"Worst" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... around sniffing, and snooping, and scuffing for something to eat, and pretty soon he sniffed and snuffed until he came to where Uncle Wiggily was fast asleep, dreaming that he had found his fortune. And the worst part of it was that the bluebell flower also was sleeping, and she couldn't tell the rabbit ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... The worst of the ice fighting did not begin immediately, and the new members of the expedition, MacMillan, Borup, and Dr. Goodsell, were at first much interested in watching the Eskimo women at their sewing. They sit on anything that is ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... but its dismay and displeasure were immediately proclaimed. The new hands that held it were however both kind and strong, and the master's voice was already known, even by these little ones. So the worst was soon over, thanks to the firmness that had kept the arm quiet till the doctor came. It was true; she "had the fight in her," as Dane had once said; though now the woman was taking her revenge, and Hazel sat behind the others with blanched cheeks. Dr. Arthur ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... overturn; demolish, prostrate, subvert, defeat, vanquish, rout, overpower, overcome, subjugate, raze, worst. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... went to Paris this morning,—still on the scent of Darzac, who also left for Paris. That matter will turn out badly. I expect that Monsieur Darzac will be arrested in the course of the next week. The worst of it is that everything seems to be in league against him,—circumstances, things, people. Not an hour passes without bringing some new evidence against him. The examining magistrate is ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... outstretched wings carved on the overhanging eaves. The earliest names found among the hieroglyphics with which its walls are covered are those of Cleopatra Cocce and her son, Ptolemy Soter, while the latest name is that of the Emperor Commodus. Even under Cleopatra Cocce, who was nearly the worst of the family, the building of these great temples ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... toward us our only hope was in killing him before he could charge twenty-five feet, and, if we did kill him, to avoid being crushed by his body as it plunged forward. Without question it was the worst place in the world to encounter an elephant. And I prayed that we might get into more open forest before we came up with the ones we were trailing. You can't imagine how earnestly we ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... brought on myself the additional imputation of flattery. It would be a case of 'one nail drives out one nail,' and this time the one left in would be the bigger; for flattery is the most servile, and consequently reckoned the worst, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... is displayed, which has been given by the spirits and is endowed with all sorts of marvellous properties. I have in my possession a Dayong's whole outfit of charms which I bought from his relatives after his death; they were afraid to touch it, and for another Dayong to use it is taboo of the worst kind. Such charms are usually buried with the practitioner, but this old fellow evidently did not have a very large practice, and, at his death, he was somewhat neglected. One of the charms is a stone in which an active imagination might trace a resemblance to the ...
— Folk-lore in Borneo - A Sketch • William Henry Furness
... imagination saw her conduct in its worst light: vacillating, feeble, deserting the man she loved at the moment she had led him to expect triumph; dismissing her faithful servant without his reward. Then, in a flash, came the other side of the picture—the mother of ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... too dear for them, they content themselves with such as are made at home of fern and burned stone; but in fine all go one way—that is, to shards at the last, so that our great expenses in glasses (beside that they breed much strife toward such as have the charge of them) are worst of all bestowed in mine opinion, because their pieces do turn unto no profit. If the philosopher's stone were once found, and one part hereof mixed with forty of molten glass, it would induce such a metallical toughness ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... she so regarded her daughter's happiness that, if he had enough to support her, she would overlook the loss of rank and title. He went on half the evening talking about what a remarkable woman Mrs. Deerhurst was; and, at any rate, it cheered him up through those worst days. ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it was physical. And now, giving rein to herself, her sex side tugged at her pitilessly. Jealousy tore through her like a hot wind. She had a dozen grey hairs, a thin throat, a tired face, rough hands, two spoiled teeth in the front upper row. That was not the worst; the gaiety of her wit had been sapped. She could not have kept two men amused at a dinner table as that raven woman in the Royal Red did had her life depended upon it. Six years ago she could. She could have had them in her white, pretty hands; but not now. ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... we were sent downstairs, and told to strip and array ourselves in moderately dirty blue dressing-gowns. Away from the formality of the other room we sang little songs, and made the worst jokes in the world—being continually interrupted by an irritable sergeant, whom we called "dearie." One or two men were feverishly arguing whether certain physical deficiencies would be passed. Nobody said a word of his reason ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... other two; in this situation it may easily be believed that they longed most ardently for the dawn, and as soon as it appeared they set out for the tent: They were obliged, however, to make their way along the seashore, for the inland country was impassable; nor was this the worst, for they were frequently stopped by high steep bluff points, which they were obliged to swim round at a considerable distance; for if they had not taken a compass, they would have been dashed to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... says our things ain't worth the carting. The children have got so shabby they hate to go to school, and the boys laugh at Willie 'cause his hat's his pa's old one and ain't got no brim, though I bound it with the best of the old braid, for I thought maybe they'd think it was a cap. And the worst was this morning, when there was nothin' but just mush: we hadn't even 'lasses, and the children cried. Oh, I didn't go to tell you all this: you know I ain't a beggar. I've tried to live decent. Oh dear! oh dear!" She tried ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... "The worst of it is," said Obed to Harry, who was walking alongside of him, "that them skunks have got the best of it. It's their time to ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... Rules, which—carefully rehearsed— Will land the User safely in a First, Second, or Third, or Gulf: and after all There's nothing lower than a Plough at worst. ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... omnipotent—and there can be no inference more transparent than that such wholesale suffering, for whatever ends designed, exhibits an incalculably greater deficiency of beneficence in the divine character than that which we know in any, the very worst, of human characters. For let us pause for one moment to think of what suffering in nature means. Some hundreds of millions of years ago some millions of millions of animals must be supposed to have been sentient. Since that time till the present, there must have been millions and millions ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... historians. All of them represent man in his darkest colours; their drama is terrific; the actors are monsters of perfidy, of inhumanity, and inventors of crimes which seem to want a name! They were all "princes of darkness;" and the age seemed to afford a triumph of Manicheism! The worst passions were called into play by all parties. But if something is to be ascribed to the manners of the times, much more may be traced to that science of politics, which sought for mastery in an undefinable struggle of ungovernable political ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... seems at length to be cast, and the throw cannot be altered, though the French continue to profess the same desire of avoiding war, and with as much sincerity as they have done throughout the discussion. They have taken the worst course, and in the worst possible way. I really am so much out of humour with the gros cochon, that I rather hope that his life may be prolonged, so as to taste a little of the evil which he is about to produce. Poor Liverpool is in a state of worry and dejection which exceeds anything I ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm; Which ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... of the fourteenth century Bishop Bohemund lay ill of a very violent fever at Bernkastel. The worthy man was obliged to swallow many a bitter pill and many a sour drink, but all without avail. The poor divine began at last to fear the worst. Despite his high calling and his earnest search after holy things, his bishopric on the lovely Moselle pleased him better than any seat in heaven. He caused it to be proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of his diocese, that whoever ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... in their colonial dependencies is in an inverse ratio of excellence to their character at home. The best people in the mother-country will generally be the worst in the colonies; the worst at home will be the best abroad. Or, perhaps, I may state it less offensively thus:—The colonists of a well governed-country will degenerate; those of an ill-governed country will improve. I am now considering the natural tendency of such colonists if left to ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... at our command means so positively certain in their action upon pile tumors, we do not hesitate to say that the very worst cases, no matter of how long standing, can be promptly cured, if we can only have the patient for a few days under our personal care. Considering the very distressing character of pile tumors, it is a great boon ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... occupied by swampy rice fields, and the enemy could only retire very slowly over it. Their safe line of retreat lay up the spur, and on to the main line of hills. They were thus formed with their line of retreat in prolongation of their front. This is, of course, tactically one of the worst situations ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... came to an empty house. But he could not help her to see, for he did not himself feel, that he had been spurred by silly passions, pique, and wrath, to plunge instantly into new political intrigue; and that some of his worst faults had become mixed up with his devotion to his country. Had he taken Violetta for an ally in all purity of heart? The kiss he had laid on the woman's sweet lips had shaken his absolute belief in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the worst day, as I think, and it was in high summer. I mind that I went to Stallingborough that day with the last of the fresh fish of yesterday's catch for Witlaf's household, and it was hotter than ever; and in all the orchards hung ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... down almost directly underneath me and some fifty yards off. That evening on my return to camp we watched the band make its way right down to the river bed, going over places where it did not seem possible a four-footed creature could pass. They halted to graze here and there, and down the worst places they went very fast with great bounds. It was a marvelous ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... the wing. By staying in the house after sundown and by carefully screening the doors and windows, one may live in a malarial country with perfect immunity. Volunteers have lived for months in the worst malarial regions in the world without a trace of the disease, the only precaution being to keep the doors and windows screened and to prevent mosquitoes ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... do, sir; you can go!" said Bobby, springing from his chair, and approaching Mr. Hardhand. "Go, and do your worst!" ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... some one in the common-room; "he looked like a piece of marble, and when I went in and wanted to bolt he treated me as if I was an office-boy, and said that as he believed I was a particular friend of his son's it would do me good to stay. The worst of it was that Dennison wasn't very well, and was having a pick-me-up with his brekker. He wasn't in bed until four this morning, so it's no wonder he ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... count that, in this expedition of his, these doubters would prove his principal men, for their manhood had been tried before; also the Mansoulians had put them to the worst: only he did bring them to multiply a number, and to help, if need was, at a pinch. But his trust he put in his blood-men, for that they were all rugged villains, and he knew that they ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... had to consider was the suggestion that has been debated very considerably in the press—the suggestion of a joint loan. We discussed that very fully and we came to the conclusion that it was the very worst way of utilizing our resources. It would have frightened every Bourse and attracted none. It would have made the worst of every national credit and the best of none. Would the interest paid have been the interest upon which we could raise money, the rate at which ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to remain with Sylvia while the horse rested, and had no compunction about the length of her visit. She expected to be asked to tea, as Sylvia found out at last, and this she felt would be the worst of all, as Alice Rose was not one to tolerate the coarse, careless talk of such a woman as Mrs. Brunton without uplifting her voice in many a testimony against it. Sylvia sate holding Hester's gown tight in order to prevent her leaving the room, and trying to arrange her ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... expressions as 'egregious' and 'fanatic?' 'Egregious' is chosen, e-grex—out of the flock, i. e., the best sheep, etc., selected from the rest, and set aside for sacred purposes; hence, distingue. This word, though occupying at present comparatively neutral ground, seems fast merging toward its worst application. Can it be that an 'egregious' rogue is an article of so much more frequent occurrence than an 'egregiously' honest man, that incongruity seems to subsist between the latter? 'Fanatic,' again, is just ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... another way. For it is impossible to go along there, as there are seven or eight descents of water one after the other, the lowest three feet high, the seething and boiling of the water being fearful. A part of the fall was all white with foam, indicating the worst spot, the noise of which was like thunder, the air resounding with the echo of the cataracts. After viewing and carefully examining this place, and searching along the river bank for the dead bodies, another very light shallop having proceeded meanwhile on the other ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... his neck he took Fate's hard compelling yoke; Then, in the counter-gale of will abhorr'd, accursed, To recklessness his shifting spirit veered— Alas! that Frenzy, first of ills and worst, With evil craft men's souls to sin hath ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... my position. I chose the latter alternative, and in doing so I gave up my political life forever. I need not tell the bitterness of my disappointment. But the loss of worldly prospects and of hope was as nothing compared with other things. The worst of all was the reception which I met at home. My young, and as I supposed loving wife, to whom I went at once with my story, and from whom I expected the warmest sympathy, greeted me with nothing but tears and reproaches. She could only look upon my act with the world's eyes. She called it ridiculous ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... horror which must have been experienced by the unhappy victims at Cawnpore. We were resolved rather to die than yield, and were fully persuaded that in twenty-four hours all would be over. The engineer had said so, and all knew the worst. We women strove to encourage each other, and to perform the light duties which had been assigned to us, such as conveying orders to the batteries, and supplying the men with provisions, especially cups of coffee, which ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... worst of all," returned the Doctor. "You could not even see that you were wrong; that, being where they were, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... existence was founded simply on their power to maintain it. In them for the first time we detect the modern political spirit of Europe, surrendered freely to its own instincts. Often displaying the worst features of an unbridled egotism, outraging every right, and killing every germ of a healthier culture. But, wherever this vicious tendency is overcome or in any way compensated, a new fact appears in history—the State as the outcome of reflection and calculation, the State ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... Darwinianism was in the ascendant at Norwich (I hope you do not dislike the word, for we really must use it), and I think it rather disgusted some of the parsons, joined with the amount of advice they received from Hooker and Huxley. The worst of it is that there are no opponents left who know anything of natural history, so that there are none of the good discussions we used to have. G.H. Lewes seems to me to be making a great mistake in the Fortnightly, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... cannot do it so well as one who is acquainted with the place. I must do it, if for no other reason, yet for the safety of both of us, to prevent our being questioned about her death. Remain you here, and if I do not return before day, you may be sure the watch has seized me; and for fear of the worst, I will by writing give this house and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... of Dr. Porquier, had been sent to Paris to study, but did nothing there but get into debt. He caused his father much distress, and was supposed to afford the worst possible example to the youth of Plassans, whom he was believed to lead into all kinds of mischief. Ultimately, as a reward to his father, who had supported Delangre as representative of Plassans, Porquier was appointed chief clerk at ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... worst that could happen would be the discovery on this spot of anything more precious than an orchid. Gold, which would transform the Isle into a desert, is therefore selfishly concealed, and the reason for the concealment ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... private diaries they accuse one another, each throwing on his neighbour the responsibility for crimes committed. A cavalryman writes: "It is unfortunately true that the worst elements of our Army feel themselves authorised to commit any sort of infamy. This charge applies particularly to the A.S.C." A bombing officer: "Rethel, September 2nd. Discipline becoming lax. Brandy. Looting. The blame lies with the infantry." An infantry ...
— Their Crimes • Various
... individual rights, undertake only such industrial enterprises as can manifestly be better and more economically conducted by it than by private enterprise, and enforce restrictions upon industry only as they are needed to protect personal rights or the interests of the community as a whole. Worst of all, the use of government to advance special interests places a premium on the efforts of those who seek to corrupt the expression of the popular will in its every stage, from the voters at the polls to the chief rulers in the seats of ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... said the money-lender, failing to perceive that he was addressing one of the worst kind of man in all romance, "I've lost my way. I want to get to the house of Tullispaith. Which ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... fourteen of us in a small, poorly-ventilated, dirty room. Planks extended around the room on three sides, and on these those who could get a place lay down. Among the number of "drunks" imprisoned with me were some of the worst and largest roughs of Jersey City, and these inhuman wretches, in the absence of the police, threatened; to take my life if I vomited again. In the room adjoining ours a madman was confined, and I don't think he ceased kicking and screaming a ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... lived, and the daze cleared from his brain. It was all of a piece. They were the hated Gringos and they were all unfair. And in the worst of it visions continued to flash and sparkle in his brain—long lines of railroad track that simmered across the desert; rurales and American constables, prisons and calabooses; tramps at water tanks—all the squalid and painful panorama of his odyssey after Rio Blanca ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... to recall it to Madame Bovary and her true character. Will you permit me to say, what seems to me very important, that M. Flaubert has fully comprehended this point and put it in bold relief. There is a kind of religion which is generally spoken of to young girls, which is the worst of all religion. There may be in this regard a difference of opinion. As for me, I declare clearly that I know nothing more beautiful, or useful, or necessary to sustain, not only women in the ways of life but men themselves, who sometimes have the most difficult ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... dislocation, seemed surprising as they surged over the first-mentioned style of road. Now and then the foundation of the road was of rock; and this though even rougher, caused no fear of its letting the carriages sink through. Here and there gravel appeared and allowed of firm footing; but the worst parts of all were those undelightful spots called cedar swamps, across which neither plank nor corduroy had been thrown, and which caused the travellers to doubt considerably whether they and their vehicles would get across or sink beneath the treacherous surface. In ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... henchman Laelius, had risen to the rank of consul, and stimulated by the vigorous theorisings of his hellenised environment, he contemplated for a moment the formation of a plan which should deal with some of the worst evils of the agrarian question. But he looked at the problem only to start back in affright. The strength and truculency of the vested interests with which he would have to deal were too much for a man whose ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... the beach. Beth was such a tiny girl, they did not think it necessary to give her a bathing dress, and consequently she was marched into the water with nothing on; and the agony of shame she suffered is indescribable. But the worst of it was, the shame wore off. Jim teased her about it and called her "a little girl," a dreadful term of reproach in those days, when the boys were taught to consider themselves superior beings. Beth flew at him, and fought him for it, but was ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... tears and struggling just outside the open nursery door, knowing they must at length return for food; and while thus waiting, watching, She heard all prayers that reached her; She answered them with love and forgiveness ever ready; and to the few who realized their folly—naughtiness, perhaps, at worst it was—this side of "death," She brought full measure of peace ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... and to educate the children, admonishing them, at the same time, that such duties are imposed on them, and showing them how grievously they sin if they neglect them. For in such a case they overthrow and lay waste alike the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world, acting as if they were the worst enemies both of God and man. And show them very plainly the shocking evils of which they are the authors, when they refuse their aid in training up children to be pastors, preachers, writers, etc., and set forth that on account of such sins God will inflict an awful punishment ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... must remember that I am a man. As a woman, you were the dearest thing in the world to me. But if the worst comes to the worst, one woman can always take the place ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen
... which he and his equally devoted compeers held their indomitable resistance till the fatal issue. "Sarmatia lay in blood!" and the portion of that once great bulwark of civilized Europe was adjudged by the paricidal victors to themselves: a sentence like unto that passed on the worst of criminals was thus denounced against Christendom's often best benefactor, while the rest of Europe stood silently by, paralyzed or appalled, during the immediate execution of ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... But among other intelligence of evil omen that reached us was this, that the conspiracy had been discovered. Whether this were true or not, our means of communication were suspended; and, unable to learn what had occurred, we naturally concluded it was the worst. It is not quite correct to say, we, as far as the proceedings of these days in that neighbourhood were concerned. Neither Stephens nor myself was in communication with more than the one friend, to whose honour and heroism we would ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... call it a hole at all but an orifice or something like that. That little hole is the weak spot of the primus stove. Sometimes it gets clogged, and then a fine wire mounted upon some sort of handle must be used to dislodge the obstruction. Now, the worst thing that can happen to a primus stove is to get the wire pricker broken off in the burner hole, and that is what happened to us. Without a special tool that we did not possess, it is impossible to get at that burner to unscrew ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... hostile to slavery. Suppose they are? What have we to do with them? The example of England, also, has been referred to, as well as that of France. True, they have abolished slavery by name, but they have imported apprentices from Africa, and Coolies from Asia, and have placed them under the worst form of slavery ever known. England tolerates slavery in her mining districts to-day in a worse form than that existing in the Southern States. She has millions in India worse off than slaves. She has been the greatest land robber on the earth. ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... he were to saddle the horses; he was answered in the affirmative, and the gate being immediately unbarred, Wallace led his precious charge into the freedom of the open air. As soon as she saw the outside of those towers, which she had entered as the worst of all prisoners, her heart so overflowed with gratitude to her deliverer, that sinking by his side upon her knees, she could only grasp his hand, and bathe it with the pure tears of rescued innocence. Her ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... to diarrhoea and dysentery. The men are living principally upon salt meat, and there is a lack of vegetables. I have been here since Sunday and have tasted fresh meat but once since that time. I am only one of the many. Of course the worst has passed for the physicians, as our arrangements are now perfected and each corps will be relieved from time to time. Twenty more physicians arrived from Pittsburgh this morning and many of us will be relieved to-day. But the opinion is general among the ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... ruined ship which, in the days of its magnificence, had ridden the waves with the greatest pride. The fortnight in Copse Hill was the first relief from toil that had come to him since death and fire and defeat had done their worst upon him. His biographer says, "He was as eager as ever to pass the night in profitless, though pleasant, discussions when he should have been trying to regain his strength through sleep." To a later visitor Paul Hayne showed a cherished pine log on which were inscribed the names ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... the walls, under trees, on pedestals at frequent corners, are idols, hideously ugly; red idols, idols with silver faces and stone bodies, some with mouths from ear to ear, big idols, little idols, the worst omnium gatherum imaginable. Sati, nothing visible but her curious silver face, beams over a black mother-hubbard sort of gown that conceals whatever she may possess in the way of a body; Jagaddatri, the Mother ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... horsewhip, against which, from the knowledge of the man, I did not think myself altogether secure; though I was not much alarmed, because I believed myself superior to him in point of bravery, should the worst come to the worst. But, contrary to my expectation, and his usual behaviour to our sex, he accosted me very politely, and began to expostulate on the contents of my letter. I freely told him, that I had rashly ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... make him some shirts, and from morning to night Mrs Hadden's busy fingers were plying her needle till they were finished. Other friends supplied his different wants, and he was soon quite ready to accompany Lieutenant Charlton. The day to leave home came. The worst part of the business was parting from his mother; yet, great as was the pain, it was not so great as might have been expected. People when conscious of doing right are saved much grief and suffering; especially, if they trust in God, they know that He can and will deliver them out ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... the French administrative body at the time when Louis XVI. began to reign, was corrupt and self-seeking. In the management of the finances and of the army, illegitimate profits were made. But this was not the worst evil from which the public service was suffering. France was in fact governed by what in modern times is called "a ring." The members of such an organization pretend to serve the sovereign, or the public, and in some measure actually do so; ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... moreover, that these affectionate relations between the members of a family are counted among the pleasures and joy of life. The inscriptions urge and warn the survivors to miss none of the joys of life, since the disembodied dead sleep in darkness, and this is the worst of their grief, "they know neither father nor mother, they do not awake to behold their brethren, their heart yearns no longer after wife and child."[229] There is a delightful inscription on the sepulchral tablet of the wife of a high priest of Memphis,[230] ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... him and he kissed her trembling lips fiercely. "Never!" he said sternly. "I will never let you go now. My God! If you knew how I wanted you. If you knew what it cost me to send you away. Pray God I keep you happy. You know the worst of me, poor child—you will have a devil for ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... had known I should still have had the moral courage to appoint him. The Archbishop assures me I should—but I doubt it. I was loudly accused of nepotism, of course. Your uncle, who died soon afterwards, forgave me in the worst of taste on his deathbed. I had no means of justifying myself. The Archbishop and Grenfell and a few other old friends believed. Why were you not among those ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... picturesque passages as the swimming-match that Wackerbarth's style is worst. There is a plethora of adjectives, scarcely one of which is found in the original; but they are of no avail—they are too commonplace to render the strength and raciness of the original words. There is too ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... just what I am thinking of. It is almost the worst part of the whole thing. The spiteful attacks and accusations—it is ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... or into some valley." Elisha peremptorily refused to grant them leave. They were importunate; and when, at last, it would, perhaps, seem like obstinacy in him, or like jealousy of their superior love for Elijah, to forbid the search, which at the worst would only be fruitless, he yielded. Three days they explored the valleys, ransacked the thickets, groped in the caves, traversed hills, followed imaginary trails and footprints, but found him not. When they came again to Elisha, "he said unto them, ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... question in the streets of Rome sword in hand! More would ye gain now, if ye sent a word of defiance—denying his right to interpose between God and his people—between Christ and his church—and daring him to do his worst, than by this tame surrender of your rights—this almost base denial of your Master. No sooner shall tomorrow's sun have risen, than on the very steps of the capitol will I preach Christ, and hurl the damnation of God upon this bloody Emperor and ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... and shall be the last, that I wish to see you on the stage, dear little daughter. It is too painful for me, and what is worst of all I fear it will take you away ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... man is that he generally marries young; not because 'e wants to, but because somebody else wants 'im to. And that ain't the worst of it: the handsomest chap I ever knew married five times, and got seven years for it. It wasn't his fault, pore chap; he ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... prayers; she had none to say; her mind and soul were muted, muffled, dumb. She felt the hours following each other in regular order as something terrible; she wanted to skip over years, just as one might skip over pages of a tiresome book. And when the worst came to the worst, and she did not know what on earth to do, she ran to the Church of Our Lady, threw herself prostrate before the high altar, buried her face, and remained perfectly motionless until her soul ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... to say, in their simplicity of line, their inlay, and their general beauty of wood. He was most successful in his chairs, sideboards, tables, and small household articles, for his larger pieces of furniture were often too heavy. Some of the worst, however, were made by other cabinet-makers after his designs, and not ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... in the nobler side of the man. It is a far truer and more natural story of life than that which had suggested it; for in the soul of man there is ever a hunger and thirst for the highest, however much he may abuse his soul. At the worst, there remains always that which "a man may ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... for some unknown reason omitted the dance episode from her narrative, "that wasn't the worst part"—and continued, quite unconcernedly, to give a detailed account of the night's happenings. Whilst she was speaking the Arab moved nearer until he stood over her, there was neither shadow nor frown upon the fine face, or movement of lip or hand, but the air ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... any householder should give up to his service in war the worst of his children, or the laziest of his slaves (a curious tradition, and used by Saxo as ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... American vessel got the worst of the fight and "was leaking like a basket." The English captain, feeling sure of victory, called out: "Has your ship struck?" Our hero, Paul Jones, shouted back: "I have ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... audibly; "The King's Comedy progresses! But it had nearly taken the form of Tragedy to-day—and now Tragedy itself has melted into sentiment, and tears, and passion! And with this very difficult kind of human mixture, the worst may happen!" ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the stroke of the Amadan-na-Breena. There was an old man I knew long ago, he had a tape, and he could tell what diseases you had with measuring you; and he knew many things. And he said to me one time, 'What month of the year is the worst?' and I said, 'The month of May, of course.' 'It is not,' he said; 'but the month of June, for that's the month that the Amadan gives his stroke!' They say he looks like any other man, but he's leathan (wide), and not smart. I knew a boy ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... least regal and imposing object in the room was the woman who stood beside the fireplace, smiling as she always smiled when a situation was at its worst and she at her best. Her high-bred, aristocratic face was as insensitive to an inward softness as a chiseled block of marble is to the eye that gazes upon it in rapt admiration. She had trained herself to smile in the face of the disagreeable; she had acquired the art of tranquillity. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... So it was, so it was. The law is the worst loss. The ancient law was for the benefit of all. It is the law of the English is ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... Agriculture and industry have posted major gains especially in coastal areas near Hong Kong, opposite Taiwan, and in Shanghai, where foreign investment has helped spur output of both domestic and export goods. The leadership, however, often has experienced - as a result of its hybrid system - the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy and lassitude) and of capitalism (growing income disparities and rising unemployment). China thus has periodically backtracked, retightening central controls at intervals. The ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Valentine mentioned the loss of the tube; and Mr. Gimble immediately volunteered to make one of pasteboard. "Ten thousand thanks," said Mr. Blyth, hooking the key to his watch-guard again, as he returned to Lady Brambledown with his friend. "Ten thousand thanks; but the worst of it is, I don't know where ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... as yet enjoyed that privilege. "Then 'e don't know the worst," said Jarman. "A hundred and sixty pounds of 'er, and still growing! Bit of a ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... room, Westray examined the picture once more, and more than ever was he convinced of its worthlessness. It had all the crude colouring and hard outlines of the worst amateur work, and gave the impression of being painted with no other object than to cover a given space. This view was, moreover, supported by the fact that the gilt frame was exceptionally elaborate and well made, and he came to the conclusion that Sophia ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... graiengro than you, for I know a powder, and with a penny's worth of it I could stop the glanders in the worst case, long enough to sell the horse. I once knew an old horse-dealer who paid sixty pounds for a nokengro (a glandered horse) which had been powdered in ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... like some magical effect—the two worst-hated beings in all the world, appeared on a mound of marble blocks, within a hundred yards of and outside ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... what she must have she gave him friendship, sympathy, and comradeship, crossing his wishes in nothing and never allowing herself to upbraid except in that small tacit jeer of Mr. Foster's picture on the mantelpiece. For now she believed herself to know the worst, and yet to be ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... well but what either himself or some of his friends and countrymen have said or done. He is passionately kind and angry; careless either to gain or keep; vindicative, but, if he be well answered, at himself. For any religion, as being versed in both; interpreteth best sayings and deeds often to the worst. Oppressed with fantasie, which has ever mastered his reason: a general disease in ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... "The worst of it is," confessed Frank, "that father was paying Bert and me for every bit of that shoveling and Miss Cynthia never knew it. I feel as if I wanted to go right round there and do something for ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... "Through the worst!" a voice that reached her faintly said, and they were splashing on again, the water growing shallower all the time until they scrambled out upon the opposite bank. Then, the man checking the horse, stood by her stirrup, pressing the water from the hem of her ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... up by the Chicago delegation, as if hats were no longer useful.' Mr. Lincoln rose, bowed, smiled, blushed, and thanked the assembly as well as he could in the midst of such a tumult. A gentleman who saw it all says, 'I then thought him one of the most diffident and worst-plagued men I ever saw.' At another stage of the proceedings, Governor Oglesby rose again with another provoking and mysterious speech. 'There was,' he said, 'an old Democrat outside who had something he wished to present to the convention.' 'Receive it!' 'Receive it!' cried some. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... ma best," and Jessie declared that Burnbrae had been as kind as if she had been "his ain bairn," and that she "wasna feared ava." But her trial is not over; the worst is to come. ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... indignation he preached against Tetzel and his practices,—the abominable traffic of indulgences. Only God can forgive sins. It seemed to him to be an insult to the human understanding that any man, even a pope, should grant an absolution for crime. These indulgences were the very worst form of penance, since they made a mockery of virtue. And it was useless to preach against them so long as the principles on which they were based were not assailed. Everybody believed in penance; everybody believed that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... a speech at Dundee last week, described Mr. CHURCHILL as the worst Liberal First Lord of the Admiralty that had ever occupied the position. It is reported that the right honourable gentleman is having a large number of copies of this statement printed off as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... hands Eighty-two Dollars for the Benefit of Mrs [Lovell], which I shall remit either in Cash or a good Bill. I hope I shall soon be so happy as to hear that he is releasd from Bondage. I feel very tenderly for the rest of my fellow Citizens who are detaind in that worst of Prisons. Methinks there is one Way speedily ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... Miss Howe to Clarissa.—After rallying her on her not readily owning the passion which she supposes she has for Lovelace, she desires to know how far she thinks him eligible for his best qualities, how far rejectable for his worst. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... luck!" growled the captain. "There have been two or three small ones in the past few weeks, and the worst of it is that they generally herald ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... me add that the apocryphal slanderer, the person who never says but hints all sorts of malicious things, is the worst sort of scandal-monger. The cultivated conversationalist who talks gossip in its intellectual form does not indulge in oblique hints and insinuations. He says what he has to say intrepidly because ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... her now unsophisticated relative will prove to be. This last is the most trying speculation of all. How big a boy's feet invariably look in a fashionable sister's eyes! how long his arms, and how shapeless his hands! Poor blushing youth, is not the ordeal worst for himself, at that period when he scarcely dares trust the most modest of monosyllabic discourses to be articulated by those lips that are warning a waiting public of the dawn of whiskerdom! Freddy, ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... protector and bread-winner; but in India the tragedy of her fate is deepened a thousandfold by the diabolical ill-treatment of which she is made the innocent victim. A widow who has borne sons or who is aged is somewhat less despised than the child widow; on her falls the worst abuse and hatred of the community, though she be as innocent of any crime as an angel. In the eyes of a Hindoo the mere fact of being a widow is a crime—the crime of surviving her husband, though he may have been seventy ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... party, as France terms you, and you may assure yourselves this will be done." Allen then charged upon Gallatin that his language was that of a foreign agent. Gallatin replied that the representatives of the French Republic in this country had shown themselves to be the worst diplomatists that had ever been sent to it, and he asked why the gentlemen who did not come forward with a declaration of war (though they were willing to go to war without the declaration) charge their ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... months in the place—only two months, and here was the rector gone off for his summer vacation and McBirney left at the helm of the great city parish. Moreover, before the rector was gone a half-hour, here was the worst business of the day upon him, the hour between four and five when the rector was supposed to be found in the office, to receive any one who chose to come, for advice, for godly counsel, for "any old reason," as the man, only a few years out of college, put it to himself. He dreaded it; he dreaded ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... closed to his, as the mind of younger never should be to older. But at least he could see with relief that the worst had not happened. The deeper knowledge had not arrived to her too early when it could only hurt. All he found turned to him—as they receded from this thin-manifold universe, then moved up the dimension ladder to their home level—was ...
— Sweet Their Blood and Sticky • Albert Teichner
... seed a whole lot o' things, but de worst dat eber happen wuz 'bout twenty years ago when a han'ts hand hit me side o' de haid. I bet dat hand weighed a hundred pounds an' it wuz as cold as ice. I ain't been able ter wuck fer seben days an' nights an' I still can't turn my haid far ter de ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... tells us that tears were brought to their eyes by the green boughs with the leaves upon them with which a fire was made on the hearth. Hence for twenty-four miles the party was bowled away in chaises to a little town that the poet does not name, where water was sold, the worst in the world, he thought it, but where the bread was very fine. Through Canusium they went to Rubi, reaching that place fatigued because they had made a long journey and had been troubled by rains. Two days more took them through Barium and Egnatia to ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... Lysander, and it is difficult to say which of the two brought the greatest dishonor on their respective States. Both were ambitious, and both hoped to gain an ascendency incompatible with free institutions. To my mind, Alcibiades is the worst man in Grecian history, and not only personally disgraced by the worst vices, but his influence was disastrous on his country. Athens owed her political degradation more to him than any other man. He was insolent, lawless, extravagant, and unscrupulous, from ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... doubtfully. "I suppose it was. But—another time I—I would rather stay out in the very worst storm that ever was," she added mentally. "Nothing could be worse than what I have gone through, and what I shall feel whenever ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... some men speaking close to me, though it was too dark to see who they were, and even if they had looked into my berth they would not have discovered me; but I recognised the voices of old Growles and the boatswain, and two other men, who were the worst of the crew and the leading spirits for bad on board. I was not much alarmed, though I scarcely dared to breathe for fear of attracting their notice. I cannot repeat all they said, for they frequently made allusions which they ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... only one trouble—making the money go round," Harding told her with grave confidence. "It was worst in the hot weather, when other people could move out of town, and it hurt me to see Marianna looking white and tired. I used to wish I could send her to one of the farms up in the hills—though I guess she wouldn't have gone without me. She's brave, ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... truth, yet in this statement common report bore him out. Being much flattered by my inquiries he told me tale after tale, true or false, of his warlike exploits; and there was one among the rest illustrating the worst features of the Indian character too well for me to omit. Pointing out of the opening of the lodge toward the Medicine-Bow Mountain, not many miles distant he said that he was there a few summers ago with a war party of his young men. Here they found two Snake Indians, hunting. ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... this Sussex gentleman struck a terror through a wide circle of sojourners in the metropolis. I find accounts, pathetic enough, of their "packing away on all sides for fear of the worst;" and gentlemen "grumbling that they should be confined to their houses:" and this was sometimes backed too by a second proclamation, respecting "their wives and families, and also widows," which was "durus sermo to the women. It is nothing pleasing ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... pistols, but there's nothing like a good pair of well-handled fists when one has to tackle a poacher. I've been at Crompton, man and boy, these fifty years, and had a good many rough-and-tumbles with that sort, and I have never had the worst of it yet. It prevents bloodshed on both sides; for if you haven't no shooting-iron, there's few Englishmen, poachers or not, who will draw trigger on you; and as for a bludgeon, it's as likely to be in my hand as another's after the first ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... for political life. He had a quick smile and a ready tongue; he liked to talk and shake hands; he never had an opinion he was not willing to sell; he was always prepared to sacrifice a friend, if required, and to ask favors from his worst enemies. He called himself Andrew Jackson Offitt—a name which, in the West, is an unconscious brand. It generally shows that the person bearing it is the son of illiterate parents, with no family ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay |
