so. We met at evening, now and then, and she told me the King wanted her to marry a rich courtier named Googly-Goo, who is old enough to be Gloria's father. She has refused Googly-Goo thirty-nine times, but he still persists and has brought many rich presents to bribe the King. On that account King Krewl has commanded his niece to marry the old man, but the Princess has assured me, time and again, ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... country's necessity and not our own which prompted the service there performed. For this the regiment was formed square across the plain, and there stood motionless as a rock, silent as death, and eager as a greyhound for the approach of the enemy, at least nine times, numerically, their superiors. Some Indiana troops were formed on the brink of the ravine with the right flank of the Mississippi Regiment, constituting one branch of what has been called the "V". When the enemy had approached as near as he dared ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... great word used of Jesus, and by Him, nine times[9] in these brief records, the word compassion. The sight of a leprous man, or of a demon-distressed man, moved Him. The great multitudes huddling together after Him, so pathetically, like leaderless sheep, eager, hungry, tired, always stirred Him to ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... Josephus home with her las' Saturday mornin'. She was awful surprised to hear all the bother 't all the rest have been havin'. She says 't she ain't had no bother a tall. She says 't she whipped Josephus nine times the day 't she took him home with her, 'n' since then she's taught him to read 'n' write 'n' sew patchwork 'n' beat up batter. She says 'f she'd 'a' had Henry Ward Beecher he wouldn't 'a' roamed but ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... any difference of opinion about Brie's being the queen of all cheeses, and if there is any such difference, I shall certainly ignore it. The very shape of Brie—so uncheese-like and so charmingly fragile—is exciting. Nine times out of ten a Brie will let you down—will be all caked into layers, which shows it is too young, or at the over-runny stage, which means it is too old—but when you come on the tenth Brie, coulant to just the right, delicate creaminess, and the color ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... stomach) took up, at one mouthful, as much as a dozen English farmers could eat at a meal, which to me was for some time a very nauseous sight. She would craunch the wing of a lark, bones and all, between her teeth, although it were nine times as large as that of a full-grown turkey; and put a bit of bread into her mouth as big as two twelve-penny loaves. She drank out of a golden cup, above a hogshead at a draught. Her knives were twice as long as a scythe, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... thought there were five elements, since the uneven and perfect number had everywhere the predominance. And to the heavenly gods he gives the uneven shares. For Nestor nine times to Poseidon sacrificed nine bulls; and Tiresias bids ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... climbed on the rise of ground into that nook where the South Dome seems almost to meet the Half Dome, and stood by the glassy waters of Mirror Lake. In that early hour before the ripples had stirred the surface, this lakelet at the foot of the Half Dome was worthy of all its romantic fame. Nine times that morning Job and Jane saw the sun rise over the rounded peak of the Half Dome, as they followed slowly the shores of the lake from sun-kissed beach to shadow. Jane went into ecstasies. Was it not beautiful! What ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... particular of the Genus Brassica. If two sorts of turnips or cabbages are suffered to grow and bloom together, the pollen of each kind will be sufficiently mixed to impregnate each alternately, and a hybrid kind will be the produce, and in ninety-nine times out of a hundred a worse variety than either. Although this is generally the result of an indiscriminate mixture, yet by properly adapting two different kinds to grow together, new and superior varieties ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... ordinary person, could not be considered otherwise than disastrous and humiliating. He had, in the course of one short year, gone through every variety of domestic misery;—had seen his hearth eight or nine times profaned by the visitations of the law, and been only saved from a prison by the privileges of his rank. He had alienated, as far as they had ever been his, the affections of his wife; and now, rejected by her, and condemned by the world, was betaking himself to an exile ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... tariff fell, and the toil was huge. He used afterwards to say that he had been concerned in four revisions of the tariff, in 1842, 1845, 1853, and 1860, and that the first of them cost six times as much trouble as the other three put together. He spoke one hundred and twenty-nine times during the session. He had only once sat on a committee of trade, and had only once spoken on a purely trade question during the nine years of his parliamentary life. All his habits of thought and action had been cast in a different mould. It is ordinarily ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... turn out to be very insufficient when investigated and tested by the higher spirit or self. We should 'appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.' And if a man will be honest with himself, and tell himself why he is in such a pucker of terror, or why he is in such a rapture of joy, nine times out of ten the attempt to tell the reasons will be the condemnation of the mood which they are supposed to justify. If men would only bring the causes or occasions of the tempers and feelings which they allow to direct them, to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... got 'em on the right spot, didn't it?' Says father, 'THERE'S A MORAL SAM, IN EVERYTHING IN NATUR'. Never have nothin' to do with elections, you see the vally of popularity in the case of that 'ere horse—sarve the public nine hundred and ninety-nine times, and the thousandth, if they don't agree with you, they desart and abuse you. See how they sarved old John Adams, see how they let Jefferson starve in his old age, see how good old Munroe like to have got right into jail, after his term of President was up. They may talk of ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... and the chill of despair, soul-solitude and heart-trouble, are the very things that He comes to cure. He begins His great discourse with a series of beatitudes. "Blessed" is the word. "Happy" is the meaning. Nine times He rings the changes on that word, like a silver bell sounding from His fair temple on the mountain-side, calling all who long for happiness to come to Him and find ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... veins when the voice behind her said "just right." I think she always chuckled a little, and hugged her stomach. So the story progressed, and the little girl got through her toilet without crying, owing to the wonder-working voice and its marvellous adaptation of climaxes to emergencies. Nine times out of ten, it was the story of The Three Bears she demanded when, with the appearance of brush and comb, the voice asked, "Which story shall ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... Balmat had meanwhile been selecting guides for me according to their turn on his list. One only had accepted, Edward Simon; the answer of another, Jean Carrier, had not yet been received, though it was scarcely doubtful, as this man had already made the ascent of Mont Blanc twenty-nine times. I thus found myself in an embarrassing position. The guides I had chosen were all from Argentiere, a village six kilometres from Chamonix. Those of Chamonix accused Ravanel of having influenced me in favour of his family, which ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... tell you that Manitou had blinded the French and the warriors, their allies, to-night?" whispered Tayoga to Robert. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the sentinel would have asked more, or he would have insisted upon seeing more in the dark, but Manitou dulled his senses. The good spirits are abroad, ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... greatest heat which ever reaches the earth. But when Mercury, in the course of its remarkable changes of distance, draws in to the warmest part of its orbit, it is exposed to a terrific scorching. The intensity of the sun's heat must then be not less than nine times as great as the greatest radiation ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... with bitumen fell Fetched from that lake where Sodom erst did sink, And from that flood which nine times compassed hell Some of the liquor hot he brought, I think, Wherewith the quenchless fire he tempered well, To make it smoke and flame and deadly stink: And for his wood cut down, the aged sire Would thus revengement take with flame ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... of Aides there were four great rivers, three of which had to be crossed by all the shades. These three were Acheron (sorrow), Cocytus (lamentation), and Styx (intense darkness), the sacred stream which flowed nine times round ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... "is with ourselves. We assume every boy to have the soul of a professor, and every girl a genius for music. We pack off our sons to cram themselves with Greek and Latin, and put our daughters down to strum at the piano. Nine times out of ten it is sheer waste of time. They sent me to Cambridge, and said I was lazy. I was not lazy. I was not intended by nature for a Senior Wrangler. I did not see the good of being a Senior Wrangler. Who wants a world of Senior ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... over 'em wid a gun all de time. If a Nigger lagged or tuk his eyes off his wuk, right den an' dar he would make him strip down his clo'es to his waist, an' he whup him wid a cat-o-nine tails. Evvy lick dey struck him meant he wuz hit nine times, an' it fotch da red evvy ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... its supposed medicinal properties, was until late years widely famed for curing cutaneous disorders, although under circumstances somewhat connected with the marvellous, its peculiar efficacy being combined with the rising of the sun, the month of May, and the visits to it being repeated nine times in succession. However, after due allowance for some exaggeration, there remains ample proof of the utility of its waters in removing diseases of the skin. The square basin or reservoir of stone immediately ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... but, like other representatives, nine times out of ten he is a silent member. Ah, Pauline! not to the past, but to the future, looks true nobility, and finds ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... please us. When Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary, I believe he thought chiefly of a somewhat morbid realism; and behold! the book turned in his hands into a masterpiece of appalling morality. But the truth is, when books are conceived under a great stress, with a soul of ninefold power, nine times heated and electrified by effort, the conditions of our being are seized with such an ample grasp, that, even should the main design be trivial or base, some truth and beauty cannot fail to be expressed. Out of the strong comes forth sweetness; but an ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... This edition of the novel was badly typeset in places. Many small errors—missing periods, missing apostrophes, missing closing quotes—have been corrected for reading ease. When the author spelled a word as 'ankle' nine times and 'ancle' twice, occurrences of 'ancle' have been corrected to 'ankle'—and so forth. Other errors, such as the persistent misspelling of 'visitor' as 'visiter', have been left, as these are more likely to represent the author's convictions as ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... by tens in proportion to the injury done, and running up to one hundred and seven. Of these beatings sometimes they die.[NOTE 1] But if the offence be horse-stealing, or some other great matter, they cut the thief in two with a sword. Howbeit, if he be able to ransom himself by paying nine times the value of the thing stolen, he is let off. Every Lord or other person who possesses beasts has them marked with his peculiar brand, be they horses, mares, camels, oxen, cows, or other great cattle, and then they are sent abroad to graze over the plains without any keeper. They get all ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... found his tracks. One of his companions, Mr. Gibson, lost his way and perished in the desert, and therefore Mr. Giles turned his face eastwards, and, after an absence of twelve months, reached Adelaide. He encountered many perils, having been nine times attacked by the natives, probably in the attempt to obtain water; and on one occasion was ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... return the wife!' He sung, and hell consented To hear the poet's prayer: Stern Proserpine relented, And gave him back the fair. Thus song could prevail O'er death and o'er hell, A conquest how hard and how glorious! Though fate had fast bound her With Styx nine times round her, Yet Music ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... "It would take nine times as much pulling—" Rudolf was whispering to Peter, when he noticed a new commotion among the sailors. The black and white sea-cat had turned to carry out the Chief's order when suddenly some one ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... a low monotone, broken by stifled sobs. The dreary rhythm of the repetition may possibly have assisted. As she mentioned fearfully that nine times eleven were ninety-nine, Miss Greene pointed stealthily toward the table. Mrs. Korner, glancing up fearfully, saw that the eyes of her lord and master were closed; heard the rising snore that issued from his head, resting between the empty beer-jug and ...
— Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies • Jerome K. Jerome
... he made his way with alacrity to the 'Parlour.' For it was dinner time; he had a free half-hour, and nine times out of ten he spent it at ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... game of Little War, as we know it, became possible with the invention of the spring breechloader gun. This priceless gift to boyhood appeared somewhen towards the end of the last century, a gun capable of hitting a toy soldier nine times out of ten at a distance of nine yards. It has completely superseded all the spiral-spring and other makes of gun hitherto used in playroom warfare. These spring breechloaders are made in various sizes and patterns, but ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... can woman be better employed than in tending her aged and sickly companion? That he has been married is likewise certain—but ah, my mother! who knows not that he must be a good and tender husband, who, nine times wedded, owns that, he cannot be happy ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... unquestionably true that, with great strength, the game will be won nine times out of ten with the No-trump declaration, but in every such case it is absolutely "cinched" by the Heart or ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... had to be driven out of the house, and Ovid (Fasti, v. 432) relates how the head of the family arose at midnight, and with feet unfettered by shoon or sandals, and with washen hands traversed his house beckoning against the ghosts with fingers joined to thumb. Nine times with averted glance he spat a black bean out of his mouth and cried: "With these I redeem me and mine.'' The ghosts followed and picked up, or perhaps entered into the beans. Then he washed afresh, and rattled his brass vessels, and nine times over bade them begone with the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... folks come to our time of life without marrying, nine times out of ten there has been a mess; and what I said a moment since is just the flippant talk we use to cover it up. By 'our time of life' I don't mean, of course, that we're of an age, you and I, but that ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... slightly less than nine times the size of the US; second-largest of the world's four oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, but larger than ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... and the Terror observed his perturbation with considerable interest. It seemed to him very curious in a hard-bitten hunter of big game. They started and in the two level miles to Little Deeping Sir James changed his car's speeds nine times. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... in 1663[306] described in detail a mode of embodying that principle in a practical shape; and Newton, adopting an original system of construction, actually produced in 1668 a tiny speculum, one inch across, by means of which the apparent distance of objects was reduced thirty-nine times. Nevertheless, the exorbitantly long tubeless refractors, introduced by Huygens, maintained their reputation until Hadley exhibited to the Royal Society, January 12, 1721,[307] a reflector of six inches aperture, and sixty-two in focal ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... they had form'd in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks, Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemies, nine times their number, was the price they took in advance, Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone, They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv'd writing and seal, gave up their arms and march'd ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... bushel. The father then uttered a prayer and drank off the three mugs of beer. The rest followed his example. Then the loaves and the flesh of the fowls were eaten, after which the beer went round again, till every one had emptied each of the three mugs nine times. None of the food should remain over; but if anything did happen to be left, it was consumed next morning with the same ceremonies. The bones were given to the dog to eat; if he did not eat them all up, the remains were buried under the dung in the cattle-stall. This ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the size and lustre of Sirius, Arcturus, etc., were removed into the profundity of space I have mentioned, they would then appear like the stars which I saw." With the next telescope, which collected nine times more light than the eye, and brought into view objects three times more distant, other and new stars appeared, which were then (3 x 12) thirty-six times farther from us than Arcturus. In the same way, the seven-foot reflector showed stars 204 times, the ten-foot 344 times, the twenty-foot 900 times ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... that point we agree exactly. I have spared nothing to give my boys good principles and good habits, and I am willing to trust them anywhere. Nine times did I whip my Steve to cure him of fibbing, and over and over again did Mac go without his dinner rather than wash his hands. But I whipped and starved them both into obedience, and now I have my reward," ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... exceptional strength so to cast even the best design of hunting-spear, as keen as possible, as to drive it through the matted pelt, thick hide and big bones of a bear; in so driving it, to aim it so that it will pierce his heart calls for superhuman skill. And to reiterate this feat ninety-nine times in succession argues a perfection of eye, hand and nerve never possessed by any man save Commodus. Any other man would have felt the strain, most men would have become so anxious towards the end as to become agitated. He kept calm ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... terror lasts longer than its cause. Even in the symbols used there was an added significance of alliteration. 'For ever' is given in the hieroglyphics as 'millions of years'. This symbol was repeated nine times, in three groups of three; and after each group a symbol of the Upper World, the Under World, and the Sky. So that for this Lonely One there could be, through the vengeance of all the Gods, resurrection in neither the World of ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... beyond all his expectations simply because all props were knocked out from under him and he was obliged to stand upon his own feet. "Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify," said James A. Garfield; "but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I have never known a man to be drowned who was worth ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... scolded, Beth implored, and Amy wailed because she couldn't remember how much nine times ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... much at least as may be necessary to determine the works most suitable for their extraction or values warranting purchase. In outcrop mines there is one rule, and that is "follow the ore." Small temporary inclines following the deposit, even though they are eventually useless; are nine times out ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... a man take it for granted that a girl who flirts with him wants him to kiss her—when, nine times out of ten, she only wants him to want ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... are wont to labour is nine times out of ten white work or brightly-coloured work. Women are like the best kind of birds, and love snowy plumage or feathers that are bravely tinted. But the work with which Barbara Hatchett was occupied was neither white nor coloured, but black—the deepest, darkest black. ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... if in fact she takes to a grande passion, It is a very serious thing indeed: Nine times in ten 't is but caprice or fashion, Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead, The pride of a mere child with a new sash on, Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed: But the tenth instance will be a tornado, For there's no saying what they will ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... dearly loved, and the other in his silent retreat at Lausanne. Dryden wrote hurriedly, to provide for the day; but his Absalom and Achitophel, and the beautiful imagery of the Hind and Panther, must have been fostered with parental care. St. Pierre copied his Paul and Virginia nine times, that he might render it the more perfect. Rousseau was a very coxcomb in these matters: the amatory epistles, in his new Heloise, he wrote on fine gilt-edged card-paper, and having folded, addressed, and sealed them, he opened and read them in the solitary ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... viz., bean soup forty-seven times; cabbage nine times; gruel six. It was the thinnest decoction of small black beans, the slightest infusion of cabbage, or the most attenuated gruel of corn-cob meal, that a poetic imagination ever dignified with ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... vouch for him. A clerk sought out the driver, and asked him if the applicant was honest. 'Honest?' the driver said. 'Why, his honesty's been proved again and again. To my certain knowledge he's been arrested nine times for stealing and every ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... bursting of shells over their heads, the whizzing of minnie balls through their ranks is all very well for romance and on paper, but a soldier left free to himself, unless he seeks notoriety or honors, will not often rush voluntarily into battle, and if he can escape it honorably, he will do it nine times out of ten. There are times, however, when officers, whose keen sense of duty and honorable appreciation of the position they occupy, will lead their commands into battle unauthorized, when they see the necessity, but a private who owes no obedience ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... such felicities of expression, just like those we hear quoted from the great poets; and besides one has been told by so many friends that all one had to do was to print and be famous! Delusion, my poor dear, delusion at least nineteen times out of twenty, yes, ninety-nine times in ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... been pleading for Molly. For Hetty had long since gauged her mother and knew that, while her instinct for her sons' interests was well-nigh impeccable, on any question that concerned her daughters she would blunder nine times ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the more the shot will spread. I once saw a half-dozen hunters fire at a covey of quail that rose in an open field before they had gone thirty yards and every hunter scored a clean miss. Any one of these men could bring down his bird under the same conditions nine times out of ten if he had taken his time. On this occasion when their guns were empty another hunter who had withheld his fire said, "Are you all done, boys?" and shot a bird with each barrel at a measured fifty-eight yards. To kill a bird that another man has shot at is called ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... had always fought, and ninety-nine times out of one hundred he firmly believed that he was enforcing the right. The white man fought after his own custom and sometimes after the Indian's custom also; and not infrequently he knew that he was enforcing ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... particular Rajah to be a "nine-gun" and a "three-step" man. Bang go the cannon from Fort William nine times, and the Viceroy, in full uniform with decorations, duly advances three steps on the gold carpet to greet his visitor. The Viceroy seats himself on his silver-gilt throne at the top of the three steps, the visiting Rajah in his silver chair being one step lower. The two ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... second attempt would be futile. The animal making the easiest prey for the cougar is the elk. About every other elk attacked falls a victim. Deer are more fortunate, the ratio being one dead to five leaped at. The antelope, living on the lowlands or upland meadows, escapes nine times out of ten; and the mountain sheep, or bighorn, seldom falls to the onslaught ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... yourself a bit for that, Allen," said Ruth earnestly. "You only did what you thought you ought to do, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred no harm would have come ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... away on the water-clock when an Imperial Missive bound with yellow silk arrived, and the August Aunt, rising, kotowed nine times before she received it in her jewelled hand with its delicate and lengthy nails ensheathed in pure gold and set with gems of the first water. She then read it aloud, the ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... parent would have been so treated by his children. By a singular chance a complete answer to this objection may be found in a paragraph which appeared in the Daily Mail of 18th April, 1911. A few days before, a peasant woman in France had entered her father's bedroom and struck him nine times on the head with an axe, afterwards going home to bed. The reason for the crime was that the old man two years previously had divided his property between his two daughters on condition that they paid him a monthly allowance. His elder daughter ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... remembered, and yet almost never does any harm until some defender makes a controversy. Gossip's a nasty thing, but it's sickly, and if people of good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... four ends, are to be put, one in the bottom of each pit, and as each turf is restored to its native spot, and laid on its particular cross, say thus:—"Crux, Mattheus; Crux, Marcus; Crux, Lucas; Crux, Joannes."[55] Then the supplicant turns eastward, bows nine times, and says a rhythmic form of prayer, in which some heathen elements are just discernible. Then he turns three times towards the sun in its course, and sings Benedicite, Magnificat, and Pater Noster, and makes a gracious vow, in the friendly comprehension of which all the neighbourhood ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... But, on the contrary, his marriage was at once a signal for all the arrears and claims of a long-accumulating state of embarrassment to explode upon him; his door was almost daily beset by duns, and his house nine times during that year in possession of bailiffs; while, in addition to these anxieties, he had also the pain of fancying that the eyes of enemies and spies were upon him, even under his own roof, and that his every hasty word and look were interpreted in ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... I, pulling out my notebook and pencil. "Nine times one hundred and twenty-five feet make a depth of ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... sense of the beautiful under these circumstances. The ordinary schoolboy is precisely in this case. He finds Parnassus uncommonly steep, and there is no chance of his having much time or inclination to look about him till he gets to the top. And nine times out of ten he does not get to ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... and Steve come to place in Jack Winters. But then he merited all their high esteem, for rarely did things go wrong when Jack's hand was at the helm; he seemed to be one of those fellows whose judgment is right nine times out of ten. Looking back, the Chester lads could begin to understand what a great day it had been for them when Jack came to town, full of ideas which he had imbibed in the lively city where his folks had ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... I decided that, while I was uncertain as to the manner in which Dr. Schlossenger had performed all of these experiments, I could reproduce two of them with certainty as often as he did. I immediately made the trial and found I could succeed fully nine times out of ten on an average. I might state that the doctor also failed about one time in ten on an average; nevertheless, the people of the community were greatly excited, talking of his miracles, in groups on the streets, for some days. The medium ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... poor silly tenth is faring on. It is a windy night that he is travelling through a windy night, with all things new around, and nothing to help him but his courage. Nine times out of ten that courage fails, and he goes down into the bog. He has seen the undiscovered, and—like Ferrand in this book—the undiscovered has engulfed him; his spirit, tougher than the spirit of the nine that burned back to sleep in inns, was yet ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... special protective devices and men with sense enough to use them. The employer cannot do his share unless the worker does his, and the worker is too quick to take a chance. The apprentice is usually cautious enough, but the old hand grows unwary. Ninety-nine times he thrusts his arm in among belts whirling at lightning speed and escapes, but the hundredth time the arm is caught and mangled. And there is nothing to blame but his ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... events and casualties; he had indeed fought great and successful battles, but he must likewise remember his losses and calamities, which (however, owing to wind and waves, and no fault of the general) were yet great and grievous. He himself had been sent nine times into Germany by Augustus, and effected much more by policy than arms. It was thus he had brought the Sygambrians into subjection, thus the Suevians, thus King Maroboduus had been obliged to submit to terms. The Cheruscans, too, and the other hostile nations—now the Roman honor was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... couldn't move it. What she had said once she stuck to for ever, like Anthony to his ash-tree. As if sticking to a thing for ever could make it right once. And Dorothy had formed the habit of actually being right, like Anthony, nine times out of ten. Frances foresaw that this persistence, this unreasoning rectitude, might, in time, become annoying in a daughter. There were moments when she was almost perturbed by the presence of this small, mysterious organism, mixed up of her ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... stop;" and a well-known French recipe for invoking the Evil One runs thus: "Take a black cock under your left arm, and go at midnight to where four cross roads meet. Then cry three times 'Poul Noir!' or else utter 'Robert' nine times, and the devil ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... "the saying of an old Swedish [Footnote: It was the Swedish General Kniphausen, a favorite of Gustavus, to whom this maxim is ascribed.] enemy of mine is worth remembering in such cases,—that, nine times out of ten, a drachm of good luck is worth an ounce of good contrivance,—and were it not, dearest Paulina, that you are with us, I would think the risk not heavy. Perhaps, by to-morrow's sunset, we shall all look back from our pleasant seats ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... of the evil eye,' said Clodius. 'If I ever come upon that Medusa front without the previous charm, I am sure to lose a favorite horse, or throw the canes nine times running.' ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... "And ninety-nine times out of a hundred he's as shrewd as his reputation calls for," interrupted Orcutt, "but this is the hundredth time! He is so dead sure he is right that I don't suppose he has examined his papers in years. John McNabb makes damned few mistakes—I've been more ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... instant service. They permit the invader to penetrate well into their territory and then ascend behind him to cut off his retreat. True, the invader has the advantage of being on the wing, while the ether is wide and deep, without any defined channels of communication. But nine times out of ten the adventurous scout is trapped. His chances of escape are slender, because his antagonists dispose themselves strategically in the air. The invader outpaces one, but in so doing comes within range of another. He is so harassed that he either has to give fight, or, ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot |
