"Well-worn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some time the preacher was unwilling, and parleyed with the king; but at the last he drew out a little pale book with faded characters traced in ink; and he opened it at a well-worn page, and held it out ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... mother interposed. "Larry, dear, Kathleen has put it very well. Your father and I have talked it over"—the young people glanced at each other and smiled at this ancient and well-worn phrase—"we have agreed that it is better that you should finish your college this winter. Of course we know you would suggest delay, but we are anxious that you should ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... to the Congress Hotel. Never was there such a furor of welcome. Everybody wore a Roosevelt button. Everybody cheered for "Teddy." Here and there they passed State delegations bearing banners and mottoes. Rough Riders, who had come in their well-worn uniforms, added to the Rooseveltian exultation. Whoever judged by this demonstration must think it impossible that the Colonel could ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... a few minutes on a sole to be placed on the bottom of a well-worn shoe belonging to a workingman, when a new customer entered the shop. Sam looked up at him and saw Reynolds Bartram. He offered a short, spasmodic, disjointed prayer to heaven, for he remembered what the judge's wife had said, ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... that blew into his face disturbed his meditations, and when by and bye a little tumbling sea splashed in over the weather bow, he rose and helped the others to haul a reef in the mainsail down. That accomplished, he went below and lugged out a well-worn chart, while the Selache drove away to the westwards over a white-flecked sea. This time she carried fresh southerly breezes with her most of the way across the Pacific, and plunged along hove down under the last rag they dare set upon her with the big combers surging up abeam, ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... with planning and thinking. It was out of his power; his fashionable life bore him far away from labour and thought. His work grew cold and colourless; and he betook himself with indifference to the reproduction of monotonous, well-worn forms. The eternally spick-and-span uniforms, and the so-to-speak buttoned-up faces of the government officials, soldiers, and statesmen, did not offer a wide field for his brush: it forgot how to render superb draperies and powerful emotion and passion. Of grouping, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... his lieutenant, producing a well-worn brier and pressing the tobacco down with a horny thumb. "And yet people think we've got an easy job. Lola knows her business, and I'm open to bet she'll not be found before ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... yet all the mysteries of love and life and death were in the score of well-worn volumes that stood there side by side; and we turned to them, year after year, with undiminished interest. The number never seemed small, the stories never grew tame: when we came to the end of the third shelf, we simply went back and began again,—a process all too little ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... was a better farmer than Virgil, and a poet into the bargain, though the Mantuan had him there. He prefers terseness to eloquence, is on the dry side, and avoids ornament as if he was a Quaker. Such adjectives as he allows himself are Homer's, well-worn and familiar. The sea is atrugetos, Zeus hypsibremetes, the earth polyboteire, the hawk tanysipteros, and so on. They have no more effect upon you than the egg-and-dart mouldings on your cornices. His own tropes are more curious than ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... not help remove the unpleasant impressions already made upon her mind. The cloth that covered the coarse planks of the table was unmistakably a well-worn sheet. Tin cups and platters made humble substitution for china, and were appropriately accompanied by cast-iron knives and two ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... and up a well-worn trail she climbed, and soon came out upon the sparsely timbered bench that was her hunting grounds. Upon this day, however, she was full of happy anticipation and her mind was everywhere except upon her work. She ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... externally, to bring about such friction with the neighbouring States as to set the whole of South Africa in tumult. Petitions have been presented to the Raad, but the President has constantly brushed these aside with the well-worn argument that the independence of the State is involved in the matter. It is involved in the matter, as all who remember the recent Drifts question will admit. I have been told that it is dangerous for the country to take over the railway, because it would afford such ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... an invitation to accompany her home. She tripped cheerfully beside us; although a Catholic, on friendliest terms with her Protestant neighbours. Her thin white feet in toeless stockings and sabots, well-worn woollen petticoat, black stuff jacket, headgear of an old black silk handkerchief, would have suggested anything but the truth to the uninitiated. Here also the unwary stranger might have fumbled for a spare coin. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... long years of work, we may get some lessons worth the learning. I take, then, not only the words which I read for my text, but the whole of the incidents connected with Philip, as our starting-point now; and I draw from them two or three very well-worn, but none the less ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... flash, Polly tore off the little old shoe, and well-worn stocking, and brought to light Phronsie's fat little foot. Tenderly taking hold of the white toes, the boys clustering around in the greatest anxiety, she worked them back and forth, and up and down. "Nothing's broken," she said at last, and drew a ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... Christ must have the very best of everything out of your life. Do not use the dollars for yourself and give him the pennies. Do not sip the honey from the flower and give him the leaves. Do not eat the fresh bread yourself and give him that which is stale. Do not give him the well-worn garment and keep the best robe ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... dispose of; make a handle of, make a cat's-paw of. fall back upon, make a shift with; make the most of, make the best of. use up, swallow up; consume, absorb, expend; tax, task, wear, put to task. Adj. in use; used &c v.; well-worn, well-trodden. useful &c 644; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... less generous in amplitude than formerly, was a partly filled belt of Winchester cartridges. His horse was a stout little Abyssinian shooting pony, gray of color and lean in build, and in the blood-stained saddle-bag was a well-worn copy of Macaulay's Essays, bound in pigskin. Our hero—for it was he—was none other than Bwana Tumbo, the hunter-naturalist, exponent of the strenuous life, and ex-president ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... 'eighties took himself much less seriously than his successor of today. The eternal drill and the occasional manoeuvres were conducted on well-worn and almost automatic principles. As a result, the younger officers found hunting and polo decidedly better sport. Few or none of them were military enthusiasts; and study did not enter largely into their programme. It entered into French's—but ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... rabbit's nerves. Its curiosity all effaced, it went through the fence with an elongated leap and plunged into the bushes in a panic. Here it doubled upon itself twice in a short circle, trusting by this well-worn device to confuse the unswerving pursuer. Then, breaking out upon the lower side of the thicket, it resumed its headlong ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... to be done now was to get off the lot, which Phil did as quickly as possible. Clad in the soiled, well-worn garments with his coat buttoned tightly about his neck, the lad attracted no special attention. Getting well away from the circus grounds, he halted to consider what his next move ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... gets into the "'bus," he carries in his hand or mouth the stump of a half-burned, extinct cigar, which fills the atmosphere with a rank and sickening odor. More frequently he is dressed in well-worn black, and his clothes reek with noisome exhalations of stale tobacco-smoke. Shall I finish his picture? I verily believe he is the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... four months have been employed in the preparations, we have barely as many days for the purpose, and during this short space we produce that gorgeous temple which is destined to form a conspicuous feature in the well-worn wood scene, and we add to the native charm of the elegant saloon and the cottage interior with suitable embellishments. Dutch metal and coloured foils, lavishly administered, cover a multitude of imperfections, and ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... in silence, the conversation between the pastor and this member of his flock was a new and beautiful revelation to me. The one seemed to help the other, while no stain of worldliness marred the even flow of their words. After awhile Mrs. Blake handed the minister a well-worn Bible. He opened it and turned the leaves thoughtfully, pausing at last at the 103d Psalm. I looked at Mr. Bowen while Mr. Lathrop was reading. His lips were softly moving as if in responsive worship, the expression of his face like a ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... even before the descending sun has touched the rim of the world the colours fade away; only overhead the play of blues and greens continues—freezing, at last, to pale indigo. Fine, but somewhat trite; a well-worn subject, these Oriental sunsets. Yet the man who can revel in such displays with a whole heart is to be envied of a talisman against many ills. I can conceive the subtlest and profoundest sage desiring nothing better than to ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... a well-worn, well-known little workbox, which, in years now long past; had been given to her either by Alaric or Harry. Doubtless she had now work-boxes grander both in appearance and size; but, nevertheless, whether from habit or from choice, her custom was, in her daily needlework, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... 1801. Mlle. de Sombreuil obtained a pension from the Convention, but this was not included in the statement of her claims. An Englishman, who witnessed the release of Sombreuil, only relates that father and daughter were carried away swooning from the strain of emotion. I would not dwell on so well-worn an anecdote if I believed that it was false. The difficulty of disbelief is that the son of the heroine wrote a letter affirming it, in which he states that his mother was never afterwards able to touch a glass of red wine. The point to bear in mind is that these atrocious criminals ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... foolish as Brissot and as rabid as Marat. As it was, he could not help perceiving in his calmer moments that this new path to the glorious future which the philosophes were pointing out to their countrymen, had been for many years in America the well-worn high ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... remarkable woman." The speaker dropped the end of his cigar into his coffee-cup and, taking his case from his pocket, selected a fresh one. As he did so he laughed and held up the case that the others might see it. It was an ordinary cigar-case of well-worn pig-skin, with ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... seldom visited by a pedestrian, except perhaps in the shooting season. The rarity of human intrusion was evidenced by the mazes of rabbit-runs, the feathers of shy birds, the exuviae of reptiles; as also by the well-worn paths of squirrels down the sides of trunks, and thence horizontally away. The fact of the plantation being an island in the midst of an arable plain sufficiently accounted for this lack of visitors. Few unaccustomed to such places can be aware of the insulating effect ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... the erasures had a sort of 'wavy elegance' which the compositors actually preferred to print. His mannerisms and affectations grew upon him in his later years, and he became more and more addicted to the coining of new words and phrases, only a few of which proved effective. Besides the now well-worn term, the 'upper ten thousand,' he is credited with the invention of 'Japonicadom,' 'come-at-able,' and 'stay-at-home-ativeness.' One or two of his sayings may be worth quoting, such as his request for Washington Irving's ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... no extra sweeping, dusting, cleaning, cooking, no visiting, no receiving, no reading or writing, but all with one heart and soul are to wait upon her, intent to forward the great work which she graciously affords a day's leisure to direct. Seated in her chair of state, with her well-worn cushion bristling with pins and needles at her side, her ready roll of patterns and her scissors, she hears, judges, and decides ex cathedra on the possible or not possible, in that important art on which depends the right ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... there was a wall seven or eight feet high, in which one could see three or four tracks with well-worn holes—like the paths down a cliff in Kerry—where boys and tramps came over to steal and take away any apples or other fruits that were in season. Above the wall on the three windy sides there were ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... Indian; but there was none at hand to gaze upon his own, to mark the hideous frown of hate, and the more hideous grin of delight, that mingled on, and distorted his visage, as he gloated, snake-like, over that of the chief. As he looked, he drew from its sheath in his girdle his well-worn, but still bright and keen knife,—which he poised in one hand, while feeling, with what seemed extraordinary fearlessness or confidence of his prey, with the other along the sleeper's naked breast, as if regardless how soon he might wake. ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... answered to the somewhat well-worn sobriquet of Jones, and appeared to have been trying some experiments as to the comparative density of his own skull and the materials of the sidewalk, made an involuntary appearance before ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... drives or rides, and over the fire, sipping their tea at her early meal, to recount the morsels of local intelligence they had heard during the morning. When they had said all that they had to say (and not before), they had always to listen to a short homily from her ladyship on the well-worn texts,—the poorness of conversation about persons,—the probable falsehood of all they had heard, and the degradation of character implied by its repetition. On one of these November evenings they were all assembled in Lady Cumnor's ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... not sleep that night. Sleep would not come. Hour after hour passed, and her wrath refused to be quelled. She tried every conceivable method, but time hung heavily. It was not quite peep of day, however, when she laid her well-worn family Bible aside. It had been her mother's, and amid all the anxieties and tribulations incident to the life of a woman who had free negroes and a miserable husband to manage, it had been her mainstay and comfort. She ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... Certain old and well-worn words came into his mind; they had been in his writing-book in the early school-days: "A chain is no stronger than its weakest link." Cyrus jumped off the car before it fairly stopped, and started at a hot pace for ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... schemes are of an academic elegance reminiscent of Raphael. He knew well how to accomplish the flow of line, the balance of masses, the symmetry of outline, which produce a harmonious effect. A variety of designs were at his command, from the well-worn but always effective pyramidal form illustrated in many single figures, to those more novel forms he invented for groups such as Lady Cockburn and the Duchess ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... early—the mayor greeting us at the gate of his trim little garden, and ushering us to our chairs in the clean, well-worn kitchen, with as much solemnity as if there had been a death in the house. Here we sat, under the low ceiling of rough beams and waited in a funereal silence, broken only by the slow ticking of the tall clock in the corner. It was working as hard as it could, its brass pendulum ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... thin hand toward a rude shelf on which were several well-worn City Directories of remote dates, volumes of Patent Office Reports for the years '57 and '59, a copy of Mr. GREELEY'S Essays on Political Economy, an edition of the Corporation Manual, the Coast Survey for 1850, and other inflaming statistical ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... be other shapes in his cell. His old grandmother sat in one corner, reading, through her familiar spectacles, the well-worn family Bible. His sister sat there, playing with her baby, and his mother was singing as she sewed. And he laughed and talked to them, but could get no answer. Occasionally he felt a half-consciousness that it was all a delusion,—a mere vision of the brain; and yet ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... spick-and-spanness conveying a sense of emptiness and desertion which strikes cold to the heart when it comes of the absence of someone dear. And Mr. Frayling felt the discomfort of it. The afternoon sunlight slanted across the little sitting room, falling on the backs of a row of well-worn books, and showing the scars of use and abuse on them. Without deliberate intention, Mr. Frayling followed the ray, and read the bald titles by its uncompromising clearness—histology, pathology, anatomy, physiology, prophylactics, therapeutics, botany, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... steady gaze, due to long-held fixity of purpose, indicated the resourcefulness of a perfectly reliable set of nerves. His low-hung holster tied securely to his trousers leg to assure smoothness in drawing, the restrained swing of his right hand, never far from the well-worn scabbard which sheathed a triggerless Colt's "Frontier"—these showed the confident and ready gun-man, the man who seldom missed. "Frontiers" left the factory with triggers attached, but the absence of that part did not always ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... as he said this and Trot also jumped up, drying her eyes on her apron. Then she walked beside him out of the grounds of the King's castle. They did not go by the main path, but passed through an opening in a hedge and found themselves in a small but well-worn roadway. Following this for some distance, along a winding way, they came upon no house or building that would afford them refuge for the night. It became so dark that they could scarcely see their way, ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... young woman in a white uniform and cap admitted the newcomer and pointed him to the one chair left unoccupied in the large and crowded waiting-room. It was a pleasant room, in a well-worn sort of way, and the blazing wood fire in a sturdy fireplace, the rows of dull-toned books cramming a solid phalanx of bookcases, and a number of interesting old prints on the walls gave it, as the stranger, lifting critical eyes, was obliged to admit to himself, ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... his way through it in a shrill, small voice, bound to do honor to the older brother who had trained him, even if he broke a vessel in the attempt. Billy chose a well-worn piece, but gave it a new interest by his style of delivery; for his gestures were so spasmodic he looked as if going into a fit, and he did such astonishing things with his voice that one never knew whether a howl or a growl would come ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... square which stands on the fringe of the slums of Westminster, and has a well-worn church in the middle, and tenement houses, institutions, and workshops around its sides, a strange crowd had gathered. It consisted for the greater part of persons who are generally thought to be beyond the sympathies of life—the "priestesses of society," who are the lowest among women. But they ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... messenger's office walked processionally before us bearing a key, and presently we were in Mr. Harbottle's sanctuary. Two well-worn saddle-bag chairs stood before the hearth, and between them a chastely designed little table. On the rug was a pair of roomy slippers. In a glass-fronted cabinet one saw decanters and tumblers. Against one wall stood a large and comfortable couch. The ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... nothing stand in my way to acquire money,' he said, musingly; 'with it one can rule the world; without it—but how trite and bald these well-worn maxims seem! Why do I repeat them, parrot- like, when I see what I have to do so clearly before me? That woman, for instance—I must begin by making her my friend. Bah! she is that already; I saw it in her eyes, which she can't control as she does her face. Yes, ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... distinguished manners, made this emigre a graceful image of the French noblesse. He presented a strong contrast to Hulot, who, ten feet distant from him, was quite as vivid an image of the vigorous Republic for which the old soldier was fighting; his stern face, his well-worn blue uniform with its shabby red facings and its blackened epaulettes hanging back of his shoulders, being visible signs of ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... carpet showing huge baskets of flowers; its heterogeneous furniture, some chairs haircloth and black walnut, and others cane-seated, with rep cushions tied on; marble tables, of course; and an old sofa, with well-worn ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... halted to give his brave soldiers rest and repair damages. His losses were great, and he had compassion on his soldiers, for many of them were without shoes and had little raiment. In truth, my son, these brave, abused, and war-worn soldiers had only the well-worn shoes and clothes they had made the ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... mellow softness of the beauties he had seen in the Basque country. She was a slim and long limbed Diana, with fine lines and a bosom of extreme youth, though she must have been twenty-one her last birthday. The gown she wore was a dark green well-worn velvet, which seemed of too good a make and quality for her class; and there was no decoration about her anywhere, save at the ears, where two drops of gold hung on little links an inch and a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the events just narrated, a youth, tanned to the swarthiness of an Indian, whose hair was long and unkempt, and whose well-worn suit of buckskin evidenced hard and prolonged travel, paced impatiently to and fro in the anteroom of Sir William's private office at Johnson Castle. Although his moccasined feet made no sound on the uncarpeted floor, his movements seemed to annoy the elder of two officers ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... one corner of the room and was well stocked with toys, some new, some well-worn. Shirley sat down on the floor and amused herself contentedly while Miss Clinton kept up a running fire of comment till Rosemary's ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... in my old hat to keep all steady; the girls will like it when they dress up, and I'm fond of it, because it recalls some of my happiest days," said Jenny, as she took up the well-worn hat and began to dust it. A shower of grain dropped into her hand, for the yellow wheat still kept its place and recalled the chat at Schwalbach. Ethel glanced at her own hat with its faded artificial flowers; and as her eye went from the small ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... years of wandering in the wilderness. A few hours in a populous town, however, produced a magical metamorphosis. Hats of the most ample brim and longest nap; coats with buttons that shone like mirrors, and pantaloons of the most ample plenitude, took place of the well-worn trapper's equipments; and the happy wearers might be seen strolling about in all directions, scattering their silver like sailors just from ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... well-worn volumes which had been found in the usher's bag. "The books made it endurable to you," ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... authority in such matters. He had indeed some slight misgivings that he had been rather hasty in the affair of the boots, and that he was likely enough ere long to envy the guide his light and roomy moccasins, to say nothing of his loose leggings and the well-worn frock of grey homespun that had evidently seen service in the woods. Even the gay wampum belt spoke of an ease and comfort to which the young French soldier's stiff sword-belt could not pretend. In fact Jean Baptiste Boulanger, or "J'n B'tiste" as he was familiarly called, with ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... Fortunately the well-worn ruse succeeded, for Mr. Dilger ran out after him and laid an unwashed claw upon his coat-sleeve. "Don't go, mister," he said; "I like to do business if I can; though, 'pon my word and honour, a sovereign for a work o' art like that! Well, just for luck and bein' ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... prescribed for the individual even when debarred from church privileges. The lad doubtless got his idea of distinguishing between the sign and the substance from a well-worn book of explanations of the church ritual and symbolism "intended for the use of parish priests." It was found in his library, with Mrs. Rizal's name on the flyleaf. Much did he owe his mother, and his grateful recognition appears in his appreciative ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... walking along," he remarked, and they entered a well-worn path just wide enough for two that led through the woods, but kept close to the small salt lake, whose shining ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... and sat down quietly. The old man had been very silent of late. Putting on his spectacles, he took out his well-worn Bible and opened it. Back in Dawson there was a man whom he hated with the hate that only death can end, but for the peace of his soul he strove to conquer it. The hate slumbered, yet at times it stirred, and into the old man's eyes there came the tiger-look that had once ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Mabel Sweetwinter, the miller's daughter of Dipwell. This was a Saxon beauty in full bud, yellow as mid-May, with the eyes of opening June. Beauty, you will say, is easily painted in that style. But the sort of beauty suits the style, and the well-worn comparisons express the well-known type. Beside Kiomi she was like a rich meadow on the border of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dark-blue vicuna topcoat he had reclaimed an hour before from the checkroom girl in the restaurant back in the city. His sleeves now were of well-worn camel's hair. He didn't dare pull the rear-view mirror around so he could see his face. He said again, fiercely, "Snap out of it! For God's sake wake up before you ...
— A World Apart • Samuel Kimball Merwin
... the well-worn butt of a big Miam Devil Special protruding from the holster on his right hip, came briskly back along the corridor. Between fifteen and twenty men, their guns also conspicuously in evidence, were scattered about the entrance hall, expressions and attitudes indicating a curious mixture of boredom ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... Doctor was taking his evening sniff of the Neckar breeze, laid down his awl and went to "vespers,"—a "maas" of cool beer and a "pretzel." For the Herr Doctor was a regular man, and always appeared at his window at the same hour, rain or shine. And when Simpelmayer mended the well-worn shoes that came to him periodically from across the way, he was sure that the flaxen-haired student would not call over to know if they were finished until the sun was well down and the day far spent. On this particular evening, however, there was no mending in hand for the Herr ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... very lean and bony, but with their heads reined up so high that they had an appearance of considerable spirit, and driven by a colored man, sitting upon a very elevated seat, with a jaunty air and a well-worn whip. The carriage drove over the grass to the front of the house—there was no roadway in the yard, the short, crisp, tough grass having long resisted the occasional action of wheels and hoofs—and there stopping, ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... array of common-places ready for any subject; every case which he argues can be shown to involve such issues as the belief in a divine providence, the loyalty to patriotic tradition, the maintenance of the constitution, or the sanctity of family life; and on these well-worn themes he dilates with a magnificent prodigality of pathetic ornament which, while it lends splendour to his style, contrasts most unfavourably with the curt, business-like, and strictly relevant arguments ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... rocking-chair. As for Patsey, herself, she could not think of wearing the elegant new dress, Uncle Josie's present—that was much too fine; she preferred what had now become her second-best—a black silk, which looked somewhat rusty and well-worn. To tell the truth, this gown had seen good service; it had been not only turned, but re-turned—having twice gone through the operation of ripping and sponging; and doubtful as the fact may appear to the reader, yet we have Miss Patsey's ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... and a half away, in the heart of a scattered colony of purse-proud New Yorkers, was the country home of the Wrandalls, an imposing place and older by far than Southlook. It had descended from well-worn and time-stained ancestors to Redmond Wrandall, and, with others of its kind, looked with no little scorn upon the modern, mushroom structures that sprouted from the seeds of trade. There was no friendship between the old and the new. Each had recourse to a bitter contempt for the ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... travellers in tropical America have described the ravages of the leaf-cutting ants (OEcodoma); their crowded, well-worn paths through the forests, their ceaseless pertinacity in the spoliation of the trees—more particularly of introduced species—which are left bare and ragged, with the mid-ribs and a few jagged points of the leaves only left. Many a young ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... appreciated the importance of a first step from "the street." An older man, the senior on the news desk, had preceded me. He was engaged in a bantering conversation with a youth who lolled at such ease as a well-worn, cane-bottomed screw-chair afforded. The older man made an informal introduction, and I learned that the youth with pale face and serene smile was "Mr. Stephens, private secretary to the managing editor." That information scarcely impressed me any more than it would ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Thus limited straitly, the making of it becomes a struggle of genius against material conditions; and its successful accomplishment is comparable with the perfect presentment by a great poet of some well-worn elemental truth in a sonnet—of which the triumphant beauty comes less from the integral concept than from the exquisite felicity of expression that gives freshness to a hackneyed subject treated in accordance ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... mother" as she was when young, wearing well-worn dresses, which he remembered for such a long time that they seemed inseparable from her; he recollected her movements, the different tones of her voice, her habits, her predilections, her fits of anger, the wrinkles on her face, the movements of her thin fingers, and all her well-known ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... I walked along the well-worn path to the canal-boat, and thought how it had been worn by my feet more than any other's, and how gladly I had walked that way, so often during that delightful summer. I forgot all that had been disagreeable, and thought only of the happy ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... found a well-worn volume running the round of delighted schoolboys, took it up, and recognized Leonard's earliest popular work, which had, many years before, seduced himself into pleasant thoughts and gentle emotions. He carried the book to his own lodgings, read it ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... remaining resource, I betook myself to my old and time-honored friend, a friend of fifty years' standing, who has never yet forsaken me nor refused help to my body when weary, nor rest to my limbs when tired—my well-worn cobbler's stool. And although I am now like a beast tethered to his pasture, with a portion of my faculties somewhat impaired, I can still appreciate and admire as much as ever the beauties and wonders of nature as exhibited ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... bones of buffalo were scattered everywhere; the ground was tracked by myriads of them, and often covered with the circular indentations where the bulls had wallowed in the hot weather. From every gorge and ravine, opening from the hills, descended deep, well-worn paths, where the buffalo issue twice a day in regular procession down to drink in the Platte. The river itself runs through the midst, a thin sheet of rapid, turbid water, half a mile wide, and scarce two feet deep. Its low banks for the most part without a bush or a tree, are of loose sand, with ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... bugle to an army, 'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead.' Now, I am not going to waste your time by talking about the old, well-worn, interminable, and unprofitable controversy as to God's part and man's in this awaking, but I do wish to insist upon this plain fact, that the command here presupposes upon our parts, whether we be Christian ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... later, Racine will be stoned with Corneille, Voltaire with Racine, and as to-day, everyone who shows signs of rising is stoned with Corneille, Racine and Voltaire. These tactics, as will be seen, are well-worn; but they must be effective as they are still in use. However, the poor devil of a great man still breathed. Here we cannot help but admire the way in which Scuderi, the bully of this tragic-comedy, forced to the wall, blackguards and maltreats ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... two well-worn volumes, a Bible and a Prayer Book. Here the shoe-maker took his stand and reverently began to read the service. His voice was low, though distinct, and he seemed to feel deeply every word he uttered. Never had Douglas ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... father succumbed to the fatal illness. The faithful nurse remained with the distracted widow and the remaining children can cared for them tenderly as long as they needed her services. In an old and well-worn Bible is this inscription in her handwriting: "This is the first Bible I ever owned. It was presented to me ...
— Clara A. Swain, M.D. • Mrs. Robert Hoskins
... over, with a pair of searching, brown eyes. He saw a slender figure in a well-worn suit of gray. The striking features of the man's face were his eyes and his nose. His eyes were too near together, and his nose was long and pointed. He was smooth-shaved, and there was a cunning, foxy ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... alders, where you must wade, knee to waist deep, before you come to the bridge and the river. Glorious fishing is sometimes to be had here,—especially if you work down the gorge at twilight, casting a white miller until it is too dark to see. But alas, there is a well-worn path along the brook, and often enough there are the very footprints of the "fellow ahead of you," signs as disheartening to the fisherman as ever were the footprints on ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... firing; and yonder are the minute-men sure enough, running together in the morning dusk, and marshaling themselves in scanty ranks under the orders of Captain Parker. Young men and old are there, in their well-worn shirts and breeches, cut and stitched by the faithful hands of their wives and daughters, and each with his loaded flint-lock in his hands. There are but fifty or sixty in all, against sixteen times as many of the flower of ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... stood at the back, the coffin in which the dead woman lay had been placed in the middle of the room. A linen cloth, trimmed with lace, covered the face. The delicate hands, still unwrinkled, were folded, and lightly clasped a well-worn rosary. The lifeless form was concealed beneath a costly coverlid, in the centre of which lay an exquisitely-carved ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... travelling cap, showed as dark as the beard and moustache. His frame was strong, muscular and loosely built, and he had clever, nervous hands with fingers somewhat spatulate. His clothes did not much suggest the tourist—they seemed more like a too well-worn town morning suit of dark blue serge; as though he had left home in an absent-minded mood intent on some hurriedly conceived plan. He cast one or two quick glances at David; once, indeed, as they got out into full daylight, away from tunnels and high walls, letting his ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... miles from Beaufort, strikes a ferry across the Coosaw River. War abolished the ferry, and made the river the permanent barrier between the opposing picket lines. For ten miles, right and left, these lines extended, marked by well-worn footpaths, following the endless windings of the stream; and they never varied until nearly the end of the war. Upon their maintenance depended our whole foothold on the Sea Islands; and upon that again finally depended ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the doorway, made an attempt to laugh. Of the two, he was noticeably the more embarrassed. In Loder's well-worn, well-brushed tweed suit he felt stranded on his own personality, bereft for the moment of the familiar accessories that helped to cloak deficiencies and keep the wheel of conventionality comfortably rolling. He stood unpleasantly ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... myself to seem exceedingly cheerful, and laughing heartily at a well-worn jest of Mr. Hearn's, I went to my room and rested till dinner, and I slept away the afternoon as on the ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... shoes of which the inspector had already described the position to him; the shoes worn by Manderson the night before his death. They were a well-worn pair, he saw at once; he saw, too, that they had been very recently polished. Something about the uppers of these shoes had seized his attention. He bent lower and frowned over them, comparing what he saw with the appearance of the neighbouring shoes. Then he took them ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... apologise for the publicity of our domestic arrangements," she said. "It used to distress me at first to see my most intimate garments hanging in such close proximity to the well-worn unmentionables of the redoubtable Mr. Palling, but I have got over that. I did mention it to his wife, who failed to understand my scruples, and replied, 'They meets in the washtub, and why not on the line?' and in truth, why not? But here we are ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... growing more and more dim in the glowing sunshine, while a mountain range from eight to ten thousand feet high bounds the view on either hand. No singing water, no green sod, no moist nook to rest in—mountain and valley alike naked and shadowless in the sun-glare; and though, perhaps, traveling a well-worn road to a gold or silver mine, and supplied with repeated instructions, you can scarce hope to find any human habitation from day to day, so vast and impressive is the hot, dusty, ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... an empty afternoon, too, was much to his taste. The man adored auctions. To his mind a most delectable flavour of discreet scandal inhered in such collections of shabby properties from anonymous homes. Nothing so piqued his imagination as some well-worn piece of furniture—say an ancient escritoire with ink stains on its green baize writing-bed (dried life-blood of love letters long since dead!) and all its pigeon-holes and little drawers empty of everything but dust and the seductive smell of secrets; ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... officers had come. Captain Corwin went out to meet them. Chilian Leverett dropped into the well-worn leather-covered chair that had been fine in its day. A heavy burthen had been laid upon him. He was not fond of business. Cousin Giles might be of some assistance; he grasped at the thought as if he had been a drowning man and this the straw. And the child, somehow, was different from ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the region. A trail cut thither from Peoria soon became a well-worn coach road; roads were early opened to Chicago and Milwaukee. In 1822 Galena was visited by a Mississippi River steamboat, and a few years later regular steamboat traffic was established. And it was by these roadways ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... his homestead, or in shadowed yards He lingers where his children used to play, Or through the market, on the well-worn stones He stalks until the ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... nine men and sixty ravenous dogs! Hitherto we had joked about cannibalism. Harding, we had said, as being the stoutest member of the party, was to be sacrificed, and Stepan was to be the executioner. But to-night this well-worn joke fell flat. For we had reached the eastern shores of Tchaun Bay, and this was where we should have found a Tchuktchi village. When the sun rose next morning, however, not a sign of human life was visible. Even ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... everything which improves the mechanical output. In striking contrast to this, the gigantic industry of advertising is to-day still controlled essentially by an amateurish impressionism, by a so-called commonsense, which is nothing but the uncritical following of a well-worn path. Surely there is an abundance of clever advertisement writers at work, and great establishments make some careful tests before they throw their millions of circulars before the public. Yet even their so-called tests have in no way scientific character. They are simply based on watching the ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... was undoubtedly a room numbered 13 in the hotel. He felt rather sorry he had not chosen it for his own. Perhaps he might have done the landlord a little service by occupying it, and given him the chance of saying that a well-worn English gentleman had lived in it for three weeks and liked it very much. But probably it was used as a servant's room or something of the kind. After all, it was most likely not so large or good a room as his own. And ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... the life of Washington are known more widely than those of any other American. The trails to the height of his achievement and genius have doubtless been learned in the histories of France. And asking my readers to travel over one of those well-worn trails again, I can offer no better reason than that I may on the way call attention to objects and outlooks that should be of special interest to the eyes of a company of men and women whose geographical or racial ancestors gave us him in giving us ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... few moments the landlady appeared. She was a woman of sixty, tall and spare, with a sweet and even distinguished face. She, too, was dressed in black, well-worn and shabby, but her appearance suggested that her thinness might be attributed to privation or self-denial, rather than ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... of old, By the stone sculptured font of antique mould, Under the massive arches in the glow, Tinged by dyed sun-beams passing to and fro, A sentient portion of the sacred place, A worthy presence with a well-worn face. The lich-gate's shadow, o'er his pall at last Bids kind adieu as poor old John goes past. Unseen the path, the trees, the old oak door, No more his foot-falls touch the tomb-paved floor, His silvery head is hid, his service done Of all these Sabbaths absent only one. And now amidst the ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... answer, and they went into the study in silence. The host sat down in the well-worn chair by his writing-table, while Philip ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... on an upturned barrel, hugging my sheepskin-lined greatcoat closer to me, and drawing it down over my high boots, as I made room for a couple of my wet, shivering men, and I felt ashamed to be the owner of so warm a coat as I looked at their well-worn service covering, when my sergeant put ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... old farm-house, so old that it seems bending under the weight of years? Look at its low, brown eaves, its little narrow windows, half-hidden by ivy and honey-suckle; see the old-fashioned double door, and the porch, with its well-worn seats. Do you see the swallows skimming around the chimney; and don't you hear the hum of the bees—there, under that old elm you may see their hives, filled, too, with luscious honey. There is the well, with its old sweep, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... sweet-toned voice he loved best to hear, as he tapped at the door. The old man was seated by the fire with his well-worn pocket Bible in his hands, and turned his face away as Butler entered and clasped the extended hand which had supported his orphan infancy, wept over it, and in vain endeavoured to say more than "God comfort you! ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... the open shore had faded behind him, the man found himself walking stealthily, like the stealthiest of the wild kindred themselves. The trail being well-worn, though long deserted by man, his feet kept it without difficulty; but he held the paddle out before him lest he should stumble over a windfall. Presently he took note of the fact that the trail was marvellously smooth for one that had ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... find some with well-worn shoes. But the need not being urgent, she hates to impoverish the old man who hath lost so much. For it seems he made some heavy bets upon Lord Cornwallis reducing the southern Colonies and entering Philadelphia in triumph. And even now he is sure ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... only of her and how soft and warm was the little hand he held as she led him into the parlor. He did not know she was so beautiful, he said to himself, and he feasted his eyes upon her, forgetful for a time of all else. But afterward when Katy left him for a moment he noticed the well-worn carpet, the six cane-seated chairs, the large stuffed rocking chair, the fall-leaf table, with its plain wool spread, and, lastly, the really expensive piano, the only handsome piece of furniture the room contained, and which he rightly guessed ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... verses 2 and 3 to the following section. However that be settled, the result, for our present purpose, is the same. Mark considers that John's mission is the beginning of the gospel. Here are two noteworthy points,—his use of that well-worn word, 'the gospel,' and his view of John's place in relation to it. The gospel is the narrative of the facts of Christ's life and death. Later usage has taken it to be, rather, the statement of the truths deducible from these facts, and especially ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... the well-worn slipper feels When the tired player shuffles off the buskin; A page of Hood may do a fellow good After a scolding ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... light, and healthy life. The shop where Uncle Gradelle had accumulated his fortune, sou by sou, was a long, dark place, one of those suspicious looking pork butchers' shops of the old quarters of the city, where the well-worn flagstones retain a strong odour of meat in spite of constant washings. Now the young woman longed for one of those bright modern shops, ornamented like a drawing-room, and fringing the footway of some broad street with ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... air-line, well-worn but narrow. I fancy that my father took note of my familiarity with the path, but he did not speak of it. I marched in front of him, gloomy and desperate. Some of the others talked low as they straggled ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... in a daze down well-worn paths— Paths that your feet had trod; I thought your thoughts and I spoke your tongue, I knelt to your hostile God. And the dreams that had been a part of me, I tossed with a sigh away, And left to rust in the misty dust Of the ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... planet, and began to descend the hill with feverish haste, yet with this marked difference between his present haste and his former recklessness, that it seemed to have a well-defined purpose. When he reached the road again, he struck into a well-worn trail, where, in the distance, a light faintly twinkled. Following this beacon, he kept on, and at last flung himself heavily against the door of the little cabin from whose window the light had shone. As he did so, it opened upon the figure ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... his hairy right hand lay on the well-worn old Bible, from which he read every evening before supper. His two companions at table sat with strange humility at each side of the smith. Even now when the maid had left the room, all was still, as if no one could breathe. At last Ludwig, the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... longings for the lost were theirs I And what prayers For the silent strength that nerves us to endure Things we cannot cure! Pacing up and down the garden where they paced, I have traced All their well-worn paths of patience, till I ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... reverted to, of course. After many well-worn questions had been re-asked, one or two new ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain |
