"To the letter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and stared about him. His face had undergone an awful change. Then he returned to the letter, and in jerky sentences ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... with the marriage of her brother, the secret chamber had been visited, the manuscript brought forth to be read; but one of the party that but a few moments before occupied that room was no more—Fernand Wagner was dead! True to the letter were the words of the founder of the order of the Rosy Cross, that "the spell which the Evil One hath cast upon thee, Fernand Wagner, shall be broken only on that day and that hour when thine eyes shall behold the bleached skeletons of two innocent victims suspended ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... Bowmore as he presented himself on the surface. He received Percy politely—but with a preoccupied air. Every now and then, his restless eyes wandered from the visitor to an open letter in his hand. Charlotte, observing him, pointed to the letter. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... have a carpenter," he said aloud; and, once more placing his ear to the letter slit, he listened, and then came away to where ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... owners with triumph. He found his English friends willing to venture the capital required, and without further delay the manufacture of a new cable was taken in hand. In every detail the recommendations of the Scientific Committee were carried out to the letter, so that the cable of 1865 was incomparably superior to that of 1858. First, the central copper wire, which was the nerve along which the lightning was to run, was nearly three times larger than before. The old conductor was a strand consisting of seven fine wires, six laid around ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... first few moments he hardly knew what he wrote. It was only when he reached the end of the first page that he seemed to realise with a start what he had done. He looked back at the written lines with something of a shock. There was no beginning to the letter, no date or address; it simply started off as if the pen had been guided by some influence ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... the dreams inspired by the covenant in which God had chosen Israel for his own. In proportion as the rabbinic formalism held control of the hearts of the people, the Messianic hope lost its warmth and vigor. Yet the scribes did not abandon the prophetic optimism; they held to the letter of the hope, but as its fulfilment was for them dependent on perfect obedience to the law, oral and written, their interest was diverted to the traditions, and their strength was given to legal disputations. Of the rest of the people, the Sadducees naturally gave little thought to ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... five o'clock, ordered his servant to keep up his fire, desired him to pack his books and linen at the bottom of the trunk, and to place his coats at the top. He then appears to have made the following addition to the letter ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... tells us, strongly condemned the execution of heretics at Goslar, and, had he been there, would have acted as St. Martin of Tours in the case of Priscillian.[1] His reply to the letter of the Bishop of Chalons reveals his inmost thoughts on the subject. "To use the sword of the civil authority," he says, "against the Manicheans,[2] is contrary to the spirit of the Church, and the teaching of her Divine Founder. The Saviour ordered us to let the cockle ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... ecclesiastical authority, he says, "A man does not deceive that Bishop whom he sees, but he practises rather upon the Bishop Invisible, and so the question is not with flesh, but with God, who knows the secret heart." I wished to act on this principle to the letter, and I may say with confidence that I never consciously transgressed it. I loved to act in the sight of my bishop, as if I was, as it were, in the sight of God. It was one of my special safeguards against myself and of my supports; I could ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... halt we turned off the roadway and followed the line, obeying to the letter the major's warning to bend low and creep along under cover of the low embankment, "Now we'll slip through here," said the major, after a six-hundred-yards' crawl. We hurried through what had been an important German depot. There was one tremendous dump of eight-gallon, basket-covered ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... check" was for fifty-five thousand pounds and was within five thousand pounds of the amount standing to Mr. Holland's account in the bank. There was a postscript to the letter: ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... theology the early men are represented by the Evangelicals, the times of utter decadence by infidelity—the middle race of giants is yet to come, and will be found in those who, while seeing something far beyond either minute accuracy or minute inaccuracy, are yet fully alive both to the letter and to ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... anxious to show is that non-co-operationists must be true as well to the spirit as to the letter of their vow if they would gain Swaraj within one year. They may forget non-co-operation but they dare not forget non-violence. Indeed, non-co-operation is non-violence. We are violent when we sustain a government whose creed is violence. It bases itself finally not on right but on might. Its ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... following my Lord Carteret's orders to the letter. I am to effect no arrest until I have ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... head of the stairway and I looked up pleasantly, half-expecting, I suppose, that she would come down and deliver my darling dolly safely into my hands. But she didn't. If I were giving orders she would obey me to the letter. She 'pitched me Lilly.' I gave a dismal wail of dismay as I saw my dear baby come hurtling through the air, but when she landed on her blessed head, and I heard the crack of breaking china, I just abandoned ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... the midst of a sentence being like a ship at sea, knowing no rest or comfort till safely piloted into the harbour of a full stop, Lady Petherwin just replied with 'What,' in an occupied tone, not rising to interrogation. After signing her name to the letter, she ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... Adiaphorists (in which the Leipzig Interim is Defended) in Order to Guard Oneself against the Present Counterfeiters of the True Religion," 1549.—"Answer of Magister Nicolas Gallus and Matthias Flacius Illy. to the Letter of Some Preachers in Meissen regarding the Question whether One should Abandon His Parish rather than Don the Cassock" (linea vestis, Chorrock).—"Against the Extract of the Leipzig Interim, or the Small Interim," by Flacius, 1549.—"Book concerning True and False Adiaphora (Liber ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... fact that so large a proportion of the men had joined the Indian Expedition. It is true they had not all stayed with it. The retrograde movement of Colonel Salomon and his failure later on to obey Blunt's order to the letter[548] that he should return to the support of the Indians had disheartened them and many of the enlisted braves had deserted the ranks, as chance offered, and had strayed back to their families in the refugee ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... with the Creator. You urge Christ's followers' simplicity: But how does shifting blame, evade it? Have wisdom's words no more felicity? The stumbling-block, his speech—who laid it? How comes it that for one found able To sift the truth of it from fable, Millions believe it to the letter? Christ's goodness, then—does that fare better? Strange goodness, which upon the score Of being goodness, the mere due Of man to fellow-man, much more To God,—should take another view Of its possessor's privilege, And bid him rule ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... proof that they could not have happened then. Our duty is to believe what our ancient writings tell us, to see that the lamps are kept burning before the icons, and that our ceremonials are observed to the letter. A priest has no right to question what is sanctioned by ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... with the cries of the new arrivals. To my constant enquiries of the blacks for this bird, I was always told by them that when the wind and rain came from the north-west the birds would come, and their prediction was verified to the letter. They also say the birds come from "Dowdui" (New Guinea). I think this probable, as several of the birds described by the French naturalist, M. Lesson, as found by him in New Guinea have also appeared here for the breeding season. The 'Megapodius Tumulus' is also worthy of mention, on account ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... whispered in the homes of the rich and powerful; the name with which the death-sentences of the Terrorists were invariably signed, and which had come to be an infallible guarantee that they would be carried out to the letter. ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... in a charitable way. The property was fairly purchased, and she had the title-deed in her possession, but perceiving that other interested parties also murmured about the sale, far from defending her rights, according to the letter of the law, she left the whole matter at the discretion of the adverse party, saying pleasantly that she wished, at any cost, to preserve charity with her neighbor, and she also wished her neighbor to feel charitably disposed towards her. Her own words on the occasion are: ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... was carried out to the letter. On the following morning, after the sun was well up, Saduko, as a great chief does, sent forward two bedizened heralds to announce his approach to Umbezi, after whom followed two other men to sing his deeds and praises. (By the way, I observed that they had clearly been ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... took their name from the Arab sheik Mohammed ben Abd-el-Wahab, arose in the province of Nedj, in Central Arabia, about 1760. Half-socialists, half-puritans, they insisted on fulfilling to the letter the precepts of the Koran. In 1803-4 they attacked and ravaged Mecca and Medinah, and in 1808 they invaded Syria and took Damascus. During Byron's residence in the East they were at the height of their power, and seemed ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... altered, with the door to the south, Which did very well in time of a drought; Then Lieutenant G., he thought it to better— He changed it a little, but not to the letter. ...
— Our Little Brown House, A Poem of West Point • Maria L. Stewart
... man who would obey to the letter, Monsieur; a dark-faced soldier, with an iron jaw. He had lost one arm in battle, and was loyal to ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... a joke as well as any man in New York, and was not at all averse from chaffing some of his less gifted colleagues when their obtuseness or faithful adherence to the letter of instructions permitted a criminal to befool them; but he resented the levity of Curtis's tone now, though, deep in his heart, he felt ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... the lieutenant had exhausted a grumble of unusual intensity, and the fair Geraldine (his eldest child) had obeyed him to the letter, by keeping her mouth full while she warmed a plate for him, it was not long before his usual luck befell the bold Carroway. Rap, rap, came a knock at the side door of his cottage—a knock only too familiar; and he ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... "macron" means a horizontal line over a letter. "Supralinear" means directly over a letter; "sublinear" means directly under a letter. The "y" referred to below is an Early Modern English form of the Anglo-Saxon thorn character, representing "th," but identical in appearance to the letter "y." ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde
... outside the walls of his hut. The poor fellow took the quinine and the paper with the deepest reverence, made me a most lowly salaam or obeisance, and departed with a light heart. He carried out my instructions to the letter, the quinine acted like a charm on the feverish woman, and I found myself quite ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... biassed in favour of this admittedly wonderful people. I took care to instruct my soldiers to salute every Japanese officer and to be most polite to every Japanese soldier, and they carried out my instructions to the letter; but my attention was called to the fact that only on rare occasions did a Japanese officer take the trouble to return the salute of my men, and still more rarely did a Japanese soldier salute an English officer. He was much more likely to ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... I thought directly of the strange postscript which Mrs. Van Brandt had made me add to the letter that I wrote for her at the Edinburgh inn. In that case also she had only contemplated remaining in her employment for three ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... construction camp for the purpose of getting his money. Mr. Bascomb, I am not trying to ride a high horse. I recognize that you are president of the company, and that I must take all reasonable orders from you and carry them out to the letter. Yet I can't take any orders that would simply hinder my work and damage my reputation as an engineer. Evarts can't come back into this camp as long as I am in ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... letter, recording the flight of these nobles, he mentions eight of their accomplices, and another list is pinned to the letter, giving names of men "all at the death of Davy and privy thereunto." This applies to about a dozen men, being a marginal note opposite their names. A line lower is added, "John Knox, John Craig, preachers." {252b} There is no other ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... men. One of the boats was leaking, but Sorenson was holding the water easily with the pumps. The Falcon's shaft was sprung but the propeller was still turning. To a man, the various captains reported that their men had obeyed instructions to the letter. No acts of violence had as yet been committed by any of the American crews. The ex-sailors, though chafing at their inaction, ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... but of the spirit; for the letter killeth." Origen and St. Gregory held that the Gospels were not to be taken in their literal sense; and Athanasius admonishes us that "Should we understand sacred writ according to the letter, we should fall into the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... grant of ten thousand pounds, which had been unanimously voted to his lordship by the Honourable East India Company, for his services at the battle off the Nile; and his considerate regard to their interests, demonstrated by his judicious conduct immediately after that glorious event. To the letter from Sir Stephen Lushington, Bart. Chairman of the Court of Directors, which conveyed this agreeable information, his lordship instantly wrote the ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... snarled, howled, and growled, and manifested as strong an indisposition to compromise as a South Carolina fire-eater. He placed himself in front of the hero of the night's adventure, as resolute and as intractable as though he had known all the facts in the case, and intended to carry out to the letter the wishes of ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... right of conquest, as a reprehensibly sensitive guardian of Imperial greatness. On the other hand, I am in a position to state the name of the Governor-General who signed the order with the marginal note "to be carried out to the letter" in his own handwriting. The gentleman's name was Bezak. A high dignitary, an energetic official, the idol for a time ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... Well, but to the letter—Yet what need of further explanation after the hints in my former? The widow can't be removed; and that's enough: and Mennell's work is over; and his conscience left to plague him for his own sins, and not another man's: and, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... that so it is constrained by its imperial ambitions to displace much of the population in its subject territories, the Fatherland on the other hand is under-populated— notoriously, though not according to the letter of the diplomatic parables on this head—and for the calculable future must continue to be under-populated; provided that the state of the industrial arts continues subject to change in the same general direction as hitherto, and provided that no radical change affects the German birth-rate. ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... must be taken at once," insisted Gorham. "I told you, gentlemen, that I had awakened from my Utopian dream. I shall make no more promises until I am absolutely certain that they will be made good to the letter." ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... acquaintance with the new, he would withdraw his friendship from him, as a creature unworthy of it. This had a deep effect upon Clare, and though the immediate promise of reform made by him, was not fulfilled to the letter, his life, for the next seven or eight months, was a constant struggle between duty and affection, in which duty at last got the ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... most needed, and where his presence was effective in preventing disaster. The charge in which Farnsworth lost his life was ordered by Kilpatrick and was unquestionably against the former's judgment. But he was too brave a man and too conscientious to do anything else than obey orders to the letter. His courage had been put to the proof in more than a score of battles. As an officer in the Eighth Illinois cavalry and as an aid on the staff of General Pleasonton, chief of cavalry, he had won such deserved ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... solemn duty to meet force by force"—and promised that the decision of the aforesaid Convention "representing the Sovereignty of the State, and amenable to no earthly tribunal," should be, by him, "carried out to the letter." He recommended the thorough reorganization of the Militia; the arming of every man in the State between the ages of eighteen and forty-five; and the immediate enrollment of ten thousand volunteers officered by themselves; and concluded with a confident "appeal to the Disposer of all human ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... The remembrance ever returned to lay its cold hand upon his heart, and with it came the grim conviction that if Lord Newhaven had drawn the short lighter he would have carried out the agreement to the letter. Whether it was extravagant, unchristian, whatever might have been truly said of that unholy compact, Lord Newhaven ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... 1583 Hakluyt thought to go to Newfoundland with Gilbert's expedition, according to the letter of Parmenius, but fortunately did not go. But in the autumn of the same year Walsingham sent him to Paris nominally as chaplain to the English Ambassador at the French court, Sir Edward Stafford, but really to pursue his geographical investigations into the west and learn what the French and Spanish ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... was in the bond, and I stand to the letter of my bond, Shylock. There is a pile of clouds in the east, it's not fair, and ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... the promise of her letter, and to the letter it has been kept. All the news and scandal of a large county forty years ago, and a hundred years before, and ever since; all the marriages, deaths, births, elopements, law-suits, and casualties of her own times, her ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... her breast a tiny cross. "I had that as a child. Would I kiss it, and—tell you a lie in the next breath?" He did not answer. "I have lived up to the letter of my contract with his excellency. It is at an end. Perhaps I am a little sorry for my own part"—with a laugh slightly reckless—"or maybe"—with a flash of seriousness—- "I have become, in the least, afraid. Your laws are very severe, and—I had not counted on mademoiselle's ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... was observed to the letter on both sides. Young Bowes invariably spoke civilly to us, and we obeyed his orders with a prompt cheerfulness that left ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... motive of the plot was to free themselves and France from the tyranny of Henry IV. The King insisted peremptorily, despite of any objections from Aerssens, that the thing must be done and his instructions carried out to the letter. So much he expected of the States, and they should care no more for ulterior consequences, he said, than he had done for the wrath of Spain when he frankly undertook their cause. Conde was important only because his relative, and he declared that if the Prince ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... voice would be heard leading the song of praise, while the deep, clear bass notes of Vice-President Wheeler rounded up the melody. She almost always had one or two young ladies as her guests, and she carried out the official programme of receptions to the letter. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... forced its own way through the envelope, and disappeared up the chimney in a whirlwind?" asked the officer, bringing sarcasm to his aid. "If the facts are as you have stated, that only the two Channings had access to the letter, the guilt must lie with one of them. Facts are ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... were "quits;" and that Bayard should have the liberty of returning to his commander without ransom. King Henry, however, stipulated that the knight should remain en parole in Flanders for six weeks. Bayard cheerfully consented to the terms, and being "le chevalier sans reproche," kept his promise to the letter. ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... going far wrong in the practice of his profession, and, broken, will not land him in jail. It is presupposed that engineers are men of intelligence. A man of intelligence will hold himself to the spirit of the Ten Commandments if he would attain to success, and to the letter of them if he would be happy during the declining days of his life. Most engineers realize this and accept it as their every-day working creed. Life to them, like the medium through which they give expression ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... on an average, women are not as capable of higher development as men, that they cannot grow into geniuses and great philosophers, was this a criterion for men when, at least according to the letter of the law, they were placed on a footing of equality with "geniuses" and "philosophers?" The identical men of learning, who deny higher aptitudes to woman, are quite inclined to do the same to artisans and workingmen. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... come an answer to the letter asking her parents' consent to her union with him; but to Marcia's amazement her father took a line quite other than the one she had expected him to take. Whether she had compromised herself or whether she had not seemed a question for the future rather than the present with ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... going bankrupt, to be sure, but the owners were making fortunes; they knew that lawyers were being corrupted with free passes and the state legislatures manipulated by lobbyists; and they believed that rates were extortionate. The seizure and purchase of public land, sometimes contrary to the letter of the law, more often contrary to its spirit, was looked upon as an intolerable evil. Moreover, the westerner was in debt. He had borrowed from the East to buy his farm and his machinery and to make both ends meet ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... time, "about 1839, when the theory was clearly conceived," meaning, no doubt, the end of 1838 and beginning of 1839, when the reading of Malthus had given him the key to the idea of natural selection. But this explanation does not apply to the letter to Mr. Wallace; and with regard to the passage (My father certainly saw the proofs of the paper, for he added a foot-note apologising for the style of the extracts, on the ground that the "work was never intended for publication.") in ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... that it is this overflowing life of Peter which invests titular bishops with the names of dead sees. Thus they sit as members of a General Council, verifying to the letter St. Cyprian's adage, that the episcopate is one, of which a part is held by each without division of ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... himself unhappy in London?" she said, as she went back to the letter. "Why should he pretend to condemn the very place which most men find the fittest for all their energies? Were I a man, no earthly consideration should induce me to live elsewhere. It is odd how we differ in ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... that for the moment he was not within striking distance of his foe, whether on flank or on rear. No course of action presented itself to Massy that was not fraught with grave contingencies. If he should keep to the letter of his orders, the Afghan host might be in Cabul in a couple of hours. Should he retire slowly, striving to retard the Afghan advance by his cannon fire and by the threatening demonstrations of his cavalry, the enemy might follow him up so vigorously ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... rallying its editor on "his Quixotism in expecting that the public will ever pretend to understand his lucubrations or feel any interest in subjects of such sad and unkempt antiquity." Southey, ever good-natured, complied, even amid the unceasing press of his work, with the request; and to the letter of lightly-touched satire which he contributed to the journal he added a few private lines of friendly counsel, strongly urging Coleridge to give two or three amusing numbers, and he would hear of admiration on every side. "Insert too," he suggested, "a few more poems—any that you ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... whimsical custom among the ancients, (observes Larcher) to give as nicknames the letters of the alphabet. Thus a lame girl was called Lambda, on account of the resemblance which her lameness made her bear to the letter [Greek: l], or lambda! AEsop was called Theta by his master, from his superior acuteness. Another was called Beta, from his love of beet. It was thus Scarron, with infinite good temper, alluded to his zig-zag ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... to lure Vane to Spring Gardens is not of much consequence. The fellow had a soft, slimy tongue and an oily manner. Moreover, Rofflash's shrewd guess at Vane's absence of will power after a drinking bout was verified to the letter. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... could cure. He had persuaded himself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentle wife by settling on her the half of his property, and with chivalrous devotion towards another and greater woman by sharing her fate, was possible. And though he meant to adhere to Eustacia's instructions to the letter, to deposit her where she wished and to leave her, should that be her will, the spell that she had cast over him intensified, and his heart was beating fast in the anticipated futility of such commands in the face of a mutual wish that they should ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... rien," he replied civilly, and the stamping of the letters being completed, he took them to the letter-box. ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... ambiguous promise poor Mrs. Welman was forced to be content. Whatever his inward view of his own meaning was, Ayre certainly fulfilled to the letter his promise of keeping an eye on them. Kate was at first much annoyed at his appearance; she thought she saw in him an emissary of Eugene. Sir Roderick tactfully disabused her mind of this notion, and, without intruding himself, he managed to be with them a good deal, and with Haddington ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... which Baron von Wallmoden and his wife had been bidden were carried out to the letter. Antonie von Schoenau plighted her troth to her ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... staying over night, not in Egypt, but at the plantation of Doctor W——, a short time before his place was despoiled by the Indians, he related an encounter, which though not so remarkable, is undoubtedly true to the letter. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... shrill lamentations, on hearing which Jesus said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but for yourselves and your children; for behold the days come when they shall say to the mountains, Fall on us! and to the hills, Cover us!" It was a weird prophecy, and ere a generation passed it was to the letter fulfilled. There were those in that company who lived to see the Holy City compassed about by a forest of hostile spears. Its inhabitants were brought low by famine and pestilence, insomuch that the eyes of mothers rested hungrily on the white flesh of their own children. ...
— The Centurion's Story • David James Burrell
... Tod then begged that Miss Mally, their hostess, would favour the company with Mrs. Pringle's communication. To this request that considerate maiden ornament of the Kirkgate deemed it necessary, by way of preface to the letter, to say, "Ye a' ken that Mrs. Pringle's a managing woman, and ye maunna expect any metaphysical philosophy from her." In the meantime, having taken the letter from her pocket, and placed her spectacles on that functionary of the face which was destined ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... do you understand, Prescott? You know—-" here Dr. Bentley assumed an air of authority—-" I'm more than the mere physician. I'm medical director to your nine. So you're in duty bound to follow my orders to the letter." ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... wrote a gracious answer to the letter, and ordered flowers sent to Doctor Beal's Nursing Home, for Mr. Henry Morehouse. Then she proceeded to forget him, unconscious of the direct influence his illness was to have upon her future. She thought far more about Mr. Nickson Hilliard, whom she had avoided ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... dramatic poet, born at Hitchin, Hertfordshire; wrote numerous plays, both in tragedy and comedy, as well as poems, of unequal merit, but his great achievement, and the one on which his fame rests, is his translation into verse of the works of Homer, which, though not always true to the letter, is instinct with somewhat of the freshness and fire of the original; his translation is reckoned the best yet done into English verse, and the best rendering into verse of any ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... is as much a part of the translator's duty as fidelity to the matter. If he can please all parties, so much the better; but his first duty is to those who look to him for as faithful a representation of his author as it is in his power to give them, faithful to the letter so long as fidelity is practicable, faithful to the spirit so far ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... in all human probability have expressed himself in this manner, and Rex knew Greif well enough to know the son would have fulfilled the father's injunctions and carried out his orders to the letter, no matter ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... no stragglers from other camps to pass these lines, and I shall obey my orders to the letter," replied the official, who, for some reason or other, seemed to ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... the scout were carefully obeyed to the letter, for, indeed, there could have been no excuse for disregarding them. He understood perfectly the nature of the task he had undertaken, and the risk he ran was entirely for ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... not return to Tournebut till August 4th. The same day Soyer received a letter from Mme. Acquet, on the envelope of which she had written, "For Mama." It was an answer to the letter sent to Croissanville by Lefebre. Mme. Acquet said that her mother's departure did her a great wrong, but that all danger was over and Lefebre could return to Falaise without fear. As for herself, she had found refuge with a reliable ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... of course; but you will have to accept my assurance that I am honest. I promise to fulfill my part of the bargain—literally to the letter. You may verify and find that the series is complete. Your attorneys, to whom you wrote these, will doubtless tell you that they personally destroyed these documents, but they doubtless have a record of the dates of letters received at this time. You can compare; they are all there; ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... Cyrus himself to show as much zeal as possible in the prosecution of the war. Cyrus replied that not only had he received express injunction from his father to the same effect, but that his own views coincided with their wishes, which he was determined to carry out to the letter. He had, he informed them, brought with him five hundred talents; (1) and if that sum failed, he had still the private revenue, which his father allowed him, to fall back upon, and when this resource was in its turn exhausted, he would ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... bitterness when people persisted in confounding one with another. Morbid it was if you like it—perhaps very morbid—but all these heaps of letters which go into the fire one after the other, and which, because I am a woman and have written verses, it seems so amusing to the letter-writers of your sex to write and see 'what will come of it,' ... some, from kind good motives I know, ... well, ... how could it all make for me even such a narrow strip of sunshine as Flush finds on ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... use the Bible as a rigid, moral law to be fulfilled to the letter. His ethics were an elaborate casuistry, a method of finding the proper rule to govern the particular act. He preached a new legalism; [Sidenote: Legalism] he took Scripture as the Pharisees took the Law, and Luther's sayings as they took the Prophets, and he turned ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... his faith; but being, I suppose, myself one of the last surviving witnesses of the character of recluse life as it still existed in the beginning of this century, I can point to the portraiture of it given by Scott in the introduction to 'The Monastery' as one perfect and trustworthy, to the letter and to the spirit; and for myself can say, that the most gentle, refined, and in the deepest sense amiable, phases of character I have ever known, have been either those of monks, or of servants ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... the darkness she missed the heavy bit of rope which Dickory had showed her, but feeling about she clutched it and let herself down to the ledge below. Her nerves were quite firm now. It was necessary to be so very particular to follow Dickory's directions to the letter, that her nerves were obliged to be firm. She slipped still farther down and sat sideways upon the narrow ledge. So narrow that if the vessel had rolled she could not have remained ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... triumph over law, than as a circumstance that was calculated to depress or annoy them. They offered no obstruction; neither did they, on the other hand, afford the slightest possible facility to the officers of the law. They were strictly and to the letter passive. ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... in love with Eva, he could see nothing at all. But I had not come out to Little Christchurch at the present moment to talk to him about the love matters of the two children. I was intent on something of infinitely greater importance. "Crasweller," said I, "you and I have always agreed to the letter on this great matter of the Fixed Period." He looked into my face with supplicating, weak eyes, but he said nothing. "Your period now will soon have been reached, and I think it well that we, as dear loving friends, should learn to discuss the matter closely as it ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... upon themselves the name of Republicans. They held that the government ought to raise and spend as little money as possible; beyond that they rested upon the principles first definitely stated in Jefferson's opinion on the bank (sec. 96) that Congress was confined in its powers to the letter of the Constitution; and that the States were the depositary of most of the powers of government. The other party took upon itself the name of Federal, or Federalist, which had proved so valuable ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... that he must not be disturbed under any circumstances, telling him not to venture inside the door himself until 5 a.m. Then, if no one had left the room, he was to enter. "Sandy" obeyed these instructions to the letter, and came into the room at 5 in the morning. He was very much shocked to find his master and the others under the table in a stupor. "I never thought my master would come to this," said Sandy. He was still in the employ of the family, being a very ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... have done. It is the passions of earth turning upon me; but I, who am not a human being, do not know ingratitude. You will not be spared a jot of your destiny; it will be fulfilled to the letter. You yourself will be the new Hercules. I, who announced the glory of the other, now proclaim yours; and you will be no ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... religious devotees have a tendency in the matter of payments to keep strictly to the letter of the law. Is this from poverty, or from the selfishness to which their isolation condemns them, thus encouraging the natural inclination of all men to avarice; or is it from a conscientious parsimony which saves all ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... shoulders against the trunk, his arms folded over his knees, while he seemed to be gazing off into vacancy. The heels of his moccasins remained close against the thighs, so that the form of the Indian bore quite a resemblance to the letter N. ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... you can do, for he loves you already for the sake of his dear Son, whose members you are. He will not hear you the more for your much speaking, for he knows your necessities before you ask, and your ignorance in asking. He will not judge you according to the letter of Moses' law, or any other law whatsoever, but according to the spirit of your longings and struggles after what is right. He will not be extreme to mark what you do amiss, but will help you to mend it, if you desire to mend; setting you straight when you go wrong, and helping you up when you ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... Yahya, who accompanied him, he retired to an island in the Niger, where he founded a ribat or Moslem monastery, from which as a centre his influence spread. There was no element of heresy in his creed, which was mainly distinguished by a rigid formalism and strict obedience to the letter of the Koran and the orthodox tradition or Sunna. 'Abd-Allah imposed a penitential scourging on all converts as a purification, and enforced a regular system of discipline for every breach of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... taller than their fellow-men—to be ever conscious of the extra inches, instead of the common feet. Nevertheless" (and here the Young Fogey put on his most judicial manner) "the extra inches must tell. For because real ethics resides not in rules but in principles, obedience to the letter may mean falsity to the spirit, if the circumstances that dictated the rules have changed. This is not casuistry. 'T is a concept not to be found in Panaetius or Cicero or the Jesuit Fathers. It means that we are not to ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... his men, and especially by his two veterans. There is no human machine more accurate and trustworthy than an old soldier, who has had year on year of the discipline and drill of a regular service, and who has learned to carry out instructions to the letter. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... the Middle Ages, in spite of the devotion of the Reformed Church to the letter of Scripture, the revival of learning and the great voyages gave an atmosphere in which better thinking on the problems of Nature began to gain strength. On all sides, in every field, men were making discoveries which caused the general theological view ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... from capture, and the English admiral gained indecisive victories. M. Riviere, after giving a most just and impartial account of the battles, sums up with the following excellent criticism. [Footnote: Ibid., p. 425. I pay more attention to the sense than to the letter in my translation.] ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... acknowledged, he went on to say, that all Scripture statements could not now be taken as true to the letter; particularly not as true to the letter as now adopted by Englishmen. It seemed to him that the generality of his countrymen were of opinion that the inspired writers had themselves written in English. It was forgotten ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... beautiful or less dear. Roger had missed her more than he realised. When her lovely, changing face had come between his eyes and the musty pages of his law books, while the disturbing Bascom pup cavorted merrily around the office, unheard and unheeded, Roger had ascribed it to the letter that had ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... but keep going till something turns up," she said to herself; and she followed this Micawber advice to the letter. She came to the end of the grounds which had belonged to the burned house and the deserted stable; she passed on, between a stretch of thin woodland and a grove of giant pines; and there she came upon a cross-road. She looked to the right—it was empty. She looked ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... thoughts recurred to the letter he had found waiting for him at the lawyer's. It came from Phoebe's cousin, Freddy Tolson. Messrs. Butlin had traced this man anew—to a mining town in New South Wales. He had been asked to come to England and testify—no matter at what expense. In the ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bursts, geyser fashion. He inquired when Mrs. Field arrived, was kindly circumstantial as to her health, touched decorously but not too mournfully upon the late Thomas Maxwell's illness and decease. He alluded to the letter which he had written her, mentioning as a singular coincidence that at the moment of her entrance he was engaged in writing another to her, to inquire if the ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... from the text of Beowulf that any discussion of its accuracy would be out of place. As has been shown by the section on the nature of the translation, the author had no intention of being true to the letter of the text. Grundtvig's scholarship ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... justified, he must not be more careful to obtain all that was his own product than to avoid taking anything that was not his product. If he insisted upon the pound of flesh awarded him by the letter of the law, he must stick to the letter, observing the warning of ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... perfect chaos of caprices. It is well known, however, that the Duc de Choiseul, who united in his own person the portfolios of three departments of the ministry, and who disposed of all power, followed to the letter the policy of Madame de Pompadour; namely, in reversing the system of Louis XIV., in allying himself to Austria, and in forming a league, or rather a family pact, between the Bourbons of France, Italy, and Spain. The policy of Madame de Pompadour it was which annexed Corsica to France, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... to be released, and promised, if he were set free, to sacrifice as many of his subjects as would daily fill the fisherman's nets. On this understanding the finny monarch was given his liberty, and fulfilled his promise to the letter. Moreover, when the fisherman's boat was capsized in a gale the Fish King appeared, and, holding a flask to the drowning man's lips, made him drink a magic fluid which ensured his ability to exist under water. He conveyed the fisherman to his capital, a place of dazzling splendour, paved with gold ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... fulfilled to the letter. Many years were to elapse before the son ceased to talk loudly and with confidence; and the literature that he was destined to distribute through the world was of another order from that which Mr. Macaulay here suggests. The answer, which is addressed ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... he said, "I think I see what endears you to the Hendersons. I wouldn't have said you could have induced me to try my hand at the old house, but I'll be hanged if I don't follow your instructions to the letter—and win out, too." ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... there Jackson was seen, rallying the fugitives, reinforcing the centre, directing the counterstroke, and leading the pursuit. And he was well supported. His subordinate generals carried out their orders to the letter. But every order which bore upon the issue of the battle came from the lips of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson |
