"Phrase" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and sprang at a bound into national esteem. And in this first book, there was included that little poem, "The Last Leaf," better work than which Holmes has never done. It is in a vein which he has developed much since then. Grace, humor, pathos, and happiness of phrase and idea, are all to be found in its ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... great universe of thought. His little eye sparkles with some vague fancy that comes upon him first by language. Madge teaches him the words of affection and of thankfulness; and she teaches him to lisp infant prayer; and by secret pains (how could she be so secret?) instructs him in some little phrase of endearment that she knows will touch your heart; and then she watches your coming; and the little fellow runs toward you, and warbles out his lesson of love in tones that forbid you any answer,—save only ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... prudent fellow,"—here he smiled very much, as if my uncle had not said any such thing,—"why, you must only take the better care of yourself until we can make some better arrangement. My pupil, Frank Webber, is at this moment in want of a 'chum,' as the phrase is,—his last three having only been domesticated with him for as many weeks; so that until we find you a more quiet resting-place, you may take up your ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... speak, and right well if he pleases," remarked Father Eastgate; "for though ordinarily silent and sullen enough, yet when he doth talk it is not like one of the hinds with whom he consorts, but in good set phrase; and his bearing is as bold as that of one who hath seen service in ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... letter to me in August confirming his very optimistic views of the situation, and defining Germany's views regarding Belgium. The phrase, "as I understand it," above alluded to in his approval of the resolution, was explained in his letter, at any rate, as to the Belgium question: "As Germany wishes to reserve to herself the right to exercise a far-reaching military and economic influence on Belgium." ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... out this subtle fancy to such extent that, pitching voice on low conversational tone, sometimes difficult to catch full length of sentences. This added to impressiveness of scene. Crowded House sitting breathless; Members opposite leaning forward lest they might miss a phrase. Everyone conscious that at the door also listening were jealous France, the wily Turk, the interested Egyptian, the not entirely disinterested CZAR, and the other Great Powers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... other speeches by as many men, on a variety of barrels, each orator being affectionately tugged to the pedestal and set on end by his special constituency. Every speech was good, without exception; with the queerest oddities of phrase and pronunciation, there was an invariable enthusiasm, a pungency of statement, and an understanding of the points at issue, which made them all rather thrilling. Those long-winded slaves in "Among the Pines" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... successfully in the chaparral, requires a special genius. One must have exhaustless patience, tact trained by a lifetime of this sort of work, perseverance incapable of discouragement, the silence of an Indian, and in this phrase—when we are dealing with the skill of one who can make progress without sound through the tangles of the dry and stiff California chaparral—is involved an exercise of skill comparable only to the fineness of touch of a Joachim or a St. Gaudens. ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... attached to the Emperor Napoleon's household, so that they saw him nearly every day; Madame Durand, the Empress's first lady-in-waiting; Baron de Mneval, his private secretary—with their aid we shall try to recall the brilliant past, taking for our motto that phrase of Michelet: "History is a resurrection." An excellent work, which deserves translation, Von Helfert's Marie Louise, Empress of the French, throws a great deal of light on the early years of the mother of the King of Rome. In the archives of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs—thanks to the ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... twain'—let men say—'lived in olden days. This was a yokel (in their country-phrase), That was his mate (so talked these simple folk): And lovingly they bore a mutual yoke. The hearts of men were made of sterling gold, When troth met troth, in those ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... prejudices, popular beliefs, and vested interests. To proclaim truth in the face of these opponents in early times has cost many a man his life; and to-day it often exposes one to calumny and abuse. Hence comes the temptation to conceal our real opinions; to cover up what we know to be true under some phrase which we believe will be popular; to sacrifice our convictions to what we suppose to be ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... Romney's Rum 'Un, I was again fascinated by the inexhaustible wit and allusive badinage of this great little comedian, beside whose ready gagging GEORGE GRAVES himself is inarticulate. Had not GEORGE ROBEY invented for application to himself the descriptive phrase, "The Prime Minister of Mirth," it should be at once affixed to the Law Courts' fun-maker; but, since it is too late to use that, let us think of him as "The Chancellor of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... river (that is, we approached Stockholm by lovely river), with banks and hills covered with pine and birch trees, and studded with villas, where the Stockholm people live away from the town. "Studded" is a good word, but phrase sounds too much like "studied with SASS," as so many of our best artists did. Lovely for boating. Why don't the Swedes row? They don't. Lots of islands, and everybody as jolly as sand-boys, especially on Sanday. By the way, what's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... is to precede the time designated in scriptural phrase "the end of the world." When the thousand years are passed, Satan shall be loosed for a little season, and the final test of man's integrity to God shall ensue. Such as are prone to impurity of heart shall yield to temptation while the righteous ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... sometimes called sacchus and sometimes jura. A man who has distinguished himself in conflict with an enemy and whose face is scarred, is regarded as a hero and is called cupra, The people are called chyvis, and a man is home. When they wish to say, "That's for you, my man," the phrase is, "Hoppa home." ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... to walk about. A form of marriage—that was the phrase that stuck in her mind. And here was a girl who was without a genuine friend in all that heartless town except herself, and a fine boy who needed one, she began to see, very badly. She, at any rate, and she thanked God for it, ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... of definitions, of anecdotes, of historical incidents, meander with ease. Paris, the capital of taste, alone possesses the science which makes conversation a tourney in which each type of wit is condensed into a shaft, each speaker utters his phrase and casts his experience in a word, in which every one finds amusement, relaxation, and exercise. Here, then, alone, will you exchange ideas; here you need not, like the dolphin in the fable, carry a monkey on your shoulders; here you will be understood, and will not risk staking your ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... a couple they must be of one general kind, and their number unimportant to the statement made of them. It would be weak to say, "He gave me only one, although he took a couple for himself." Couple expresses indifference to the exact number, as does several. That is true, even in the phrase, a married couple, for the number is carried in the adjective ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... before had adequate temptation to a subterfuge. Even now, consciously reddening, her eyes drooping before the combined gaze of her little world, she had an inward protest of the literal exactness of her phrase. "Naw ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... self-effacing charm, which did not advertise the known fact that he was a bigger power in the state than any of them. The good old question of prohibition was the chief issue, as usual; discreet representatives of the people would, according to a catch phrase at the capital, vote for prohibition, and then go round to the best hotel and get drunk; and discreet politicians, like the Colonel, would make money out of both these facts in ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... of course, was so much 'Hebrew-Greek,' as honest Father Roach was wont to phrase it, to the scared women. But M. M.—[Greek: nykti eoikost]—fixing them both with her cold and terrible gaze, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... we appear to care nothing for the things of this world, they conclude we are rich, and when they beg, our refusal is ascribed to niggardliness, and our property, too, is wantonly destroyed. 'Ga ba tloke'they are not in need, is the phrase employed when our goods are allowed to go to destruction by the neglect of servants.... In coming among savage people, we ought to make them feel we are of them, 'we seek not yours, but you'; but while very careful not to make a gain of them, we ought to be as careful to appear thankful, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... intended to write, "I hope you will be 'good' again," but her heart failed her. "Perhaps he will understand that 'happy' means good," she said, and so wrote the gentler phrase. Stephen Potter did understand; and the feeble outreachings which, during the few miserable years more of his life, he made towards uprightness, were partly the ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... may feel, wishing for some word of remembrance and love; and though we visit the grave day by day, and call on the name of the departed, and use every art of endearment to pierce the veil between us,—there is the same determined, cold, lasting silence. "To go down into silence" is a scriptural phrase for the ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... be carried into execution without a bank. A bank, therefore, is not necessary, and consequently not authorized by this phrase. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... and girls were hired out in prominent families in the city and by their intelligence, orderly conduct and other evidences of good breeding came to be known far and wide as "The Edmondson Children," the phrase being taken as descriptive of all that was excellent and desirable in a slave. The one incurable grief of these humble parents was that in bringing children into the world they were helping to perpetuate ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... or I perish in the attempt," said Charlie, in his natural voice. This phrase from their school-days made them both laugh again. They were now apparently as intimate as ever ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... ceased, frozen with a new and splendid wonder, for their descriptive phrase was now inexact. Merton was no longer in a runaway. But only for a moment did they hesitate before ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... Liberals cried out, "Under the circumstances." "Under the circumstances," said Mr. Chamberlain, with that strange, eloquent, deep swell in his voice, which adds so much to its effectiveness, and then he took the phrase, repeated it, and reiterated it, and turned it upside down, until even his bitterest enemy could not help enjoying the perfection of the skill with which ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... in the model an adverbial phrase, an adverb, a noun used adverbially, a noun in apposition, a clause modifying a verb, a participle modifying the subject of a verb, a non-restrictive clause, and a clause used ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... attended an ordinary school at Edinburgh, and was then placed at the High School, his name first appearing in the school register in the year 1779. His masters, Mr. Luke Fraser, and Dr. Adam, were erudite and pains-taking teachers; but, to borrow a phrase from Montaigne, they could neither lodge it with him, nor make him espouse it, and Chambers illustratively relates, "apparently, neither the care of the master, nor the inborn genius of the pupil, availed much in this case; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... fatal to her desire. It enhanced her graces. In both phrase and tone it was different from similar request in the petulant mouths of those ladies amongst whom Bob purchased his way. Dissatisfied, they would have said "Oh, chuck it! Do!" But "Mr. Chater, please leave ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... phrase, which is well understood in English schools, may not be so clear to my readers, I will explain that Jim was to be refused notice by his schoolfellows, unless he should become aggressive, when he was to be noticed in a manner ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... perfect expression of thought and feeling through the medium of oral language must be traced to the mastery of words. Nothing is better suited to lead speakers and readers of English into an easy control of this language than the command of the phrase that perfectly expresses the thought. Every speaker's aim is to be heard and understood. A clear, crisp articulation holds an audience as by the spell of some irresistible power. The choice word, the correct phrase, are instruments that may reach ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... as if waiting for her reply. His pale, keen eyes had already noted that with every phrase he uttered the lines in her beautiful face became more hard and set. A look of horror was gradually spreading over it, as if the icy-cold hand of death had passed over her eyes and cheeks, leaving them ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... The phrase, rapidity of circulation, requires some comment. It must not be understood to mean the number of purchases made by each piece of money in a given time. Time is not the thing to be considered. The state of society may be such that each piece of money hardly performs more ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... good to the point of being inevitable. One seemed—I certainly did—to know every phrase, every word which was coming. None could have been other, or been placed otherwise than it was—and that's the highest praise one can give to anybody's prose, isn't it? One jumped to the perfect rightness of the whole—a rightness ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... works which are not word-books at all, but reference-books on all manner of subjects, as Chronology, Geography, Music, Commerce, Manufactures, Chemistry, or National Biography, arranged in Alphabetical or 'Dictionary order.' The very phrase, 'Dictionary order,' would in the first half of the sixteenth century have been unmeaning, for all dictionaries were not yet alphabetical. There is indeed no other connexion between a dictionary and alphabetical order, than that of a balance ...
— The evolution of English lexicography • James Augustus Henry Murray
... the five points, not in his portfolio but in his heart, and they might after all be concentrated in one phrase—Down with Austria, up with the Dutch republic. On his first interview with Cecil, who came to arrange for his audience with the king, he found the secretary much disposed to conciliate both Spain and the empire, and to leave the provinces to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... known as "Isabella colour,"—the type of which was the very dirty gown worn by Queen Isabella at the siege of Grenada. It is doubtful whether any living man could exactly tell what is an Isabella colour; and the use of such a phrase in describing the hue of an animal's skin is altogether indefinite and, to ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... letters. Mr. Austin Dobson, in his delightful Memoir of Walpole, says of them that 'for diversity of interest and perpetual entertainment, for the constant surprises of an unique species of wit, for happy and unexpected turns of phrase, for graphic characterisation and clever anecdote, for playfulness, pungency, irony, persiflage, there is nothing like his letters in English.' A collected edition of his works, edited by Mary Berry, ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... The phrase "unconscious humour" is the one contribution I have made to the current literature of the day. I am continually seeing unconscious humour (without quotation marks) alluded to in Times articles and other like places, but I never remember to have come across it as a synonym for dullness till ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... cabbage and the cauliflower; who would have expected them to be varieties of the wild brassica oleracea? Yet from that they have been derived by cultivation. They have, however, a tendency like animals to revert to the original type, or, in the gardener's phrase, to degenerate, which it requires the utmost care on his part to counteract. When left to a state of nature, they speedily lose their acquired forms, properties and character, and regain those of ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... man of honor!" The phrase even sounded in Cesar's ears as he passed along the streets, and caused him the emotion an author feels when he hears the muttered words: "That is he!" This noble recovery of credit enraged du Tillet. Cesar's first thought on receiving the bank-notes sent by the king was to use them ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... with a friend—a stranger like ourselves—on the high road from Swansea into the interior of the peninsula. After cantering over about seven miles of hill and valley and common, we entered a woody defile, and at last opened, to use a nautical phrase, the "Gower inn," (eight miles) which was built, we were told, expressly for the convenience of tourists. After ascending a tremendous rocky hill, for road it cannot be called, about a mile onwards, Oxwich Bay bursts at last in all its beauty upon our sight. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... Peter represented the purpose of these instructions to be the advising of young men as to their legal and constitutional rights. But it was McGivney's idea that Peter should slip into the instructions some phrase advising the young men to refuse military duty; if this were printed and circulated, it would render every member of the Anti-conscription League liable to a sentence of ten or twenty years in jail. McGivney had warned Peter ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... foundations of his higher life." Now we are not concerned here over the question of this particular proposal. The telling point in my opinion is this: that when a wise man, a student of human nature, and a reformer met in the same person, the taboo was abandoned. James has given us a lasting phrase when he speaks of the "moral equivalent" of evil. We can use it, I believe, as a guide post to statesmanship. Rightly understood, the idea behind the words contains all that is valuable in conservatism, and, for the first time, gives a reputable ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... Mushka as ordinarily understood, implies the scrotum or testes. The commentator Nilakantha supposes that it may stand for the shoulder-knot. He believes that the phrase implies that the people of this ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... I had started on January 1st, and had returned on February 28th, I should have been more advanced in my work, and I should have had two good months, like the ones at St. Petersburg. Dear sovereign star, how do you expect me to conceive an idea or write a single phrase, with my heart and head agitated as they have been since last November? It has been enough to make a man mad! In vain I have stuffed myself with coffee: I have only succeeded in increasing the nervous trembling of my eyes, and I have written nothing; this ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... in part, he would speak of "unifying" this, that or the other stop, and this somewhat inapt phrase has now been adopted by other builders and threatens ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... himself was not so tall as his father, and, moreover, suffered from bad digestion, and had a tendency to 'run to head,' he determined to select as his wife a 'daughter of the soil,' to use his own phrase, above the average height, with a vigorous constitution and plenty of common sense. She need not be bookish, 'he could supply all that himself.' Accordingly, he married Sarah Caffyn. His mother and Mrs Caffyn had been early friends. He was not mistaken in Sarah. She was ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... racing through her husband she tightened her grip, stringing meanwhile phrase to phrase with the sole idea of getting him safely indoors. Not till they were shut in the bedroom did she give the most humiliating detail of any: how, while she was still struggling to free herself from Purdy's embrace, the door had opened and Mr. ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... the lower productions of our literature." It is plebeian, it is successful, it is multitudinous; the Greeks in their best period did not practise it (but here he may be wrong); any one can read it; let us keep it down, brethren, while we may. Many not professors so phrase their inmost thoughts of fiction and ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... Mound-Builders will recur many times throughout this paper, and as the phrase has been objected to by some archaeologists on account of its indefiniteness, it may be well to state that it is employed here with its commonly accepted signification, viz: as applied to the people who formerly lived throughout the Mississippi Valley and raised the mounds ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... his earnestness he owed his success to a {125} wonderful gift of language that made him the tongue, as well as the spear-point, of his people. [Sidenote: His eloquence] In love of nature, in wonder, in the power to voice some secret truth in a phrase or a metaphor, he was a poet. He looked out on the stars and considered the "good master-workman" that made them, on the violets "for which neither the Grand Turk nor the emperor could pay," on the yearly ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... exhortations only that salvation could be meted out to the short-lived hopes of Henry Wharton. Not that the kind-hearted matron was so ignorant of the doctrines of the religion which she professed, as to depend, theoretically, on mortal aid for protection; but she had, to use her own phrase, "sat so long under the preaching of good Mr.——," that she had unconsciously imbibed a practical reliance on his assistance, for that which her faith should have taught her could come from the Deity alone. With her, the consideration of death was at all ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... glances. "Dish up." What an abominable phrase! They looked covertly at their guest, but ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... but of science, finds powerful but literally accurate expression in the saying of a great living thinker, "Life without work is guilt, work without art is brutality." Just in proportion as the truth of the latter phrase finds recognition the conditions which make "life without work" possible will disappear. Everything in human progress will be found to depend upon a progressive realisation of the nature of good "consumption." Just in proportion as our tastes become so qualitative ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... a tall, raw-boned woman in "a brindle dress" (to quote the phrase of Samson), wearing a large gilt pin just below her collar, with an orthographic design which spelled the name Minnie, approached the hero ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... added a foolish speech, which I confess pleased me that night better than now. You said that in me you had found the fair haven of your desires, where your bark, long tossing in cross seas, and beating against adverse winds, would cast anchor and be at rest. The phrase sounded poetical if enigmatical, but it pleased me somehow; what did it mean, Bigot? I have puzzled over it ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... now coming down in torrents" was the first sentence which met her glance. She read the phrase over two or three times as though it were some abstruse statement in mathematics. Its incongruousness annoyed her. It was nonsense for any one to write like that. Why, it was so hot... so hot that... The book, falling from her hand, slipped over the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... "at the proper time," has left on record his judgment that the hour then selected was "detestably ill-chosen." Yet even he and Gambetta were both anxious that "satisfaction" should be obtained for Sadowa; while the thought which animated the court is admirably expressed in the phrase imputed to the empress who, pointing to the prince imperial, said, "This child will never reign unless we repair the misfortunes of Sadowa." Such was the ceaseless refrain. The word haunted French imaginations incessantly, and it was the pivot on which the imperial policy revolved; it exercised ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... arose a great revival of respect for the political doctrines of Aristotle, regard for the unities of time and place, attention to the proprieties of sentiment and diction—in a word, for all those characteristics of style afterwards summed up in the phrase "correctness."—W.J. COURTHOPE'S "Addison."] ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Prince Kung, to overlook the earlier treatment of those now returned to him, for the narrative of Mr. Parkes and his fellow prisoners was one that tended to heighten the feeling of indignation at the original breach of faith. To say that they were barbarously ill-used is to employ a phrase conveying a very inadequate idea of the numerous indignities and the cruel personal treatment to which they were subjected. Under these great trials neither of these intrepid Englishmen wavered in their refusal to furnish ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... a tune, every breath is a boon; 'Tis poem enough to be living; Why fumble for phrase while magnificent June Her matchless recital is giving? Why not to the music and picturing come, And just with the manifest marvel sit dumb In silenced ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... everyone of us here, to the noble knight, Sir Andrew D'Arcy, to whom I wish, in the phrase of my own people, that he may live for ever. Drink, friends, drink deep, for never will wine such as this pass ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... know even less than you do, for I know more. Pardon my rather complicated phrase, Haggart, but the tongue responds with so much difficulty not only to our feeling, but also ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... of thee a poet, my Father," Caterina said, smiling at the turn of phrase so unusual from ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... servant or an unhappy marriage in my boyhood," he would say when he was forced against his will to consider either of these disturbing problems. Not progress, but a return to the "ideals of our ancestors," was his sole hope for the future; and in Virginia's childhood she had grown to regard this phrase as second in reverence only to that other familiar invocation: "If it be the ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... every day. At one point we saw, a couple of thousand feet above on the right a gigantic example of the natural arches. Beyond this the walls began to grow somewhat lower. Our life through this gorge, as well as through some others, might be described by the monotonous phrase, "Got up, ran rapids, went to bed." There was no time to do anything else. At night we were always sleepy and tired. Fortunately there were here fine places to camp—plenty of room, with smooth sand to sleep on. As soon as we halted for the night we would don our dry clothes from the rubber ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... had a dread of the man. That odious smile, forever hanging on those large red lips, singularly annoyed me; that imperturbable gayety, exhibited on all occasions of life, troubled me like the constant presence of a hideous phantom; that phrase, which he appended like a moral to every thing he did, that detested phrase, 'A capital joke,' sounded in my ears as doleful and sombre as the Trappists' motto, 'Brother, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... summoned to partake in the government of their country, and where the liberties they enjoy cannot be long preserved, without vigilance and activity on the part of the subject; still they, who, in the vulgar phrase, have not their fortunes to make, are supposed to be at a loss for occupation, and betake themselves to solitary pastimes, or cultivate what they are pleased to call a taste for gardening, building, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... reputation, which was widespread, would protect them; so he parted from his wife and children with little apprehension as to their safety. In reply to Meek's question, I stated that I had not seen Spencer's family, when he remarked, "Well, I fear that they are gone up," a phrase used in that country in early days to mean that they had been killed. I questioned him closely, to elicit further information, but no more could be obtained; for Meek, either through ignorance or the usual taciturnity of his class, did not explain more ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... circumambient immensity not cosmic, are here for the reader's behoof. Let him skip, if, like myself, he is weary; for the substance of the story is elsewhere given. Or perhaps he has the curiosity to know the speech of birds? With abridgment, by occasional change of phrase, above all by immense omission,—here, in specimen, is something like what the Rookery says to poor Friedrich Wilhelm and us, through St. Mary Axe and the Copyists in the Foreign Office! Friedrich Wilhelm reads it (Hotham gives him reading of it) some weeks ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... basis of fact. Butler is said to have had a share in the "Rehearsal," and certainly wrote a charming parody of the usual heroic-play dialogue, in his scene between "Cat and Puss." But this of itself can hardly be said to justify the phrase "adversary of our author's reputation." As for Dryden, he nowhere attacks Butler, and speaks honourably of him after his death in his complaint to ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... the new phrase about an 'uncovered loan' is not very intelligible, but I put the same interpretation upon ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... marched along, the speech of "Monsieur le Ministre de l'Interieur," that magnificent speech not made during the night session as Sulpice had told Adrienne, but the day before yesterday, in broad day, when the majority, faithfully grouped about him, had applauded this phrase: I, whose hours are consecrated to the amelioration of the lot of the poor and who can say with the poet,—I shall be pardoned for this feeling ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... the banks of the Neva. What she was doing was certainly very bold, and apparently she realized how audacious she was, because, with great adroitness, she would bring out immediately after some dangerous phrase a patriotic couplet which everybody was anxious to applaud. She succeeded by such means in appealing to all the divergent groups of her audience and secured a complete triumph for herself. The students, the ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... and Spero shall be trained to act in the same manner. The terror of the desert shall not make him turn pale—he is to face danger and learn to become worthy of the mission his father began, in order to accomplish it. 'Noble be man, efficacious and good'—may this poetical phrase be his shield, and may God guide him in his ways! Answer me, Haydee—is Spero to ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... volume, the first product of long labour, to the indulgent judgement of critics. In saying this we are not merely repeating a stereotyped phrase. We have found errors in the work of the most accurate of our predecessors. We cannot hope to have attained perfect accuracy ourselves, especially when we consider the wide range which our collation has embraced, and the minute points which ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare
... you will read this Epistle of Peter at your leisure, you will see that while with Paul both make the cross of Christ the centre of their teaching, Paul speaks more about His death, and Peter more about His sufferings. Throughout the letters of Peter the phrase runs, and the phrase has come almost entirely into modern Christian usage from this Apostle. Paul speaks about the death, Peter speaks of the sufferings. The eye-witness of a Loving Friend, the man who had stood by His side through ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Surely, that was but a theatrical phrase, with no meaning, spoken to make his miserable death seem grand, or at least worthy. Security implied danger, and what danger could his wretched life bring to Hilda or her husband? The thought that Hilda could ever love him was monstrous, the suggestion that he could ever speak ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... was an increased number of nuts on the trees that had borne last year and a number of new varieties came into bearing. In the eighth year when an 800-pound crop of nuts changed that experimental planting into a commercial pecan orchard, I was, to use a sporting phrase, "completely knocked out of the box." The man who thinks there are no thrills in tree planting has something yet to learn. It is the surest sign of a real true-blue horticulturist that he wants to set some kind ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... staff. It also referred to the policy of the Freethinker, and to another subject of the gravest interest—namely, the threats of prosecution which had appeared in several Christian journals. As "pieces of justification," to use a French phrase, I quote ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... naturalization, that A.S. inflections were added to the French words quite as freely as to those of native origin. Both the -eth and -e forms are commonly used without the word ye, though. Be ye occurs in l. 58. In the phrase avise you (l. 78), you is ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... not what it means, unless Sah-luma considers the green calyx of the flower a 'girdle,' in which case his wits must be far gone, for no shape of girdle can any sane man descry in the common natural protection of a bud before it blooms! There was a phrase too concerning nightingales,—and the gods know we have heard enough and too much of those over-praised birds! ..." Here he was interrupted by one of his frequent attacks of coughing, and again the laughter of the whole court broke forth in ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the opposite of how things are here; we'll take down false figures of the Italian strength and other such things. We'll tell the Austrian commander, when we are taken before him, that we are German secret agents, and we'll get away with it. Fortunately, I think we know the phrase that ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... endowed as to climate, the chef-lieu of the Bouches du Rhone must be called a slatternly beauty; whilst embellishing herself, putting on her jewels and splendid attire, she has forgotten to wash her face and trim her hair! Not in Horatian phrase, dainty in her neatness, Marseilles does herself injustice. Lyons is clean swept, spick and span as a toy town; Bordeaux is coquettish as her charming Bordelaise; Nantes, certainly, is not particularly careful of appearances. But Marseilles is dirty, unswept, littered from end to end; you ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... indicate two distinct, though cognate things. The affinity of these two and the indiscriminate manner in which the term has been applied to each have tended to obscure its real significance. The obscurity has been deepened by the frequency with which the term has been confounded with the old phrase, 'Sovereignty of the sea,' and the still current expression, 'Command of the sea.' A discussion—etymological, or even archaeological in character—of the term must be undertaken as an introduction to the explanation of its ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... commit to the flames. So entirely was she absorbed in her work that the hours passed unheeded. Now and then, when her thoughts failed to flow smoothly into graceful sentence moulds, she laid aside her pen, walked up and down the floor, turning the idea over and over, fitting it first to one phrase, then to another, until the verbal drapery ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... had, as appeared during the process of the analysis, a couple of days before the dream read a French story where the expression (new to him) cueillir des fraises occurred. He went to a Frenchman for the explanation of this phrase and learned that it was a delicate way of speaking of the sexual act, because lovers like to go into the woods under the pretext of picking strawberries, and thus separate themselves from the rest of the company. In whatever way the dream wish conceived ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... every time he repeated this phrase, and, with his hands to his ears, he shook his head from side to side with a look of mingled grief and desperation. The shrill complaint of Maria Remedios grew constantly shriller, and pierced the ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... the account was against them, they were obliged to confess their inability to scrape together the required funds. For instance, at the time Zumalacarregui was expected to die, a principal, a person who could not command more than L1,000, "stood," as the Stock Exchange phrase runs, to make a "pot of money" by the event. He speculated heavily, and had the Spanish partisan general good-naturedly died during the account, the commercial gambler would have certainly netted nearly L40,000. The general, however, obstinately delayed his death ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... applied to silly boasters. The Corinthians had sent an envoy to Megara, who, in order to enhance the importance of his city, incessantly repeated the phrase, "The Corinth ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... proportionately among them all. That division, made under the eye of a magistrate, is what we call a contribution. If you owe ten thousand francs, and your creditors issue writs of attachment on a debt due to you of a thousand francs, each one of them gets so much per cent, 'so much in the pound,' in legal phrase; so much (that means) in proportion to the amounts severally claimed by the creditors. But—the creditors cannot touch the money without a special order from the clerk of the court. Do you guess what all this work drawn up by a judge and prepared by attorneys must mean? It means a quantity of stamped ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... all the world would learn the meaning of this great phrase, "There is no time for hate," the world would happier be. Good script for the journey? The best there is, is to know "There is no time ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... be said that he went beyond this point. Though there were occasions on which he miscalculated his effects, they could generally be explained as accidental. Above all, they didn't rise from an appetite for drink. The phrase was one he was fond of; he often used it in condemning a vice of which he disapproved. He used it on this particular afternoon, when Thor Masterman, who had come to drive him homeward in his runabout, was sitting in the opposite arm-chair, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... he entertained himself. He was much addicted to conversing with his own wit, and he greatly enjoyed his own society. Clever as he often was in talking with his friends, I am not sure that his best things, as the phrase is, were not for his own ears. And this was not on account of any cynical contempt for the understanding of his fellow-creatures: it was simply because what I have called his own society was more ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... riding for a fall, and two days before Commemoration, to use his own phrase, he "fairly put his foot in it." This term he had a double dormitory with one Davenport, a scholar who was a year junior to Gordon; but was in the same form. The Chief had thought Gordon a bit big for the Nursery, but there was no room ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... suits, people have often mistaken the university, or this newer part of it, for a factory. A foreign visitor once said that the students looked like plumbers, and President Boomer was so proud of it that he put the phrase into his next Commencement address; and from there the newspapers got it and the Associated Press took it up and sent it all over the United States with the heading, "Have Appearance of Plumbers; Plutoria University ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... of his homicides, and a nod of recognition from him was sufficient to make a humble admirer happy for the rest of the day. The deference that was paid to a desperado of wide reputation, and who "kept his private graveyard," as the phrase went, was marked, and cheerfully accorded. When he moved along the sidewalk in his excessively long-tailed frock-coat, shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty little slouch hat tipped over left eye, the small-fry roughs ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Dolly flew up with a startled look that, to adopt a phrase from his own vocabulary, was "nuts" ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... successively cleft into two, he reaches a division which only comprises the first chapter. He applies to each part of the work the same process as to its whole. He continues these divisions until he comes to having before him only one phrase including one ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Was it possible?... He tells us himself that the illusion was brief, and that he grew cool about the Hortensius because he did not find the name of Christ in it. He deceives himself, probably. At this time he was not so Christian. He yields to the temptation of a fine phrase: when he wrote his Confessions he had not yet entirely ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... meeting with Hipparchus, rushed upon him, wounded, and slew him. Aristogiton turned to fly—he escaped the guards, but was afterward seized, and "not mildly treated" [240] by the tyrant. Such is the phrase of Thucydides, which, if we may take the interpretation of Justin and the later writers, means that, contrary to the law, he was put to the torture [241]. Harmodius was slain upon the spot. The news of his brother's death was brought to Hippias. With ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that head-hunting is a religious ceremony among them. It is merely to show their bravery and manliness, that it may be said that so-and-so has obtained heads. When they quarrel it is a constant phrase, "How many heads did your father or grandfather get?" If less than his own number, "Well, then, you have no occasion to be proud!" Thus the possession of heads gives them great considerations as warriors and men of wealth, the skulls being prized as ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... polish even of a turnpike-road has some influence upon the low people in the neighbourhood."—Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 358. "They become fond of regularity and neatness; which is displayed, first upon their yards and little enclosures, and next within doors."—Ibid. "The phrase, it is impossible to exist, gives us the idea of it's being impossible for men, or any body to exist."—Priestley's Gram., p. 85. "I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him."—Beauties of Shak., p. 151. "The reader's knowledge, as Dr. Campbell ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... my mind. A considerable portion of time and amplification of phrase are necessary to exhibit, verbally, ideas contemplated in a space of incalculable brevity. With the same rapidity I conceived the resolution of determining the truth of my suspicions. All the family, but myself, were at rest. Winding passages would conduct me, without danger ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... songs—the meadow-lark's, so sweet, so alert and remonstrating (as if he said, "don't you see?" or, "can't you understand?")—the cheery, mellow, human tones of the robin—(I have been trying for years to get a brief term, or phrase, that would identify and describe that robin call)—and the amorous whistle of the high-hole. Insects ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... but one. I do the cooking'; and the Countess, ever disposed to flatter and be suave, even when stung by a fact or a phrase, added: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... or phrase may convey your idea clearly, but force is lost in the drawn-out process. Remember that your words will meet the intuitive resistance of the other man's mind before they are admitted to his ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... filled the store, all talking at once, rapidly and loudly. Here and there we could distinguish a snatch of conversation, a word, a phrase, now and then even a whole sentence above the rest. There was the clink of glasses. I could hear the rattle of dice on a bare table, and an oath. A cork popped. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... and read these words: 'I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.' The earnest little gentleman pointed out the insistence on faith: the phrase 'believeth in Me' occurs twice in the text: faith and life go together. Would ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... who deprecate insistence on the importance of form in poetry might study with advantage, for the thought is a mere commonplace conceit, and the beauty of the phrase is purely derived from the cunning arrangement and cadence of the verse. The first perfectly charming sonnet in the English language—a sonnet which holds its own after three centuries of competition—is the famous "With how sad ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... French motto: "Que faire encore une fois dans une telle nuit? Attendre le jour." The very title seemed to me striking and peculiar, and to announce something uncommon. In the time I have lived to, I always seem to walk on enchanted ground. Everything is new, and, according to the fashionable phrase, revolutionary. In former days authors valued themselves upon the maturity and fulness of their deliberations. Accordingly, they predicted (perhaps with more arrogance than reason) an eternal duration to their works. The quite contrary ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... love and honour" (hubban wa kerametan). a familar phrase implying complete assent to any request. It is by some lexicologists supposed to have arisen from the circumstance of a man answering another, who begged of him a wine-jar (hubb), with the words, ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... a lesson from them. They quivered, clearly, they hummed and drummed, they leaped and bounded in Mrs. Stringham's typical organism—this lady striking him as before all things excited, as, in the native phrase, keyed-up, to a perception of more elements in the occasion than he was himself able to count. She was accessible to sides of it, he imagined, that were as yet obscure to him; for, though she unmistakeably rejoiced and soared, he none the less saw her at moments ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... educational experiment was to be tried. This time Nature took him in hand herself and showed him the way by which, to borrow Henslow's prophetic phrase, "anything he ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... of Burbage and of Betterton should be his and Manager Hart must bow to him. He stood transfixed before the glass in a day-dream, forgetful of his ills. His pretty lips moved, and one close by might have heard again, "To be or not to be" in well-modulated phrase. ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... the world. In the War of 1812, also, the effect is real and dread enough; but to his own country, to the United States, as a matter of national experience, the lesson is rather that of the influence of a negative quantity upon national history. The phrase scarcely lends itself to use as a title; but it represents the truth which the author has endeavored to set forth, though recognizing clearly that the victories on Lake Erie and Lake Champlain do illustrate, in a distinguished manner, his principal thesis, the controlling influence upon events ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... of this naive discrimination between the inert and the animate, the activities of the primitive social group tend to fall into two classes, which would in modern phrase be called exploit and industry. Industry is effort that goes to create a new thing, with a new purpose given it by the fashioning hand of its maker out of passive ("brute") material; while exploit, so far as it results in an outcome useful to the agent, is the conversion ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... it was fabled by the ancients to build its nest on the surface of the sea, and to have the power of calming the troubled waves during its period of incubation; hence the phrase "halcyon days." ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... first I displayed the modest worthy desire for respectable service that Harbury had taught me, but her clear, sceptical little voice pierced and tore all those pretences to shreds. "Do some decent public work," I said, or some such phrase. ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... York contributed a German-American view. Mr. Ridder saw the handwriting on the wall and he very soundly deprecated war and pictured its horrors. But he could not forget that he was appealing to a large class that held the German viewpoint. He therefore found it necessary to soften his phrase with some hyphenated sophistry. He dared not say that Germany was the culprit and would be the principal ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... overflow in condemnation, Think first of poor Teresa's education; 15 'Mid mountains wild, near billow-beaten rocks, Where sea-gales play'd with her dishevel'd locks, Bred in the spot where first to light she sprung, With no Academies for ladies young— Academies—(sweet phrase!) that well may claim 20 From Plato's sacred grove th' appropriate name! No morning visits, no sweet waltzing dances— And then for reading—what but huge romances, With as stiff morals, leaving earth behind 'em, As the brass-clasp'd, brass-corner'd boards that bind 'em. 25 Knights, chaste as brave, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to be blamed. It is the way he has been educated to "assert himself," as the Germans phrase it. Indeed, when the captain of the "Emden" was taken prisoner and was congratulated by the Australian commander for his gallant defense, he was so taken aback that he had to walk away and think it over. He returned ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... to put off as long as possible the fatal moment when your wife asks you for a book. This will be easy. You will first of all pronounce in a tone of disdain the phrase "Blue stocking;" and, on her request being repeated, you will tell her what ridicule attaches, among ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... the police agents in plain clothes, and the troops with fixed bayonets, sobbing round the "expiatory monuments of a pyramidical shape, surmounted by funeral vases," and compelled, by sad duty, to fire into the public who might wish to indulge in the same woe! O "manes of July!" (the phrase is pretty and grammatical) why did you with sharp bullets break those Louvre windows? Why did you bayonet red-coated Swiss behind that fair white facade, and, braving cannon, musket, sabre, perspective guillotine, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the south-east was Laconia, with an area of about nineteen hundred square miles. It consisted mainly of the valley of the Eurotas, which lay between the lofty mountain ranges of Parnon and Taygetus. "Hollow Lacedaemon" was a phrase descriptive of its situation. Sparta, the capital, was on the Eurotas, twenty miles from the sea. It had no other important city. Argolis, projecting into the sea, eastward of Arcadia, had within it the ancient towns of Mycenae ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... friendship, from whomsoever it came, but his whole nature was opposed to turning the advances of the rich or great to his own advantage. Unlike Beethoven, he had no faculty for 'imposing' on the aristocracy (to borrow Beethoven's favourite phrase for describing his own relations with those of superior rank to himself); on the contrary, Schubert courted no society beyond that of his own class—in which, indeed, his affections wholly centred themselves, and in which alone his true nature allowed itself ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... makes a quarrel with me over the counterpane that covers a mother, with her new-born infant at her breast. There is no epithet in the vocabulary of slight and sarcasm that can reach my personal sensibilities in such a controversy. Only just so far as a disrespectful phrase may turn the student aside from the examination of the evidence, by discrediting or dishonoring the witness, does it call ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... hall deeply perplexed, when Tom sauntered from Mr. Dalken's bedroom where he had been smoking a cigarette to steady his nerves. Now he joined Polly and began a conventional phrase, but was suddenly interrupted ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... for food, a word in general use, and "pow" for "no," or "not any." They also call their babies "pick-a-nee-nee," which to many persons will suggest the Spanish word or the Southern negro idiom for "baby." The phrase "pick-a-nee-nee kowkow" is the usual formula in begging food for their children. An Eskimo, having sold us a reindeer, said it would be "mazinkah kow-kow" (good eating), and one windy day we were hauling ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... alluded to the adventure. Sir Timothy had been called to order, but the Speaker had ruled that "bellicose Irishman" was not beyond the latitude of parliamentary animadversion. Then Sir Timothy had repeated the phrase with emphasis, and the Duke hearing it in the gallery had made his remark as to the unwonted eloquence of his ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... inspiration seemed to desert her, and raising her pen from the paper, she bit its end thoughtfully, seeking for a transitional phrase whereby she might be able to allude ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... writes Prescott in 1824, "I think Dante would have given him a place in his ninth heaven, if he could have foreseen his translation. It is most astonishing, giving not only the literal corresponding phrase, but the spirit of the original, the true Dantesque manner. It should be cited as an evidence of the compactness, the pliability, the sweetness of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... could not believe what he saw. Sandersen was, in the phrase of the land, "Sinclair's meat." It suddenly seemed to him that Sinclair must have broken from jail and done this killing during the night. But a moment's reflection assured him that this could not be. The mind of the sheriff whirled. Not Sinclair, ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... for attack. Only in one way could the herd of passionate prigs who waited on CHEPSTOWE do him an injury. They could attempt, and did, to imitate his style in their own weekly scribblings. Corruptio optimi pessima. There is no other phrase that describes so well the result of these imitative efforts. All the little tricks of the great man's humour were reproduced and defaced, the clear stream of his sentences was diverted into muddy channels, the airy creatures ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... question to his tutor. He was told that it doubtless meant "super-supernal." But what could "super-supernal" convey to the world's multitude of hungry suppliants for the bread of life! And so he rendered the phrase "Give us each day a better understanding of Thee." Again, going carefully through his Testament the boy crossed out the words translated "God," and in their places substituted "divine influence." Many of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... different writers say by different modes of death: I find in Fabius, far the most ancient writer, that he lived even to old age; he states positively, that advanced in years he made use of this phrase, "That exile bore much heavier on the old man." The men of Rome were not remiss in awarding their praises to the women, so truly did they live without detracting from the merit of others; a temple was built also and dedicated to female Fortune, to serve as a monument. The Volscians afterwards ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... they had really been meant for himself and Jacqueline. This promise for the future, that seemed to escape involuntarily from her pen, had made him find all the rest of her letter piquant and amusing. As he read, his mind had reverted to that little phrase which he now found he had interpreted wrongly. What a fall! How his hopes now crumbled under his feet! She must have done it on purpose—but no, he need not blacken her! She had written without thought, without purpose, in high spirits; ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... back to the ranks, indeed, and North and Dyson and Weymouth had ceased to look haggard, and were wreathed in smiles. In vain did Mr. Burke harangue them in polished phrase. It was a language North and Company did not understand, and cared not to learn. Their young champion spoke the more worldly and cynical tongue of White's and Brooks's, with its shorter sentences and absence of formality. And even as the devil ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "Helgir fiskar," i. e. "sacri pisces," id. p. 148. The Danish phrase is "helleflyndre," i. e. "holy flounder." The English halibut is hali holy but flounder. This word but is classed as Middle English, but may still be heard in the north of England. The fish may have been so ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... condemnation and execution of six women and some forty men. The extreme penalty of the Egyptian code was reserved for Pentauirit, and for the most culpable,—"they died of themselves," and the meaning of this phrase is indicated, I believe, by the appearance of one of the mummies disinterred at Deir el-Bahari.* The coffin in which it was placed was very plain, painted white and without inscription; the customary removal of entrails had not been effected, but the body was covered with a thick layer of natron, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... a scholar's shudder.] Believe me, I do not deserve so neologistic a phrase. The precept as well as the practice of the Primitive Church was ...
— The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People • Oscar Wilde
... at me, and actually interpreting what I say literally, as though the English language were not full of figures of speech. By that phrase," and she blushed a little—that is, her cheek took a deeper shade of coral—"I meant that we would not cut ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... gardening and cookery; and maybe it is because no one has really loved the herbs enough to publish a book on the subject. That herbs are easy to grow I can abundantly attest, for I have grown them all. I can also bear ample witness to the fact that they reduce the cost of high living, if by that phrase is meant pleasing the palate ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... States were not only anxious for a constitutional provision against the introduction of Slaves. They had scruples against admitting the term "Slaves" into the Instrument. Hence the descriptive phrase "migration or importation of persons"; the term migration allowing those who were scrupulous of acknowledging expressly a property in human beings, to view imported persons as a species of emigrants, whilst others might apply the term to foreign ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... the blood and treasure of her sons have attained for her among the nations, by a piece of striped bunting flying at the mastheads of a few fir-built frigates, manned by a handful of bastards and outlaws,"—a phrase which had great success in America,—but such defiances expressed a temper studiously held in restraint previous to the moment when the war was seen to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... says so and so," or "My brother John did so and so," was a constant phrase of theirs, and it was always something good he had said or done. He was at home, and so were indeed all Ernest's brothers. One was in the navy—Frank. What a light-hearted and merry fellow he was. He had seen some hard service, had been highly spoken of in a dispatch, and had a medal on ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... from a feeble chest, Yet each in solemn order follow'd each, 100 With something of a lofty utterance drest; Choice word, and measured phrase; above the reach Of ordinary men; a stately speech! Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use, Religious men, who give to ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... proceedings in connexion with the canonization of St Lorenzo Giustiniani. In 1631 Urban VIII. made his presence, either in person or by deputy, necessary for the validity of any act connected with the process of beatification or canonization (see CANONISATION). The phrase, "devil's advocate,'' has by an easy transference come to be used of any one who puts himself up, or is put up, for the sake of promoting debate, to argue a case in which he does not ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... blood is up, and his soul unsatisfied; he grips the first dog he meets, and, discovering she is not a dog, in Homeric phrase, he makes a brief sort of amende and is off. The boys, with Bob and me at their head, are after him: down Niddry Street he goes, bent on mischief; up the Cowgate like an arrow—Bob and I, and our small ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... Cookie gazing after me with an expression which, in the familiar phrase of fiction, I could not interpret, though among its ingredients were doubt and anguish. Cookie, too, looked pale. I don't in the least know how he managed it, but that was the impression he conveyed, dusky ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... Hiperbole, or the Ouer reacher, otherwise called the loud lyer.] Neuerthelesse ye haue yet two or three other figures that smatch a spice of the same false semblant, but in another sort and maner of phrase, whereof one is when we speake in the superlatiue and beyond the limites of credit, that is by the figure which the Greeks call Hiperbole, Latines Demenitiens or the lying figure. I for his immoderate excesse cal him the ouer reacher right with his originall or [lowd lyar] & ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... that idiotic phrase "while of unsound mind". I am as sound in mind as any man living, but because I end an unbearable state of affairs, and take the only step I can think of as likely to give me peace—I shall be written down mad. Moreover should I fail—in ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... in the pulpit I quoted the words of Colonel Ingersoll, 'God cannot afford to damn an honest man.' That phrase has always seemed to me a marvellous mixture of blasphemy, ignorance, and sound common sense. From my point of view it is blasphemous, because it is the utterance of the atom trying to understand the universe. It is ignorant, because it is impossible for that human ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... A.E.B. was mistaken in using that phrase in reference to Lord Bacon's translation into Latin of his own English original work, and he proceeds to compare (to what end does not very clearly appear) a sentence from Lord Bacon's English text, with the same sentence as re-translated back again from Lord ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... through the transparent separation, he took a closer view. Juliana yelled afresh. Paquita crossed her hands, and sat silently with face about three quarters averted. Sir Chim uttered what may have been a tranquillising phrase, expressive of the great happiness he felt on thus being suddenly restored to the presence of kinswomen in the moment of his deepest bereavement. Juliana calmed. Paquita diminished her angle of aversion, and then Sir Chim, advancing ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... foreign observer, or by some one who had a larger acquaintance with European history than had he. I can imagine a French or an Irish critic pointing to a mass of assertion with no corresponding admission that it is assertion only: such a critic might quote even from these few pages phrase after phrase in which Froude poses as certain what are still largely matters of debate. Thus upon page 144 he takes it for granted that no miracles have been worked by contact with the bodies of saints. He takes it for granted on page 161 that ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... phrase, 'I'm my own man again,' Leith, don't you?" he said, in his strong bass voice, looking steadily at Dion with his kindly stern eyes. (He always suggested to Dion a man who would ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... affectionately discovered before he had insured a life too valuable not to need some compensation for its loss. He was now, then, in the possession of L2500 a year, and was therefore very well off, in the pecuniary sense of the phrase. He had, moreover, acquired a reputation which gave him a social rank beyond that accorded to him by a discerning State. He was considered a man of solid judgment, and his opinion upon all matters, private and public, carried weight. The opinion itself, critically examined, was not worth much, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dissipating some of our most pleasant dreams, our fondest and most cherished remembrances. We are afraid a writer of "Traditions" must be looked upon with inconceivable scorn by those worthies whose aim is to throw open the portals of Truth to the multitude; or, as the phrase goes, she is to be made plain to the "meanest capacity." For our own parts, we were never enamoured with that same despotic, hard-favoured, cross-grained goddess, Truth: she "commendeth not" to our fancy; nor in reality is she half so worthy of their homage as ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the excitement of discovery. During the seventeenth century, the ideas relating to the generation and development of organisms were quite diverse, and there were seldom criteria other than enthusiasm or philosophical predilection to distinguish the fanciful from the feasible. Applying a well-known phrase from another time to seventeenth-century embryological theory, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... Mr. Abbot started, to go down the river (as was the usual phrase) to Matilda's grandfather's, where Annie and Ellen, the two younger sisters resided, having both left the residence of their mother some time previous. Annie, then eighteen, had the sole management of the family, as her grandmother was very feeble, and unable to assist her at all. She was rather ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... behalf, it would not have been worth while to exemplify so unambiguous a phrase. The like remark may also be extended to the next ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... knack and enterprise were early developed among the seamen of the service; their management of boats is to this day a matter of admiration; and I find my grandfather in his diary depicting the nature of their excellence in one happily descriptive phrase, when he remarks that Captain Soutar had landed 'the small stores and nine casks of oil WITH ALL THE ACTIVITY OF A SMUGGLER.' And it was one thing to land, another to get on board again. I have here a passage from ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson |
