"Worst" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and myself seemed worth while recounting, for they showed me what I never in any other way could have understood about the seamy side of life in great cities, of its terrible tragedies and pathos, of how much good there is in the worst, and how much need of courage, and what vast opportunities lie before those who accept the service of man as their service to God. It proved to me how infinitely more needed are unselfish deeds than orthodox words, and how much the churches must ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... from departing maid-servants, and the direct warning from the old specialist which had long since faded from her mind, had been forcibly revived by the happenings at the school; and being one of those who invariably plump for the worst, and without giving the slightest thought to the criminality of the proceeding, she had definitely decided, if she could coerce the girl into falling in with her plans, to marry her to the highest bidder before ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... worst that the defenders had to endure. The exploding shells gave off poisonous gases that filled the underground passages of the redoubts. The heroic Turks worked under such conditions as long as it was humanly possible, but eventually their German officers were compelled ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... the society in which he lived, changes in the rite at the worship of ancestors, alterations in the established ritual at birth-ceremonies and funerals, abolition of polyandry and of child-marriages, and, worst of all, granting permission to marry to those of different castes. His zeal was directed especially against caste-restrictions and child-marriages. Naturally he failed to persuade the old Sam[a]j to join him in these revolutionary views, to insist on which, however sensible ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... "The worst of it is," she went on pleasantly, as Clemence came back, "that my father's married again, you know, to the sweetest little thing you ever saw. An only girl, with four or five big brothers, and her father a ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Shearer's designs, are very elegant, as he liked 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
... of his cleverness at his books. The irritability of his childhood had become moroseness, and he had alienated more often than he had attached his friends. A certain passionate sincerity, however, had never been lacking in his worst moods; and toward her he had been a loyal, if often heedless, son. In this loyalty, as the years passed, she had come to place her last hope that he would be deaf to the siren calls of the great city. Outdoor ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... brethren, let us try, For a little season, Every burden to lay by— Come, and let us reason. What is this that casts you down? What is this that grieves you? Speak, and let the worst be known— Speaking ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... "Worst kind," said Pine. "He says they have been hunting northerly for several weeks. Little game, and the drought driving it all away. He doubts if we find any water between here and the mountains. Hopes to reach it by to-morrow ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... have, sir," he replied. "You'd better prepare for the worst news, Mr. Hollis. We found the body this morning—not two hours ago. And—we don't know, as yet, how he came by his death. The doctors say it may have been pure accident. Let's hope it was! But there ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... Caroline was middling, Eugene played very well, Lauriston was rather heavy, Didelot passable, and I may venture to assert, without vanity, that I was not quite the worst of the company. If we were not good actors it was not for want of good instruction and good advice. Talma and Michot came to direct us, and made us rehearse before them, sometimes altogether and sometimes separately. How many lessons have I received from ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... imperatively necessary for you to accept whatever the king may feel disposed to offer you as a future provision, and as affording you the means of passing the remainder of your days in ease and tranquillity. What would become of you in case of the worst? Your numerous creditors would besiege you with a rapacity, still further excited by the support they would receive from court. You look at me with surprise because I speak the language of truth; be a reasonable creature I implore of you once in your life, and do not thus sacrifice the interests ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... prevail on the simplicity of the poor girl, and seduced her. So much do I know personally of Lucien Bonaparte, who certainly is a composition of good and bad qualities, but which of them predominate I will not take upon me to decide. This I can affirm—Lucien is not the worst member of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... (though no where growing of it self, some say, in Europe) is of several sorts; Monsieur Rencaume (of the French Academy) reckons nine; the soft-shell and the hard, the whiter and the blacker grain: This black bears the worst nut, but the timber much to be preferred, and we might propagate more of them if we were careful to procure them out of Virginia, where they abound and bear a squarer nut, of all other the most beautiful, and best worth planting; ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... her sake I first tooke armes, and for her sake I will handle them so long as I shall be able to vse them: not regarding how some men in private conuenticles do measure mens estimations by their owne humors; nor how euery popular person doeth giue sentence on euery mans actions by the worst accidents. But attending the gracious aspect of our dread Soueraigne, who neuer yet left vertue vnrewarded: and depending vpon the iustice of her most rare and graue aduisors, who by their heedie looking into euery mans worth, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... a vague knowledge that Gillis had had a girl with him, together with the half-formed determination that if worse came to worst she must never be permitted to fall alive into the hands of the lustful Sioux, Mr. Hampton had scarcely so much as noted her presence. Of late years he had not felt greatly interested in the sex, and his inclination, since uniting his shattered fortunes with this little company, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... Proxenus. He impressed upon them emphatically the necessity of standing forward to put the army in a posture of defence. "I cannot sleep, fellow-soldiers; neither, I presume, can you, under our present perils. The enemy will be upon us at daybreak—prepared to kill us all with tortures, as his worst enemies. For my part, I rejoice that his villanous perjury has put an end to a truce by which we were the great losers; a truce, under which we, mindful of our oaths, have passed through all the rich ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... forward, face bloodless, and beat upon a chair arm. "Switch now!" He laughed shrilly. "Why, I'm going to beat that damned woods-rat in his matinee-idol costume so bad between now and next May that he'll be walking the roads for his next job. Switch? I'm going to brand him as the worst incompetent that ever dragged two poor fools down into pauperism. I'll see him broke. I'll wipe that damned smooth smile from his lips, by God, ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... dark-eyed race who once held the country were in the position of a conquered and vassal people; for the times and the manners of those times well used by their conquerors, especially in the country of the Dorsaetas, where at the worst they were treated as useful slaves, and at the best the masters were but rustic imitators of their forerunners, the Romans. To the most careless observer a good proportion of the country people of Dorset are unusually ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... size, larger than our ordinary wild chestnut, usually one in a bur just as the chinquapin is and having the high quality of the chinquapin, and he has grown many of those in New Jersey right in the very worst of the disease area and has found some that are exempt. Perhaps some of you have noticed what was published in regard to this in the Rural New-Yorker sometime in the past few months. I have seen the nuts from some of these trees, and while I have never ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... fierce calendar of delirium—so brief measured by the huge circuit of events which it embraced, and their mightiness for evil. Wrath, wrath immeasurable, unimaginable, unmitigable, burned at my heart like a cancer. The worst had come. And the thing which kills a man for action —the living in two climates at once—a torrid and a frigid zone—of hope and fear—that was past. Weak—suppose I were for the moment: I felt that a day or two might bring back my strength. No miserable tremors of hope now shook my ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... compound of good and evil, and his conduct depended, in a great measure, upon the companions he associated with. He was easily persuaded, and often during his father's frequent and lengthened absences from home he played truant from school, and associated with the worst boys in the village. I well remember the morning he first entered our school. He was then about twelve years of age; but owing to his carelessness and inattention, he had made but slight progress in study. I learned afterward that he had so long borne the names of "dunce" and "blockhead" in the ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... relate to you the scene presented below—mess-chests, bags, tables, crockery, flying from deck and beam to stanchion, smashing about in the most dangerous way, pell-mell, while the worst of the tempest lasted. But, gentlemen, the 'Scourge' had a frame of live-oak, to say nothing of two or three acres of tough yellow-pine timber in her, a good deal of fibrous hemp to hold the masts up; and, moreover, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... kind of thud, like somebody had let down a folding bed, though there ain't a one of those man-killers in our house. Sort of stirred up a recollection, that sound. I lay puzzling, and the answer came like a flash. Worst fake outfit I ever had anything to do with was Vango's Spirit Thought Institute in St. Paul. I've told you before how ashamed I am of that. I left because there's some kinds of work I won't stand for. Well, he ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... stormwind, which, a moment later, reached the mission, and with the rocking of the earth and the rending of walls, the tower of the new church fell on the people below, shrieking as they fled. Forty were killed on the spot, as well as many wounded. This catastrophe was by far the worst ever visited on the missions, and it was long before San Juan Capistrano recovered from the blow—never, in fact, so far as the church was concerned, for it was too badly injured to be repaired, and the fathers could not summon up energy enough to build another. Since that dire ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... ripped it out. Said the worst he could and ended with a curse! The blood boiled in me. The old Nance never stood that; she used to sneer at other women ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... attractive costume she's to wear, and we'll kill him. He'll fall hard. Then we'll happen by there at the exact time when he's waiting, and detain him, urge him to come into the park with us or to dinner. We'll look our worst so he'll be ashamed of us. He'll squirm and get wild, but we'll hang on and spoil the date for him, see? We'll insist in the letter that he must be alone, see, because she's timid and afraid of being recognized. My God, he'll be crazy! He'll think we've ruined his life—oh, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... the phrases and aspirations which touch the heart more nearly than the head. Though her practice does not always square with her theory, especially in the field of politics, she is indefatigable in the praise of freedom, equality, and the other commonplaces of democracy. The worst is, that she cannot laugh at herself. Her gravity and sensitiveness still lie, like stumbling-blocks, in her path. She accepts the grim adulation of such unwise citizens as Mr Carnegie as no more than her due. If only ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... stooping and poking out my chin from any one; it came of itself. It is so hard to sit up; but Mother says that much my worst trick ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Humphrey's wife. Strangers in court do take her for the queen; She bears a duke's revenues on her back, And in her heart she scorns our poverty. Shall I not live to be aveng'd on her? Contemptuous base-born callat as she is, She vaunted 'mongst her minions t' other day, The very train of her worst wearing gown Was better worth than all my father's land Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... distress her. She had never supposed that he or any one else was "good." She had never known a "good" person. Nor did it occur to her, in her pristine state of savagery, that you loved any one the less for their drawbacks. She would rather be with Martin at his worst than with any one else at ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... pecuniary accounts, then one from liquid measure, then one from dry measure—all designed to affix the brand of the most petty meanness on the (so called) friendship which makes it a point neither to leave nor to brook a preponderance of obligation on either side.] But worst of all is the third limit which prescribes that friends shall take a man's opinion of himself as a measure for their estimate and treatment of him. There are some persons who are liable to fits of depression, or who ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... was sort of funny. I was covered up from one in the afternoon until five, quite conscious all the time and pretty well scared. You see, I couldn't help wondering just what would happen if the rocks should settle. My eyes got the worst of it and I had to stay in the hospital about a month. But I'm afraid I'm boring you. I was just leading up to my ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Congregationalists, and are both going to join the church. There is a daily service, and there have been a large number of conversions. I have talked a good deal with my aunt, and I really do want to commence over again and be a good girl. Aunt Anna says that Jesus died so that the very worst sinners might be forgiven, and I think he will forgive me. She wants me to stay and be received with her daughters here, but I'd rather join the dear church in Squantown, with the other girls, if you ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... thousand pounds each. The skin of the shark is rough, and is used for polishing wood, ivory, &c.; that of one species is manufactured into an article called agreen: spectacle-cases are made of it. The white shark is the sailor's worst enemy: he has five rows of wedge-shaped teeth, which are notched like a saw: when the animal is at rest they are flat in his mouth, but when about to seize his prey they are erected by a set of muscles which join them to ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... the headquarters of at least a dozen pirates, the worst of which was called Black Beard, a bloodthirsty villain who sunk two vessels right where we are anchored this blessed minute. The feller's real name was John Teach, an' that big banyan tree over there is where he used to hold what he allowed was ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... treats them with civility; the religious, with peculiar kindness and attention. Hence they are apt to think too well of the world. Lawyers, on the other hand, think too ill of it. They see only, or for the most part, its worst side. They are brought in contact with dishonesty and villany in their worst developments. I have observed, in doing business with lawyers, that they are exceedingly hawk-eyed, and jealous of everybody. The omission of a word or letter in a will, they will scan with the closest scrutiny; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... fire-arms, we could see the spears thrusting, sabres and tomahawks gleaming, pistols flashing, horses plunging and rearing, while shouts and cries rent the air. It was too evident that our party were getting the worst of it and were being forced back, over the ground towards the fort. Fresh hordes were seen coming on, probably those who had before retreated. Again the trumpet sounded the recall. The commandant now summoned every available man in the fort; some to garrison the pits, ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... as the other's. This individual, who was at least fifteen years younger than his companion, was short and remarkably ugly; his face, which was quite beardless, being pitted all over by the smallpox. His garb was such as is worn by the worst frequenters of the barriere. His trousers were of a gray checked material, and his blouse, turned back at the throat, was blue. It was noticed that his boots had been blackened quite recently. The smart glazed cap that lay on the floor beside him was in harmony with his carefully ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... is not her worst misery. Papa, she is all alone; the neighbours bring her food, but nobody stops to eat it with her. She is all alone by night and by day; and she is disagreeable in her temper, I believe, and she has nobody to love her ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... love, who is sinless, and temptationless; who hath all the faculties of soul and body strained by love and grace, to the highest pin of perfection, that is possible to be in glory enjoyed and possessed? Oh the wisdom and goodness of God, that he at this day, should so cast about the worst of our things, even those that naturally tend to sink us, and damn us, for our great advantage! "All things shall work together for good," indeed, "to them that love God" (Rom 8:28). Those sins that brought a curse upon the whole world, that spilt the heart-blood of our dearest ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... badly for me! My uncle became thoroughly converted, and if that had been all I should not have cared so much. Clerical or Freemason, to me it is all the same; six of one and half a dozen of the other; but the worst of it is that he has just made his will—yes, made his will—and he has disinherited me in favor ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... The worst of it was that they soon began to get hungry again, and the wolf, who was the hungriest of all, ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... welcome there: But is a lodging claimed by other wight, To joust with all new comers makes him swear: If none, he need not move; but arms and fight He must what stranger thither shall repair; And he that worst his warlike arms shall ply, Must wander ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... One of the worst of these cases occurred soon after her father's death. There were two brothers of Jane Seymour, who were high in King Henry's favor at the time of his decease. The oldest is known in history by his title of the Earl of Hertford at first, and afterward ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... had supper; the most jellies I ever saw, and wild honey, and cold ham, and fried chicken, and several kinds of bread, and cake and berries and cream. So after that Mitch and me was about caught up on meals. John talked all the time at supper and swore a good deal, about every other word, not the worst swearin', but regular swearin'; and he kept tellin' one thing and then another about folks around the country, things that had happened. But all the time Aunt Caroline just set there and et and ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... to pursue that course. But the worst of it is, Walter, that the doctors hold out no hope of Mademoiselle's recovery. I saw Duponteil half an hour ago, and he told me that he could give me no encouraging information. The bullet has been extracted, but she is hovering ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... about "the suffering human race" would seem to have been that its worst miseries arise from a too exalted estimate of its capacities. Men are perpetually disappointed and disillusioned because they expect too much from human life and human nature, and persuade themselves that their experience, here and hereafter, will be, not what they have any reasonable ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. And also the only real tragedy in life is the being used by personally minded men for purposes which you recognize to be base. All the rest is at worst mere misfortune or mortality: this alone is misery, slavery, hell on earth; and the revolt against it is the only force that offers a man's work to the poor artist, whom our personally minded rich people would so willingly employ as pandar, buffoon, beauty monger, ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... freshness had become since even yesterday! Sarah was summoned, and confessed that she had known last night that "Hisabella" had gone on the "burst," having bought, for some fabulous sum, a bottle of rum from a passing swagger. It was all very dreadful, and worst of all was the scene of tears and penitence I had to endure when the rum was finished. The dray, however, relieved me of the incubus of her presence; and that was the only instance of drunkenness I came across among my domestic ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... marriage, it is interesting, if nothing more, to consider the efforts of the priest to give it an attribute of sanctity, to call it a sacrament. In truth, marriage is the most artificial of the relations which exist in the social body. It is a device of man at his worst—a mixture of slavery, savage egotism and priestcraft. It is indicated by nothing in the physical constitution of either male or female. It is an anomaly; a contract which can be freely entered into by the most unfit, but which cannot be broken, though both parties wish ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... vices of the primitive system have lasted and, and, among others, the worst of all, the internat[6344] under the discipline of barracks or convent, while the university, through its priority and supremacy, in contact with or contiguously, has communicated this discipline at first to its subordinates, and afterward to its rivals.—In 1887,[6345] in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the late violent gales in Douvarnenez Bay, which is, in my opinion, one of the finest in the universe. It is sheltered from every wind but those from W. 1/2 N. to W. 1/2 S.; and even that opening is protected by a reef of rocks. Although the height of the gale was in the worst direction it could have been, yet, having no very considerable sea, we rode it out remarkably well. We lay, much to the disappointment of the enemy, just out of gun-shot of the forts. They favoured us, however, with some shells. We found, upon our re-appearance off Brest, that six Spaniards ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... "leave a city after sunrise, and enter a city before sundown."[254] Besides, Joseph had a specific reason for not letting his brethren depart from the city during the night. He feared an encounter between them and his servants, and that his men might get the worst of it, for the sons of Jacob were like the wild beasts, which have the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... apt to think nothing absent can equal; because, under the present pain, we find not ourselves capable of any the least degree of happiness. Men's daily complaints are a loud proof of this: the pain that any one actually feels is still of all other the worst; and it is with anguish they cry out,—'Any rather than this: nothing can be so intolerable as what I now suffer.' And therefore our whole endeavours and thoughts are intent to get rid of the present evil, before all things, ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... one time played a large part in the history of India, and in the debates and papers of Parliament. Mr. John Palmer, a personal friend of the Serampore men, had advanced them money at ten per cent. four years previously, when the Society's misrepresentation had done its worst. The children in the Eurasian schools, which Dr. and Mrs. Marshman conducted with such profit to the mission, depended chiefly on funds deposited with this firm. It suddenly failed for more than two millions ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... to rouse the feelings of Marius, as well for the honor at which he aimed, as against Metellus. He suffered himself to be actuated, therefore, by ambition and resentment, the worst of counselors. He omitted nothing henceforward, either in deeds or words, that could increase his own popularity. He allowed the soldiers, of whom he had the command in the winter quarters, more relaxation of ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... having eyes see not, and having ears hear not the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... 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, and when my chance came she saw that I must ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... brother laughed. "'A man's a man for a' that,' Fair. I dare say old Gideon rolled tobacco with all his might. As for his son, his worst enemy—and I don't know that I am that—couldn't ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... place in his composition, but it was not the craft of the fox; it was a species of craft which at its worst was above mere pettifogging, and at its best was unquestionably a high type of diplomacy. Those mistake who considered him only as a cunning man. A person opposed to him in politics, but who made a study of his career, observed that in power of intellect he had ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... open column, then into square; till at last, we began to think that the old general was like the Flying Dutchman, and was probably condemned to keep on drilling us to the day of judgment. To be sure, he enlivened the proceeding to me by pronouncing the regiment the worst-drilled and appointed corps in the service, and the adjutant (me!) the stupidest dunderhead—these were his words—he had ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... But perhaps the worst drawback of Darius's new position was the long and irregular hours, due partly to the influences of Saint Monday and of the scenes above indicated but not described, and partly to the fact that the employes were on piece-work and entirely unhampered by ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Not that his Italian life can have brought any notable access of musical impressions to a man who had grown up within easy reach of London concerts and operas. But England was a land in which music was performed; Italy was a land in which it was made. Verdi's "worst opera" could be heard in many places; but in Florence the knowing spectator might see Verdi himself, at ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... them, yet with a perfect sincerity of purpose on the part of the narrator to set down the literal and unvarnished truth. It was his constant effort to be frank and faithful to fact, to record, to confess, and to condemn without stint. If you wanted to know the worst of Mark Twain you had only to ask him for it. He would give it, to the last syllable—worse than the worst, for his imagination would magnify it and adorn it with new iniquities, and if he gave it again, or a dozen times, he would improve upon it each time, until the thread ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of a male heir might cause a civil war in England, and that this must be disadvantageous to the Church as well.[94] He only asked not to be pressed as long as he was in danger of experiencing the worst extremities from the overwhelming power of the Emperor. In the spring of 1528, when the French army advanced victoriously into the Neapolitan territory and drove back the Emperor's forces to the capital, Wolsey's ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... is scarcely surprising to find that the vast majority of the statesmen of the day were as unadmirable in their private as they were unheroic in their public life. For then and long after, the political atmosphere, bad at its best, was infamous at its worst, and by an unhappy chance the disposition of the King led him to favor in their public life the very men whose private life would have filled him with loathing, and to detest, where it was impossible to despise, the men who came to the service of their country ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... proviso, however, that if any deny that he is a Christian, and proves the point by offering prayers to our deities, notwithstanding the suspicions under which he has labored, he shall be pardoned on his repentance. On no account should any anonymous charges be attended to, for it would be the worst possible precedent, and is inconsistent with ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... very day. I is been here all de time since then an' been makin' crops er cotton an' corn every since I been old enough. I is seen good times an' hard times, Boss, all endurin' of those years followin' de War, but de worst times I is ever seen hab been de last several ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... pain is before and after. Live in such a way in the times of comparative comfort that the attacks are less likely to appear and easier to bear when they do come. After the pain or the "nervous" attack is over, that is the time to prevent the worst features of another. Forget the distress; live simply and happily in spite of the memory, and you will have done all that the patient himself can do to ward off or to make tolerable the next occasion of suffering. Pain itself—pure physical pain—is a matter for the physician's judgment. ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... wooding of the ship were completed, the gunner had dried all his powder in the sun, and the tents and people were brought on board. All that the carpenters could do at the ship was to secure the hooding ends to the stem—shift some of the worst parts in the rotten planking—and caulk all the bends; and this they had finished. The wind being south-east on the morning of the 29th [MONDAY 29 NOVEMBER 1802], I attempted to quit the Investigator's Road by ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... system would ensure the worst of everything; what gardener would devote his energies to producing fine varieties, if a common field cabbage would rival his choicest specimens at the same price, but at a ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Crispin, he had never heard of him. The answer is always, "C'est votre lethargie." While perplexed and hesitating, the old man discovers that a large sum in notes has been abstracted from his hoard. Ergaste had secured them as an alleviation in case of the worst, and had placed them in the hands of Isabelle. She promises to return them, if Geronte will make Ergaste his heir and her husband. In his anxiety for his money, Geronte consents to everything, and allows the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... suppose the worst, that the distiller and some farmers should be reduced to absolute beggary by the cessation of this manufacture; no reasonable, or patriotic, or Christian man can for a moment regard this as a reason why he should ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... the work here—the great ignorance of many of the preachers. Some of them will tell you, they have had "no education," and, indeed, it is all too plain, from their curious expressions and mis-applied long words; but worst of all is their ignorance of the Bible. But how can they do better till they have been taught? There is a crying need of educated pastors in these country places. The young men tell us, they "do not find religion interesting;" ...
— The American Missionary, October, 1890, Vol. XLIV., No. 10 • Various
... unseasonably disoblige all the People of Paris, should I accuse them of having applauded a foolish Thing: as the Public is absolute Judge of such sort of Works, it would be Impertinence in me to contradict it; and even if I should have had the worst Opinion in the World of my Pretentious Young Ladies before they appeared upon the Stage, I must now believe them of some Value, since so many People agree to speak in their behalf. But as great part of the Pleasure ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... It really is dreadful to see a young lady-like you in such an awkward position, from the weakness and follies of others; but we must submit to what the bon Dieu disposes, and when things come to the worst, hope that a change will take place, as any change must then be for the better. I have consulted my husband about what you propose, but he negatives everything. He says you are too good for a governess; would be thrown away as a companion to a lady; that you must ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... good to you or to me. I had been to you so often in my boyish difficulties, and found sympathy and kindness, I thought I should find it now. I know I do not deserve it, but I nevertheless expected it from you. But it is no matter. I may as well brave the worst at once." ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Indian women, they are far from complaining of their lot. On the contrary, they would despise their husbands could they stoop to any menial office, and would think it conveyed an imputation upon their own conduct. It is the worst insult one virago can cast upon another in a moment of altercation. "Infamous woman!" will she cry, "I have seen your husband carrying wood into his lodge to make the fire. Where was his squaw, that he should be obliged to ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... urged the boatswain; "you would hang him perhaps. It is the worst that you could do. Is that punishment meet for him? He has despoiled women, bereft children, tortured men, in the streets of La Guayra. A more fitting punishment should await him. Think of Panama, of Maracaibo, of Porto ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the turnpike, and confronting Longstreet, was immediately ordered to fall back and support the attack, and two small brigades, Warren's and Alexander's, were left alone on the Federal left. Pope had committed his last and his worst blunder. Sigel with two divisions was in rear of Porter, and for Sigel's assistance Porter had already asked. But Pope, still under the delusion that Longstreet was not yet up, preferred rather to weaken his left than grant ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... company had to sail on the morning of the 6th in one of the ordinary Dover packet-boats, under a strong gale from the south-east, with a heavy sea, which rendered the horrors of the Channel crossing, at the worst, what only those who have ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... what I think," she cried excitedly. "Those two girls are surely adventuresses of the worst type. You say at first that she called the demented girl her sister, and then afterward admitted that she was not. You see, there was something wrong from the start. Now let me tell you an intensely interesting ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... "And suppose the worst—that they are successful," said Mr. Aubrey, after they had conversed a good deal, and very anxiously, on the subject of a presumed infirmity in Mr. Aubrey's title, which had been pointed out to him in general terms by Mr. Parkinson, on the occasion already adverted to—"what is to be said ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... Rehearsal and the Critic, but nearer to the former; and Pasquin, the maturest example of Fielding's satiric work in drama. These accordingly have been selected; the rest I have read, and he who likes may read. I have read many worse things than even the worst of them, but not often worse things by so good a writer as Henry Fielding. The next question concerned the selection of writings more miscellaneous still, so as to give in little a complete idea of Fielding's various powers and experiments. Two difficulties ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... fashioned and sewed on. This zealous individual, by improving every moment, by sitting up nights, by working with the baby across her lap, accomplished her task. The dress was finished, and worn with unutterable complacency. It is this last part which is the worst part. They have no misgivings, these mothers. They expect your warm approval. "I can't get a minute's time to read," said this industrious person; and, on another occasion, "I'll own up, I don't know any thing about taking ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... been eligible to service in army or navy, and who had evaded it. In camp and trench and dug-out he had heard of the army of slackers. And of all the vile and stark profanity which the war gave birth to on the lips of miserable and maimed soldiers, that flung on the slackers was the worst. ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... matter how the wind might blow, or the seas roll, I always brought my ship through in safety. I could read the signs of the weather, and could detect the approach of danger from the elements. I knew my enemies were there, and that was half the battle. Here, on land, I find it so different; my worst enemies come to me with the smiles and greetings of friends; they express the tenderest wishes for my welfare, and shower upon me the tokens of their affection; then, having fairly won my confidence, they turn upon me when I least expect it, and stab me cruelly. ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... was rather mild; fellows in his regiment mostly cut him dead, and say he is yellow; generally in the hospital when there's a battle on. But Forsdyke tells the worst story—he heard it in New Orleans. It seems Le Gaire owned a young girl—a quadroon—whom he took for a mistress; then he tired of the woman, they quarrelled, and the cowardly brute turned her back into the fields, and had her whipped by his ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... of straightening-up generally and pumping out the ship, this latter job being accomplished and the pumps sucking in just under the ten minutes that Maxwell had allowed for it. It was clear, therefore, that our hull was sound, and that in that respect, at all events, with the best—or rather the worst—intentions in the world, the pirates had done ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... conditions in this very year which is now closing. Disaster to great business enterprises can never have its effects limited to the men at the top. It spreads throughout, and while it is bad for everybody, it is worst for those farthest down. The capitalist may be shorn of his luxuries; but the wage-worker may be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that all he knew of the matter was that he was very glad Hector was dead, and for this impious irrelevance he was ordered to write an appalling imposition and forfeit several half-holidays. But that, for the time being, was the worst thunderbolt that fell from ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... laws. And do we wonder, when the foundation of politics is in the letter only, at the miseries of states? Ought we not rather to admire the strength of the political bond? For cities have endured the worst of evils time out of mind; many cities have been shipwrecked, and some are like ships foundering, because their pilots are absolutely ignorant of ...
— Statesman • Plato
... to come up here, when there is no real need for it," he muttered. "Two to one, eh? Well, I reckon I can put up a pretty stiff fight if it comes to the worst." Then he caught up his oars once more, and began to row down Cayuga ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... up and marched out of the room, feeling jarred and irritated, and utterly out of sympathy. That's the worst of being a spinster, you can never count on your companions as a continuance! Kathie left me at the invitation of a man she had known a few months; Charmion regards me as a narcotic to distract her thoughts from another man, and flies ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... road I've ever travelled over—the very worst," was Eleanor's natural complaint. "When will that get us ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... hearing the conversation above mentioned, had given me a significant glance, which sufficiently explained to me how he understood it. A very few moments sufficed to confirm my worst suspicions: I learned that the aged female who had spoken of herself as Malola, was Mowno's aunt and that she was, with her own full consent and approval, to be destroyed in a few days. From the manner in which Olla alluded to ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... and patient with me she was, on our dismal way home from the park! And how affectionately she excused herself for not having warned me of it, when she first suspected that my own sister and my worst enemy were ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... what was said before, and now it follows; if this assertion be true, then the popish doctrine of merit is good, yea the worst sort of it, which is, works done before faith. For that we read of none of these women save Lydia feared or worshipped God; and yet saith he, God so approved of that meeting as then, and at that time, to send them his gospel, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... best, Stabler as worst. Her neighbor to the east, New Jersey, rates Stabler highly, as does Ohio, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... being my own second charger, which I put as leader to the cart. We then got forward on foot as fast as the men could walk, or rather as fast as they could clear a way for the cart. We passed through much scrub, but none was of the very worst sort. The natives' marks on trees were numerous, and the ground seemed at first to fall westward as to some water-course; and, after travelling about five miles, there appeared a similar indication of water to the eastward of our route. At one place even the ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... is of the very quintessence of poetry, and puts Ibsen in the first rank of creators. In the fourth act, the introduction of which is abrupt and grotesque, we pass to a totally different and, I think, a lower order of imagination. The fifth act, an amalgam of what is worst and best in the poem, often seems divided from it in tone, style and direction, and is more like a symbolic or mythical gloss upon the first three acts than a contribution to the ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... to Richard now as it was to Ruth, for Richard had to submit to the mockery with which the town rake lashed his godly bearing and altered ways. More than once in gusts of sudden valour the boy urged his sister to permit him to drive the baronet from the house and let him do his worst. But Ruth, afraid for Richard, bade him wait until the times were more settled. When the royal vengeance had slaked its lust for blood it might matter little, perhaps, what tales Sir ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... tremulous breath, which, when sent forth again, would come burdened with the black secret of his soul. More than once—nay, more than a hundred times—he had actually spoken! Spoken! But how? He had told his hearers that he was altogether vile, a viler companion of the vilest, the worst of sinners, an abomination, a thing of unimaginable iniquity, and that the only wonder was that they did not see his wretched body shrivelled up before their eyes by the burning wrath of the Almighty! ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 he ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... "Not even with this breeze. Literature travels faster than steam nowadays. And the worst of it is that we can't any of us give up reading; it's as insidious as a vice and as tiresome as ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... conditions which these survivals exemplify helped to make existence easy and happy. Only from a modern point of view is it possible to criticise them. The worst that can be said about them is that their moral value was chiefly conservative, and that they tended to repress effort in new directions. But where they still endure, Japanese life keeps something of its ancient charm; and where they have disappeared, that charm ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... man, as he threw himself upon the ground beside her. But as he fearfully turned her head toward him, that he might see first the worst there was, two dark-lashed, gray eyes slowly unclosed and looked up into his, and a smile, so faint that it was but the hint of a smile, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... philosophers. By the latter he specially means the Epicureans. They are no doubt referred to in I. 4, 7, 26 (I. 14: Atheists). Epicurus and Sardanapalus are classed together in II. 7; Epicurus and the immoral poets in II. 12; and in the conclusion of II, 15 the same philosopher is ranked with the worst society. But according to II. 3 fin. ([Greek: adunaton Kuniko, adiaphoron to telos prothemeno, to agathon eidenai plen adikphorias]) the Cynics also seem to be outside the circle of real philosophers. This is composed ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... will, was the great warrior who by his own hands had taken a Volscian city, but was now banished and a fugitive, he was filled with compassion. He greeted him kindly and offered him a home, saying to himself, "Caius, our worst foe, is now our friend and a foe to Rome; we will make war against that proud city, and by his ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... dynasty. So little did he object to the agent of Ralegh's alleged intrigue through Cobham with the Spanish Court that he never allowed a symptom of impatience on that side to escape him. Ralegh's guilt at worst depended wholly on the reality of his partnership in Cobham's dealings with Arenberg. In the spring of 1604, Arenberg, who had left England at the end of the previous October, before the Winchester trials commenced, returned ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... strong characters as little David's, when they are once set on the right object, come to the very best kind of goodness; but when they take a wrong turn, they are the very worst, both ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my {p.103} work as to think of carrying off a drift of my neighbor's sheep, or half a dozen of his milk cows. Only I remember, in the rough times, having a scheme with the Duke of Buccleuch, that when the worst came to the worst, we should repair Hermitage Castle, and live, like Robin Hood and his merry men, at the expense of all round us. But this presupposed a grand bouleversement of society. In the mean while, I think my noble friend is something like ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Lupey says as Judy would have took Busby for her own lawyer only they was so afraid of hurtin' each other's reputations, an' now really it's terrible, 'cause Busby says as he don't well see what's to be done about their reputations if the worst comes to the worst, for he's explained as very likely Judy's goin' to need one more man than a husband to get her her divorce. Mrs. Macy says Mrs. Lupey says as Busby said as if he had n't been Mr. Drake's lawyer he'd have been more than ready to be the other man, but as Mr. ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... shook his ears with all his natural vivacity. "Pardon me," he cried, "but I'm of Oddity's opinion,— heroes like Sir Whiskerandos are the very worst travelling companions in the world! How Ratto has escaped with his life I cannot imagine, but I shall certainly not try the experiment of following your fortunes for an hour! I've no fancy to be baked in a pie, or starved on a barrel, crushed by a drosky, or worried ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... The worst evil resulting from the precocious use of speech by young children is that we not only fail to understand the first words they use, we misunderstand them without knowing it; so that while they seem to answer us correctly, they fail to understand ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... too general to be designated an idiosyncrasy on the part of the poet. We always knew who was meant when a sentence was prefaced with "that rascal" or "that scoundrel,"—such were the epithets substituted for the name of Louis Napoleon. Believing the third Napoleon to be the worst enemy of his foster-mother, Italy, as well as of France, Landor bestowed upon him less love, if possible, than the majority of Englishmen. Having been personally acquainted with the Emperor when he lived in England as an exile, Landor, unlike many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... ponies, &c., missing. As might be supposed, the Slavish newspapers magnified the affair into a great and decisive victory for the rebels. It is true that it reflected little credit on Osman Pacha; and it might have been fully as disastrous to the Turks as their worst enemies could have desired, had not the intense darkness of the night, the heavy rain, and the want of pluck in the Christians (a fault of which they cannot in general be accused), combined to get them out of the scrape without ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... devil who laughed used to snigger in his ear over and over again, until it was almost like the ticking of a clock during the worst months, when it did not seem probable that a man could feel his brain whirling like a Catherine wheel night and day, and still manage to hold on and not reach the point of howling and shrieking and dashing his skull against ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... previously invisible nebula. But its brilliancy diminished swiftly, when it ought to have taken millions of years to cool. If the theory was true, it ought to have behaved very differently. It should have regularly condensed from gas to a solid sun by slow process. But, worst of all, after being a star awhile, it showed unmistakable proofs of turning into a cloud-mist—a star into a nebula, instead of vice versa. A possible explanation will ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... Ben Ezra, the night he died, Called sons and sons' sons to his side, And spoke, 'This world has been harsh and strange; Something is wrong: there needeth a change. But what, or where? at the last, or first? In one point only we sinned, at worst. ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... late," said Anna: "nor could you do it, Charles Henry. You are afraid of the dark woods, and what comes beyond is much more fearful. We have taken leave of each other, the worst is past. Kiss your father for me, and when at times you are sitting upon the old bench, remind him of ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... rise, far from sheltering it from alterations made by way of correction, modified it in every conceivable fashion, according to the views of the chiefs of the schools. Like every book in circulation, the Talmud was exposed to the worst changes, and this all the more readily, because at that time no one had a notion of what we call respect for the text, for the idea of the author. As rigidly as the text of the Bible was maintained intact in the very minutest details, so lax was the treatment of the Talmud, which was at ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... the young Earl of Berkeley(15) and his fine lady. I never saw her before, nor think her near so handsome as she passes for.—After dinner, Mr. Bertue(16) would not let me put ice in my wine, but said my Lord Dorchester(17) got the bloody flux with it, and that it was the worst thing in the world. Thus are we plagued, thus are we plagued; yet I have done it five or six times this summer, and was but the drier and the hotter for it. Nothing makes me so excessively peevish as hot weather. Lady Berkeley after dinner clapped my hat on another lady's head, and ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... for prizes of flasks and creels and fly-books is to mistake the true meaning of the pastime. However, in this crowded age men are so constituted that they like to turn a contemplative exercise into a kind of Bank Holiday. There is no use in arguing with such persons; the worst of their pleasure is that it tends to change a Scotch loch into something like the pond of the Welsh Harp, at Hendon. It is always good news to read in the papers how the Dundee Walton Society had a bad day, and how the first prize was won by Mr. Macneesh, with five trout ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... were at their worst, my mother was making garden. Some one said, "You would better not make garden because the grasshoppers will eat it up." "Oh, well," she replied, "I am going to plant it anyway and trust it with the Lord. 'They that sow in hope shall be partaker of their hope.'" Mother ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... for the same reason, in earlier times, the infamous knavery of the patriarch Jacob and his chosen people against Hamor, King of Shalem, and his people, is reported to his glory because the people were unbelievers! (Genesis xxxiii. 18.) Truly, it is the worst side of religions that the believers of one religion have allowed themselves every sin again those of another, and with the utmost ruffianism and cruelty persecuted them; the Mohammedans against the Christians and Hindoos; the Christians against the Hindoos, Mohammedans, American ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... I," responded Jean calmly, "but I have to just the same; and that's the reason I thought I'd like to take the time when we read to do some of the worst things." ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... good world that we live in, To lend, or to spend, or to give in; But to beg, or to borrow, or get a man's own, 'Tis the very worst world, sir, that ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... knew of his own experience. Let matters take their course unhindered, at all events by him. For it was less his part than that of any other man alive to interfere when Rudolph Musgrave stood within a finger's reach of, at worst, his ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... critic on this side has said that my Prefaces to reprints of my earlier works are of the nature of parting kicks, and I have no desire just now to kick this poor innocent. That evil-tempered old woman, Mother Nature, in one of her worst tantrums, has been inflicting so many cuffs and blows on me that she has left me no energy or disposition to ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... anything of Ada, the little Electra of my Mycenae. * * * But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should not live to see it. I have at least, seen ——— shivered, who was one of my assassins. When that man was doing his worst to uproot my whole family, tree, branch, and blossoms—when, after taking my retainer, he went over to them—when he was bringing desolation on my hearth, and destruction on my household gods—did he think that, in less than three years, a natural event—a severe domestic, but ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... god thou! Just men By thy craft become unjust men, Bad, worse, worst, degenerous! Thanks to thee, their words half uttered Through the drunken lips are stuttered, And thy sage ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... said I, after listening to this disheartening recital—"supposing that your relatives will not help you, have you any plans laid to meet such a contingency? 'Hope for the best and provide for the worst' is a favourite motto of your friend Bob; and I really think it is singularly applicable ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... Current issues include: alleviating poverty, preventing terrorism, consolidating democracy after four decades of authoritarianism, implementing financial sector reforms, stemming corruption, and holding the military and police accountable for human rights violations. Indonesia was the nation worst hit by the December 2004 tsunami, which particularly affected Aceh province causing over 100,000 deaths and over $4 billion in damage. An additional earthquake in March 2005 created heavy destruction on the island of Nias. Reconstruction in these areas may take up to a decade. In 2005, Indonesia ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... Italy and Germany, the population was far lower in the scale of civilization, and therefore fiercer. The inhabitants could easily strip their villages of the little forage and the few goods they possessed, and at that season the fields were bare. The roads were of the worst description; the rivers were deep and broad, often with swampy banks and treacherous bottoms. In these circumstances it was almost impossible to secure reliable information, for scouts and spies were alike ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... imbecile, they were maudlin, they were in the worst possible taste. So far as the reciter was concerned, they were absolutely insincere clap-trap. But the crowded audience received them with rapture; and the very fact that an astute caterer should serve up ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... endure any ordeal to which he might be subjected, and warned that unless he possessed nerves of steel, he had better turn back—for which measure there was yet time. Stevens, in a faint voice, indicated that he was ready for the worst, and desired to go on. Then all (except Amidon) in awesome accents intoned, "Be brave and obedient, and all may yet be well!" and they passed back into the lodge-room. Amidon was now thoroughly impressed, and wondered whether Stevens would be able ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... all, and that is the greatest pity that ever we wist of any knight. Alas, said Arthur, how may this be, is he so hurt? What is his name? said King Arthur. Truly, said they all, we know not his name, nor from whence he came, nor whither he would. Alas, said the king, this be to me the worst tidings that came to me this seven year, for I would not for all the lands I wield to know and wit it were so that that noble knight were slain. Know ye him? said they all. As for that, said Arthur, whether I know him or know him not, ye shall not know for me ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... on mumbling, by the hour together, great masses of vague trouble, in which, if it only could have been unravelled and put in order, no doubt all the secrets of his life,—secrets of wrath, guilt, vengeance, love, hatred, all beaten up together, and the best quite spoiled by the worst, might have been found. His mind evidently wandered. Sometimes, he seemed to be holding conversation with unseen interlocutors, and almost invariably, so far as could be gathered, he was bitter, and then sat, immitigable, pouring out wrath and terror, denunciating, tyrannical, ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... were taught that, if, among the various kinds of government, "that of a king is best," in the opinion of the author, "that of a tyrant is the worst." And a tyrant he defines as "any ruler who despises the common good, and seeks his ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... at times into some of the worst quarters of London, and all their pluck and firmness are sometimes needed, for habitual women criminals are usually worse subjects to handle than the habitual ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... it is a better way to be rid of the thing entirely. And should you not be quite sure of the kind of weed, then pulling up is the only really safe plan. For if the weed happened to be a perennial, leaving the root in the ground would be the worst ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... Soar like the strong pinioned eagle, make your tour beyond the mists of error and bring us the joyless tidings that there is no clear sky in the heavens. Can you imagine any thing to be more pleasing than the coming of one that brought good tidings? But let us have the worst of it. Show from undoubted authority that there never was such a man as Jesus, or show that he was a wicked impostor and deservedly lost his life. Show moreover, that there never were such men as the apostles of Jesus, or that they were likewise impostors, and all suffered death for their wicked ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... It occurs to me that the prosecuting attorney in the case will have a hard time proving anything. Doesn't it look that way to you? At the worst, it is only an unhappy misunderstanding of orders. And if the end should happen ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... indeed, is no more than what we constantly observe to take place in persons who are not careful to substitute other graces for those which they inevitably lose along with the quick sensibility and joyous vivacity of youth. At worst, the reigning Count of Monte Beni, as his hair grew white, was still a jolly old fellow over his flask of wine, the wine that Bacchus himself was fabled to have taught his sylvan ancestor how to express, and from what choicest grapes, which would ripen only ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and a heavier burden than is allotted to man! but the law is harder still—taking from her the sacred rights with which nature in compensation has invested her! But I will not yield mine! There! Do your worst! Serve your writ of habeas corpus! I will resist it! I will not give up my own children! I will not bring them into court! I will not tell you where they are! They are in a place of safety, thank God! and as for me—fine, imprison, torture me as much as you like, you will find me rock!" she exclaimed, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth |
