"Worthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... respectable. For, if they have these, then respectable young men who are in this country, and who now are leaving it, will serve gladly. They now come usually on the footing of mercenaries, because of their small means, and finally leave the islands—only those remaining who are worthless and of no account, and even of them but few. In other districts where there is no lack and need of people as ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... the necessary caution, they will gradually mix their impressions, and will, in time, refer most of them to the same source. They will bring the Divine Being by degrees out of his spiritual province, and introduce him into all the trivial and worthless concerns of their lives. Hence a belief will arise, which cannot fail of binding their minds in the chains ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... that, again, you see the God-like knowledge which he usurps; you see him clairvoyant rather than historical. Starting out with the positive assertion that Cesare Borgia was the murderer, he sets himself to prove it by piling up a mass of worthless evidence, whose worthlessness it is unthinkable he ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... to be a serious and honestly conducted newspaper. All advertisers know that the minor weeklies, which contain nothing but trade puffs, and are scattered broadcast among people who pay nothing for their copies, are absolutely worthless from the advertiser's point of view. The most striking difference between the periodical press of Great Britain and that of America is, that in the former country the magazines and reviews play but a secondary role, while in the United States the three or four monthlies possessing ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of the stage. Not even the sting of poverty to whet appetite and give an edge to bodily hunger. Nothing, either of fear or of hope. The measure of my obscurity is the measure of my immunity from change of fortune, bad or good. I am worthless even as food for powder. Danger herself will have none of ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... words are the utterance of a mere sectarian superstition they are worthless; but if they are the statement of a great principle, then it is worth our while to enquire what that principle is. The fulfilling of anything is the bringing into complete realization of all that it potentially contains, ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... mysterious is its action that a prompt remedy is a vital necessity. There is good reason to believe that the numerous remedies that have been recommended from earliest times as antidotes for animal poison are worthless, as they have not the properties commonly ascribed to them. The paucity of remedies is so great that alcohol is the one which comes most quickly to the mind of those who have been taught in the traditions of the past, and who ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... name, to the unmarried woman, her purity, her sexual desirability, her market value. Without it—though in all physical and mental respects she might remain the same person—she has sometimes been a mark for contempt, a worthless outcast.[97] ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... disposed of first. A penny, worth fifty times as much as a sovereign, was something to retain and treasure. Doubtless, in their jungle-lairs, the wise old gray-beards put their heads together and agreed to raise the price on pennies when the worthless gold was all worked off. Who could tell? Mayhap the strange white men could be made to give even twenty sticks ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... More than one "Seventeenth Canto," or so-called continuation of Don Juan, has been published. Some of these "Sequels" pretend to be genuine, while others are undisguisedly imitations or parodies. For an account of these spurious and altogether worthless continuations, see "Bibliography," vol. vii. There was, however, a foundation for the myth. Before Byron left Italy he had begun (May 8, 1823) a seventeenth canto, and when he sailed for Greece he took the new stanzas with him. Trelawny found ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... match-boxes by means of sealing-wax; and the resonance pipes on which they were placed to reinforce the effect of minute sounds, were nothing more than children's toy money boxes, price one halfpenny, having one of the ends knocked out. With such childish and worthless materials he has conquered Nature in her strongholds, and shown how great discoveries can be made. The microphone is a striking illustration of the truth that in science any phenomenon whatever may be rendered useful. The trouble of one generation of scientists ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... in large measure revenge and plunder, while Trouin had gained his meed of fame. It was now Portugal's time for vengeance, and it was visited principally on the worthless governor to whose cowardice the disaster was due. He had been praised and rewarded for the victory over Duclerc' s expedition—praise and reward which he certainly did not deserve. For very similar conduct he was now ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... 'Let him who has stolen the lotus-stalks be born of a slave-mother. Let him have many children all of whom are worthless! And let him never bow ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... future.... I will trust that, by the grace of God, the ensuing winter shall be a period of more vigorous effort and more persevering self-culture than any previous season of my life. Above all, let me remember that intellectual culture is worthless when dissociated from moral progress; that true spiritual growth embraces both; and the latter as the basis and mould of the former. Let me remember, too, that in the universe everything may be had for a price, but nothing can be had without price. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... all," added Captain Renard, "the girl is a worthless piece, and if Max does live ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... probably be spent as unprofitably as the morning: and this it may be, is no unfair specimen of his whole life. And is not such a wretch, for it is improper to call him a man—good for nothing? What is he good for? How can any rational being be willing to spend the precious gift of life in a manner so worthless, and so much beneath the dignity of human nature? When he is about stepping into the grave, how can he review the past with any degree of satisfaction? What is his history, whether recorded here or there,—in golden letters, or on ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... Texan cannon stood as worthless as if they had been spiked, and the Texans were compelled to remain silent and helpless, while the Mexicans put their new guns in position, and took aim with deliberation, as if all the time in the world was theirs. Ned tried to console himself with the reflection that Mexican gunners ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... have repulsed us for two long months; their arms are wretched, and their accoutrements utterly worthless. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... whether she knew its meaning, with what sinister intention it had been made. Something in the little worthless thing must have attracted her, have fascinated her, or she would not have taken it. In her distress of mind, in her desire for solitude, she would have hastened away and left it lying where ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... about the credibility of the unsupported detective had set Charity to thinking. It would be folly to pay these curious persons to collect evidence that was worthless when ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... was beginning to plan now. The Throgs had not blasted the Terran camp out of existence; they had only made sure of the death of its occupiers. Which meant they must have some use for the installations. For the general loot of a Survey field camp would be relatively worthless to those who picked over the treasure of entire cities elsewhere. Why? What did the Throgs want? And would the alien invaders continue to occupy the ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... in order that the two armies might throw their collected force upon Jourdan while still at some distance north of Moreau. [51] The design of the Archduke succeeded in the end, but it opened Germany to the French for six weeks, and showed how worthless was the military constitution of the Empire, and how little the Germans had to expect from one another. After every skirmish won by Moreau some neighbouring State abandoned the common defence and hastened to make its terms with the invader. On the 17th of July the Duke of Wuertemberg purchased ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... beautiful. Its appearance is a little unfamiliar, of course, but all the muddle of dust-collecting hangings and witless ornament that cover the earthly bedroom, the valances, the curtains to check the draft from the ill-fitting windows, the worthless irrelevant pictures, usually a little askew, the dusty carpets, and all the paraphernalia about the dirty black-leaded fireplace are gone. The faintly tinted walls are framed with just one clear colored line, as finely placed as the member of a Greek capital; the door-handles ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... his life! Plenty of air and space, and plenty of time to breathe and move! Having nothing, possessing all things! No bonds to guard,—no cares to stifle,—no trains to catch,—no appointments to keep,—no fashions to follow,—no follies to shun! Only the old wife and worthless, lazy dog, and the rod and the creel! Only the blessed sunshine and fresh, sweet air, and the cool touch of ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... services. Monsoon freshening. Made forty-eight miles today. Two more seamen on sick report; and, to add to my worries, they are the very two I inoculated with the antipest serum and Haffkine's. Is this stuff worthless? ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... one in all the land, One on whose might the Cause may lean? Are all the common ones so grand, And all the titled ones so mean? What if your failure may have been In trying to make good bread from bran, From worthless metal a weapon keen?— Abraham ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Dragon-reaped from folly-sown; Bride-like to the sickle-blade: Quick it varies, while the moan, Moan of a sad creature strayed, Chiefly is its voice. So flesh Conjures tempest-flails to thresh Good from worthless. Some clear lamps Light it; more of dead marsh-damps. Monster is it still, and blind, Fit but to be led by Pain. Glance we at the paths behind, Fruitful sight has Westermain. There we laboured, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for which this foundation is laid? It is the establishment of the same divine friendship among men. That is the building for which the foundation calls. If the building does not go up, the foundation is worthless. If the building does not go up, the foundation itself will crumble and decay. The only way to save a foundation is to cover it ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... slander upon Wyoming women I had seen before, but did not deem it worthy reply. Some of my Cheyenne friends took pains to ascertain the writer and they assure me (and the Cheyenne papers have published the fact) that he is a worthless, drunken dead-beat, who worked out a ten days' sentence on the streets of that city with a ball and chain to ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... did not answer. She was looking at the carved, oaken stool, overthrown. She was wondering whether she could have acted with better judgment, spoken more wisely. Her heart was sore. Such noble natures ever blame themselves for the wrong-doing of the worthless. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... they!" blazed the young revolutionist. "That is where they belong, whence they are come, and whither they shall return. Poltroons!" he cried, shaking his fist at the group of cowed peasants that surrounded the prostrate Charlot "Sheep! Worthless clods! The nobles do well to despise you, for, by my faith, you invite nothing but contempt, you that will suffer rape and murder to be done under your eyes, and never do more than look scared ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... you to! Great God above, what crucifixion—and after you have done so wonderfully well! Spare me, Dale, I can't endure it! Your life must not go out, and suddenly lose its purpose, because of a human vengeance that is worthless!" ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... do. I used up all my ambiguous terms over that daub he bought in the Piazza di Spagna—'reminiscential' of half a dozen worthless things, 'suggestive,' etc. I can't work them over ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... direct inference to be drawn to the medical profession of the present time. His name should be babbled no longer, after having been placarded for the hundredth time in the pages of St. John Long. But if we are doomed to see constant reference to the names of Harvey and Jenner in every worthless pamphlet containing the prospectus of some new trick upon the public, let us, once for all, stare the facts in the face, and see how the discoveries of these great men were actually received ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... said Old Riddler, "that wont do. It's of no use at all to give an answer that is nearly good enough. It must be exactly right, or it's worthless. I am afraid, young girl, that you ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... holding his treasure carefully in his hand, his horse stumbled, and he accidentally dropped his specimen, and with a remark which I will not here record, and which is at variance with his own Bible instruction, he denounced as worthless all the specimens of the party which he had seen, and inveighed against the folly of spending any time in ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... observe, we include all documents of debt, which, being honest, might be transferable, though they practically are not transferred; while we exclude all documents which are in reality worthless, though in fact transferred temporarily, as bad money is. The document of honest debt, not transferred, is merely to paper currency as gold withdrawn from circulation is to that of bullion. Much confusion has crept into the reasoning ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... in a few weeks to find out whether it had been accepted. I returned with a light heart, keeping down my anguish in expectation of the decision. It came to me in the form of a loud burst of laughter from the editor, who declared that my work was absolutely worthless...." ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... after all. It is you, my ruined husband, who ought to strike the blow. I think I should love you more, if that were possible, if you could bring yourself to do it, since there's no other way of escape for 'ee. I feel I am so utterly worthless! So very ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... worthless heart! but happier thoughts Spring like unbidden violets from the sod, Where patiently thou tak'st Thy ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... less was their wonder at the sight of lighted candles, as they had never before seen any light but that of fire, when I shewed them how to make candles from wax which before they had always thrown aside as worthless, they were still more amazed, saying there was nothing we ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... number of surplus gun-carriages on hand which we could not possibly use, and which would inevitably fall into the hands of the enemy when we left, I suggested that it would be good policy to use them for fire-wood, especially as many of them were decayed and worthless. He would not, however, consent to this. Perhaps he thought fuel at six hundred dollars a cord was rather dear. The result was that they were finally all turned over to the Confederacy, with the ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... Priam whom they had had to deplore; and how much blood one house had expended. And they lament thee, Oh virgin! and thee, Oh thou! so lately called a royal wife {and} a royal mother, {once} the resemblance of flourishing Asia, but now a worthless prey amid the plunder {of Troy}; which the conquering Ulysses would have declined as his, but that thou hadst brought Hector forth. {And} scarce did Hector find an owner for his mother. She, embracing ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... "If thou maintainest the Sparrow-Hawk to be due to her, come forward, and do battle with me." And Geraint went forward to the top of the meadow, having upon himself and upon his horse armour which was heavy, and rusty, and worthless, and of uncouth shape. Then they encountered each other, and they broke a set of lances, and they broke a second set, and a third. And thus they did at every onset, and they broke as many lances as were brought to ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... the sundering of the ties which bound him to the traditional environment amidst which he was reared, all the purpose and meaning of his life was gone. The old ties, obligations and associations gone, his life was without anchorage, its ideal aims perished, and he lived a selfish and worthless creature. When new social ties were formed by the young child he found then his life opened up to a larger meaning again, and he recovered the better things in his nature. He was then led back again into his relations to society, he became once more a man, a fresh life was ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... and very worthless, "will you be so good as show me the nearest way home? There are more ways than one, I know, for I have gone by ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... caravan proceeding southwards to Unyanyembe. A sultana called Ungugu governs this district. She is the first and only female that we have seen in this position, though she succeeded to it after the custom of the country. I imagine she must have had a worthless husband, since every sultan can have as many wives as he pleases, and the whole could never have been barren. I rallied the porters for pulling up after so short a march, but could not induce them to go ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... him by imperceptible daily pressure to choose the things he loathed, to be the thing he feared, to act a part abhorrent to his soul; if such estranging and falsification of a man's true self may count as lunacy, the luckless, worthless boy ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... moment silently considering his patient. He deplored that a youth with such bright hopes in life as Lord Gildoy's should have risked all, perhaps existence itself, to forward the ambition of a worthless adventurer. Because he had liked and honoured this brave lad he paid his case the tribute of a sigh. Then he knelt to his task, ripped away doublet and underwear to lay bare his lordship's mangled side, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... vili is a just rule where there is any reasonable presumption of benefit to arise on a large scale. What the benefit may be will admit of a doubt, but there can be none as to the value of the body; for a more worthless body than his own the author is free to confess cannot be. It is his pride to believe that it is the very ideal of a base, crazy, despicable human system, that hardly ever could have been meant to be seaworthy for two days under the ordinary storms ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... dismounted and humbly begged the old witch who lived there to give her some food. Moved by the distress of the stranger, the sorceress bade her dry her garments at her fire, and while the lady was sitting there the witch's son, a lazy worthless fellow, suddenly entered. To see Florimell was to love her, so the uncouth rustic immediately began to court her with fruits and flowers which he sought in the forest. Fearing lest he should molest her finally, Florimell escaped from ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... gate he smelt tobacco, and could discern two figures in the side lane leading past Avice's door. They did not, however, enter her house, but strolled onward to the narrow pass conducting to Red-King Castle and the sea. He was in momentary heaviness at the thought that they might be Avice with a worthless lover, but a faintly argumentative tone from the man informed him that they were the same married couple going homeward whom he had ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... notoriety is universal, his character proverbial, and his name as familiar as that of Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, or Robinson Crusoe, mariner, of York. Condemned by the learned, like some other masterpieces, as worthless, Munchausen's travels have obtained such a world-wide fame, that the story of their origin possesses a general and historic interest apart from whatever of obscurity or of curiosity it may have ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... ostentatious 'eclat of it: but many obstacles stood in the way of total concealment; nor do I suppose that love had any share in the sacrifice she made of her virtue. She had felt poverty, and was far from disliking power. Mr. Howard was probably as little agreeable to her as he proved worthless. The King, though very amorous, was certainly more attracted by a silly idea he had entertained of gallantry being becoming, than by a love of variety; and he added the more egregious folly of fancying that inconstancy proved he was not governed; but ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... but since we have no warrant for assuming a "standard star" to facilitate our computations, but much reason to suppose an indefinite range, not only of size but of intrinsic brilliancy, in the suns of our firmament, conclusions drawn from such a comparison are entirely worthless. ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... a broken hip, and a broken thigh. Crushed in an elevator accident, back in the factory, and I'm too old a dog to learn to do such tricks as flying. I'll have to content myself with one of these chairs for the rest of my worthless old years." ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... the humble; I've never met an uneducated man who didn't believe himself in a position to criticise learning and to do without it. I've found the unpleasantest of deadly sins amongst the Saints: I mean self-complacency. In my youth I was a saint myself; but I've never been so worthless as I was then. The better I thought myself, the ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... due to yonder accursed woman, of whom I still deemed well and who hath done thus and thus.' Then he related to her the whole story from first to last, and she said to him, 'This thy concern is on account of a worthless woman.' Quoth he, 'I was but considering by what death I should slay them, so the folk may [be admonished by their fate and] repent.' And she said, 'O my son, beware of haste, for it engendereth repentance and the slaying ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... chart shows parallels of latitude from 30 deg. to 40 deg. that chart must be used when you are in one of those latitudes. When you move into 41 deg. or 29 deg., you must be sure to change your plotting chart accordingly. In very high latitudes and near the North pole, the Mercator chart is worthless. How can you steer for the North pole when the meridians of your chart never come together at any pole? For the same reason, bearings of distant objects may be slightly off when laid down on this chart in a straight line. On the whole, ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... knew that she had been married before—knew that years and years ago, before she had really known her own mind, she had married a man—a worthless waster—who had left her within a few months of their marriage. She had told him this herself, quite straightforwardly. Told him, too, that ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... mute eloquence to my feelings. There was a favorite honeysuckle which I had seen her often training with assiduity, and had heard her say it should be the pride of her garden. I found it grovelling along the ground, tangled and wild, and twining round every worthless weed, and it struck me as an emblem of myself: a mere scatterling, running to waste and uselessness. I could work ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... notes, issued by the authority of the state, and on the credit of the state, and put in circulation by the continental congress and the states as money. This paper money, having no funds set apart to redeem it, became almost worthless. Bank bills issued upon the credit of private individuals, do not come under the prohibition. It is also held that the prohibition does not apply to the notes or bills of a state bank, drawn on the credit of a particular fund set apart ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... therefore, consists in the useful effects of the labours of our forefathers; but we cannot enjoy them unless we ourselves take part in the work. All must labour, either with hand or head. Without work, life is worthless; it becomes a mere state of moral coma. We do not mean merely physical work. There is a great deal of higher work—the work of action and endurance, of trial and patience, of enterprise and philanthropy, of spreading truth and civilization, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... October 11, 1726, where I found sundry alterations. Keith was no longer governor; and Miss Read, to whom I had paid some courtship, had been persuaded in my absence to marry one Rogers, a potter. With him, however, she was never happy, and soon parted from him; he was a worthless fellow. Mr. Denham took a store, but died next February, and I returned to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... simply her daring, that inborn fire of the blood to which danger is its own exceeding great reward; a quality which always kindles enthusiasm, and justly,—but which is a thing of temperament, not necessarily joined with any other great qualities, and worthless when it stands alone—But she had other resources,—weapons, at least, if not qualities; she had birth, wealth, ambition, decision, pride, perseverance, ingenuity; beauty not slight, though not equalling the superb Longuevilles and Chevreuses of the age; great personal magnetism, more than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... action. When you have deliberated, when you have seen the guiding light upon the way of security and peace, then go ahead. Prudence is worthless unless you put it into practice. When in doubt do nothing; but as long as you do nothing you will be in doubt. Never man or nation was saved by inaction. The only way out of danger is the way into work. Gird up your loins, trembling Judah, and push along your chosen path, ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... an' not humbug too much. W'en I'm gone"—the austere old face softened—"I wouldn't like to think of her I've spent so much money on, an' rared with me own hand, as I did her an' her mother before her, growin' old an' sour an' lonely, or bein' a slave to some worthless crawler." The old voice grew perilously soft, and saved itself from a break ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... had been so mysteriously withdrawn; but it had stopped at the very moment it was so withdrawn; nor, despite all the skill of the watchmaker, has it ever gone since—that is, it will go in a strange erratic way for a few hours, and then come to a dead stop—it is worthless. ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... 'Governor' sprang up from a bench on the little lawn, where he had been sitting, and, rudely seizing his step-daughter by the arm, broke out with a torrent of insulting reproaches that she should dare to be walking alone at night by the side of the most worthless scapegrace in all England. ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... me once more thank you for saving a worthless life," said Patience. "Well, you must come again, when my father is here; he will be but too glad to have an opportunity of thanking one who has preserved his only child. Indeed, if you knew my father, you would feel as much regard for him as I do. He is very good, although he looks so ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... this same witch in my boyhood. But what should we fear? She is flesh and blood like ourselves; and, in spite of the prevailing belief, I could never suppose power would be granted to some, generally the most wicked and the most worthless, which from the rest ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the ears various pendant trinkets as the orientals are accustomed to have, the men like the women, among which we saw many plates wrought from copper, by whom it is prized more than gold; which, on account of its color, they do not esteem; wherefore among all it is held by them more worthless; on the other hand rating blue and red above any other. That which they were given by us which they most valued were little bells, blue crystals and other trinkets to place in the ears and on the neck. They did not prize cloth of silk and of gold, nor even of other kind, nor did ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... strength to his good steel. At the very instant that he bowed himself the ruffian fired! The ball passed over him—he swayed in his saddle; the next moment, reining up his horse, he prepared to punish such dastardly conduct as it deserved; but, as worthless purposes are sometimes accomplished by worthy instruments, the fleet steed that Burrell rode was far on its way towards Minster, its track marked by fire-sparks, which glittered ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... judge himself justified in The father's shame? And if the judge proved wrong, My son withholding from his right thus long, Shame and remorse to judge and father both: Unless remorse and shame together drown'd In having what I flung for worthless found. But come—already weary with your travel, And ill refresh'd by this strange history, Until the hours that draw the sun from heaven Unite us at the customary board, Each to his several chamber: you to rest; I to contrive with old Clotaldo ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... will enter into the way which leadeth to the burial place of slaves, some of which are thrown in dead, and some not yet dead but only worthless. From its corruption ariseth a stench that ceaseth not day ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... Wethermill. How did he take the theory? Wethermill was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed, his face white and contorted with a spasm of pain. But he had the air of a man silently enduring an outrage rather than struck down by the conviction that the woman he loved was worthless. ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... I saw that my feelings, yes—if you will have the truth—my love for you weighed as nothing in the scale against your newly-found fortune. I saw you waver, hesitate. I did not hesitate. And now I am rich, I am famous, you come to me. You offer me that worthless thing,—your love. When I was poor, struggling alone, friendless, did you even write to me? Did you by word or look recognize me? No! The farce is played out. I wonder at your coming to see me ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... the Yakima valley, where this method of farming had its beginning in the state, but many other places, are now being made productive which were once thought wholly worthless on account of their aridity. Among these are the Wenatchee valley, the Entiat, the Methow, the Chelan, and the Okanogan—all on the slope of the Cascades. The immediate low lands of the Columbia and Snake rivers and considerable of the narrow valleys of the small streams emptying ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... Castle. If the policy of Chesterfield had been adopted with regard to Ireland, these countries would have been saved more than a century of trouble. We cannot believe the statesman to have been only superficial and worthless who anticipated in his Irish policy the convictions of Burke and the ideas ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... about to quit this world of tears—of hatreds—of bad passions—of vile interests and desires. I say that I have nothing left to do among the creatures whom God created my fellow mortals; I have no more tears, no more blood in my heart; no more thoughts—they are dead. I am a worthless offering, for in renouncing the world I sacrifice nothing, neither desires nor hopes; but such as I am I offer myself to my God, and he will accept me—he who has made me suffer so much, and yet kept me ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... cracks and preserve the wood. An old house that has gone many years without painting will absorb much more than a new one, but it is surprising what can be accomplished with two or three coats of paint on siding so weathered as to seem worthless. Besides, a new exterior robs an old house of some of its charm, so preserve the old if possible, architects, carpenters, and contractors ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... leave to look at them. 'They were given to me when I was very little,' she said. 'A lady sent them from Rome. The Pope blessed them!' 'They are very beautiful,' I said, 'and a blessing, if that mean a true man's prayer, can never be worthless. But,' I asked her, 'do you use these, Glory?' 'Not as she did once,' she said. She had almost forgotten about that. She knew the larger beads stood for saints, and the smaller ones between were ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... often heard many temper-trying words of Skamkell's; for Skamkell spoke away there East at Dale, and said that thou sheddest tears when they rode over thee; but I tell it thee because I cannot bear to listen to such speeches of worthless men". ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... rude horse-stalls. We felt sure that this tumble-down building had been neither a dwelling-house nor a stable, but a noon-house; and the occupants of a neighboring farm-house confirmed our decision. Too worthless to destroy, too out of the way to be of any use to any person, that old noon-house, through neglect and isolation, has ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... to assist the Salvation Army would be most gladly done. In this connection he stated that he had known of and been interested in the work of the Salvation Army for many years, that several men of his acquaintance had been converted through their activities and been reformed from dissolute, worthless characters to kind husbands and fathers and good business men; and that he believed in the Salvation ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... a ride go and get ready quickly, and come with me, I am going down to the water mill, please the Lord, to warn Hopkins off the premises, worthless villain! Had my grain there since yesterday morning and hasn't sent it home yet! Shan't stay in my mill another month! Come, Cap, be off ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... brother, named Spill-penny, woke up on the same morning, with a headache. He remembered that he had spent his silver penny at the gin house, buying drinks for a lot of worthless fellows like himself. He and his wife, with little to eat, had to wear ragged clothes, and the baby had not one toy to play with. When his wife gently chided him, he ran out of the house in bad humor. Going to the tap room, he ordered a drink of what we call 'Dutch courage,' that is, a glass ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... I've saved two worthless lives! Very foolish of me! Pass the whisky! See that I save a little ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... this lake dried up and sunk into the earth. You say you are too simple to understand me; but, oh, what is there to understand? You disliked my play, you have no faith in my powers, you already think of me as commonplace and worthless, as many are. [Stamping his foot] How well I can understand your feelings! And that understanding is to me like a dagger in the brain. May it be accursed, together with my stupidity, which sucks my ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... and brandy not to be purchased at any price? Could patriotism live amid trials like that? Could men cling to a cause which made them the victims of Yankee cavalry? Why have faith any longer in a government that was bankrupt—whose promises to pay originated the scoffing proverb, "as worthless as a Confederate note!" Meat and drink was the religion of the croakers in those days. Money was their real divinity. Without meat and drink, and with worthless money, the Confederacy, in their eyes, was not the side to adhere to. It was unfortunate—down ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... become dogs-eared, accumulate dust, and get in the way of the books. If kept in piles, as is most frequent, it is very hard to get at any one that is wanted in the mass. Then it is objected to them, that the majority of them are worthless, that they cost altogether too much money, and time, and pains, to catalogue them, and that they are useless if not catalogued; that if kept bound, they cost the library a sum out of all proportion to their value; that they ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... well in the competition between groups have survived, and have tended to become permanent types of association, receiving the sanction of society, and so to be reckoned as social institutions; others have been thrown on the rubbish heap as worthless. It is generally believed, for example, that many related families in primitive times associated in a loosely connected horde, but the horde could not compete successfully with an organized state and gave way before it. The local community in New England once carried on ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... and here is five dollars for you'—handing him a five-dollar gold piece. He said: 'You did not hire me to work, and for what little I have done you have paid me a thousand times more than it is worth, in your conduct towards me. You took me, a poor, miserable, worthless, homeless tramp into your home, as if I had been your own brother, and you acted the true sister towards me. Now I wish to play the brother's part by giving you my work. It is the only thing I can do to show you how I appreciate your sisterly kindness toward ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... refused to take the paper then in circulation in Ohio, but demanded notes of the Bank of the United States, or its branches, one of which was located at Chillicothe. This left upon the hands of his deputies a large amount of money that soon became utterly worthless. The system of local banking failed and the loss fell upon the holders of notes, and, largely, upon the collectors of internal revenue and their deputies. Among my father's deputies the principal one ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... began to seem quite worthless; so soon as they conflicted with indispensable human ideals, or thwarted too extensively other values; so soon as they appeared childish, contemptible, or immoral when reflected on, the deity grew discredited, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... other public works in the United States, have been executed by British capital. Would to heaven that our sympathising friends, who are so jealous in regard to the honour of America, where a few thousand acres of worthless land are concerned, were equally jealous in regard to it when, under the newly-invented name of repudiation, the honour of their country is tarnished by a vast system of unblushing robbery! Would to heaven that their ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... stock, hotel, and farm, might go where—the old man Aydelot had already gone—maybe. Anyhow, he married Virginia Thaine and she was game to come out here and pioneer on a Grass River claim. Strange what a woman will do for love, isn't it? And to go on a forty-mile ride to save a worthless pup's life! That's me. Think of the daughter of one of those old Virginia homes up to a ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... undeniably associated with the names of some of the scientists quoted, then all the greatest men in the scientific world have lived and toiled, thought and dreamed in vain, while the priceless gems of their imagination and research are treated as worthless and valueless. ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... is filled with greedy, shameless officials, deaf to any one who does not come provided with a handful of roubles. The Bishop may be a good, well-intentioned man, but he always sees and acts through these worthless subordinates. Besides this, the Bishops and heads of monasteries, who monopolise the higher places in the ecclesiastical Administration, all belong to the Black Clergy—that is to say, they are all monks—and consequently cannot understand our wants. How can they, on whom ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... water for sale on draught in various places throughout the country is not genuine. The artificial preparations thus imposed upon the public may have a certain resemblance in taste and appearance, but are frequently worse than worthless for ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... if a bit of quartz or a flake of mica was seen to sparkle in the drab sand under kissing of the sun, at a word he turned aside and brought it to her; and if she threw it away in disappointment, far from thinking of the trouble he had been put to, he was sorry it proved so worthless, and kept a lookout for something better—a ruby, perchance a diamond. So the purple of the far mountains became intensely deep and rich if she distinguished it with an exclamation of praise; and when, now and then, the curtain of the houdah fell ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... speedily driving out the British had been disappointed, people soon lost all confidence in the power of Congress to pay its notes, and in 1779 their value began falling with frightful rapidity. In 1780 they became worthless. It took $150 in Continental currency to buy a bushel of corn, and an ordinary suit of clothes cost $2000. Then people refused to take it, and resorted to barter, taking their pay in sheep or ploughs, in jugs of rum or kegs of salt pork, or whatever ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... that amount, or of twenty-eight hundred millions, to be borne by the whites who now recognize the Union. How long can the South continue to float such a currency? Does it not already equal or exceed the paper currency of our Revolution, which became utterly worthless, notwithstanding our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... beginning and end of the whole thing? It all comes down to a worthless little Montmartroise? For a little thing of rien du tout, the artist, the philosopher, the English public school man will throw over his friend, his partner, his signed word, his honour? Mon Dieu! Well go—I ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... I have no very sanguine expectation about the Ely window. The glass-painter, though admirable, proves a very idle worthless fellow, and has yet scarce done any thing of consequence. I gave Dr. Nichols notice of his character, but found him apprised of it. The Doctor, however, does not despair, but pursues him warmly. I ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the ink, and then laid it down, overcome by a sudden and intolerable melancholy. She could have cried, so great was her weariness with the world, so worthless did her life seem. She had begged her father's forgiveness; he had forgiven her, but she had not sent away her lover.... She had told Monsignor that, in consequence of certain scruples of conscience, she intended to give up the stage, but she had not told him that she had taken ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... could have learned from books or discussion in a day more than they could learn from him in a month, but they must pay his fees, follow his course, and be his scholars, if they wanted a degree. To an American the result was worthless. He could make no use of the Civil Law without some previous notion of the Common Law; but the student who knew enough of the Common Law to understand what he wanted, had only to read the Pandects ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... and retained about him only those who were young and unmarried. The assistance of the Lubeckers, it was true, was given only by halves, and from selfish motives; they did not forget their profit on the arms, purchased Swedish iron and copper for klippings, with which worthless coins they came well provided, and exacted a dear price for their men, ships, and military stores, refusing even, it is said, to supply Gustavus with two pieces of cannon at a decisive moment, although upon the proffered security of two of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... their great expense; and in the second—which is equally important—the fact, that, though they may be made valuable, and produce at one time the best results, a want of care in the manufacture, or designed fraud, may make them almost worthless, with the impossibility of detecting the imposition, without a chemical analysis, till it becomes too late, and the ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... the engineers was simple, it would be a great work; and it was the magnitude of the enterprise and the consequent requirement of large sums of money that gave Capital its opportunity. Without water the desert was worthless. With water the productive possibilities of that great territory were enormous. Without Capital the water could not be had. Therefore Capital was master of the situation and, by controlling the water, could exact royal tribute from the wealth of ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... how do you do!' And he said, 'How do you do!' And I said, 'I'm a relation,' and he said, 'I believe so.' And I said, 'I was educated at Harvard and in Leipsic; I am full of useless accomplishments, harmless erudition, and insolvent amiability, and I am otherwise perfectly worthless. Can ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... summed up in the King. Since the Valois, she had had no monarch so worthless. He did not want understanding, still less the graces of person. In his youth the people called him the "Well-beloved;" but by the middle of the century they so detested him that he dared not pass through Paris, lest the mob should ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... any case. Keep a negro under the care of a master, and he does well enough, and is respectable; but set them free, and they get lazy, and won't work, and take to drinking, and go all down to be mean, worthless fellows, I've seen it tried, hundreds of times. It's no favor to set ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Hsiang-yuen remonstrated, "you shouldn't talk so much reckless nonsense! All these worthless despicable oaths, disjointed words, and corrupt language, go and tell for the benefit of those mean sort of people, who in everything take pleasure in irritating others, and who keep you under their thumb! But mind don't drive ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of a man is like the changing of raw material into the manufactured article. The uncultured man is comparatively helpless and worthless. ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... quarters. Professional jealousy was on my track. I never fainted before in my life—so far as I can remember—but I might have done so elsewhere than in your dear house, after the strain of such an effort as I made to save that worthless woman—she was your cousin, which is why I fought for her so hard—How often is not justice deflected by Love! I might, somewhere else, when over-strained have had a fit of hysterics; and my disguise would have been penetrated by eyes less merciful than yours. Then ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... sideways in the saddle, looking about him for a sign of remaining life. 'It grew in the night; somehow it has pinched out; the bottom has dropped out of it. Nate Kemble of Quigley bought up two or three claims; I've a notion the rest were worthless. Anyway, like many another of its kind, Sanchia's Town was born, has lived and ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... violently than in our own times. It is fortunate that literature is in no ways injured by the follies of collectors, since though they preserve the worthless, they necessarily ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... under such conditions Semyonov had at the earlier period been master of us all. The effect of his personality was such that we had, every one of us, believed him invincible. The very frankness of his estimate of the world and ourselves as the most worthless and incompetent bundle of rubbish, caused us to yield completely to him. We believed that he rated himself but little higher than the rest of us. He was superior but only because he saw so clearly with eyes purged of sentiment and credulity. We, poor creatures, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... some of the historians of the disease, especially Hulme, Hull, and Leake, in England; Tonnelle, Duges, and Baudelocque, in France, profess not to have found puerperal fever contagious. At the most they give us mere negative facts, worthless against an extent of evidence which now overlaps the widest range of doubt, and doubles upon itself in the redundancy of superfluous demonstration. Examined in detail, this and much of the show of testimony brought up to stare the daylight of ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... industriously upheld, makes it even ridiculous to go out of the common road, and forces one to find as many excuses, as if it were a thing altogether criminal not to play the fool in concert with other women of quality, whose birth and leisure only serve to render them the most useless and most worthless part of the creation. There is hardly a character in the world more despicable, or more liable to universal ridicule, than that of a learned woman; those words imply, according to the received sense, a talking, impertinent, vain, and conceited creature. I believe ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... well-meant zeal, and loud in their remonstrances on the imprudence and rashness of my conduct. They called me presumptuous and cruel in exposing my wife and child, as well as myself, to such imminent hazard, for the sake of one, too, who most probably was worthless, and whose disease had doubtless been, by negligence ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... worthless for my purposes, and yet occasionally they print something I wouldn't miss. I'm the best friend the 'buy your home paper' man has," he ran on musingly, skimming the page and ignoring Deering, who continued to stare in stupefied amazement from the ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... and longing to be merry in a dour world, he sank down among the spotted, the shiftless, the worthless. But ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... effect which the threat of cannon might have upon the garrison, as the fate of Ruddle's and Martin's stations was yet fresh in their recollections,) replied, that he "knew him well, and held him in such contempt, that he had named a worthless dog which he had SIMON GIRTY; that his reinforcements and threats, were not heeded by the garrison, who expected to receive before morning such an auxiliary force as would enable them to give a good ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... the Athenians saw the land which extends below Hymettos, which they had themselves given them 121 to dwell in, as payment for the wall built round the Acropolis in former times, when the Athenians, I say, saw that this land was made good by cultivation, which before was bad and worthless, they were seized with jealousy and with longing to possess the land, and so drove them out, not alleging any other pretext: but according to the report of the Athenians themselves they drove them out justly; for the Pelasgians ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... She had asked the loan of the newspaper, and had received it as a gift. She had hurried home, full of enthusiasm, and showed it to Hallam. He had not been enthusiastic, and had apparently tossed the article aside as worthless to him. Amy was too busy to give the matter further thought, and did not know that after she had left the room her brother had read the paragraph a second time, and had then ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... business; loses interest in reading and study; fails to provide for his family; forfeits self-respect; and thus brings upon himself poverty and wretchedness and shame. He sinks lower and lower in the social scale; grows more and more a burden to others and a disgrace to himself; and at last ends a worthless and ignominious life in ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... fellow at the Vatican," said my cousin, "and since the Pope in his wisdom and goodness judged worthless the witnesses whose signatures it bears, his holiness thought well to issue the brief upon which your excellency has acted in summoning Agostino d'Anguissola before ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... signifying 'without return.' The popular etymology is valuable as confirming the proposition to place Belili in the pantheon of the lower world. From its original meaning, the word became a poetical term in Hebrew for 'worthless,' 'useless,' and the like, e.g., in the well-known phrase ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... desolation of negro rule the Cameron farm had become worthless. The taxes had more than absorbed the income, and the place was only kept from execution by the indomitable energy of Mrs. Cameron, who made the hotel pay enough to carry the interest on a mortgage which was increasing from ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... hours redeemed from sin, The moments employed for Heaven;— Oh few and evil thy days have been, Thy life, a toilsome but worthless scene, For a ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... reason stated before; and there is decidedly one great fault in the moderns, that not only do they study models with which they can never become intimately acquainted, but that they neglect, or rather reject as worthless, that which they alone can carry on with perfect success: I mean the knowledge of themselves, and the characteristics of their own actual living. Thus, if a modern Poet or Artist (the latter much more culpably errs) ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... progress accomplished, may be considered surprising. The wool of commerce was still inconsiderable; although the flocks of both colonies amounted to 200,000. Before the merino was first introduced, the fleece was considered worthless. The operation of shearing was often delayed until the sheep were injured: it was a deduction from the profit. The wool was burned, or thrown ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... furnaces, and the proprietor spent a whole morning with his men in trying to make the stuff burn. They were unsuccessful, and finally, completely disheartened by their failure, they shut the furnace door and went off to dinner, uttering loud threats against the man who had sold them such worthless trash. Upon their return to the works they were filled with amazement, for the furnace door was red hot, and a fire of the most intense heat was roaring and blazing behind it. Since that time there has been no difficulty in selling ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... scenery is tame, unless you can point out its beauties to the one you love. The picture gallery is worthless, unless some other lip can press the goblet of your pleasure, and sip nectar from the flower of beauty which blossoms in your thought or imagination. It is not good for man to be alone, even in Eden. Eden is not Eden without its Eve. Before Eve came, Eden was the pastureland ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... eaten he discovered that he had forgotten to bring money. It gave him no concern, for he thought that he could slip out with her without paying the reckoning. But the tavern-keeper barred their way, calling them a vile slave and a worthless she-ass. Balthasar struck him to the ground with a blow of his fist. Whereupon some of the drinkers drew their knives and flung themselves on the two strangers. But the black man, seizing an enormous pestle used to pound Egyptian onions, ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... tables of thick deal worn by a thousand horny hands, slippery with ten thousand upset dishes of macaroni. Here the pewter plates, and the iron knives, forks, and spoons are chained to the massive tables. How utter must the destitution be when it is thought necessary to chain up such worthless trash! ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... so! But, you see, I did not know. How could I know? Oh, my dear Cora! It cost me little to lay down all the honors I had won, for they were worthless to me if not shared by you, for whom they were won. But it cost my life almost to resign you. Mine was 'not the flight of a felon' or a coward, but the retirement of one sick, sick unto death of the world and of all the glory of the world. Some men in my case might ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... mother, the misery of her children, is it not monstrous that the poverty of this woman places her without the law, and leaves her and her family without defense against the odious treatment of a drunken and worthless husband? ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Navarre, was proceeding to the baths of Spa, to drink the waters. Her health was as perfect as her beauty, but she was flying from a husband whom she hated, to advance the interest of a brother whom she loved with a more than sisterly fondness—for the worthless Duke of Alencon was one of the many competitors for the Netherland government; the correspondence between himself and his brother with Orange and his agents being still continued. The hollow truce with the Huguenots in France had, however, been again succeeded by war. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... men's presents to their advice; and he added as an example, "I would rather have received advice from Augustus than a present; I would rather receive a present from Claudius than advice." I, however, think that one ought not to wish for a benefit from any man whose judgement is worthless. What then? Ought we not to receive what Claudius gives? We ought; but we ought to regard it as obtained from fortune, which may at any moment turn against us. Why do we separate this which naturally is connected? ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... coal, and soiled with machine oil of a fireman's work, but they pointed out highways to commerce and revolutionized civilization. There are those" (Whittaker and his set looked crestfallen here) "who will gladly take the hand of worthless loafers, or of genteel villains" (here certain ladies looked down), "but who would not have dared shake hands with Franklin, the printer, with Garibaldi, the tallow-chandler, with Stephenson, the stoker. But ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... wives of tradesmen) in the city, who are worth from ten to fifteen thousand pounds, are the worst creatures upon the earth, grossly ignorant, and thinking viciousness fashionable. Farmers, I think, are often worthless fellows[1050]. Few lords will cheat; and, if they do, they'll be ashamed of it: farmers cheat and are not ashamed of it: they have all the sensual vices too of the nobility, with cheating into the bargain. There is as much fornication and adultery among ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... (April 11, 1865), referring to the twelve thousand men who had organized the Louisiana Government, the President said, "If we now reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We say to the white man, you are worthless or worse. We will neither help you nor be helped by you. To the black man we say, this cup of liberty which these, your old masters, hold to your lips, we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... bas, Late Lat. bassus, low; cf. Gr. [Greek: bathus]) an adjective meaning low or deep, and so mean, worthless, or wicked. This sense of the word has sometimes affected the next, which is really distinct. (2) (Gr. [Greek: basis], strictly "stepping," and so a foundation or pedestal) a term for a foundation or starting point, used in various senses; in sports, e.g. hockey and baseball; in geometry, the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... Who could have been imposing such a tale upon you? Aline Lebrun lives for Victor, and for Victor alone. She has spoiled him into the worthless creature he is. She worships him and the ground he walks on. Robert is very well in a way, to give up all the money he can earn to the family, and keep the barest pittance for himself. Favorite son, indeed! I miss the poor fellow myself, my dear. I liked to see him and to hear him about ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... cold calculators of the Senate another crime. They think to dispose of thee, as if thou wert worthless merchandise, to their own advantage. But thou wilt defeat their design. I read the generous resolution in thine eye, Violetta; thou wilt manifest a will superior to their ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... convention had abolished all feudal tenures and freed the fields from baronial burdens. At a breath—like a house of cards—the northern heritage was swept away and about all that remained of the principality was the worthless ancient deed itself, representing one ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... his nation and the world, had entered precipitately into a causeless war, now lost his life in fictitious combat at the celebration of peace. On the tenth of July, Henry the Second died of the wound inflicted by Montgomery in the tournament held eleven days before. Of this weak and worthless prince, all that even his flatterers could favorably urge was his great fondness for war, as if a sanguinary propensity, even when unaccompanied by a spark of military talent, were of itself a virtue. Yet, with his death the kingdom fell even into more ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... innumerable jackasses, the howling of innumerable hyaenas whetting the tooth to eat them up? Alas for it! it is a sick disjointed time; neither shall we ever mend it; at best let us hope to mend ourselves. I declare I sometimes think of throwing down the Pen altogether as a worthless weapon; and leading out a colony of these poor starving Drudges to the waste places of their old Mother Earth, when for sweat of their brow bread will rise for them; it were perhaps the worthiest service that at this moment could be rendered our old world ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... dear boy, but he wanted me to interfere with the Judge for that worthless brother, Grant. The Nesbits sent him. You know the Nesbit woman is crazy about that anarchist. Oh, Nadine, did Chalmers see Kenyon? You know Chalmers just blabs ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... covering and grows rapidly downward from the heavy end of the fruit, which arrangement secures that when the fruit falls off the root shall at once become embedded in the mud. Nature has taken abundant trouble to insure the propagation of this tree, nearly worthless as timber. Strange to say, its fruit is sweet and eatable, and from its fermented juice wine can be made. The mangrove swamp is to me ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... votes for Grant all the time. His political education embraces a sentiment and a fact. The sentiment is Lincoln, the fact is Grant. I was talking to a woolly headed vagabond the other day, who had learned that I was a Northern man, and wanted to go home with me as an attendant. He was a worthless, ragged, shining darky, as black as night, and earned his living, he told me, by dancing the juba for gentlemen on the sidewalk when the police were not looking. During the war he was a slave lad. "Did you know ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... a small boy standing on the Squire's porch with the remains of the book in his hand. When the Squire learned what had happened he spoke his mind freely. He told Abe that he was as worthless as his father, that he did not know how to take care of valuable property, and that he would never loan him another book as long as he lived. The boy faced the music, and when the angry tirade was over, said ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland |
