"Second-best" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out o' bed but two hours an' your head looks as rough as if you'd slep' in it. That comes from layin' on the ground same as a caterpillar. Smooth your hair down with your hands an' p'r'aps Emma Jane can braid it as you go along the road. Run up and get your second-best hair ribbon out o' your upper drawer and put on your shade hat. No, you can't wear your coral chain—jewelry ain't appropriate in the morning. How long do you cal'late ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Starlight riding alongside of Aileen on his second-best horse, and he was no commoner either (though he didn't come up to Rainbow, nor no other horse I ever saw), talking away in his pleasant, easy-going way. You'd think he hadn't got a thing to trouble him in the world. She, for a wonder, was smiling, and seemed to be enjoying herself for once in ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... with all their bedclothes and hangings, for a bed was a very valuable article of furniture and must often, judging from the wills, have been a brilliant and beautiful object indeed; Shakespeare has earned a great deal of unmerited obloquy for leaving Ann Hathaway his second-best bed, though it is not to be denied that he might have left her his first-best. Even more beautiful than dressings and bed or chamber hangings are the brocaded and embroidered vestments mentioned in wills, and the elaborate arrangements for ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... I'll lick you. No, I've lent my clothes to a young feller as was goin' to a party, and didn't have none fit to wear, and so I put on my second-best ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... about a year from the time that Martha Haydon died, Maria Durrant was sitting by the western window of the kitchen, mending Mr. Haydon's second-best black coat, when she looked down the lane and saw old Polly Norris approaching the house. Polly was an improvident mother of improvident children, not always quite sound in either wits or behavior, but she had always been gently ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of "ffether beds," "flocke beds," "downe bedds," "wool beds," and even "charf beds," the latter worth but three shillings apiece, all of importance enough to be named in wills and left with as much dignity of bequest as Shakespeare's famous "second-best bed." Even so influential a man as Thomas Dudley did not disdain to leave by specification to his daughter Pacy a "ffeather beed & boulster." In 1666 Nicholas Upsall, of Boston, left a "Bedstead fitted with a Rope Matt & Curtains to it." In March, 1687, Sewall wrote ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... a little pincushion, which I made on purpose for him, and not knowing what to present Fred with, I allowed him to rip open my second-best doll, which was still in quite a good state of preservation. Fred had always possessed an inquiring mind, and an inclination to inspect the contents of everything, in consequence of which my possessions often suffered—and this employment now afforded ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... poor lad) a rich man; so I worked early and late, and about twelve years after leaving home was able to buy one of the best houses in my native place. It has always been supposed I did not like my wife very much, because in my will I left her only my "second-best bed"; but then people forget that she also had her dower. I wrote over thirty-seven books, though some of the writings attributed to me are not mine, and scholars will dispute about me probably to the ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... such considerations as these that all attempts to realise the Utopian ideal must needs be, for the present at least, but very partially successful. Politics are not the only sphere in which "action is one long second-best." Even if it were possible at the present time to train each youth for that calling which his own gifts and temperament, or the reasoned judgment of his parents, selected as his life-work, it is very far from certain that he would ultimately find himself engaged therein. English institutions ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... pertinent to her than all the cathedrals in Europe; and more significant than the future of Asia was the never-settled weekly question as to whether the small kitchen knife with the unpainted handle or the second-best buckhorn carving-knife was better for cutting up cold ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... end of luncheon when Margaret came in, they were sipping fine wine from very thin glasses, they were all saying their second-best things, because each one was afraid that if he said his very best before dinner one of the others would steal it; and Mrs. ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... silver pistol from his breast, and, after the usual soliloquy of "To be or not to be," or something equally to the purpose, would point it at his temples just as the landlady came bursting into the room, begging him for all sakes not to "ruin the character of her second-best room, and the walls newly painted at that!" Remorse would then double up the manly form of Captain Dunnitt, who would fall on his knees before the landlady,—"his benefactress! his better angel!"—and then ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... by experience that when the old man began to justify his resolution by quotations from the Persian poets there was no chance of shaking it. Sure enough that afternoon saw the phaeton at the door, with my father perched upon the seat, with his second-best coat on and a pair ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Kaliko. "I have not yet completed my test of your magic, and as I owe that goat a slight grudge for bumping my head and smashing my second-best crown, I will be glad to discover if the beast can also ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Christmas Day was always in the kitchen at Ansdore. When Joanna reached home with Martin, the two tables, set end to end, were laid—with newly ironed cloths and newly polished knives, but with the second-best china only, since many of the guests were clumsy. Joanna wished there had been time to get out the best ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... blame your papers for bearing down hard on the local news. I suppose it's mighty interesting to you New Yorkers to learn every morning just how much more money you owe on your new subway, and whether or not the temperature of Mrs. Van Damexpense's second-best Siberian wolf-hound is still rising. That's what newspapers are for—to save you the trouble of stepping around and collecting the events of the day from the back fence. But your papers don't bear down hard enough on the Homeburg ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... fourpence," said McTurk, with a glance of cold scorn at Beetle. In the hopelessly involved finances of the study there was just that sum to which both McTurk and Beetle laid claim, as their share in the pledging of Stalky's second-best Sunday trousers. But Stalky had maintained for two terms that the money was his "commission" for effecting the pawn; and had, of course, spent it on ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... "That's only second-best weather," grumbled Reade. "However, I'm impatient to have a try to-night. I think we will try for it. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... worship; at that King of Mexico, who swore at his coronation not only to keep the laws, but also to make the sun run his annual course; at those followers [109] of Alexander, who all carried their heads on one side as Alexander did. The natural second-best, the intermediate and unheroic virtue (even the Church, as we know, by no means requiring "heroic" virtue), was perhaps actually the best, better than any kind of heroism, in an age whose very virtues were apt to become insane; an age "guilty and extravagant" in its ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... beyond, and though it be lost in one aspect, in sight, it will be eternal as trust, will be ours, imperishable as ourselves, and as God. Therefore, do not give all the energy of your lives to amassing the second-best riches. Seek the highest things most. 'Covet earnestly the best gifts,' and let the coveting regulate your conduct. And do not be put off with wealth that will fail you ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Jerry was well enough to walk around with a cane, and when he'd broken Father's second-best malacca stick by vaulting over the box border with it, we decided that he was quite all right, and the summer went on again as usual. Of course we wrote to the Bottle Man at once, and told him, as respectfully as we could, just what we thought of him for letting the native child ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... they went to church. The children there all looked so glad, so happy and so clean and neat in their second-best clothes and so nicely washed. They now made their confessions for the last time; and it all went so pleasantly: they had done no wrong for such a long while and all their sins had already been forgiven two or three times over, yesterday and the day before. ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... living among the dead, and the immortal Moliere among the sweepings of attorneys' offices. As I regard them (for I have tarried in their tents) and as I behold their trivialities—the exercises of men who neglect Moliere's works to gossip about Moliere's great-grand-mother's second-best bed—I sometimes wish that Moliere were here to write on his devotees a new comedy, "Les Molieristes." How fortunate were they, Monsieur, who lived and worked with you, who saw you day by day, who were ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... altogether, did so; and soon the palace was swarming with white mice. Their red eyes might be seen glowing, and their white skins gleaming, in every dark corner; but when it came to the king's finding a nest of them in his second-best crown, he was angry and ordered them to be drowned. The princess heard of it, however, and raised such a clamor, that there they were left until they should run away of themselves; and the poor king had to wear his best crown every day till then. ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... and my youngest daughter, Liddy, were over at my grandson's christening," continued Billy. "We were talking about this very family, and 'twas only last Purification Day in this very world, when the use-money is gied away to the second-best poor folk, you know, shepherd, and I can mind the day because they all had to traypse up to the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... red-nosed, autumnal boon-companion of John a' Combe,—and finally (or else the Stratford gossips belied him), the victim of convivial habits, who met his death by tumbling into a ditch on his way home from a drinking-bout, and left his second-best bed to his ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... can exceed the masculine firmness, the quiet force, of his own style, in which every phrase is a close sequence, every epithet a paying piece, and the ground is completely cleared of the vague, the ready-made, and the second-best. Less than any one to-day does he beat the air, more than any one does he hit out from the shoulder.... He came into the literary world, as he has himself related, under the protection of the great Flaubert. This was but a dozen years ago—for Guy de Maupassant belongs, among ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... hit on the most exalted subject tractable by the Muse, it follows that he must be the most exalted poet. Let me tell you—if it will shorten argument—that in general, and in all walks of life, I hate the second-best.' ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... demonstrated I. 1, nor explained the action of a pump. Truly an elevation to look up at! It came, further, to my knowledge that the Royal Society—if I might judge by the claims made by very influential Fellows—considered itself as entitled to the best of everything: second-best being left for the newer bodies. A secretary, in returning thanks for the Royal at an anniversary of the Astronomical, gave rather a lecture to the company on the positive duty of all present to send the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... on Cunningham. "It eats into your vitals to hear that some rival has picked up a Correggio or an ancient Kirman or a bit of Persian plaque. You talk of halters. Lord lumme, how obliquely you look at facts! Take that royal Persian there—the second-best animal rug on earth—is there no murder behind the woof and warp of it? What? Talk sense, Cleigh, talk sense! You cable me: Get such and such. I get it. What the devil do you care how it was got, so long as it eventually becomes yours? It's a case ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... a young lady," said my wife, "a well-dressed girl got her a new bonnet in the spring, and another in the fall; that was the extent of her purchases in this line. A second-best bonnet, left of last year, did duty to relieve and preserve the best one. My father was accounted well-to-do, but I had no more, and wanted no more. I also bought myself, every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and a light ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... but particularly towards the end of the play. This taste was, it seems, first acquired in consequence of a feud that formerly existed between Doria's family and his own, in which his side came off so decidedly second-best, that he only remains of his race; all the rest having been murdered by Doria and his father's faction. From such deadly foes, it may be observed, that tragic heroes always select ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... all our standards. It is an example of art as unconscious as that of the song of some vain, but for the moment solitary, child. It declares to us that Nature, when we can bring to it our own appreciation, is the first thing, and that the idealism of art is the second-best with which we content ourselves when Nature, with its direct appeal, is ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... Hubbard was dressed in a smart new calico, with a cap, made by Elinor, and was then seated in the best rocking-chair. As for Patsey, herself, she could not think of wearing the elegant new dress, Uncle Josie's present—that was much too fine; she preferred what had now become her second-best—a black silk, which looked somewhat rusty and well-worn. To tell the truth, this gown had seen good service; it had been not only turned, but re-turned—having twice gone through the operation of ripping and sponging; and doubtful as the fact ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... which unfortunately she had chosen to trim herself, tied a white veil across the upper part of her face and got out her second-best pair of gloves: Harriet kept her best gloves for her enemies. In the front yard she pulled a handful of white lilacs (there was some defect here or she would never have carried white lilacs in soiled white gloves); and passed out of the gate. Her eyes were lighted ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... wanted," which was always understood to be the joyful signal that some parent or friend had arrived as a visitor. I was immediately hurried into the house, a whispering took place between Mr and Mrs Root, and the consequence was, that I was bustled up into the bedroom, and my second-best clothes, which I then had on, were changed for the best, and, with a supererogatory dab with a wet towel over my face, I was brought down, and, my little heart playing like a pair of castanets ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... heap on 'em and laid 'em down in front of me, but I calmly walked past 'em, and took down my second-best dress and bunnet, and a good deep water-proof cape, and ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... nobody seems watching. As you sit, the black outline of you is clear against the sky. Ah! now you are sitting stiffer. But you are no Calvinist. My friend, the best of life is its delights, and the best of delights is loving and being loved. And for that—this nose! Well, there are plenty of second-best things. After dark I can forget the monster a little. Spring is delightful, air on the Downs is delightful; it is fine to see the stars circling in the sky, while lying among the heather. Even this London sky is soothing at night, though the edge is all inflamed. The shadow of my ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... cases it is more satisfactory to find a mere site than to find anything on the site. Suppose one is castle-stalking in Maine, suppose one is looking for primaeval walls in the Volscian or the Hernican land. If one does not find the exact thing that one wishes, the second-best luck is to find the place where it once was, and to find nothing there. Best of all is to find a fortress of the right age on its mound surrounded by its ditch; next to this is to find the mound surrounded by its ditch, but supporting nothing at all. If there is nothing at ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... French critics are apt to insist so much, is not always present. Of actual passion he has little, and his books are somewhat open to the charge—which has been brought against those of so many of our own second-best novelists—that they are somewhat machine-made, or, if that word be too unkind, are rather works of craft than of art. Yet the work of a sound craftsman, using good materials, is a great help in life; and a person who wants good story-pastime for a certain number ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... to clean the house, which was cleaner than most people's already, and I got a nice bit of dinner and took it up on a tray. But no, that wasn't right, for I'd put the best instead of the second-best cloth on ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... formality, the Disinherited Knight was to be considered as leader of the one body, while Brian de Bois-Guilbert, who had been rated as having done second-best in the preceding day, was named first champion of the other band. Those who had concurred in the challenge adhered to his party of course, excepting only Ralph de Vipont, whom his fall had rendered unfit so soon to ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... very first sight decides the question for us without argument; but if we do not listen promptly to this secret monitor, its light goes out at once, and we are left to the mercy of mere conjecture, and grope about with but second-best guides. Then seeming arguments in favour of deceit and evil compliance with the world's wishes, or of disgraceful indolence, urge us, and either prevail, or at least so confuse us, that we do not know how to act. Alas! ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... comfort, or its own Remembrance. And when some caress Tendered in habit (once a flame All heaven sang out to) wakes the shame Unworded, in the steady eyes We'll have, — THAT day, what shall we do? Being so noble, kill the two Who've reached their second-best? Being wise, Break cleanly off, and get away. Follow down other windier skies New lures, alone? Or shall we stay, Since this is all we've known, content In the lean twilight of such day, And not remember, ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... the moment when he would be turned out. He plunged his hands down into his trousers pockets and fished up a knife, his second-best one, fortunately. ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... do it," he replied, bitterly. But he adopted Patsy's suggestion and sketched the garden very prettily in pen and ink. By the time the second picture was completed Patsy had received permission to leave her room, which she did in Aunt Jane's second-best wheel chair. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... table was looking eagerly at Mrs. Cayley-Binns—hitherto insignificant—she felt forced to say something worth saying about Miss Grant. She swallowed hard, choked in a crumb, hastily sipped the excellent champagne Lady Meason gave at her second-best parties, and recovering herself said that "well, really, what she knew was almost too shocking to tell." There was a Frenchman, good-looking, evidently a sort of gentleman, in the train with Miss Grant when she was travelling from England. They had pretended to be strangers, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... morning, however, my mind was less on the beauties of the Fraser than on the Dog Creek hotel. Every week I had my dinner there before starting in mid-afternoon on my return to the ranch, and this day had succeeded one of misunderstanding with "Cookie" wherein all the boys of our outfit had come off second-best. I was hungry and that dinner at the hotel was going to taste mighty good. Out there on the range we had heard rumors of a war in Europe. We all talked it over in the evening and decided it was another one of those fights that were always starting in the Balkans. One had just been ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... important section of his party had not an altogether happy lot. Yet I enjoyed it. I had my full measure of confidence in the soundness of my own opinions, that great characteristic of the young journalist, and in my many encounters with the foes of my own household I always tried not to come off second-best. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... having set the beds to "plump," had stolen a look at the glass, and put on her second-best Sunday cap, in honor of a real officer; and she looked very nice indeed, especially when she received a compliment. But she had seen too much of life to be ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... imperfect have as their law the holy Logos."[222] And in this sense, it is "intermediate ([Greek: methorios]) between God and man."[223] What such passages mean is that the separation of the Logos is a stage in man's progress up to the true idea of God. It is a second-best Deity, so to say, rather than a second Deity; for those who regard the Logos as God have no conception at all of the perfect Being of which it ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... remember, because there was a wood fire in the little sitting-room—not the salon, but the girls' room. Being an American, Madame was almost lavish about fires. And it was a most un-French room, the most careless little place, where the second-best piano lived, and the lilacs, when they were taken in out of the cold. There were sweet old curtains, and a long sofa in front of the fireplace instead of the traditional armchairs. Anybody's books and bibelots lay ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... across her face, softening the features which had worn an air of unusual seriousness and preoccupation. "But it is all right now, dear. He has eaten everything in the house—that bit of spring lamb I saved expressly for you!—and has gone down town 'on a raid,' as he called it, in your second-best suit—the checked tweed. I did all ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... upon our present experiences in another fashion, and negative all of them which involve pain and limitation and incompleteness. There shall be no night—no sorrow—no tears—no sighing, and the like. These negatives of the strong and stinging griefs and limitations of the present are perhaps our second-best way of coming to some prophetic ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the pressure of so many guests had relegated him. He slipped apologetically to the front and took his stand beneath the shadow of Mr. Moseley's presence. Prayer-meeting being but a semi-official occasion, he wore his second-best coat, and it had followed the shrinking habit established ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... subsiding conditions to the play, and that the sailor had been in some way or another staked against his own clothes; for before being fully appropriated by his owner he was stripped to his shirt, and his habiliments, shoes and sou'-wester included, were handed over to the sheik who had played second-best in ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... Cupid. His wings clipped, his bow burnt, all his arrows broken, he is beaten and set to a task. Meanwhile the day of sacrifice has arrived and, in default of a better, a victim is found. But Neptune will have no second-best: what promises to be a tragedy changes to joy on the god's refusal to accept the proffered girl. However, the sacrifice is only postponed. Moreover the delay has given rise to a stricter search, which means increased peril for the disguised maidens. Fortunately ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... you chose a place to make your fire that looks as if it might be second-best? According to my notion, over yonder is an ideal site ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... go out into the world and find the Lady Emmelina. So that night the Prince once more unhooked the diamond key from the nail on the nursery wall, and stole into the garden in the moonlight. This time, however, he had not forgotten to put on his shoes and stockings and his second-best court suit, for when a prince goes out into the world he must at least do his best to look like a prince. When he came to the lawn he stopped and stared with amazement; for there, in the moonlight, lay the ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... thousand is needlessly rare; it is sustained by far too small and undifferentiated a public. Most of the good men we know are not really doing the very best work of their gifts; nearly all are a little adapted, most are shockingly adapted to some second-best use. Now, I take it, this is the very centre and origin of the muddle, futility, and unhappiness that distresses us; it's the cardinal problem of the state—to discover, develop, and use the exceptional gifts of men. And I see that best done—I drift more and more away from ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... hour later, Sary was seen stealing from the kitchen door, and tip-toeing over the brick pathway towards the "Second-best" hammock that always swung behind the lilac bushes. It was a nice little retreat for any one wishing to take a nap on a sultry afternoon, but Polly had never known Sary to ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... who was extremely ambitious to do something very distinctive and who had the ability to do it. When he started on his career he was very exact and painstaking. He demanded the best of himself—would not accept his second-best in anything. The thought of slighting his work was painful to him, but his mental processes have so deteriorated, and he has become so demoralized by the habit which, after a while, grew upon him, of accepting his second-best, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... the more timid among the boys seemed to think that Scranton would come out second-best when the great meet was a thing of the past; but others only found themselves more determined than ever to win, after learning how their rivals had entered into the affair with heart ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... to discuss Shakespeare's Will, the "second-best bed," and so forth. But as Shakespeare's Will says not a word about his books, it is decided by Mr. Greenwood that he had no books. Mr. Greenwood is a lawyer; so was my late friend Mr. Charles Elton, Q.C., of White Staunton, who remarks that Shakespeare bequeathed "all ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... and still to-day the merchants unroll at your feet as you sit on your verandah exquisitely soft, shimmering silks and wonderful embroideries. It was these last that caught my fancy, and the British Consul-General, himself a great collector, kindly sent to the house his "second-best" man and then his "first-best," and between the two I made a few modest purchases at even more modest prices. Imagine getting two strips of wonderful silk embroidery for twenty cents gold, or two silk squares ingeniously ornamented and pieced ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... extremely coarse, Agnes. Why didn't you get a good dress? You have enough second-best ones ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... in white, with veil and wreath; behind her, girls in bright dresses bearing enormous bouquets; bridegroom and supporters, all in spick and span swallow-tail coats, with white ties and gloves, like beaux in a French comedy, backwards and forwards; the priests looking gorgeous, although in their second-best robes, their gold plates shining as they collected the money; for whether married first, second or third class, the Church exacts its due. I felt real commiseration for these middle- class, evidently hard-working people, as the gold ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... want, though it comes not from a dove or even from a harmless sparrow, but a young raven. And He does not heed the sweetest anthem of the fullest choir, if it is a mere pomp of sound. Because, while the best love of His meanest creatures is precious to Him, the second-best of His loftiest creatures is intolerable to Him. He heeds the shining of the drops of dew and the rustling of the blades of grass. But from creatures who can love he cannot accept the mere outside offering of creatures which can only make a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various |
