"Well-nigh" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... obligations which I had contracted towards them, and begged me to come to their assistance. They stripped me thus, by degrees, of the greater part of that little hoard which I had saved by strict economy, to enable me to live longer in Paris. My purse was well-nigh empty, and I began to think of courting fortune through fame. One morning, after a desperate struggle between timidity and love, love triumphed. I concealed beneath my coat my small manuscript, bound in green, containing my verses, my last hope; ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... false with the Jesuits of the Court, Than with a woman. Deuce take them; they're beyond My power. She twists, and coils, and crawls, slips out Of hand, she hisses, threatens, bites. Ah, serpent! Serpent! 'Twas not for nothing that I trembled. She well-nigh ruined me; but I'm resolved; At daybreak I will put my ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... festivals. [41] There are bull-fights and other public festivities and rejoicings, with many novel fireworks, such as wheels and sky-rockets, which the Sangleys make the night before; on this occasion they construct things well worth seeing, and which appear well-nigh supernatural. The city of Manila holds similar festivities on the feast-day of the glorious apostle St. Andrew, who was chosen as its patron because, on his feast-day, the city was delivered from the blockade of the pirate Limahon. At that time the city had no fortress or walls, or any ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... it is not with tillage as with the other arts, where the learner must be well-nigh crushed [9] beneath a load of study before his prentice-hand can turn out work of worth sufficient merely to support him. [10] The art of husbandry, I say, is not so ill to learn and cross-grained; but by watching labourers in the field, by listening to what they say, ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... constantly breaking the railroad and intercepting our communications on the Cumberland River at different points that were easily accessible to his then superior force of troopers. The accumulation of reserve stores was therefore not an easy task, and to get forage ahead a few days was well-nigh impossible, unless that brought from the North was supplemented by what we could gather from the country. Corn was abundant in the region to the south and southwest of Murfreesboro', so to make good our deficiences in this respect, I employed a brigade about once a week in the ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... the world are just emerging from the strain and agony of the most terrible and disastrous war in the history of mankind. From a tiny spark of hatred a great conflagration of passion spread over the world, well-nigh destroying the entire fabric of civilization. How near we have come to that catastrophe, as a result of the war and its evil progeny, they best know who have recently visited the countries principally ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... detachment, was so great that the general at last gave orders to march to their assistance. When his force arrived within two miles of the scene of conflict, the cessation of fire showed that it was too late, and that Baillie's force was well-nigh annihilated. Munro retired to Conjeveram, and at three o'clock the next morning retreated, with the loss of all his heavy guns ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... complacent, musing upper thought in the mind and on the lips of the proletary as he wended his way through the quiet and well-nigh deserted streets to the older part of the town. How much it might have been modified if he had known that the man whose face Miss Farnham had seen at the window was silently tracking him through the tree-shadowed streets is a matter for conjecture. Also, it is to be presumed that ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... memory clad, Like dream well-nigh effaced, I view The sweet Beloved, fair and sad, Of dear, ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... teeth hard, a great fury in his heart. He took aim again, and another of his assailants dropped as he pulled the trigger; then, setting spurs to Wildfire, who was well-nigh distracted with terror at the noise and the flash in the darkness, he rode clean over the man who had sprung at his bridle rein, and calling to Robin to follow him, he sped away in the darkness at a pace which was risk to life ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... bore ten feet lower, to prevent the possibility of what they call "a choking with sullage." Likewise, they are going to insert "a rose-headed pipe;" at the mention of which implement, I am (secretly) well-nigh distracted, having no idea of what it means. But I have said "Yes," besides instantly standing a bottle of gin. Can you come back, and can you get down on Monday morning, to advise and endeavour to decide on the mechanical force we shall use for raising the water? I would return with ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... the bosom of the actual incumbent could be scrutinized, no little complacency in Swedish victories over the Faith's defenders would be found. An atmosphere of toleration was diffusing itself, bigotry was imperceptibly getting old-fashioned, the most illustrious victim of the Inquisition was to be well-nigh the last. If the noble and the serious could not be permitted, there was no ban upon the amiable and the frivolous: never had the land been so full of petty rhymesters, antiquarian triflers, and gregarious literati, ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... die here," replied Barbara, in a feeble tone; and, throwing back her hood, she displayed features well-nigh as ghastly as those ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... definitely state where normality leaves off and disease begins would be, to say the least, to attempt something well-nigh impossible. And yet this is just what the jurist constantly demands of the alienist. The law as it is laid down in the statutes, especially in this country, does not permit of any intermediary stages between ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... stage and another, hastening on, he reached that great city in the south, the metropolis of New Orleans; often, as he hoped, on the very steps of his friend, but never overtaking him, with fortune at so low an ebb that there he was well-nigh wasted in strength, hunger-stricken, and tattered in dress; driven to live in hovels till some chance restored him the little means to advance; so mean of person that his dearest friend, his nearest kinsman, even his old playfellow ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... time the productive era of Greek Philosophy had well-nigh passed. Its tendency was less speculative, more ethical and practical than in the earlier time. There were four prominent schools, the New Academy, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean. The supporters of the ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... a moment silently looking into the starry heavens some portion of an old story came to him. "My love is as fair as the stars and well-nigh as remote and inaccessible." Could he win the love of a girl like Amanda Reist? She gave him her friendship freely, would she give her love also? A woman like Amanda could never be satisfied with half-gods, she would love as she did everything else—intensely, entirely! He remembered ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... done at last, and the cottages were saved. The rescue party dispersed, and the dirty, tired boy strayed slowly homeward down the village street. He could see himself now arriving soot-covered, and well-nigh speechless with fatigue, at his mother's door, could hear the cries and exclamations that arose at the sight of him, could feel the tender hands that removed the clothes from his hot little body, and washed him, and put him to bed. It took him several days to recover from the fever into which ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... "they have bad pins and vile needles here," that it would be advisable to bring with them a strong bottle-screw, and a good stout copper tea-kettle; till at last, in the final words of preparation, his language assumes something of the solemnity of a general addressing his army on the eve of a well-nigh desperate enterprise: "Pluck up your spirits—trust in God, in me, and yourselves; with this, was you put to it, you would encounter all these difficulties ten times told. Write instantly, and tell me you triumph over all fears—tell me ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Blacktooth saw what had come to pass, he well-nigh choked, and fell from his horse in fury. Still, he could find no stomach for fighting, but, mustering his company, rode straightway from the Thing home again to Swinefell. But he caused those two whom he had put up to do battle with ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... even common business confidence; on the contrary, while Hallock attended to his duties and carried out his superior's instructions with the exactness of an automaton, his attitude was distinctly antagonistic. As the chief subaltern on Lidgerwood's small staff he was efficient and well-nigh invaluable. But as a man, Lidgerwood felt that he might easily be regarded as an enemy whose designs could ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... its list of sieges, battles, massacres, pageants, and triumphal entries. The story of a town is not a drum-and-trumpet chronicle of the Kings and Queens. It is the tale of all those domestic and municipal details which from their very unimportance have well-nigh disappeared. To hear it you must follow me from the Crypte St. Gervais to the Cathedral, from the Hotellerie des Bons Enfants to the Maison Bourgtheroulde, and it is to the voices of the people that I shall ask you to listen, and to the life of the ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... with, I was a king; king of all Caria, ruler of many Lydians, subduer of islands, conqueror of well-nigh the whole of Ionia, even to the borders of Miletus. Further, I was comely, and of noble stature, and a mighty warrior. Finally, a vast tomb lies over me in Halicarnassus, of such dimensions, of such exquisite beauty as no other shade can boast. Thereon ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... hopeful, still generous in impulse— still strong in faith in the world's worth—before we hasten on to portray the man of the world, heartless, not wholly, perhaps, but wont to check all feeling till it was well-nigh quenched; little minded; bitter, if not spiteful; with many acquaintances and scarce one friend—the Horace Walpole of Berkeley Square ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... said, "our time is well-nigh spent—the skiff will be aground in the creek, and I dare not stay longer.—I hope your sister will allow me to salute her?" But Jeanie shrunk back from him with a feeling of internal abhorrence. "Well," ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... unable to supply to an ever increasing population. But it was not only the material products of the East that the sailors of Amalfi conveyed to Europe in their home-bound argosies; for they brought back with them the rudiments of arts and sciences that distracted Italy had well-nigh forgotten during the period of the barbarian invasions. Through the merchant princes of Amalfi, the secrets of astronomy, of mathematics and of scientific navigation were re-introduced into the land that had almost lost its old Roman ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... some of the more venturesome young braves, who attempted, to retard our advance by opening fire at long range from favorable places where they lay concealed. This fire did us little harm, but it had the effect of making our progress so slow that the patience of every one but General Rains was well-nigh exhausted. ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... few years hence, would be the wife of one entirely unknown to me as yet, but destined hereafter to become a closer friend than even herself, more intimate than that unmannerly lad of seventeen, by whom I was collared in the passage, on coming down, and well-nigh jerked off my equilibrium, and who, in correction for his impudence, received a resounding whack over the sconce, which, however, sustained no serious injury from the infliction; as, besides being more than commonly thick, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... The people neglect us; they bring no offerings; and now, since these rebels have been hammering at the walls, I might have gone hungry if I had not some small store of my own. Oh, I tell you, the cult of the true Gods is well-nigh oozed quite out of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... side had been pierced with a lance, a Welsh two-handed sword had broken through my helmet, and well-nigh cleft my skull; and the men-at-arms, riding over me I suppose, must have broken my leg, for I could not move: and oh! I felt it hard that I had yet to die. Then, Lady, came lights and murmuring voices. They were Mortimer's plundering Welsh robbers. I heard their wild gibbering tongue; and ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the castle of Dumbarton, which was held for Queen Mary by her faithful partisan, Lord Flemyng. On this, Cuthbert Langston asked whether he had heard any tidings of the imprisoned Queen, and he answered that it was reported at Leith that she had well-nigh escaped from Lochleven, in the disguise of a lavender or washerwoman. She was actually in the boat, and about to cross the lake, when a rude oarsman attempted to pull aside her muffler, and the whiteness of ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an appeal to his gallantry was well-nigh irresistible, and for a moment it seemed as if he would yield to the temptation to essay a brilliant contradiction; but his wits came to his rescue, for quickly realising that not only were the frowning rocks ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... she was, in her own old home,—the home of her childhood, which she was ashamed to think she had well-nigh forgotten. Since her fifteenth year she had travelled nearly all over the world; London, Paris, Vienna, New York, had each in turn been her 'home' under the guidance of her wealthy perambulating American relative; and in the brilliant vortex of an over-moneyed society, she had been ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... was indeed a gentleman, born to a competent estate, and married into an honest stock and to some fortune, but his fair prospects were all blighted and our mother's money well-nigh wasted before he died. To his great loss, he stood steadily for the king against the Parliament all through the late Rebellion, as he would ever call it; and, our mother's people being very stiff on the other side, and she dying ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... hills that skirted the Thames, some of them of a light, and others of a dark-green hue, with the tufted tops of trees dispersed here and there among them. The contemplation of all these delightful circumstances well-nigh ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... my skin!" Hunt-Goring's eyes left their contemplation of the cigarette and travelled to his face. They held a sneer that was well-nigh intolerable, and yet which somehow restrained Noel for the moment. "What a very headlong young man you are!" pursued Hunt-Goring, in his soft voice. "I've done nothing to you. I haven't the smallest desire to quarrel with you. Nor have I given you any occasion for offence. It was Mrs. Musgrave—not ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... intensity of longing that was well-nigh unendurable—for either the indignant denial or the easy, mirthful scorn wherewith an innocent man might be expected to ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... French Jew, named Vorpin, had a place just off the Grand Canal, called "Trois Folies," and by waiting till mid-evening for dinner, we could find the cafe well-nigh empty. The truth was I went there often alone when a fit of depression was on me, and it was no wonder these fits came. A week of idleness, taken by a person who comes from my class, and should be working eight and ten hours a day, is a misfortune ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... speedily brought them down. Sidi recognized them at once, and indeed they had scarcely lied in saying that they were ill, for the eyelids of one were so swollen and blackened that he could not see out of them, while the other's nose was well-nigh as big as the rest of ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... limits were less severely drawn. There were a dozen permissible attitudes, and, the characteristic features might be represented with all fidelity; but there were boundaries that might not be overstepped. The result was an artistic perversion that well-nigh perpetrated a grotesque slander on the personal appearance of ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Leaving the incandescent light burning over my head, I open the book dealing with the wonders of America which I have taken from the well-stocked library, and read of great Americans, from Washington to the man who has brought this very light to such perfection, turning over page after page of well-nigh incredible description of the country which has raised the system of "booming" to a high art, till my brain reels with an Arabian Nightish flavour of exaggeration, and turning off the electric current, I am gradually lulled to sleep by the rhythmical vibrations of the steamer, the sole reminder ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... far off; for on the Yukon it must get warm in order to snow. Also, on this day, they encountered ten miles of chaotic ice-jams, where, a thousand times, they lifted the loaded sled over the huge cakes by the strength of their arms and lowered it down again. Here the dogs were well-nigh useless, and both they and the men were tried excessively by the roughness of the way. An hour's extra running that night caught up only part of ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... experience, perhaps too trivial—may now test the present theory of the city, or amend it, by means of the ample illustrations of the processes and results of social life which are provided by his daily newspaper, and these on well-nigh all its fields ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... of the whole matter as regards science. It must be cultivated for its own sake, for the pure love of truth, rather than for the applause or profit that it brings. And now my occupation in America is well-nigh gone. Still I will bespeak your tolerance for a few concluding remarks, in reference to the men who have bequeathed to us the vast body of knowledge of which I have sought to give you some faint idea in these lectures. ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... unwounded to defend himself, though his arm now grew tired, his breath well-nigh spent, and his eyes began to wink and reel beneath the glare of the tossing torches. Orsini himself, exhausted by his fury, had paused for an instant, fronting his foe with a heaving breast and savage looks, when, suddenly, his followers exclaimed, "Fly! fly!—the bandits approach—we are surrounded!"—and ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... year, squeezing the thermometer almost to disappearing point at twenty-five to thirty below. The sun's brightness looked eternal. The sky was never so blue. Great fleecy clouds rolled and frolicked in well-nigh human abandon. Almost everywhere, when looking upward, the eyes rested against snow-white hills with their black reaching spars of sparse fir trees; while below and stretching away for miles—winding ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... Inverness The merchant, to secure his treasure The more we live, more brief appear The poplars are fell'd! farewell to the shade The sun is warm, the sky is clear The sun upon the lake is low The twentieth year is well-nigh past The World is too much with us; late and soon The World's a bubble, and the Life of Man There be none of Beauty's daughters There is a flower, the lesser Celandine There is a garden in her face There's not ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... generally avowed themselves exposition-weary (ausstellungsmude); and no wonder, for exposition had succeeded exposition, now in this country, now in that, and then in various American cities, each anxious to outdo the other, until all foreign governments were well-nigh tired out. But the St. Louis Exposition encountered an adverse feeling much more serious than any caused by fatigue,—the American system of high protection having led the Germans to distrust all our expositions, whether at New Orleans, Chicago, Buffalo, or St. Louis, and to feel ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... his collections were 'formed abroad and at home, the choice of book-auctions, the pickings of chandlers' and grocers' waste-paper, everything, especially, in the shape of a MS., from early copies of Classics and Fathers to the well-nigh most recent log-books of sailors' voyages. Not a sale of MSS. occurred, apparently, in London, during his time, at which he was not an omnigenous purchaser; so that students of every subject now bury ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... old Lady Rounds had two such encumbrances the first winter of their sojourn in the South, and two army girls among so many are subjects of not a little thought and care. If Mr. Waring had not led the second german with Margaret Rounds the mother's heart would have been well-nigh crushed. It was fear of some such catastrophe that kept her silent on the score of Waring's reply to her irate lord, for if Sam did mean to be impertinent, as he unquestionably could be, the colonel she knew would be merciless in his discipline ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... dried grass-tufts from the wide flowery field, A muscle-shell from the lone fairy shore, Some antlers from tall woods which never more To the wild deer a safe retreat can yield, An eagle's feather which adorned a Brave, Well-nigh the last of his despairing band,— For such slight gifts wilt thou extend thy hand When weary hours a brief refreshment crave? I give you what I can, not what I would If my small drinking-cup would hold a flood, As Scandinavia sung those must contain With which, the giants ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... anguish, the struggle had well-nigh passed; she was at once subdued and resolved, like one into whom some spirit had entered and bound her own spirit, and acted through her. So strange did all appear to her, so strange the impassiveness of her own will, of her habits and affections, that should have rebelled and warred against ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... most were the solitaires, and especially the dippers or water-ousels. We were fortunate enough to hear the solitaires sing not only when perched on trees, but on the wing, soaring over a great canon. The dippers are to my mind well-nigh the most attractive of all our birds. They stay through the winter in the Yellowstone because the waters are in many places open. We heard them singing cheerfully, their ringing melody having a certain suggestion of the ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... The faces are round, the eyes large, the expression mild and characterless. Each is crowned with the flat-topped cap and lofty plumes of Amen or Maut. We cannot but wonder for what reason these huge receptacles were made. The two queens were small of stature, and their mummies—which were well-nigh lost in the cases—had to be packed round with an immense quantity of rags, to prevent them from shifting, and becoming injured. Apart from their abnormal size, these cases are characterised by the same simplicity which distinguishes other mummy-cases of royal or private persons of the ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... among the tribes east of the mountains that is all. We believe in the traditions of our fathers and in the demons of the forest; and though on this side of the hills, where the Spaniards held a tight grip upon us, the people have well-nigh forgotten their old faith, they still believe in many of the tales they have learned from their fathers, and this of the Castle of the Demons, as it is called, is as strong as ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... Utterbol did Ralph overthrow or hurt in this wise; and then he ran three courses with Otter, and in the first two each brake his spear fairly on the other; but in the third Otter smote not Ralph squarely, but Ralph smote full amidst of his shield, and so dight him that he well-nigh fell, and could not master his horse, but yet just barely ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... our stories serve beyond the important one of pleasing the little listeners? How can we make them distinctly serviceable, filling the difficult and well-nigh impossible role of "useful as ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... garrison in Sligo, however. The old castle which Red Hugh O'Donnell had fought over in the old days was ruined; the grand monastery, built by Brian of Tyr-erril, had been burned by Hamilton's men, together with the town itself, and Sligo was well-nigh desolate. Turlough got shelter in a hovel, however; managed to put Brian into a miserable bed, and gave him a brew to drink. With the morning Brian found his fever gone, but weakness was ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... troops. Douglas thought the number should have been 200,000. So it should, and so doubtless it would, had it not been for certain iniquities of Buchanan's mal-administration. There were no arms, accouterments, clothing. Floyd had well-nigh stripped the northern arsenals. Lincoln could not begin warlike preparations on any great scale because that was certain to precipitate the war which he so ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... denying that Lady Lucy paused at the library door—no denying that her heart beat quickly, and her breath seemed well-nigh spent; but she was right to act on the good impulse, and not wait until the new-born ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... conscience and the very force of our own history. We haven't, for such an instance of our genius, to reach out to strange places or across other, and otherwise productive, tracts; the exemplary instance himself has well-nigh as a matter of course reached and revelled, for that is exactly our way in proportion as we feel ourselves clear. But the kind of experience so entailed, of contribution so gathered, is just what we wear easiest when we have been least stinted of it, and what our English use of makes perhaps our ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... him, as the fishermen draw their nets, from bank to bank, conscious that the prey they drive before the meshes cannot escape them at the last. The fugitive halted in doubt, and gazed round him: he was well-nigh exhausted; his eyes were bloodshot; the large drops rolled fast down his brow; his whole frame quivered and palpitated, like that of a stag when he stands at bay. Beyond the castle spread a broad plain, ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book IV. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... all gone, and the lodge well-nigh out of sight, he began to despair, for the earth, too, had long since vanished entirely ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... well-nigh pity thee!" said Roger Chillingworth. "Peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with a better love than mine, this evil had not been. I pity thee, for the good that has been wasted in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to whom he could tell his troubles, and thus he gathered up all the remaining bits and fragments of love in his old heart, faded and withered though they were, and he gave them all to his old organ, which had well-nigh seen as many summers as he had. It was getting very antiquated and old-fashioned now; the red silk in front of it was very soiled and worn, and it could not play any of the new tunes of which the children were so fond. It sometimes struck old Treffy that he and his organ were very much alike,—they ...
— Christie's Old Organ - Or, "Home, Sweet Home" • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... There are, indeed, so many diverse views held with regard to the nature and classification of werwolves, their existence is so keenly disputed, and the subject is capable of being regarded from so many standpoints, that any attempt at definition in a restricted sense would be well-nigh impossible. ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... and well-nigh stunned was Nigel at the sights and sounds that he neither heard nor saw the arrival of the excursionists, until the equally awe-stricken Moses touched him on the elbow and drew his attention to several men who suddenly appeared ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... disease without at least a statement of the earlier conceptions growing out of this personifying tendency. Absurd as it may seem now, it was the legitimate ancestor of modern pathogeny, and still holds well-nigh undisputed sway over the popular mind, and much more than could be desired ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... before I could make her understand what I meant. 'Ah! she at last cried, has the little boy been with thee? Well, well, good betide thee, my tall lad. The tiny thing harms nobody, and brings luck to everyone he takes notice of. I have known him now well-nigh these forty years. He goes round to the houses where he likes the folks, and helps them in their housekeeping, now in one thing, now in another. Cleaning everything is his darling employment. He can't ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... railway station; a German shopkeeper descanting in one breath on Baur's Bock and the beauties of the Marcusplatz; an intelligent aesthete bent on working into clearness his own views of Carpaccio's genius: all these in turn, or all together, must be suffered gladly through well-nigh two long hours. Uncomforted in soul we rise from the expensive banquet; and how often ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... the position of European investigators vis-a-vis Japan differs entirely from that of Japanese vis-a-vis Europe. The Japanese possess every facility for studying and understanding Europe. Europeans are warded off by well-nigh insuperable obstacles from understanding Japan. Europe stands on a hill-top, in the sunlight, glittering afar. Her people court inspection. "Come and see how we live"—such was a typical invitation which the present writer recently received. A thousand English homes are open to any Japanese student ...
— The Invention of a New Religion • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... I cried myself well-nigh blind, and all of an evening late I climb'd to the top of the garth, and stood by the road at the gate. The moon like a rick on fire was rising over the dale, And whit, whit, whit, in the bush ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... forsooth, poor soul, that you are! for you have made of your widowhood so black a pall that you cannot see God's blue sky through it. Dear heart, but why ever they called her Faith, and me Temperance! I've well-nigh as little temperance as she has faith, and neither of them would break ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... Nouvelle Espagne, Paris, 1811, tom. iii. pp. 51-60; the great naturalist is of course speaking of the yield of maize in ploughed lands, but, after making due allowances, the yield under the ancient system must have been well-nigh unexampled in barbaric agriculture.] ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... Greco, who wallow in the warm sand or rush with joyful screams into the tepid surf. The population must have increased not a little since those days, nearly a century ago, when the unhappy Shelley could find peace and solitude in his darkest hours of unrest upon these shores, where it would be well-nigh impossible for a twentieth-century poet to espy a retreat for soothing his soul in verse. Yet somehow, during the drowsy noontide rest when the active life of the South ceases, if only for an hour or ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... the quaggas that they were well-nigh surrounded by strange enemies. But one course appeared open to them—the way they were wont to go; and barking with affright, the whole drove dashed up the bank, and crowded ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... his unhappy burden towards the river. Walled in by the rush of snowflakes about him he made what way he could, but it was well-nigh impossible to see. The lamps gave no light, for the flakes had built a shutter across the glass like a policeman's dark lantern. The flying multitudes in the air turned him dizzy; he could not tell upon which side of the road he drove, and he could not tell what he would do when the wall beyond ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... moment, and when she went on there was a note of appeal in it that well-nigh convicted him to ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... of disappointment. Bright hopes have darkened almost to the blackness of very despair. A brother whose conversion, (must I say apparent conversion?) has seemed to be unusually clear; whose walk as a Christian seemed, while he was with us, to be well-nigh perfect; whose spirit was singularly humble, devout and Christly; who was growing rapidly in knowledge of the word, and could already preach the word with power, goes back to his home in China. Sore pressure is brought to bear upon him, and he pays some sort of homage at an idol's shrine. ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 2, February, 1889 • Various
... large part of this debt is now fast approaching maturity, with no adequate provision for its payment. Some policy for dealing with this debt with a view to its ultimate collection should be at once adopted. It is very difficult, well-nigh impossible, for so large a body as the Congress to conduct the necessary negotiations and investigations. I therefore recommend that provision be made for the appointment of a commission to agree upon and report a plan for ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... all the universe; but was man also, the GOD-MAN. Thus, gradually, the actual facts of his history were lost out of sight, overgrown with a great mass of fictions, poetic and other stories, which make him a mythological character; the Jesus of fact was well-nigh forgot,—the Christ of ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... countrymen, but in some respects our countrymen are worse than Paul's. "I could wish," said that glorious, patriotic man—that grand old man, that most blessed and chief of all the Apostles, with heaven in his view, his career well-nigh ended, his work done, and Churches rising up around him of which he was the father—not churches built upon other men's foundations—"I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." Yet "I bear them record, that they have a zeal of God, but not ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... on he swept more like a hunted phantom than a man, nor checked his pace until, arriving at some cross roads, one of which led by a longer route to the place whence he had lately started, he bore down so suddenly upon a vehicle which was coming towards him, that in the effort to avoid it he well-nigh pulled his horse upon his haunches, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... effort. A weary sickness of nearly a year's duration followed. In this sore affliction, deserted as he was by most of his old political friends, we have reason to know that he was cheered by the gratitude of those in whose behalf he had well-nigh made a martyr's sacrifice; and that from the humble hearths of his poor colored fellow-citizens fervent prayers went up for ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and the proceedings of the convention were well-nigh forgotten, Mr. John Russell Young printed a letter in which he made the charge that Conkling, Cameron, Boutwell, and Lincoln had concealed the contents of a letter from General Grant in which he directed them as his representatives to withdraw his ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... in response to this double demand for hemp on the American ship and hemp on the southern plantation, at the close of that period of national history on land and sea, from those few counties of Kentucky, in the year 1859, were taken well-nigh forty thousand ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... had not fallen back. Instead the remnants of the line had collected themselves in the series of independent redoubts which had seemingly been prepared for just such an emergency. They were so situated that it was well-nigh impossible to destroy them at long range; but it was impossible to make any forward movement which would not be enfiladed by them. Hence it became necessary for the French, if they were to be really victorious, to reduce each separate redoubt. The most prominent of these were ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... pleased myself with my prospects, poor as they were), I have honest parents, bountifully provided for, thank God and your ever-dear brother for this blessing!—and not only provided for—but made useful to him, to the amount of their provision, well-nigh! There is ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... them all in safety / o'er the flood had brought, Of that strange story / the valiant warrior thought, Which erstwhile had told him / those women of the sea. Lost thereby the chaplain's / life well-nigh was doomed ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... may kindle." In 1783, on the morrow of the American war, the inflammable materials everywhere accumulated in France were already providing means for that immense conflagration in the midst of which the country well-nigh perished. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... those parts of the roads leading up to them that were formed of timber have been burned, and they cannot now reach the gates except by climbing, as at other points. We have provisions enough to last for well-nigh a year, for all the harvest has been brought in from the whole district round, together with many thousands of cattle; of ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... to die at thirty, while life was still untarnished, amidst the roses of love, in the embrace of passion. To bid farewell to the feast at its brightest, before disappointment has come, having lived in this sunshine and celestial air, and well-nigh spent myself in love, not a leaf dropped from my crown, not an illusion perished in my heart, what a dream is there! Think what it would be to bear about a young heart in an aged body, to see only cold, dumb faces around me, where even strangers used ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... thinking, A little bird, quick drinking Among the crowfoot tufts the river bore, Was tangled in their stringy arms, and fluttered, well-nigh sinking, Near him, ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... her lover! No, let me talk, Richard," she interrupted herself, as the man raised haggard eyes to watch her impersonally, "far better to face the facts, my dear! My son tells me, Miss Field the—the well-nigh incredible statement that—forgetting the honour of womanhood, and the tender claims ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... made to Annie's wish, great as the wonder was at first—a shock to her relations no less than to her acquaintances. The former reconciled themselves sooner to it than did the latter, with an entire faith in Annie and an affectionate admiration which was genuine homage. It swelled Dora's heart well-nigh to bursting with sister-worship. How good Annie was showing herself, how capable of great acts of self-denial and self-consecration, while she was prettier than ever with her graceful head, her merry brown eyes, and that soft, warm ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... outlay soon exhausted the meagre resources of young Glazier and, at the end of the time mentioned, he went over into Rensselaer County, to look up a school, in order to replenish his well-nigh empty purse, and to enable him to continue in his efforts to acquire an education. It was a bright clear morning in November when he left his boarding-place on Lydius street in quest of his self-appointed ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary; which, if true, belongs to the realm of unpractical speculation. It was denied as heresy by orthodox Catholics, including fourteen Popes, for a thousand years, and is contrary to the well-nigh "unanimous consent of the fathers." See Dr. Pusey, Letter 1, to Newman, pp. 72-286. To use such an engine but once in all the centuries, and then to accomplish so little, aside from furnishing infidels ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... she said. But at last, by a mighty effort, he mastered himself, and, coming to Mrs. Woffington with a quivering lip, he held out his hand suddenly in a very manly way. "I have been the dupe of my own vanity," said he, "and I thank you for this lesson." Poor Mrs. Woffington's fortitude had well-nigh ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... front, and he soon rose from Serjeant to be Company-Serjeant-Major. His place in "A" Company was taken by Serjeant Wardle, of "C" Company. As soon as they were relieved Companies marched to Loisne Chateau, where they were to entrain. Trains were not ready, but after a long wait, the well-nigh frantic efforts of Captain Schiller produced them, much to everybody's delight, and somewhere about midnight we marched back ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... dynamical aggregates, molA(C)cules organiques, potentiated sky-mist, undifferentiated "life-stuff," and other hylotheistic and purely hypothetical formulA|, with which the average mind has been well-nigh crazed for the ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... murderers came to our fathers for protection, so that through our agency, peace might be restored and established. This affair was one of the greatest importance, for the island [of Leyte] was well-nigh in a state of insurrection, and overrun by bandits. Our Lord was pleased that by means of the gentleness and love with which we approached them, this condition of affairs should pass away like smoke, and the bandits be dispersed. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... the sea the amethyst peaks of Sark rise like phantom bergs. In the sunlight the rainbow-coloured slopes of Le Gouffre jut upwards a jumble of glory. Exposed to the full fury of an Atlantic gale, these islands are well-nigh obliterated in drench. From where the red gables cluster on the heights of Fort George, which overhang the harbour, to the thickets of Jerbourg, valley and plain, at the time we write of, were a gorgeous carpet of anemones, daffodils, ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... Germany since the days of Bach dwindled in Strauss and Mahler and Reger,—revived the high tradition of French music, created a fresh and original musical art, and at present, by virtue of the influence it exercises on the new talents of other nations, has come well-nigh to dominate the international musical situation, could scarcely have attained existence had it not been for him. He assured the artistic success not only of the men like Magnard and d'Indy and Dukas, whose art shows obvious signs of his influence. Composers ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... have calculated their descent with amazing subtlety—their mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of ours—and to have carried out their preparations with a well-nigh perfect unanimity. Had our instruments permitted it, we might have seen the gathering trouble far back in the nineteenth century. Men like Schiaparelli watched the red planet—it is odd, by-the-bye, that for countless centuries Mars ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... of the camp made sleep well-nigh impossible—a bad preparation for the only long ride of this excursion. Setting off at dark (4.20 a.m., March 18th), we finished the monotonous Wady Kuwayd, which mouths upon the rolling ground falling coastwards. The track ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... the type of eighteenth century architecture found in the British Isles, especially Scotland. The general floor plans of Alexandria's homes are similar. With the Builder's Companion and Workman's General Assistant, it was well-nigh impossible to go wrong. This series of pamphlets, reprinted in 1762 by William Pain of London, offered the purest and best of classical designs. The Scottish founders adapted them to their needs, with the result that Alexandria differs from other Colonial towns in Virginia, as Scotland ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... in the cause." To the young, or even the middle-aged, it has little meaning. I met a scholar-soldier in the South who had given expression to the sentiment of his race and generation in an essay—one might almost say an elegy—so chivalrous in spirit and so fine in literary form that it moved me well-nigh to tears. Reading it at a public library, I found myself so visibly affected by it that my neighbour at the desk glanced at me in surprise, and I had to pull myself sharply together. Yet the writer of this essay told me that when he gave it to his son to read, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... As to some cosmic rhythm heard to ring From Putney to Parnassus, a brief bard. (In stature, not in song!) Though passion-scarred, Porphyrogenitus at least he looks; Haughty as one who rivalry scarce brooks; Unreminiscent now of youthful rage, Almost "respectable," and well-nigh sage, Dame GRUNDY owns her once redoubted foe, Whose polished paganry's erotic flow, And red anarchic wrath 'gainst priests, and kings, The virtues, and most other "proper" things, Once drew her frown where now her smile's bestowed. Such is the power of timely palinode! Soft twanged his lyre and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various
... back into Bricklesey," Joe Chambers said. "I have been well-nigh fifteen years going backwards and forwards here, and I do not know that ever I saw an awkwarder look about the sky. It reminds me of what I have heard men who have sailed to the Indies say they have seen there before a hurricane breaks. If it was not that we saw ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... something very French in this alms given to the young, hungry, starved intellect. Circulating libraries were not as yet; if you wished to read a book, you were obliged to buy it, for which reason novels of the early part of the century were sold in numbers which now seem well-nigh fabulous to us. ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... the liveried race hustled around every chapel-door: they swarmed in anterooms: they sprawled in halls and on landings: they guzzled, devoured, debauched, cheated, played cards, bullied visitors for vails:—that noble old race of footmen is well-nigh gone. A few thousand of them may still be left among us. Grand, tall, beautiful, melancholy, we still behold them on levee days, with their nosegays and their buckles, their plush and their powder. So have I seen in America specimens, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a beckoning hand. She could not cry out. Wyn was well-nigh breathless, and Bessie's only hope was in her. The captain of the canoe club had to ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... not meet again until September was well-nigh over. In common with Strachan, I had adopted the resolution of changing my circuit, and henceforth adhering to Glasgow, which, from its superior supply of criminals, is the favourite resort of our young forensic aspirants. So I packed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... near his end, and certainly in his right senses; he therefore advised them to go in, as it was full time that his will should be made. These tidings gave a terrible stab to the overcharged hearts of the two ladies and his faithful squire, whose eyes overflowed with weeping, and whose bosoms had well-nigh burst with a thousand sighs and groans; for, indeed, it must be owned, as we have somewhere observed, that whether in the character of Alonzo Quixano the Good, or in the capacity of Don Quixote de la Mancha, the poor gentleman had ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... there until the maid returned; and registered to the woman's credit the discreet soft closing of the front-door and afterward the well-nigh inaudible swish of the rear door of the dining-room as the maid went back into ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... seemed veritably to hum with secret and, to judge by the pitch of its rumour, well-nigh panic activity. One divined a scurrying as of rats about to desert a sinking ship. Untoward events had thrown this establishment into a state of excited confusion: their nature Lanyard could not surmise, but their conjunction with his designs was exasperatingly ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... seeing in fancy the blotted lines of this, her letter, to my yearning was added the triumphant assurance that in spite of everything she loved me still; but this thought in turn was 'whelmed in despair because of the well-nigh hopelessness of ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... prevent him from showing an unyielding front to the turbulent nobles and duly strengthening the royal authority at their expense. By enforcing the regulations of Philippe-Auguste, he well-nigh put a stop to the private wars and the judicial duel; he decided that the royal coinage alone should circulate in the kingdom; at his death, "Royalty already appeared as the unique centre of jurisdiction and of power, and the tiers etat amassed ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... condition: the treasury was empty; auditor's warrants were selling at half their nominal value; no more money was to be borrowed, and taxation was dreaded by both political parties more than disgrace. The currency of the State banks was well-nigh worthless, but it constituted nearly the only circulating medium in ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... enthusiasm for education, or appreciation of its possibilities; the claims of vested interests; the exigencies of Party Government; and, above all, the murderous tenacity of individual rights have proved well-nigh insuperable obstacles in the path of true educational reform. On the whole we have received as good laws as we have deserved. The changed conditions due to the war, and the changed temper of the nation afford a unique opportunity for wiser counsels, and—to some extent—guarantee that ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... the year of 1016 between Edmond Ironside and the Danes. The battle was close and the Danes at one point had taken captive a Saxon champion who looked very much like the king. By cutting off his head and holding it up before the Saxon army they well-nigh produced a panic, for the Saxons believed that their king was slain, and Edmond had a lively quarter of an hour in correcting the error and restoring order. He finally did so and won victory at last. The chronicler ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... has received is to be specially regretted, as its misuse has well-nigh robbed it of its true meaning, which is, to intimate delicately, to refer to without mentioning directly. Allude is now very rarely used in any other sense than that of to speak of, to mention, to name, which is a long way from being its legitimate signification. This degradation is doubtless ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres) |
