"Proverbial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of mercy was not strained in the least," he continued. "It fell around me like the proverbial gentle rain. I've quite a lot to be thankful ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... of sunshine traversing the rain, attaching to its limpid beads those sharp and brilliant blades which justify the proverbial saying, "It rains halberds"; the young greenery of the Champs-Elysees, the clumps of rhododendrons, rustling and wet, the carriages ranged in the avenue, the mackintosh capes of the coachmen, all the splendid harness-trappings of the horses receiving from the rain and the sunbeams ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Victor. "Our friend the Baron of Doom suggested that for that very reason my search was for the proverbial needle in the haystack. I find myself in pressing need of a judicious friend at court, I see. Have you ever found your resolution quit you—not an oozing courage, I mean, but an indifference that comes purely by the lapse of time and the distractions ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... a nation to the men in arms who for eight years met the force of Great Britain with counter force, and thus cleared the field for the statesmanship that can make the proverbial two blades of grass grow. The man with the gun opened the way for the man with the hoe. We who are here, and the race we represent, owe our deliverance from chattel slavery to the men in arms who conquered the slaveholders' Rebellion. It is a sad thought, but nevertheless one too true ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... not only living within our income, but saving something for the proverbial 'rainy day,'" Mrs. Clair said one evening, when Mr. Murray dropped in. "We have been here only three months, and have done ever so much better than I expected, thanks to your good advice; and we are all ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... intervention of Lady Kirkaldy or of Mrs. William Egremont, and had been assured on their authority that it was 'all right,' their attentions were clogged by doubt, and by reluctance to involve their mankind in intimacy with the head of the family. Thus very little of the proverbial gaiety of Nice offered itself to Nuttie and her mother, and, except by a clerical family who knew Mr. Spyers, they were kept at a distance, which Mr. Egremont perceived and resented by permitting no advances. The climate suited him so well that, to his wife's great ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proverbial expression founded perhaps on some old story which may be alluded to also in the 12th ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... did not say he was aware of the proverbial character of the phenomenon. He was a very eccentric man. He treated his dogs as friends, and buried them with ceremony. He quarrelled with the cure of his parish, who remarked that he could ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... rose to occupy, next to the Shah, the highest political position in his country, and attempted to place the Government of Persia on a firm basis, and to eradicate intrigue and corruption. To this day his popularity is proverbial among the lower classes, by whom he is still revered and respected for his uprightness. The Shah gave him his only sister in marriage, but unhappily one fine day his enemies gained the upper hand at Court. He fell into disgrace, and was banished to Kashan to the Fin Palace. Executioners ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... nose is, of course, proverbial, and I have only put a few tests to Lola in this particular, yet, such as they are (proving perhaps no more than is already known) I will here set down. I put the first of these tests to her on the 17 April, 1916. I showed her a book belonging to my ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... featured Councillor having pronounced a high eulogium on his Honor's power of endurance, and the onerous duties imposed upon him by the Governments which he so nobly sought to serve, and from whom the mere honor afforded but a meagre compensation, (inasmuch as he felt convinced the proverbial ingratitude of Governments would be carried out in their not even compensating him for the large outlay he had been constrained to make in law books) hoped he might be permitted to make a few more remarks. His honor bowing assent, the well-looking legal gentleman, in blandest accents, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Lupercus. Catiline was the author of the conspiracy of B.C. 63. Cicero, the famous orator, was consul for that year and frustrated the plot. Cato the younger died at Utica in 49 B.C. In the Roman writers Catiline is always the proverbial scoundrel and Cato is always taken as the model of rigid and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... of Lord Brougham has become almost proverbial. His public labors extended over a period of upward of sixty years, during which he ranged over many fields—of law, literature, politics, and science—and achieved distinction in them all. How he contrived it, has been to many a mystery. Once, when Sir ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... his relations to political and public life, this is hardly the occasion or the moment for speaking in detail. Misconstructions and injustices are the proverbial lot of those who occupy eminent position. It was a duke of Vienna, if I remember rightly, whom Shakespeare, in his 'Measure for Measure,' ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... through the mud and snow to the proverbial end of all things, always followed by the same crowd, and stared at by all the inhabitants of the houses we passed. They seemed very timid, and inclined to run away directly we turned round. Still, their curiosity, especially respecting my sealskin jacket and serge dress, was insatiable, and I ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... been inspired to the rousing measures of 'Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled.' But now he was drenched to the skin, and the rain had damaged a new pair of jemmy boots which he was wearing. The passionate appeal of the Bruce to his countrymen was now forgotten, and Burns was as cross as the proverbial bear. It was the dinner hour when the two wanderers arrived and were cordially invited to stay. Various other guests were present; and so agreeable was the company and so genial the welcome, that the grumbling bard soon lost ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... the host of the "Devil," who died in 1627, seems to have been a witty butt of a man, much such another as honest Jack Falstaff; a merry boon companion, not only witty himself, but the occasion of wit in others, quick at repartee, fond of proverbial sayings, curious in his wines. A good old song, set to a fine old tune, was written about him, and called "Old Sir Simon the King." This was the favourite old-fashioned ditty in which Fielding's rough and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... sea-captain, was at anyrate useful to us all, and pregnant with good medical philosophy. "Keep your saliva in your mouth to help to digest your food with," said he, "and do not spit it all over my carpet." Very wholesome counsel. And, seriously, who can say how much the pallid face, the proverbial indigestion of our country, even consumption itself, may not be owing to this constant drain, which deprives the stomach of a secretion which nature provided for the most important purposes in the manufacture of the blood, and which she certainly did not provide to be wasted and thrown ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... mother had died, her death being followed within a month by that of his sister Margaret. Before another month was out, his father, as we have already said, had married again, and whether the new wife had proved the proverbial injusta noverca or not, his home must have been sufficiently altered by the double, if we may not say triple, calamity, to account for his leaving the dull monotony of his native village for the more stirring career of a soldier. Which of the ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... fairies or the genii always managed to make everything pleasant. It implies the faculty, which a few of us possess, of finding whatever we want turn up accidentally at the exact right moment. Well, I believe I must have been born with serendipity in my mouth, in place of the proverbial silver spoon, for wherever I go, all things seem to come ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... meant to imply that it was food for the gods, but Belzoni, writing in the sixteenth century, regarded it as fitter for pigs than for men. Readers will be able to decide this knotty point for themselves, despite the proverbial difficulty of deciding when doctors disagree. Sixty years ago the annual consumption of cocoa amounted to only a quarter of a million pounds, but now it has reached a total of probably not less ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... for the Author, 1667. To their graces the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, the Author dedicates this his comedy more humbly than by way of epistle." This gentleman, who was "so distinguished as a wretched poet, that his name had almost become proverbial," and who gave the title to Dryden's Mac-Flecknoe, is said to have been originally a Jesuit. Langbaine states "that his acquaintance with the nobility was more than with the Muses." In the preface our author says: "This Comedy is taken out of several excellent ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... of the quadrille, twirling imaginary shillelaghs, and encouraging one another with that expressive Irish interjection which it is so impossible to put down on paper. For an hour all went merry as the proverbial marriage bell, and then there was an adjournment of the male portion of the company to supper. The ladies remained in the Bazaar and discussed oranges, with an occasional dance to the pianoforte, as the band retired for refreshment ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... regarded as parables or not, but the number is usually estimated at about thirty, of which eighteen are peculiar to Luke. In John there are no parables, strictly so called, and St. John never uses the word "parable." But he uses the word paroimia, or "proverb," and records several proverbial sayings of our Lord which are rather like parables (John iv. 34; x. i-3; xii. 24; ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... honesty nowadays. There is "corporate honesty," not unlike that proverbial "honor among thieves," which secures a fair or fairly fair division of the spoils. Then there is "personal honesty," which subdivides into three kinds—legal, moral, and instinctive. Legal honesty needs no definition. Moral ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... quotation from Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary points out the frugal and temperate Scot; and, in illustration, may be contrasted with the proverbial invitation of the better feeding English, "Will you come and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... a cuya prudencia y proverbial sabiduria encomendaron los vecinos de Bellver la resolucion de este dificil problema, despues de implorar la misericordia divina por medio de su santo Patrono, que, como ustedes no ignoran, conoce al diablo muy ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... proverb; so again, when the Lord had used that proverb, probably already familiar to His hearers 'If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch'; Peter said 'Declare unto us this parable' (Matt. 15:14, 15); and Luke 5:36 is a proverb or proverbial expression, rather than a parable, which name it bears.... So, upon the other hand, those are called 'proverbs' in St. John, which if not strictly parables, yet claim much closer affinity to the parable than ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... nonsense to prate so. Why it is hard enough to gape and gasp and catch a mouthful of sanded breath, without that added worry. There is nothing for it, but to grin and bear it and get through with the swallowing of that proverbial peck of dust in a life-time, as quickly and quietly ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... vote that 'force should be repelled by force.' Well-warned, therefore, but with the proverbial coeur leger, Oudinot advanced on Rome with 8000 men early on the 30th of April. At eleven o'clock the two columns came in sight of St Peter's, and soon after, the first which moved towards Porta Angelica ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... It is proverbial that dishonesty retards spiritual growth and strikes at the heart of Truth. If a student at Harvard College has studied a textbook written by his teacher, is he entitled, when he leaves the University, to write out as his ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... Sergeant Kipple stepped into the tent. The Sergeant was a good man—an old soldier and reliable as the proverbial watch. ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... drive was one long nightmare to the unfortunate captive. He had been thrown, sprawling, into the iron-railed "carryall" platform at the back of the buckboard, and lay on the nut-studded slats, where he was jolted and bumped about like the proverbial pea on a drum. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... The barbarian was the proverbial bull in the china-shop of western Europe. He had no use for what he did not understand. Speaking in terms of the year 1921, he liked the magazine covers of pretty ladies, but threw the Rembrandt etchings which he had inherited into the ash-can. ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... horse-collar, though their hearts are bleeding at every pore with some household or secret affliction,—mechanically De Mauldon went his way towards the ramparts, at a section of which he daily drilled his raw recruits. Proverbial for his severity towards those who offended, for the cordiality of his praise of those who pleased his soldierly judgment, no change of his demeanour was visible that morning, save that he might be somewhat milder to the one, somewhat less hearty to the other. This routine duty done, he ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... proverbial that wishing does not usually achieve much. After a deep sigh, therefore, Leo turned his wallet inside out. Besides a few crumbs, it contained a small lump of narwhal blubber and a little packet. The former, in its frozen ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... of articulate or intelligible statements. But then mark the singular courage and audacity of the whole proceeding. There are traditions still in the House of Commons of the marvellously stimulating effect upon followers of leaders, who were proverbial for their oratorical impotence. Everybody remembers the scornful description of Castlereagh which Byron gave to the world; and yet it has been said in some memoirs that the moment Castlereagh stood up and adjusted his waistcoat, there was a thrill in the House of Commons, and his followers bellowed ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... pack mule, and a suitable number of men are employed to take care of, load and unload these animals when in camp. When on the march, these men perform duty as drivers, and otherwise look after their charge. Notwithstanding their proverbial obstinacy, these pack mules quickly learn the labor which they have to perform. After finishing their usual day's work, they often exhibit impatience to be relieved of their burdens. In the morning they are correspondingly reluctant about being loaded, and by their hostile demonstrations, they ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... of a sexual impress mostly received in early childhood often shows itself in the selection of a fetich, as Binet first asserted, and as was later proven by many illustrations,—a thing which may be placed parallel to the proverbial attachment to a first love in the normal ("On revient toujours a ses premiers amours"). Such a connection is especially seen in cases with only fetichistic determinations of the sexual object. The significance of early sexual impressions will ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... almost undoubtedly Celtic offshoot of the Arthurian Legend, is equally alien from her character. We see Iseult planning the murder of Brengwain with equal savagery and ingratitude, and we feel that it is no libel. On the other hand, though Tristram's faithfulness is proverbial, it is an entirely different kind of faithfulness from that of Lancelot—flightier, more passionate perhaps in a way, but of a less steady passion. Lancelot would never have married ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... 'when Job prayed for his friends' that the Lord turned his captivity. That is a proverbial expression, bearing witness, probably, to the deep traces left by the Exodus, for reversing calamity. The turning-point was not merely the confession, but the act, of beneficence. So, in ministering to others, one's ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... any neighborhood in the province being without it, I consider'd it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any other books; I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurr'd between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality, as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want, to act always honestly, as, to use here one of those proverbs, ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... chamber, known personally to few and intimately by none, Algernon yet left behind him at the University the most remarkable reputation of his day. He had obtained some of the highest of academical honours, and by that proverbial process of vulgar minds which ever frames the magnificent from the unknown, the seclusion in which he lived and the recondite nature of his favourite pursuits attached to his name a still greater celebrity and interest ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for instance, should artists, and, in particular, the musicians with whom Christophe was most in touch, unprotestingly put up with the effrontery of the scaramouches of the Press, who laid down the law for them? There were absolute idiots among them, whose ignorance in omni re scibili was proverbial, though they were none the less invested with a sovereign authority in omni re scibili. They did not even take the trouble to write their articles and books: they had secretaries, poor starving creatures, who would have sold their souls, if they had had ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... travellers they met; but no one could answer them. The first messenger appeared on the terrace and announced to the Pharaoh that Tahoser could not be found. The Pharaoh stretched out his sceptre, and the messenger fell dead, in spite of the proverbial hardness of the Egyptian skull. A second came up; he stumbled against the body of his comrade stretched on the slabs; he trembled, for he saw that the ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... herself, that some wise change must be made. While we were still considering what the change was to be, the unfortunate hostler was thrown on our hands for some time to come by an accident in the stables. Still pursued by his proverbial ill-luck, the poor wretch's leg was broken by ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... his poor relations, or to the assistance of authors in reduced circumstances. I will not speak of certain traits of heroic generosity which averted the disgrace and ruin of families, which robbed vice of many youthful victims, and would cast in the shade many deeds of past and proverbial magnanimity, and deserve the pen of a Plutarch to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... The proverbial neatness of the ancestors of the Dutch colonists in America was characteristic of their homes in the new land. This is well illustrated in the following description of a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer's ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... And the proverbial clergyman's son is merely the natural result of the same cause. He is charged with the tendencies and impulses which his ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... as "special officers." The first and most important thing, then, in this chapter is to prove, with perhaps undue detail, the ancient saying that "you must be a thief to catch a thief," and that possibly for that proverbial reason many private detectives are ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... the countenance of Cicero, is confuted by the larger experience of New England. On the whole, I think it safer to apply here the rule of interpretation which now generally obtains in regard to antique cosmogonies, myths, fables, proverbial expressions, and knotty points generally, which is, to find a common-sense meaning, and then select whatever can be imagined the most opposite thereto. In this way we arrive at the conclusion, that the Greeks objected to the questioning of candidates. And very properly, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... a book is no simple task and requires a rare combination of qualities. Mr. Vehling possesses this unusual combination. He was born some forty-five years ago in the small town of Duelken on the German-Dutch frontier—a town proverbial for the dullness of its inhabitants. There was nothing of dullness about the boy, however, for at the age of fourteen years, he had already four years study of Latin and one of Greek to his credit. Such was his record in Latin that his priest teachers attempted to influence him toward ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... Jane stared a long while at the coffee-pot, and then called the two squaws who assisted her in her household duties, to clear away the things while she went up to her own room to make her bed. Here she was confronted with a possible prospect of that proverbial bed she might be making in her willfulness, and on which she must lie, in the photograph of a somewhat serious young man of refined features—Reuben Waters—stuck in her window-frame. Salomy Jane smiled over her last witticism regarding him and enjoyed, ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... and for endurance of war. Being as a body rich, it feels those burdens less. Not being commercial, the sources of its own wealth are not so immediately endangered, and it does not share that political timidity which characterizes those whose property is exposed and business threatened,—the proverbial timidity of capital. Yet in England this class was not insensible to anything that touched her trade for good or ill. Both houses of Parliament vied in careful watchfulness over its extension and protection, and to the frequency of their inquiries a naval ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... this crime, which was famous throughout the Limousin, the canton of Montegnac was known for its evil ways. The saying was proverbial in Limoges that out of one hundred criminals in the department fifty belonged to the arrondissement of Montegnac. Since 1816, however, two years after a priest named Bonnet was sent there as rector, it had lost its bad reputation, and the inhabitants no longer ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... launch of the liner Bismarck last week, the bottle of wine—which was thrown by the Countess Hannah von Bismarck missed the vessel, whereupon the Kaiser hauled back the bottle, and with his proverbial ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... but had at one time dwelt in human form in Kamtschatka, and was the original parent of their race. Even here the tradition of a universal deluge prevails, and a spot is still shown, on the top of a mountain where Kutka landed from a boat, in order to replenish the world with men. The proverbial phrase current in Kamtschatka, to express a period long past, is, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... four years of their married life were spent on the island of Ischia, where Pescara had a villa and a small estate, and there they lived in an idyllic happiness which has almost become proverbial. The young husband was not so studiously inclined as was his gifted wife, but he was a manly fellow, much given to athletic pursuits, and with a decided taste for a military career, and Vittoria was loved by him in a most tender and noble fashion. They were ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... June said as she led the way into the house, "and in a dark corner—no, that would be too near to the walls and their proverbial 'ears,' in the center of the room is better—I will expose the ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... than this man—nothing more villainous than the expression of his eye. No one knew from what particular point of the United States he had come, and whether Yankee or Kentuckian, it would have puzzled one of that race of beings, so proverbial for acumen—a Philadelphia lawyer—to have determined; for so completely did he unite the boasting language of the latter with the wary caution and sly cunning of the former, that he appeared a compound ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... character as any of its sisterhood. A moral atmosphere pervaded it, and the glorious and divine principle of doing unto others as they would have others do unto them governed its inhabitants; and, therefore, it was not strange that its farmers and storekeepers kept good the proverbial honesty and hospitality of their progenitors. Tradition said (but written history was silent) that a few of those who landed at Plymouth Rock separated from the main body, and took up their abode further in the interior; and that, from these "few," a flourishing company arose, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... side, he slowly turned the dials with the tips of fingers I for the first time noticed were long and slim and sensitive. Twice after extended, delicate manipulations he whirled the knob impatiently and took a fresh start. On the proverbial third trial he turned the handle and the door swung open. He arose rather stiffly from his knees, resumed his place in the armchair, and again closed ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... princess chose her moment, and took occasion to beg a boon of the Count of Foix, whose gallantry was proverbial; but, just as he was on the point of granting it without condition, a momentary light made him cautious "Ah! madam," said he, "I am a little man, and a poor bachelor, who have not the power to make great gifts; but that which you ask, if it be not of more ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... of gay girls had just gathered in one of the pleasant and spacious recreation rooms and were chattering like the proverbial flock of magpies—exchanging merry greetings after their vacation; comparing notes on studies, classes and roommates; discussing the advent of new teachers, pupils and improvements, when a tall, gracious woman of, perhaps, thirty-five years suddenly appeared ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... just the button she wanted was sometimes a long task for mother, and father, it must be admitted, had varied the proverbial needle simile for our domestic establishment, to read, "like hunting for a button in your mother's button box." But still the odd buttons continued to go in, and only the ones needed came permanently out. You never could tell, to be sure, when the most unlikely button ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... order that his assertions might in some way be shaken by the prosecution, but with military precision and frigid calm he repeated his important statements amidst a general silence, through which you could have heard the proverbial pin. ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... (Herod. i. 168); the chief coin type, a gryphon, is identical with that of Teos; the coinage is noted for the beauty and variety of its reverse types. The town seems to have declined in importance after the middle of the 4th century. The air of Abdera was proverbial as causing stupidity; but among its citizens was the philosopher Democritus. The ruins of the town may still be seen on Cape Balastra; they cover seven small hills, and extend from an eastern to a western harbour; on the S.W. hills are the remains of the medieval ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... he assented. "My virtue has been its own reward—and punishment. If I had allowed you to go your way to the proverbial dogs, after whose society gilded youths like yourself appear to be always hankering, I should not be sitting here with cold water running down my back and surrounded by Nature in her gloomiest and dampest aspects. Only once have I deviated from the life of consistent ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... Hale who had long been a great and gracious figure in my mind. His name had been among the "Authors" of our rainy-day game on the farm. I had read his books, and I had heard him preach and as his "Lend-a-hand" helpfulness was proverbial, I resolved to call upon him at his study in the church, and ask his advice. I was not very definite as to what I expected him to do, probably I hoped for sympathy in ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Ferris. "Let us see each other again. In regard to the inventions,—well, you must have patience." He dropped into some proverbial phrases which the obliging Latin tongues supply so abundantly for the races who must often talk when they do not feel like thinking, and he gave a start when Don Ippolito replied in English, "Yes, but hope deferred maketh ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... tradition which they possess, that of their Egyptian origin, is a false one, whether invented by themselves or others; the Israelites are of all people the most wealthy, the Romas the most poor - poor as a Gypsy being proverbial amongst some nations, though both are equally greedy of gain; and finally, though both are noted for peculiar craft and cunning, no people are more ignorant than the Romas, whilst the Jews have always been a learned people, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... the insult shattered Bud Ellis's self-control. Prompted by blind fury, the great fist of the man shot out, hammer-like, and Clayton crumpled at his feet. It was a blow that would have felled the proverbial ox; it was the counterpart of many other blows, plus berserker rage, that had split pine boards for sheer joy in the ability to do so. These thoughts came sluggishly to the inflamed brain, and Ellis all at once dropped to his knees ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... the pontifices in relation to cult, they are the storehouse of all tradition, and to them appeal may be made in all cases of doubt both public and private: they were jealous of their secrets and in later times their mutual consciousness of deception became proverbial. The right of augury—in origin simply the inspection of the heavens—was theirs alone, and it was exercised particularly on the annual occasions mentioned and at the installation of priests, of which we get a typical instance in Livy's account ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... were over fifty CHANTRY PRIESTS when suppressed. Besides their appointed daily masses they would divide amongst them the annual masses called obits, which amounted to about a hundred, and were expected to assist the Petty Canons. They spent their extensive leisure after the proverbial manner of idle and ignorant men. The VICARS CHORAL had dwindled down to six by Colet's time, were no longer in priests' orders, and eventually became laymen pure and simple. Space would fail us to enumerate the remaining official and semi-official officers. Among ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... a doubt of it," he replied in an undertone. "That run of '17' might happen—yes. But it is improbable. They let me win because I was a new player—new players always win at first. It is proverbial, but the man who is running this game has made it look like a platitude. To satisfy myself on that point I am going to play again—until I have lost my winnings and am just square with the game. When I reach the point that I am convinced that some crooked work ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... "natural speller." It is no joke, but one of the proverbial fools' truths, which Dogberry enounces when he says that "reading and writing come by nature." They do. And so does spelling. Abundance of well-educated people never escape from occasional perturbations in orthography, just as they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... playfully provocative manner, Miss Minerva (the governess) trifled with the curiosity of Mr. Le Frank (the music-master), as the proverbial cat trifles with the terror of the captive mouse. The man of the bald head and the servile smile showed a polite interest in the coming disclosure; he opened his deeply-sunk eyes, and lazily lifted his ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... it is in truth a store house of wit and wisdom ... The old fashioned dress in which these acute strictures on human life appear, while it takes little or nothing from their intelligibility, adds much to their force and liveliness. The lovers of proverbial wit, for many of these characters are strings of judicious adages, are therefore greatly obliged to Mr. Bliss for his pleasing republication of so pregnant a volume. The notes are instructive without prolixity: the index is extremely ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... not a resolution taken suddenly in pride or pique, but after reflection, and upon strong reasons. It was a measure which he had long been revolving in his secret thoughts. During the enthusiasm of political life, the proverbial warnings against the vanity of ambition, and the danger of dependence on the favour of princes, had passed on his ear but as a schoolboy's lesson: a phrase "to point a moral, or adorn a tale." He was not a reading man, and the maxims of books he disregarded or disbelieved; ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... caught at those words, as the drowning man is said to catch at the proverbial straw. He lifted her hand, and suddenly and fondly pressed his lips on it. She showed no confusion. Was she sorry for him, poor wretch!—and was ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... he came slowly up, looking, as Poole afterwards said, like the proverbial bear with a ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... This ballad is a good specimen of the Robin Hood Cycle, and is remarkable for its many proverbial and alliterative phrases. A few lines have been lost between stanzas 2 and 3. Gisborne is a "market-town in the West Riding of the County of York, on the borders of Lancashire." For the probable tune of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... roar of applause went up from the polo-ground like the surge and wash of an Atlantic roller. The regimental hero was distinguishing himself—a state of affairs by no means unusual, for success always followed Hone. His luck was proverbial in the regiment, as sure and as deeply-rooted ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... Bran is e a brathair, If it be not Bran, it is Bran's brother,' was the proverbial reply of Maccombich. [Footnote: Bran, the well-known dog of Fingal, is often the theme of Highland proverb ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... was like "one Ragozine, a most notorious pirate"; and the method no less than the motive of his rascality in the present instance is palpable and simple enough. Fired by the immediate and instantly proverbial popularity of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, he hired, we may suppose, some ready hack of unclean hand to supply him with three doggrel sonnets on the same subject, noticeable only for their porcine quality of prurience: ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... throne. That the boy just entering upon life with such hopes should die, while the wretched Charles, long ago half dead, continued to creep about between his bedroom and his chapel, was an event for which, notwithstanding the proverbial uncertainty of life, the minds of men were altogether unprepared. A peaceful solution of the great question now seemed impossible. France and Austria were left confronting each other. Within a month the whole Continent might be in arms. Pious men ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... contradict, at a time when authority was valued more than opinion, and experience preferred to novelty. The proverbs of a father became the inheritance of a son; the mistress of a family perpetuated hers through her household; the workman condensed some traditional secret of his craft into a proverbial expression. When countries are not yet populous, and property has not yet produced great inequalities in its ranks, every day will show them how "the drunkard and the glutton come to poverty, and drowsiness clothes a man with rags." At such ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... wanderings lead you southward. My hacienda lies but twenty miles from here, and from this moment, it is placed at your disposition. Not in the polite terms of the proverbial Spanish etiquette which presents the visitor with everything and yet nothing at all, but actually. Indeed, I shall expect to see you there soon. The life ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... the Regent Ville district; and to the "plains of Emu," a government agricultural-station, and a sort of model farm. They went to the theatre, where a grand performance was given in their honour. The delight sailors take in riding is proverbial, and it was on horseback that the French crossed the Emu plains. The noble animals, imported from England, had not degenerated in New South Wales; they were still full of spirit as one of the young officers found to his cost, when, as he was saying in English to Sir John Cox, acting as cicerone ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... No. 1 was carried over from the United States in the Autumn of 1887 and sown on the good ground of the late Count Tolstoy, and other noble men, whence—as results show—it spread abroad with a swiftness suggestive rather of the proverbial weed than of the fair flower its blossoming has ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... at Groot Schuurr, more fully later on, when I passed many happy and never-to-be-forgotten weeks beneath his hospitable roof. As years went on, his kindness to both friends and political foes grew almost proverbial, but even in 1895 Groot Schuurr, barely finished, was already known to be one of the pleasantest places near Cape Town—a meeting-place for all the men of the colony either on their way to and from England, or on the occasion of their flying ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... to the naming of a beautiful waterfall, Ouzel Falls, after them. Another bird is much sought after and can be seen and heard here, perhaps as often as any other place in the country. That is the hermit thrush, small, delicate, grayish, with spotted breast. The shyness of the bird is proverbial, and it frequents the deepest willow and aspen thickets. Once heard, its sweet song can never be forgotten, and happy is he who can get near enough to hear it undisturbed. Far off, it is flute-like, pure and penetrating, though not loud. Gradually ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... up her mind not to tell her secret to any one at present, Adelle could not refrain from looking up the stone mason the first thing in the morning. She seemed to be attracted to him as the moth is to the proverbial flame, all the more after her new understanding of the situation between them. And she was also apprehensive of what Archie might be up to. If he were violent, and the two men had another quarrel, she might be forced to ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... them as being strange words to come from the lips of a missionary. I had often wondered whether the story he had told me about their life in China, and Hayle's connection with it, had been a true one. The tenaciousness with which a Chinaman clings to the religion of his forefathers is proverbial, and I could not remember having ever heard that a Mandarin, or an official of high rank, had been converted to the Christian Faith. Even if he had, it struck me as being highly improbable that he would have been the possessor of such princely treasure, and even supposing ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... America, like the puma in North America, is, as a general rule, a cowardly animal which not only never attacks man, but rarely makes any efficient defence when attacked. The Indian and white hunters have no fear of it in most parts of the country, and its harmlessness to man is proverbial. But there is one particular spot in southern Patagonia where cougars, to the doctor's own personal knowledge, have for years been dangerous foes of man. This curious local change in habits, by the way, is nothing unprecedented ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... talk about not being smart, Maggie; but you manage to look smarter than anyone else," said Isabel, her eager brown eyes devouring her friend's appearance with much curiosity. For Maggie looked, to use a proverbial phrase, as if she had stepped out of a bandbox. If she was plain of face she had an exceedingly neat figure, and there was a fashionable, trim look about her which is uncommon in a girl of her age; for Maggie was only just sixteen, and scarcely looked as much. In some ways she might almost ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... a form of abstraction practiced by all races, and is perhaps the best test of the natural bent of the mind in this direction, because, like ballad poetry, and slang, proverbial sayings do not originate with the educated class, but are of popular origin. At the same time, proverbs compare favorably with the mots of literature, and many proverbs have, in fact, drifted into literature and become connected with the names of great writers. Indeed, the saying that there is ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... a lion, tender-hearted as a woman." "Sir Walter Raleigh was every inch a man, a brave soldier, a brilliant courtier, and yet a mirror of courtesy. Nobody would accuse Sir Philip Sidney of having been deficient in manliness, yet his fine manners were proverbial. It is the courtesy of Bayard, the knight, sans peur et sans reproche, which has immortalized him quite as much as his valor." [2] It is not beneath us to study good manners. To a great extent ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... At the present time my mind is so full of heterogeneous matter that I almost despair of ever being able to put it in order. Whenever I enter the region that was the kingdom of my mind I feel like the proverbial bull in the china shop. A thousand odds and ends of knowledge come crashing about my head like hailstones, and when I try to escape them, theme-goblins and college nixies of all sorts pursue me, until I wish—oh, may I be forgiven the wicked wish!—that I might smash ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... whom he had met at a church social and wooed in the front of the embroidery and fancy-goods store, fitted him like the proverbial glove—a suede one. In the eight years since, his fish business had almost doubled, and his expenses, if anything, decreased, because more and more it became pleasanter to join in the evening game of no-stakes euchre down in the front parlor or to remain quietly upstairs, a gas lamp on ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... noted for their enterprise generally, and for their competition with the Medici in particular. They had agencies in all the chief cities of Europe and the East, but their reputation for avarice and sharp dealing was proverbial. Perhaps no family was quite so unpopular in Florence. Their traditions were aristocratic, whilst the Medici were champions of ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... into what they still hoped to call the Fourteenth Colony. But silver dollars were scarce; and on the 1st of May the crestfallen commissioners had to send the Congress a financial report which may best be summed up in a pithy phrase which soon became proverbial—'Not worth a Continental.' ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... left Egypt, and went to Pontus, where PHARNACES, son of Mithradates, was inciting a revolt against Rome. Caesar attacked and defeated him at ZELA (47), with a rapidity rendered proverbial by his words, Veni, vidi, vici, I ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... proverbial "Joe" Miller, an actor by profession (1684-1738), was a man of no education, and is said to have been unable to read. His reputation rests mainly on the book of jests compiled after his death, and attributed to him by John Mottley. (First Edition. ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... proverbial "sweet-tooth" is a characteristic of the American people. Hundreds of tons of candy are annually consumed, and fortunes have been made in the business. The range of price is from ten cents to a dollar a pound, with some specially wrapped and boxed bon-bons exceeding ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Cavour, whose influence procured the necessary permission. Many attempts, however, were made to undo this concession, and even when the royal sanction had been obtained these efforts were so numerous and influential that nothing but the proverbial justice of the sovereign, and the constancy of his minister, availed to secure success. The last piece of opposition to the desire of the Vaudois and their friends was made by a man whose name remained as the living incarnation of the former regime, the Count Solaro Margherita, who, ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... of the Anician palace," were used as a proverbial expression of opulence and splendor; [23] but the nobles and senators of Rome aspired, in due gradation, to imitate that illustrious family. The accurate description of the city, which was composed in the Theodosian age, enumerates ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... G. (Howden) is thanked for his collection of Proverbial Sayings—all of which are however, we believe, too well known to justify their ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... in their vigour, their city was besieged by the Gauls, and saved by an animal of proverbial stupidity; but this could not have happened when Attila was under the walls, and the energy of the citizens was gone. The taking or saving the city, in the first instance, would have been equally accidental, and the consequences of short duration; but, in the latter days, ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... its best. Roger rose at 7.30 a.m. and performed those gentle, health-giving exercises which have already been described in previous chapters. On this glorious morning, however, he added a simple exercise for the elbows to his customary ones, and went down to his breakfast as hungry as the proverbial hunter. A substantial meal of five dried beans and a stewed nut awaited him in the fine oak-panelled library; and as he did ample justice to the banquet his thoughts went back to the terrible days when he lived the luxurious meat-eating life of the ordinary man-about-town; ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... fortunate people. Everybody said that Mr. McArthur must have been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, for though he had come to Tulaska with barely a red cent in his pocket, everything he attempted succeeded. His land increased, his cattle increased, his home grew in proportion to his land, his wife was a ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... these illustrious men were led to their execution. On the dingy walls of stone are still recorded those sentiments which they had inscribed there, and which indicate the nature of those emotions which animated and sustained them. These proverbial maxims and heroic expressions, gleaned from French tragedies or the classic page, were written with the blood which they had drawn from their own veins. In one place ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... sword in his hand, stood on the south side of Temple Bar. As soon as the Queen's carriage arrived within the gateway it stopped, and then, unfortunately, it began to rain." The Queen's weather, which has become proverbial, of which we are given to boast, did not attend her on this occasion. Perhaps it would have been too much to expect of the clouds when the date was the 9th of November. Regardless of the weather, "the Lord Mayor ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... treachery to the Britons, that hired by them to defend them they turned upon them in spite of their oaths and engagements, they are to this day given to treachery and murder.' The lying Saxon was, according to this authority, a proverbial expression. ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... equally improbable that a forger has been at work on a large scale, and that sets of objects, unexampled in our isle, have really turned up in some numbers. But then the Caithness painted pebbles were equally without precedent, yet are undisputed. The proverbial fence seems, in these circumstances, to be the appropriate perch for Science, in fact a statue of the Muse of Science might represent her as sitting, in contemplation, on the fence. The strong, the very strong point against authenticity is this: numbers of the disputed ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... UNSEXED, by Mutilation or Masturbation. Eunuchs are proverbial for their cruelty and crafty and unsympathizing dispositions. Their mental powers are feeble and their physical strength is inferior. They lack courage and physical endurance. When a child is operated upon before the age of puberty, the voice ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... the wittiest woman who ever lived," says Saintsbury. Hers was an inextinguishable wit, always alert, epigrammatic, enriching the language with proverbial phrases. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... is saying much, for my calling brings human life before me in almost every aspect. Mildred Jocelyn is an unusual girl. Until to-day I thought her a trifle cold, and even incapable of very deep feeling. I thought pride—not a common pride, you know, but the traditional and proverbial pride of a Southern woman—her chief characteristic, but the girl was fairly volcanic with feeling to-night. I believe she would starve in very truth to save her father, though of course we won't permit any such folly as they are meditating, and I ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the case of Ireland is proverbial. Its most enlightened friends in England and Scotland are often charged with 'gross ignorance of the country.' They might excuse themselves by answering, that when they seek instruction from Irishmen, one native instructor is sure to contradict ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... in a bulrush)—Ver. 942. "Nodum in scirpo quaerere" was a proverbial expression implying a desire to create doubts and difficulties where there really were none; there being no knots in the bulrush. The same expression occurs in the Menaechmi of Plautus, ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... may note in this connection that almost exactly one-half of the total number of quotations occurring in Lincoln's writings are taken from the Bible, and that a large proportion of the profane quotations are from Shakespeare. Lincoln was also fond of using proverbial sayings, a habit that emphasized his character as a popular or national writer. For most of his proverbs are local and many of them are intensely homely. Quotations of this class occur at all periods of his life, beginning with ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... are proverbial hotbeds of coffee lovers. It is said that in Saxony there are more coffee drinkers to the square inch and more cups to the single coffee bean than anywhere else upon earth. The Saxons like their coffee, but seem to be afraid it ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... scum. Felix, on seeing this, at once concluded that he had unknowingly entered a gulf, and had left the main Lake, for the only place he had ever seen scum before was at the extremity of a creek near home, where the water was partly stagnant on a marshy level. The water of the Lake was proverbial for ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... involving tremendous expenditure. Its success would have been impossible without the cooeperation of hundreds of men of business, who found in it a sphere of service which enabled the army to utilize the proverbial American genius for meeting large problems of economic organization. At the time of the armistice the S. O. S. reached a numerical strength in personnel of 668,000, including ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... but her vanity demanded constant tribute, and she was peculiarly absorbed in the effort to bring to her feet this man of iron, her knight in armor, as she was wont to call him, to control him with her influence, to bend this unmalleable material like the proverbial wax in her hands. She had great faith in the coercive power of her hazel eyes, and she brought their batteries to bear on Girard on the first occasion when she had him ...
— The Lost Guidon - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk into poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor, while Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been turned, by skill and industry, into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... My answer is plain. Lest in naught, and unwittingly, I should betray your hospitality; lest, in the caprice of will which in our world is proverbial among the other sex, and from which even a Gy is not free, your adorable daughter should deign to regard me, though a Tish, as if I were a civilised An, and—and—and—-" "Court you as her spouse," put in Aph-Lin, gravely, ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... not how she has managed, in so brief a space of time, to collect such a variety of useful local information. I can only testify that on her arrival in Rome she knew no more about the language and place than the proverbial babe unborn, and that nowadays, when anybody is faced with a conundrum like mine, one always hears the words: "Try Mrs. Nichol." And how many women, by the way, would have made a note of the ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... proverbial long before the Christian era. She supplied Nineveh and Babylon, and later Greece and Rome, with steel, zinc, pearls, precious stones, cotton, silk, sugar-cane, ivory, indigo, pepper, cinnamon, incense and other commodities. ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... caprices of madmen; and, in my opinion as well as in that of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, it is never safe to permit them to run at large unattended. A lunatic may be 'soothed,' as it is called, for a time, but, in the end, he is very apt to become obstreperous. His cunning, too, is proverbial and great. If he has a project in view, he conceals his design with a marvellous wisdom; and the dexterity with which he counterfeits sanity, presents, to the metaphysician, one of the most singular problems in the study of mind. When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high time ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... will, Theodorus, as the proverbial philosophers say, and therefore I will return to the sage Theaetetus: Tell me, Theaetetus, in reference to what I was saying, are you not lost in wonder, like myself, when you find that all of a sudden you are raised to the level of the wisest ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... no shooting party, it was very much like the usual sort of gathering at an English country house. And yet it all seemed wholly unreal to me! I felt a strong inclination—perhaps a little hysterical—to burst out laughing. This was surely a gigantic joke, planned against the proverbial lack of humor of my countrymen! I was not expected to take it seriously! And yet, in a moment, I remembered certain established facts, of which these things were but the natural sequel. I remembered, too, a certain air of seriousness, and a disposition towards confidential talk, manifested ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was a surprise to her husband. His eyes rested upon the ground as he listened, and his face assumed the proverbial stoical aspect, yet in it there was not lacking a certain nobleness. At last he lifted his eyes ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... establishment, while the husband may be deemed a visiter, rather than the master? This would not arise in the breast of an amiable and affectionate wife, but it has sometimes arisen; for, unfortunately, all wives have not been good ones. Jerome Cardan was so unfortunate as to have a wife who was proverbial for her ill temper and arbitrary conduct. John Knox said of Lord Erskine, "He has a very Jezebel to his wife." Salmasius, the opponent of Milton, was made perpetually uneasy by a similar thorn. The unfortunate husband was a Frenchman, ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... there lived in this country one Basilio de la Barca, a person of so noble a figure and countenance that to all those who beheld him he became the type of perfect beauty, so that a 'Basilio de la Barca' came to be a proverbial expression in Montevidean society when anyone surpassingly handsome was spoken of. Though he had a gay, light-hearted disposition and loved social pleasures, he was not spoilt by the admiration his beauty excited. Simple-minded and modest he remained always; ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... instructors had the satisfaction of seeing that it was not lost. Nothing could present a finer display of true friendship founded upon a sense of equality, mutual interest, and good-will, than the Irishman and his pig. The Arabian and his horse are proverbial; but had our English neighbors known as much of Ireland as they did of Arabia, they would have found as signal instances of attachment subsisting between the former as between the latter; and, perhaps, when the superior comforts of an Arabian hut are contrasted with the squalid ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... reason of its chief, who infused his own life and vigour into what was before a weak administration. Cavour was a born man of business; he hated disorder in everything—except, indeed, dress, in which his carelessness was proverbial. He had not the common belief that, muddle them how you may, there will always be a providence which looks after the affairs of the State and prevents the collapse that would attend a private commercial enterprise conducted on the same system. He took in hand the financial renewal of Piedmont ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... rounds after his death which neatly illustrates his lack of worldliness. His modesty was proverbial, and once Daubigny, on introducing him to an American picture dealer, warned him not to ask less than five thousand francs for the first picture he sold to the man. The American went to Daumier's atelier, and seeing a picture ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... didn't understand, and Amory was of the latter. He found it impossible to study conic sections; something in their calm and tantalizing respectability breathing defiantly through Mr. Rooney's fetid parlors distorted their equations into insoluble anagrams. He made a last night's effort with the proverbial wet towel, and then blissfully took the exam, wondering unhappily why all the color and ambition of the spring before had faded out. Somehow, with the defection of Isabelle the idea of undergraduate success had loosed its grasp on his imagination, and he contemplated ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald |
