"To begin with" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the real Queen as she said this, but her companion only smiled pleasantly, and said, 'That's easily managed. You can be the White Queen's Pawn, if you like, as Lily's too young to play; and you're in the Second Square to begin with: when you get to the Eighth Square you'll be a Queen—' Just at this moment, somehow or other, they ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... little dialogue, Bob went home in a disagreeable temper. To begin with, his mood had been ruffled, for the landlady at his lodgings—the fourth to which he had removed this year—was 'nasty' about a week or two of unpaid rent, and a man on whom he had counted this evening ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... dynasty, Chao K'uang-yin, came of a Chinese military family living to the south of Peking. He advanced from general to emperor, and so differed in no way from the emperors who had preceded him. But his dynasty did not disappear as quickly as the others; for this there were several reasons. To begin with, there was the simple fact that he remained alive longer than the other founders of dynasties, and so was able to place his rule on a firmer foundation. But in addition to this he followed a new course, which in certain ways smoothed matters for him and for his ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... considerable interval. This is the case; and the same structure extends to the northward to Uspallata; the little elevation of the eastern line (here not more than 6,000-7,000 feet.) has caused it almost to be overlooked. To begin with the western and principal chain, we have, where the sections are best seen, an enormous mass of a porphyritic conglomerate resting on granite. This latter rock seems to form the nucleus of the whole mass, and is seen in the deep lateral valleys, injected amongst, upheaving, overturning ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... said Bob musingly. "We must treat them to some respectable names, that is, good sounding ones. I'm afraid there is little chance of our producing a Peer to begin with?" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... this one. There are, I take it, plenty of them to be had in Museum Street. I shall get one and place it here instead of that one—you won't think that a temporary exchange will violate your Father's instructions, I hope. We shall then find out, to begin with, whether Silvio objects to all mummy cats, or only to this ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... Mr. Argenter's father had been fond of money; had made and saved a considerable sum himself; and always meant that his son should make and save a good deal more. So he signified this in his cradle and gave him what he called a lucky name, to begin with. The wife of the elder Mr. Argenter had been a Muchmore; her only brother had been named Increase, either out of oddity, such as influenced a certain Mr. Crabtree whom I have heard of, to call his son Agreen, or because the old Puritan name had been ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... I propose to begin with sauces. This is reversing the usual mode, and yet I think the reader will not regret the innovation. The cooking to be taught in these pages, being emphatically what is popularly known as "Delmonico cooking," very much depends on the excellence of the sauces served with each dish; and as it is no ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... repeats its proceedings, still entering head first; I also repeat my touch of the straw. And this can go on as long as the observer pleases. Pushed aside at the moment when she is about to insert her abdomen into the cell, the Bee goes back to the opening and persists in going down head first to begin with. Sometimes, she descends to the bottom, sometimes only half-way, sometimes again she only pretends to descend, just bending her head into the aperture; but, whether completed or not, this action, for which there is ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... To begin with, their homes were very plain. Even the rich nobles spent their lives in a sort of adobe barn, which lacked all the comforts which a modern workman expects as his natural right. A Greek home consisted of four walls and a roof. There was a door which ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... matter of fact, we were never in any real danger, for our pursuit was very half-hearted indeed. To begin with, now that their first rage was over, the Orofenans who were fond of us had no particular wish to do us to death, while the ardour of their sorcerers, who wished this very much, had been greatly cooled by the mysterious ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... appeared in our language, it seems to be his opinion, that, on a general view, climates are the same now as in ancient times. The identity of the climate of Palestine, now and during antiquity, is thus beautifully made out:—"It will be convenient to begin with Palestine, the Bible being the oldest, or one of the oldest of books; and, although great uncertainty exists about the determination of the plants which are mentioned in it, yet two of them do not admit of any doubt, (and these are sufficient for the determination of the climate of Palestine, ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... against their being happy. Louisa had fine naval fervour to begin with, and they would soon grow more alike. He would gain cheerfulness, and she would learn to be an enthusiast for Scott and Lord Byron; nay, that was probably learnt already; of course they had fallen in love over poetry. The idea of Louisa Musgrove turned into a person ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... bethought herself,—how she might best explain the meaning. It was hard upon her, this having to explain it, and she told herself, very foolishly, that it would be better for her to begin with the story of Mrs Baggett. She could more easily speak of Mrs Baggett than of John Gordon. But it must be remembered, on her behalf, that she had but a second to think how she might best begin her story. "I have spoken to Mrs Baggett ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... there is a cause for it. It's my business to find out the reason why you have attempted it; so, sir, I will thank you for the name of your ship, to begin with?" ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... I kept fourpence in one of my boots. They give us bank-notes for a penny and a halfpenny; they make them themselves. The sweet-shop takes them. They only give you eleven penny notes for a shilling in the bank, or else it would burst. At dinner we have a lot of pudding to begin with, and it's very heavy. You can hardly eat anything afterwards. The first day Lorraine said quite out loud and very polite, 'Did you say duff before meat, young gentlemen?' and I couldn't help laughing, ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... had seen many difficulties in his path. To begin with, he mistrusted him of Peter, that strong, quiet man who could kill a great armed knave with his stick, and at a word call half London to his side. Peter, he was sure, being human, must be in love with Margaret, and he was a rival ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... turned round and looked at Mr. Billing. She felt that he was likely, if he were really bent on waking up the town, to begin with her. It did not please her to be wakened up. She looked at Mr. Billing anxiously. She wanted to know whether he were the kind of man who would be able to rouse her to ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... possible, however, that the necessity may now have arisen of again making up our minds with regard to the reversing and fundamental shifting of values, owing to a new self-consciousness and acuteness in man—is it not possible that we may be standing on the threshold of a period which to begin with, would be distinguished negatively as ULTRA-MORAL: nowadays when, at least among us immoralists, the suspicion arises that the decisive value of an action lies precisely in that which is NOT INTENTIONAL, and that all its intentionalness, all that is seen, sensible, or "sensed" ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... years have passed since I began to collect the materials from which this pamphlet has been evolved. As a substantial basis, to begin with, I was an eye-witness of all the fighting in the vicinity of Spring Hill, that amounted to anything, from the time Forrest attacked the 64th Ohio on the skirmish line until Cleburne's Division recoiled from the fire of the ...
— The Battle of Spring Hill, Tennessee - read after the stated meeting held February 2d, 1907 • John K. Shellenberger
... not and did not flatter himself that his grandfather would, to begin with, receive his news even with toleration. The grim satisfaction with which that note about the shooting had been despatched, was very clear in the grandson's memory. At the same time it said much for the history ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his predecessors lost. His political credit was still to be established, if he was to carry out the first part of his gigantic scheme. To arrive at this, he must employ two agencies—alliances and conquests. His plan was to begin with alliances. The gentleman of Aragon who had married Lucrezia when she was only the daughter of Cardinal Roderigo Borgia was not a man powerful enough, either by birth and fortune or by intellect, to enter with any sort ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... comparison between the two writers; yet I hold that, from the point of view of dramatic composition, The Earth was the better play of the two, simply because it dealt logically with the theme announced, instead of wandering away into all sorts of irrelevances. Mr. Bennett, to begin with, could not resist making his Napoleon of the Press a native of the "Five Towns," and exhibiting him at large in provincial middle-class surroundings. All this is sheer irrelevance; for the type of journalism in question is not characteristically ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... striking twelve o'clock as we entered the lane where the carriage was drawn up. Rain, about the profoundest I had ever witnessed, was falling. Though near to midsummer, the night had been unusually dark to begin with, and from the increasing rain had become much more so. We could see nothing; and at first we feared that some mistake had occurred as to the station of the carriage—in which case we might have sought for it vainly ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... on record the proceedings in heaven 1 October 13 last, of the new year which begins this auspicious age. It shall be done without malice or favour. This is the truth. Ask if you like how I know it? To begin with, I am not bound to please you with my answer. Who will compel me? I know the same day made me free, which was the last day for him who made the proverb true—One must be born either a Pharaoh or a fool. If I choose to answer, I will say whatever trips off my tongue. Who has ever made the historian ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... Huckleberry, softly, to himself. "I guess I gave her a little too much riddle to begin with. Her mind isn't formed enough yet. But it's pretty hard on me. I wanted to teach somebody something, and here she's gone to sleep. I wish I could find that goose-girl. If father could teach her something, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... a number of peculiarities about this intruder. To begin with, she was hatless, quite as if she were a habitue; of the house, and was costumed in a prim lilac-colored lawn of the style of two decades past. But a greater peculiarity was the resemblance this lady bore to a faded daguerrotype. If looked at one way, ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... To begin with, let me describe myself. I am an ordinary quiet-living obscure person, neither exalted nor lowly, who, having tired of town, took a little place in the country and there settled down to a life of placidity, varied by such inroads upon ease as all back-to-the-landers ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... He was a Highlander, to begin with; and possessed all the fire and determination peculiar to that race. At an early period of life he was led to engage in commercial enterprises in the country north-west of Lake Superior, joined the North-West Fur Company of Canada ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... had passed through my brain, I wondered how such a pair would be received. I knew the gardener and his wife would welcome them, to begin with; Brownster would be very glad to see them; and I believe the mother would stand with tears of joy and open arms, in whatever quiet room she might feel free to await them. Moreover, when the sterner parent heard my tale and read my pedigree, might he not consider good ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... "that every form of human unhappiness or imperfection resulting directly or indirectly from economic want would be absolutely banished from the earth. That the very meaning of the word poverty would have been forgotten would seem to be a matter-of-course assumption to begin with. Beyond that we might go on and fancy almost anything in the way of universal diffusion of luxury that we pleased. The facts given as the basis of the speculation would justify the wildest day-dreams of universal happiness, so far as material abundance could directly or indirectly ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... less muscular than a man, her vitality is higher. This seems to be a general truth of all female organisms. The evidence is of many orders. Thus, to begin with, women live longer, on the average, than men do. In the light of our modern knowledge of alcohol, however, we cannot regard this fact by itself as conclusive, since the average age attained by men is undoubtedly considerably lowered ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... boldnes to recyte our owne countreymen by whose paynefull trauells these truthes are made manifest vnto vs. Hoping and intreting that it may not bee offensiue, though in this sorte I make relation of their actions. And firste to begin with the North partes of Europe, it is not vnknowne to all our countrymen that from the famous citie of London Syr Huge Willobie, knight, gaue the first attempt for the North estren discoueries, which were afterward most notably accomplished by master Borrowes, a ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... to begin with—young Michael, swinging a lusty pick in a construction gang of the Great Southwest Railway; and Molly, a pretty bride with solemn wondering gaze and air of listening to things which ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... you can go to, to begin with, to-morrow morning, if you choose. I'll give you the number. It's just across here ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... not be long about it. Wordsworth tells us in a famous line that "the child is father of the man," and no apter illustration of this truth could be found than the cuckoo. Let us trace his early life history, and to begin with, peep into, say, a wagtail's nest. It contains a few eggs all seemingly alike. In due time they are hatched, and you at once notice that one of the baby birds is quite different from the rest. It is blind, naked, yellowish, and ugly, and ere ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... that ninety-five per cent of all the babies occupy a corner of mother's and father's bedroom for the first two or three years. And believing this estimate to be correct, it is advisable to give the matter some consideration. To begin with, a lot of the non-essentials, ruffles and fluffles of the average bedroom, must go. The good father's chiffonier may have to be put in the bath room; heavy floor coverings must be discarded, to be replaced ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... please, and then leave us. Why, Nellie, there is enough learning here to make you the most wonderful woman in the world! Do you think you can get all these books into your head?" he asked mischievously, "because that is what I expect of you. We will take a big one to begin with." The girl looked on while he, with mock ceremony, took down the largest volume within reach and laid it open on a reading-desk near. "Now sit;" and he drew a chair for her before the open book, and another for himself. "It is nice big print. Do you see this word?" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... To begin with, Kate knew Mrs. Singleton Corey, just as well as a passably popular elocutionist may expect to know one of the recognized leaders of society and club life. Kate had recited at open meetings of the clubs over which Mrs. Singleton Corey had presided with that smiling ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... knowing that much preparation had been made, and that the service of almost any English novelist might have been obtained if asked for in due time. It was my readiness that was needed, rather than any other gift! The riddle was read to me after a time. Thackeray had himself intended to begin with one of his own great novels, but had put it off till it was too late. Lovel the Widower was commenced at the same time with my own story, but Lovel the Widower was not substantial enough to appear as the principal joint at the banquet. ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... been reflecting. A vague hope was returning to my heart. There was one thing I must know to begin with. I placed my lips close to the ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... young man who, with four hundred thousand to begin with, will not spend it instead of making more! No, sir; give me a man with small means and a sharp wit for his stock in trade, rather than a hundred thousand down; ten to one the first winds up the better man by a good round sum. I should not wonder at all to find myself ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... himself Willis Collins, known as a gambler, suspected as a card "sharper," was less fortunate. But for the cry of the dying man he might have cleared himself; but his reputation was against him to begin with; it was proved that the other was a young Englishman who had lost his money through Collins, and been duped by him, and altogether matters went hardly with the elder of the two confederates. He was tried and condemned (not for murder, as it happened, but manslaughter), and sentenced ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... answer, and I write from exuberance of vanity. Dana has sent me the Geology of the United States Expedition, and I have just read the Coral part. To begin with a modest speech, I AM ASTONISHED AT MY OWN ACCURACY!! If I were to rewrite now my Coral book there is hardly a sentence I should have to alter, except that I ought to have attributed more effect to recent volcanic action ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... a while, Wulf; sit down and talk it over. To begin with, we can arrest nobody without proof ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... covers of the two publications and fail to see evidence of a design to deceive the public and to infringe upon the rights of the publisher and author"—that is, the rights of Messrs. Dodd, Mead would be well, as a rule, for other writers to begin with reputable, honorable publishers and to remain with them. A publisher can do more and better with a line of books than with isolated volumes. When an author's books are scattered, there is not sufficient inducement for any one to push them strongly, nor, as in the case above related, to protect ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... softly, almost humbly, "I will tell you everything while I remember it,—though it is not likely I shall ever forget! I believe there must be some truth after all in what you say concerning the Soul, ... at any rate, I do not at present feel inclined to call your theories in question. To begin with, I find myself unable altogether to explain what it was that happened to me during my conversation with you last night. It was a very strange sensation! I recollect that I had expressed a wish to be placed under your magnetic or electric influence, and that you had refused my request. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... To begin with, therefore, at all events I will rather come to your standpoint than ask you to come to mine. Indeed, although I have for some time been among the criticized, and my sympathies are with the practical workers, my sense of how imperfectly the work ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... territorial rights it is a mistake to begin with the small places with the idea of working the business up and effecting larger sales on the basis of the smaller ones; it is better to shove the sales, as much as possible in the start, and after the more valuable portion of the territory ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee
... some of these, in Zhagor and in Rossieny, "the city of the educated, of the friends of their people and of the sacred tongue", Mapu finally found the opportunity to display his talents. But his material condition, bad enough to begin with, grew worse and worse. After oft-repeated applications, he received the appointment as teacher at a Jewish government school in Kowno, in 1848. This, together with the pecuniary assistance granted him by his more fortunate brother, put an end ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... father. Their friends thought them both good-looking, but it ought to be revealed in this story just what sort of good looks they had, since character makes the expression of people's faces. But this we can say, to begin with: they had eyes very much alike, very kind and frank and pleasant, and they had a good fresh color, as if they spent much time out-of-doors. In fact, they were just off the sea, having come in only two days before ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... heard Tony try to convince me lots of times that it would be foolish in our stopping off to see his father?" Phil said to begin with. ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... you the truth, I am not sure that too much prudent self-restraint suits love and its purport. Romance and deliberate self-control do not, to my mind, rhyme very well together. A touch of madness to begin with does no harm. Heaven knows life sobers it soon enough. If you don't start life with a head of ...
— Love—Marriage—Birth Control - Being a Speech delivered at the Church Congress at - Birmingham, October, 1921 • Bertrand Dawson
... dadda, to have taken it to begin with, but Colonel Brereton refused to receive it from me, and when he himself placed it about my picture, I could not but feel that it had truly become mine, and that ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... your postscript first, because I am cut to the quick by my father's attitude. I was sure that, large-minded and just as I have always thought him, he would allow that a woman is entitled to her own point of view in a matter which, to begin with, concerns her own happiness more than anybody else's, and that if she accepts a fallen angel for a husband, knowing him to be such, she shows a poor appreciation of her own worth. I am quite ready to rejoice over any sinner that repents if I may ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... have been thinking of a few for you to begin with. One is, never to be late for breakfast, and not to be selfish about getting the bath first, and never wanting to give up when ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... my faults, but I have one little gift, and that is a flair for success. It will be all very well for Miss Sylvia to marry the Greek man to begin with——" ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... To begin with, great public buildings will never form a distinguishing feature of American architecture. It is to be preeminently a domestic style. Herein shall we differ from the European nations, for in art, as in politics, the people are the rulers. It is discouraging, at first thought, to reflect that ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... to begin with the Titians, one of which is the famous Bacchanal. Then there are The Madonna with St. Bridget and St. Hulfus, The Garden of the Loves, Emperor Charles V. at Muehlberg, an equestrian portrait; another portrait of the same with figure standing, King Philip, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... and sound as Mr. Kennemann. When I claim to be an invalid of hard work, he may perhaps claim the same. But his work was possibly healthier than mine, this being the difference between the farmer and the diplomat. The mode of life of the latter is less healthy and more nerve-racking. To begin with, then, I am grateful to you, gentlemen, and I should be even more grateful, if we were all to put on our hats. I have lost in the course of years nature's own protection, but I cannot well cover my head if you do not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... analysis of this complexity till he comes to that which precedes all combination, and survives it—the original simplicity of nature. He will come to this cure armed with the universal 'simples;' he will have all the original powers of nature, 'which are not many,' in his hands, to begin with; and he will have more than that. He will have the doctrine of their combinations, not in man only, but in all the kinds;—those despised kinds, that claim such close relationship— such wondrous relationship with ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... no, only a bit giddy," said Lubin, as he stood watching Austin with his hands upon his hips. "You're not over strong yet, and that new leg of yours has been giving you too much exercise to begin with. You just keep quiet a few minutes, and you'll soon be as ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... carefully oiled by his anxious mother, and his very best clothes on, a circumstance calculated to invest him with dread and rob him of every bit of comfort to begin with, presented himself at Mr. King's mansion on the next afternoon. His countenance was long, and he looked so worried that Joel, rushing out to meet him, involuntarily ejaculated, ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... shallow thing to hold up as monsters of hardheartedness and depravity the officials who have been entrusted with the conduct of our prisons. If they do wickedly and corruptly, it is not because they are to begin with preterhuman sinners, but because we summoned them to duties far above their capacity and training, which involve temptations and provocations which they lack will and power to resist, which give them power over fellow creatures which the most magnanimous and ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... will," he said at last. "You deserve to be hanged in spite of what promises I made you. But no matter for that. So that you become a Muslim I will take you to serve beside me, one of my own lieutenants to begin with, and so long as you are loyal to me, Jasper, all will be well. But at the first sign of faithlessness, a rope and the yard-arm, my friend, and an airy dance ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... deprived of air, exercise, and rest. He got no thanks; Mr. Egremont snarled, and Alice protested that she was never tired, and needed nothing. The Rectory party were, excepting the schoolroom girls, engaged to make visits from home before going into residence at Redcastle, and were to begin with Monks Horton. They offered to escort Ursula to see her great aunt at Micklethwayte—Oh joy of joys!—but when the Canon made the proposition in his brother's room, Mr. Egremont cut it short with 'I'm not going to have ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... man; and thinks there is no one in the world like Miss Blomfield. He told her he had been carefully observing her conduct in the affairs of daily life for eight years. My dear Regie, fancy waiting eight years for one's next door neighbour, when one was quite old to begin with! You have no idea how much younger and better she looks in a home of her own, and a handsome silk dress. Can you fancy her always apologising for being so happy? She thinks she has too much happiness, and is idle, and who knows ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was Scrape; that I hired him myself; of whom I hired him; and at whose recommendation I smiled, and nodded so as to let the knave see I understood he was telling me a chain of falsehoods, but did not choose to begin with any violent ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... doubt that—in some way or other, direct or indirect, at tenth or twentieth hand perhaps—Bunyan was acquainted with it: but this is of no importance. He might undoubtedly have got all his materials straight out of the Bible. But his working of them up is all his own, and is wonderful. Here, to begin with, is the marvel not merely of a continuation which is not a falling off, but of a repetition of the same general scheme with different but closely connected personages, which is entirely free from monotony. One is so ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... To begin with, the present art of singing is of comparatively recent origin. It is indeed probable that man had been using the voice in something akin to song for thousands of years before the dawn of history. Song of some kind has always played an ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... gone in for the policy of taking all that the other man liked to give him, and giving rather more in exchange. Now, however, he was obliged to alter his whole style. For a variety of reasons it was necessary that he should come out of this fight with as few marks as possible. To begin with, he represented, in a sense, the Majesty of the Law. He was tackling Walton more by way of an object-lesson to the Kayite mutineers than for his own personal satisfaction. The object-lesson would lose in impressiveness if he were compelled to go about for a week or so with a pair of black eyes, ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... a curious relation, for though it must have been simple on his side, on hers it was full of complication. To begin with his society was a great relief from her loneliness. Again, she had already, for want of another enthusiasm, conceived an acute interest in his curious temperament, and her eagerness to get to the bottom of it, and, if possible, to find a cure, was now ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... degree of resolution far higher than that required to combat obstacles, however formidable in themselves, where active exertion, which tasks the utmost energies of the soldier, renews his spirits and raises them to a contempt of danger. It was calling on him, in short, to begin with achieving that most difficult of all victories, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... believe you!" cried Lapham brutally, but a wild predatory hope made his heart leap so that it seemed to turn over in his breast. "I don't believe there are any such parties to begin with; and in the next place, I don't believe they would buy at any such figure; unless—unless you've lied to them, as you've lied to me. Did you tell them about ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... have hit the explanation. Carrissima was beside herself. Of course," he added, "I shall clear the matter up, but I tell you, to begin with, I don't ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... so. He would just take up the whole question and deal with it in a temperate reasonable way. It was so necessary to be reasonable and temperate in these questions—and not to think of death as a solution. Marriages to begin with were too easy to make and too difficult to break; countless girls—Lady Harman was only a type—were married long before they could know the beginnings of their own minds. We wanted to delay marriage—until the middle twenties, say. Why not? Or if by the infirmities ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... wonder alternately in London and Paris, and finally brought to one, at least, an inglorious competency of L10 a month. Fifty eventful years were, however, to roll past before that anti-climax to the drama of their lives. To begin with, when they had shaken off the dust of New France, they repaired to Boston, propounding to the New England traders the novel scheme for furnishing an expedition to be sent round to Hudson's Bay by way of the sea; at the same time offering their own experience for service ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... Areopagite says: "But before all things it is good to begin with prayer, as thereby giving ourselves up to and uniting ourselves with God."[105] But union with God comes through love, and love belongs to the appetitive powers; therefore prayer, too, would seem to belong to the ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... you're a peach!" exclaimed Roger. "I suppose I might put my plant up on your place to begin with. But no, this is the spot the Smithsonian picked, it's government land, and to move now might make endless complications. But you'll have your pumping plant, Charley, before any one else does. And we'll make the alfalfa crops pay ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... answer to the remonstrances of the infuriated voyager. Then you must either knock under and look as though you liked it, or trek on into the "unhostelled" wilderness. But on this occasion John fared well enough. To begin with, he knew the owners of the place, who were very civil people if approached in a humble spirit, and, furthermore, he found everybody in such a state of unpleasurable excitement that they were only too glad to get another Englishman with whom to talk ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... With some such thoughts I commended the slaves on the plantation to the little overseer's wife; I did not tell my thoughts to her, they would have scared the poor little woman half out of her senses. To begin with, her bread, her husband's occupation, has its root in slavery; it would be difficult for her to think as I do of it. I am afraid her care, even of the bodily habits and sicknesses of the people left in Mrs. G——'s charge, will not be worth much, for nobody treats others ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... the word 'commandment' here means, not this or that specific precept, but the whole body of Christian revelation, considered as containing laws for life. And to begin with, and only to mention, it is something to get that point of view, that all which God says, be it promise, be it self-manifestation, be it threatening, or be it anything else, has a preceptive bearing, and is meant to influence life and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... part of the conversation, and when it turned upon the arrest of Jennet and her mother, the expression of the child's countenance, malicious enough to begin with, became desperately malignant, and she was only restrained by certain signs from the cat, which appeared to be intelligible to her, from some act of mischief. At last even this failed, and before the animal could descend and check her, she crept round ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... 942. To begin with, you want to bear in mind that there is nothing difficult, complicated or mysterious about applied minor tactics—it is just simply the application of plain, every-day, common horse sense—the whole thing consists in familiarizing yourself with certain general principles ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... back, of my lady's father, the old lord with the short temper and the long tongue. He had five children in all. Two sons to begin with; then, after a long time, his wife broke out breeding again, and the three young ladies came briskly one after the other, as fast as the nature of things would permit; my mistress, as before mentioned, being the youngest and best of the three. Of the two sons, the eldest, Arthur, inherited the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... He had determined to begin with moderation, or in other words to ask at first for only two patents. The first of these was to cover the phonograph. The second was to give ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... Al. "Just as if one seeking the office of state physician were to begin with a like exordium." {armoseie} "it would be consistent (with what has ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... some respect for him, to begin with. I have heard so much of my being too tall, all my life, that I am apt to feel a profound veneration for men who have made the furthest escape from that evil. By the way, my dear, I should not wonder ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... To begin with, it is distinctly nomadic. The great rolls of birch bark to cover the pointed tepees are easily transported in the bottoms of canoes, and the poles are quickly cut and put in place. As a consequence, the ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... How, to begin with, may I label and describe my present self? There, immediately, I am faced with one of the difficulties of this task. One can say of most men that they are this or that; of this class, order, sect, party, or type; and, behold them ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... semblance that we see, which very often unfairly either attracts or repels us? We can always SHOW ourselves at our best, but we must, at last, reveal our true colors through our thoughts and speech. Isn't it better to begin with the real ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... state of things it was necessary to begin with the officers of Government, of whose corruption and arbitrary conduct, complaints—signed by whole communities—were daily arriving from every part of the province; to such an extent, indeed, was this misrule carried, that neither the lives nor property ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... that confronts me when I am called to the sickbed of a child is the frantic and almost hysterical mental condition of the mother, and to begin with, I have to explain to her the destructive influence of ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... What is arrogance? To begin with, it is the besetting sin of young men who have begun to prosper by their own exertions in the affairs of the world. It is not pride, which is a more or less just estimate of one's own power and responsibilities. It is not vanity or conceit, which consists in pluming oneself exactly on the qualities ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... time; and to begin with, I will cut off what hair is necessary. I shall do it a good deal quicker than you would. Then we will leave you to yourself, to stain your skin and put on your disguise. When you have finished, clap your hands. Ibrahim ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... Todd's credit that she was able to take her fresh duties quite calmly, and without any fuss or exhibition of nerves. She was not a nervy woman, to begin with, and she had made a great point of cultivating self-control. With her tall figure, clear grey eyes, bright complexion, and abundant chestnut hair, she made a very favourable impression upon those parents who had brought their daughters back to school in person. At the ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... and give you some notion of her: not that first impression, whatever it may have been, but the absolute reality of her as I gradually learned to see it. To begin with, I must repeat and reiterate over and over again, that she was, beyond all comparison, the most graceful and exquisite woman I have ever seen, but with a grace and an exquisiteness that had nothing to do with any preconceived notion or previous experience of what goes by these names: grace and exquisiteness ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... me to win the Eagle award. Some choice, hey? I had seven badges to begin with; maybe that's why they wished it onto me. I had camping, cooking, athletics, pioneering, angling, that's a cinch, that's easy, and, let's see—carpentry and bugling. That's the easiest one of the lot, just blow through ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... discovered this kitchen garden, found it to her mind, and thereafter made free of it with the cheerfullest insouciance. The dark tunnel, to begin with, put her in mind of some adventure in a fairy tale she could not recall; but it opened of a sudden and enchantingly upon sunshine and beds of onions, parsley, cabbages, with pale yellow butterflies hovering. Old Battershall, ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... To begin with the Celestial Persons: The Guardian Angels of Paradise are described as returning to Heaven upon the Fall of Man, in order to approve their Vigilance; their Arrival, their Manner of Reception, with the Sorrow which appear'd in themselves, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and Christophe soon saw that. In vain did he try to accept Euler's memories of his grandfather. He could only get from him a discolored caricature of Jean Michel, and scraps of talk that were utterly uninteresting. Euler's stories used invariably to begin with: "As I used to say to your poor grandfather..." He could remember nothing else. He had heard only what he had ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... enormously more before they have done. The middle classes do the same. So there is a scarcity of linen. In England, where four-fifths of the population use cotton to the exclusion of linen, they make nothing but cotton paper. The cotton paper is very soft and easily creased to begin with, and it has a further defect: it is so soluble that if you seep a book made of cotton paper in water for fifteen minutes, it turns to a pulp, while an old book left in water for a couple of hours is not spoilt. ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... "Why, I never knew the time to go as quickly as it does lately. It doesn't seem any while at all since you came, and you've been here over two months. Just let's think what we'll do next Christmas, when father is home. To begin with, I'm going down to the dock with Mr. Turner, so that when the ship comes in he'll see me the first thing. Then we'll come up here, and you and Delia will be waiting to welcome him at the door, and there'll ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... so important a place in the modern world, that we ought to begin with that. There is plenty of gay music, easy to understand, which is in harmony with the laws of art, and the people ought to hear it instead of the horrors which they cram into our ears under the pretence of satisfying our tastes. What pleases people most is sentimental music, but ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... way—by geometrical progression, so to speak—linking detail to detail in a steadily advancing and remorselessly consistent and unassailable march upon this tinsel toy fortress of error, the dream fabric of a callow imagination. To begin with, young sir, I desire to ask you but three questions at present—at present. Did I understand you to say it was your opinion that the supposititious candle was lighted at about eight ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I saw that his eyes were shut I sat down on a box to think. To tell the truth, I was not altogether happy in my mind. To begin with I did not know how the twenty bearers would behave under fire. They might be seized with panic and rush about, in which case I determined to let them out of the boma to take their chance, for panic is a ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... William Shelley, Judge of the Common Pleas under Henry VII, thence to a Member of Parliament in 1415, and to the reign of Edward I, or even to the Norman Conquest. The Worminghurst Shelleys start with Henry Shelley, who died in 1623. It will be sufficient here to begin with the poet's grandfather, Bysshe Shelley. He was born at Christ Church, Newark, North America, and raised to a noticeable height, chiefly by two wealthy marriages, the fortunes of the junior branch. Handsome, keen-minded, ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... think; all depends on the weather; but, if it's at all like today, you can't do better, I should think, than the old March brown and a palmer to begin with. Then, for change, this hare's ear, and an alder fly, perhaps; or,—let me see," and he began searching the glittering heap to select a color to go with the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... feel that we can take the time or exercise the care for the proper training of our voices; and such training is not made a prominent feature, as it should be, in all American schools. Indeed, if it were, we would have to begin with the teachers; for the typical teacher's voice, especially in our public schools, coming from unnecessary nervous strain is something frightful. In a large school-room a teacher can be heard, and more impressively heard, in common conversational tones; for then it is ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... be to compress the subjects—so multitudinous are they—within the thousand feet allowed by the architect. To begin with the Wittenagemot, or meeting of the wise men, and to end with portraits of Mr. Roebuck's ancestors—to say nothing of the fine imaginative sketch of the Member for Bath tilting, in the mode of Quixote with the steam-press of Printing-house-square—will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... falling in love in the abstract, and let no man condemn it without a trial, for many a long-winded argument could be urged in its defence. It is always wrong to commence business without capital, and Neal had a good stock to begin with. All we beg is that the reader will not confound it with Platonism, which never marries; but he is at full liberty to call it Socratism, which takes unto itself ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... But to begin with that side of More of which you know nothing, in height and stature he is not tall, nor again noticeably short, but there is such symmetry in all his limbs as leaves nothing to be desired here. He has a fair skin, his complexion glowing rather than pale, though far from ruddy, but for a very faint ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... difficulties and dangers, added new dangers and difficulties, greater than either. Plainly, there were two ways, and only two, of going about the business. Professor Langley held that in order to learn to fly, you must have a flying machine to begin with. Wilbur Wright, whose views on the point never varied from first to last, held that you must have a man to begin with. The brothers were impatient of 'the wasteful extravagance of mounting delicate and costly machinery on wings which no one knew ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... science, I fancy that he would end by being both a wiser and a sadder man. At least I am certain that in learning more he would feel that he is understanding less—that the archaic simplicity of his earlier explanations must give place to a matured perplexity upon the whole subject. To begin with, he would now find that every one of the adjustments of means to ends which excited his admiration on the sea-coast were due to physical causes which are perfectly well understood. The cliffs stood at the opening of the bay because the sea in past ages ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... To begin with, we do not want all men to be alike. We do not want to lay down a pattern or type to which men of all sorts are to be made by some means or another to approximate. This is the ideal of the impatient administrator. A bad teacher will aim at imposing his ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... 1900. He had studied Karl Marx and his doctrines of history with profound attention, yet he could not apply them at Paris. Langley, with the ease of a great master of experiment, threw out of the field every exhibit that did not reveal a new application of force, and naturally threw out, to begin with, almost the whole art exhibit. Equally, he ignored almost the whole industrial exhibit. He led his pupil directly to the forces. His chief interest was in new motors to make his airship feasible, and he taught Adams the astonishing complexities of the new Daimler ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the women, he still possesses several of the articles of furniture which are to be met with in the houses of those who still observe the old style of living. Let us take the furniture of the kitchen to begin with. Above the hearth is slung by ropes of cane a swinging wooden framework blackened with the smoke of years, upon which are spread the faggots of resinous fir-wood used for kindling the fire. Above this again is a wooden framework fixed on to the beams of the house, upon ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... put-together-out-of-one's-head, thing. All this it must be, to begin with. The best type of it being the most practically fictile—a Greek vase. A thing which has two sides to be seen, two handles to be carried by, and a bottom to stand on, and a top to be poured out of, this, every right fiction is, whatever else it may be. Planned rigorously, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... special fashion with respect to this point, these forms, faculties, aspects of ourselves. In this place we shall not seek a reply to this question; nor shall we say, basing our answer on experience and observation, that God is in our feeling, etc. But, to begin with, we will confine ourselves to what we have actually before us, to this One, to this universal, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... it would be better, at first," said I, "to call upon them in the name of about twopence a head. Then, when we get a nice little body of adherents to begin with, the other subjects will fall in, of their own accord, if we manage ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton |
