"Better" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this position a few years ago; it meant comfort to her and her children, and it still seemed to her a miracle of God's working, after her years of struggle and worry. She could not understand why Margaret wanted anything better; what better thing indeed could life hold! Sometimes, looking admiringly at her associate's crown of tawny braids, at the dark eyes and the exquisite lines of mouth and forehead, Mrs. Porter would find herself sympathetic with the girl's vague discontent ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... Charley, "I am tired to death of this dismal rain and of hearing the wind roar in the chimney. I have had no good time all day. It would be better to hear stories about the chair than to sit doing nothing ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to Heaven, if not preferred More justly, seat worthier of gods, as built With second thoughts, reforming what was old! For what God, after better, worse would build? Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens, That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps, Light above light, for thee alone, as seems, In thee concentring all their precious beams Of sacred influence! As God in Heaven Is centre, yet extends to all, ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... all you can find out in my smithy," said he. "But look here, mister, I don't care for folk poking about my place without my leave, so the sooner you pay your score and get out of this the better I shall ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... whom I did not know. As I traversed a corridor above the cloisters which led to the cells inhabited by the unfortunate Louis XVI. and his family, several of the grenadiers called me by name. One of them said to me, "Well, the poor King is lost! The Comte d'Artois would have managed it better."—"Not at ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... aside, So call'd, if legendary fame be true, From Hama,6 whom a club-arm'd Cimbrian slew. There lives, deep-learn'd and primitively just, A faithful steward of his Christian trust, My friend, and favorite inmate of my heart— That now is forced to want its better part! 20 What mountains now, and seas, alas! how wide! From me this other, dearer self divide, Dear, as the sage7 renown'd for moral truth To the prime spirit of the Attic youth! Dear, as the Stagyrite8 ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... girl arose in great distress, and with a feverish agitation which made her look better. She dressed hastily, and went to her father's room. She said she ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... you are my Charles, the man of devoted convictions, the firm royalist, continuing to struggle for a cause when other men have abandoned it. To me you are the loyal Baron de Sainte-Hermine, or, if you like it better, you are to me ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... hear it, Percival, for your sake. Don't be discouraged, my friend. Our money matters, as I told you, leave me plenty of time to turn round in, and I may search for Anne Catherick to-morrow to better purpose than you. One last question ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... stay another night. Besides, it was better that the cottage should be empty when the old nurse announced the madwoman's suicide. Rnine gave Flicienne minute directions as to what she should do and say; and then, assisted by the chauffeur and M. de Lourtier, carried Hortense to the car and brought ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... grievously departed from the simplicity enjoined upon members of their Society. The good man looked down upon his garments, and quietly replied, "I borrowed the coat because my own was wet; and indeed, Jacob, I did not notice what buttons were on it." Jacob shook his hand warmly, and said, "Thou art a better Christian than I am, and I will learn ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... stay home with me," said Mrs. Twistytail, "and help me bake. Now, boys, you had better start, so as to get home before dark. Here are the things I want," and she gave them a list ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... says that it had better be upstairs. She is a very sensitive woman. There might be a scene, if she were intercepted ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, by one of the popish deans of Jersey, in the reign of Henry VIII. La Hogue-bye remained for many years in a dilapidated state, till about 1790, when the late Admiral d'Auvergne, a native of Jersey, better known under his French title of Duke of Bouillon, became its owner by purchase, and hence it obtained its present name. At his death, in 1816, it was purchased by the late lieutenant-governor, Lieutenant-General Sir Hugh Mackay Gordon, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various
... added to the hardships of the troops, but increased immensely the difficulties with which the leaders on both sides had to contend. On account of the weather the roads became impassable for motor cars and the railroads were hardly in better condition. At no time could a general count with any amount of certainty on the prompt execution of movements. Trains were delayed for hours and regiments appeared in ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... I offer you this. Many times I have come bearing flowers such as my garden grew; but now I offer you this poor, brown, homely growth, you may cast it away as worthless. And yet—and yet—it is something better than flowers; it is a seed-capsule. Many a gardener will cut you a bouquet of his choicest blossoms for small fee, but he does not love to let the seeds of his rarest varieties go ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... republic, but I hate a democracy. The wit of man never could have devised anything more beautiful, better balanced, and more skilfully checked, than our constitution is, or rather was; but every change we make is for the worse. I am therefore a conservative at home. On the other hand, the English constitution is equally well suited to the British. It is admirably ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... forgiven; as ye do, so shall it be done to you; as ye give, so shall it be given to you; as ye judge, so shall ye receive judgment; as ye are kind, so shall ye receive kindness; with what measure ye measure, with that it shall be measured to you.'" And again: "For he said, 'Woe unto that man; it were better for him that he had not been born, than that he should ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... the next corner and, throwing dignity to the winds, Marjorie raced up the long walk and into the house to see if her captain was better. ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... and foreign Protestants, and the reform of English education by the introduction of the methods of Comenius. This Moravian pastor, the Pestalozzi of his age, had first of men grasped the idea that the ordinary school methods were better adapted to instil a knowledge of words than a knowledge of things. He was, in a word, the inventor of object lessons. He also strove to organize education as a connected whole from the infant school to the last touch ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... of payment of the Sound dues differ from that of the tribute formerly conceded to the Barbary States, still their exaction by Denmark has no better foundation in right. Each was in its origin nothing but a tax on a common natural right, extorted by those who were at that time able to obstruct the free and secure enjoyment of it, but who no longer ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... still in London; he had gone there to take out patents. Bayne promised to send the doctor a line immediately on his return. Nevertheless, a fortnight elapsed, and then Dr. Amboyne received a short, mysterious line to tell him Mr. Little had come home, and would be all the better of a visit. On receipt of this the doctor went at once to the works, and found young Little lying on his carpenter's bench in a sort of gloomy apathy. "Hallo!" said the doctor, in his cheerful way, "why what's the ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Lord North introduced another bill for the better government of the provinces, which went to subvert the charter of the colony, and to violate all the principles of liberty and justice. By this bill, the nomination of counsellors, judges, sheriffs, and magistrates of all kinds, was vested in the crown; and ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... companions considered him a "bit ratty" and the grown-up people thought him a "bit wrong in his head," idiotic, or at least "queer." And during his sermon Peter spoke of "unsatisfied longings," of the hope of something better, and said that one had to suffer much and for long years before he could preach or write; and then he looked at that boy. I knew the boy very well; he has risen in the world ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... benevolent organizations, or public institutions."[4] Nor was this altruistic spirit manifested alone in Boston, for Mr. Frothingham quotes the saying of a lady to Dr. E.E. Hale: "A Unitarian church to you merely means one more name on your calendar. To the people in this town it means better books, better music, better sewerage, better health, better life, less drunkenness, more purity, and better government."[5] The Unitarian conception of the relations of altruism and religion was pertinently stated by Dr. J.T. Kirkland, president of Harvard College during the early years ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... wondered how you two kids got here. I knew you couldn't be tramps. But Toddle is my kitten all right. I call him Toddle because that's about all he can do in the way of a walk. He toddles on his four little legs," and Nutty laughed, which made Bunny and Sue feel better. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... this seclusion I read, and reading makes a full man. Though a newcomer, I try to keep myself informed concerning this country's history and institutions. I do not understand all the complications of your politics; I am no partisan. No one is better prepared than yourself to expound public matters. This dispute in regard to the boundary line between Louisiana and Mexico threatens ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... points—he is a Derville, in short. Then there is the starveling attorney, to whom anything seems good provided that he is sure of expenses; he will set, not mountains fighting, for he sells them, but planets; he will work to make the worse appear the better cause, and take advantage of a technical error to win the day for a rogue. If one of these fellows tries one of Maitre Gonin's tricks once too often, the guild forces him to sell his connection. Desroches, our ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... more or less conversant with the larger part of the 1st Army front. The divisional commander lectured officers and N.C.O's. of all brigades concerning the work of defence, and it was about this time that he instituted the divisional motto:—"Go one better"—which was taken up and acted upon with such popular enthusiasm by everyone connected with the 42nd. In fact, if a coat of arms of the East Lancashire Division had been designed in 1918, the following three features would ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... "Much better than being in a beastly bank," said Mike, summing up. "I'm glad he's having such a ripping time. It must be almost as decent as Wrykyn out there.... I ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... well under our heel when we gained possession of its capital," chimed in Captain Andre; "but Mr. Washington seems in truth to make a fourth with 'a dog, a woman, and a chestnut-tree, the more they are beat the better they be.' Our very successes are teaching his army how to fight, and I fear me the day will come when we shall have thrashed ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... movement, too, there was a polite gracefulness equal to any met with in the most polished individuals in Europe, and his smile was extraordinarily attractive. It was observed to me that there was an expression in Washington's face that no painter had succeeded in taking. It struck me no man could be better formed for command. A stature of six feet, a robust but well-proportioned frame, calculated to sustain fatigue, without that heaviness which generally attends great muscular strength and abates active exertion, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... she said slowly, with something very like a sigh. "He was the only man I ever knew who made me do what I did not want to do and made me wish to be something better than I ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... away with their work-baskets, feeling that though they might never be Harriet Martineaus, Elizabeth Brownings, or George Eliots, they might become noble, useful, and independent women, and earn for themselves some sweet title from the grateful lips of the poor, better than any ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... slavery in which his vices held him, and which, as he well knew, excited the contempt of even his most dissolute courtiers, though he had not sufficient energy to shake it off, may have for a moment quickened his better feelings; and the fresh beauty of the young princess, who, from the first moment of her arrival at the court, treated him with the most affectionate and caressing respect, awakened in him a genuine admiration and good-will. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... soon learns to cheat a white man out of his, and that the man who does this ends his career of dishonesty by the theft of property or by some equally serious crime. In my opinion, the time will come when the South will encourage all of its citizens to vote. It will see that it pays better, from every standpoint, to have healthy, vigorous life than to have that political stagnation which always results when one-half of the population has no share and no interest in ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... been very much better for geology if so loose and ambiguous a word as "contemporaneous" had been excluded from her terminology, and if, in its stead, some term expressing similarity of serial relation, and excluding the notion of time altogether, had been employed to denote ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... inferior artist produces either something entirely immoral, where good and evil are names, and nobility of disposition is supposed to show itself in the absolute disregard of them, or else, if he is a better kind of man, he will force on Nature a didactic purpose; he composes what are called moral tales, which may edify the conscience, ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... to come soon,' he said, with the crude wisdom of his kind. 'You like me better than that soft parson ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... the letter over several times before he finally put it away in his note-book, and he did so with a thoughtful face which showed that it was of importance. As it has an influence upon the future course of our story we cannot end the chapter better than by exercising our literary privilege, and peeping over the doctor's shoulder before he has folded it up. This is the ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for it seemed to him that old Mr. Crow never would stop talking about himself. "Now that we're having a good spell of weather you ought to begin to feel better. And what's the news, Mr. Crow? Have you heard of anything happening ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... interested himself with Spalatin to obtain a higher salary for Melancthon, and thus keep him at Wittenberg. In common with other friends, he endeavoured to induce him to marry; for he needed a wife who would care for his health and household better than he did himself. His marriage actually took place in 1520, after he had at first resisted, in order to allow no interruption to his ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... boys, money seldom plays any part, and the little swindler always believes he has got the best of the bargain. And why? Because he has what he coveted, and what was another's. Somehow the other fellow's knife is a little better than his own, it is three blades to his two. When he finds the cheat he has only to swap again. In this way I traded a dozen times in one summer and came out with one blade, but a bright ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... to the better disposed, like Tom Seddon, who held out, "You'll not hurt madam nor the little ones. She've been a kind lady, and the captain, he's a good master, I will say that; and I ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... knowledge of his art, we might have inferred the fact from the choice of Jonson as his model. That great poet, as Clarendon justly remarked, had 'judgment to order and govern fancy, rather than excess of fancy: his productions being slow and upon deliberation.' No writer could be better fitted for the guidance of one so fancy-free as Herrick; to whom the curb, in the old phrase, was more needful than the spur, and whose invention, more fertile and varied than Jonson's, was ready at once to fill up the moulds of form provided. He does this with a lively ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... is well. You are very wise, Lord Justices, And yet you are not half so wise as I am, And that is well. O God! how I have loved you, And what a bloody flower did Love bear! [Comes back to the table.] What if I drank these juices, and so ceased? Were it not better than to wait till Death Come to my bed with all his serving men, Remorse, disease, old age, and misery? I wonder does one suffer much: I think That I am very young to die like this, But so it must be. Why, why should I die? He will escape to-night, and so his blood Will not be on my head. ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... better sense, a verb would be derived, easily; "to rehate," or "rehete," i.e. "to provide, {279} entertain, or refresh with meat," and thence, "to feast with words," as used by Chaucer and ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 18. Saturday, March 2, 1850 • Various
... will just sit down on that settee over there and make yourselves comfortable, I will find out about the trains for St. Helen's, and where we had better go for ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... better go outdoors," suggested she. She felt very helpless, as usual. It was from her that Lucia inherited her laziness and her taste for that most indolent of all the dissipations, the reading of ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... bears down the beam. I cannot, gambler though I may be, give up now. Look here, Mayne, my lad, here is my decision. I am going to try and get a couple of good fellows from down below to come in as partners. So as soon as it is light you had better get back to the Fort, explain your position, and I know Mr Raydon to be so straightforward and just a man, that he ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... Better than to be outside the asramas is the condition of standing within an asrama. The latter state may be due to misfortune; but he who can should be within an asrama, which state is the more holy and beneficial one. ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... cause the innocent relatives and friends of the deceased, we are almost driven to incite an outraged and insulted public to summary and unlawful vengeance upon the traducer. But no! let us leave him to the agony of a lacerated conscience (though if passion should get the better of the public, and in its blind fury they should do the traducer bodily injury, it is but too obvious that no jury could convict and no court punish the perpetrators ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... same unwavering energy to it which you do to your trade. The man of one book, the man of one idea, the man of one aim is the formidable and the successful man. People will call you a fanatic; never mind. Better be a fanatic and get what you aim at, which is the highest thing, than be so broad that, like a stream spreading itself out over miles of mud, there is no scour in it anywhere, no current, and therefore stagnation and death. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Honoria, indignantly, "we had better begin again. Monsieur Dorinet, pray read with the help of a candle ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... prosperity is not due to any better business in the ordinary furniture trade, but to war contracts. The Projectile Company figures are astonishing even for an armament company; after applying L47,500 in satisfying the balance of the prior claims of the Debentures, the Ordinary Shares receive their first dividend—one of 50 per cent. ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... the feeling that he had spent not only a very pleasant evening, but a profitable one. He had acquired a new appreciation of "Old Nat" Lawson and, as Wade had predicted, a better understanding of the situation which would help him in his investigations. So absorbed was he in reviewing what he had learned that he had walked several blocks before he became conscious of somebody following him. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... tale and so have others. Therefore I play this trick since it is better that yonder palace dweller should get the arrow than the bow. There, it is finished to the last scratch, and none, save you and I, would know them apart. Till we are clear of this cursed land your bow is ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... this Mr Langden, whose name I hear mentioned by Mr Maxwell and others as a rich man? Why don't you suggest to him that he might do a good thing for himself by putting some of his money into the new mills? It would be a better investment than this mining business which our neighbours on the other side of the line seem so eager about. If he were to offer the money down to Mr Fleming, ten to one he would not refuse to sell. You need not appear ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... that every man in the ship was about to lose a son! Yes, indeed he did; he perpetrated that atrocious pun, and wasn't a bit ashamed of it. O'Riley had perpetrated many a worse pun than that before; it's to be hoped for the credit of his country he has perpetrated a few better ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... to her, but she was delirious, and knew nothing of what had happened, or where she was; and it was better so, for everything she loved and valued lay buried in the sea. It was with her ship as with the vessel in the song of ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... neighbourhood of Armenia, and were for a time very powerful, but that they are now subjects of the Turks, who never have been able to subdue their roving habits; that they dwell in tents of thick felt, without fixed habitation; that they profess Mahomedanism, but perform its duties no better than their brethren in the East; that they are governed by their own chiefs according to their own laws; that they pay tribute to the Ottoman Porte, and are bound to furnish it with horsemen; that they are great robbers, and are in perpetual warfare with ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... length Kate came to the public-house one Saturday night and wished to pay back half the loan. Daniel shook his head. 'All right, Mrs. Clay; don't you hurt yourself. Let it wait till you're a bit better off.' Nicholas was behind the bar, and when Kate had gone he asked his brother if he hadn't observed something curious in Mrs. Clay's behaviour. Daniel certainly had; the brothers agreed that she must have been drinking rather more than ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... clear. I'll begin at the time of my marriage last year, but I want to say first of all that, though I'm not a rich man, my people have been at Riding Thorpe for a matter of five centuries, and there is no better known family in the County of Norfolk. Last year I came up to London for the Jubilee, and I stopped at a boarding-house in Russell Square, because Parker, the vicar of our parish, was staying in it. There was an American young lady there—Patrick was the name—Elsie Patrick. In some way we became ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cause of these people which induced the Hungarians to agree to the military occupation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina. At one time the obstinate Magyars would have liked to refuse their adhesion to the decisions of the Berlin Congress, but they soon thought better of that. Peterwardein is the last really imposing object on the Danube before reaching Pesth. It is majestic and solemn, with its gloomy castle, its garrison which contains several thousand soldiers, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... the Heroic Tale, which goes back to the Past, especially to Troy, as the grand deed done by the united Hellenic race, whereof the Iliad is a sample. But now we enter a new field, and a new sort of composition, which, in default of a better name, we shall call the Fairy Tale. Helen is not now present, nor is her struggle the theme; Menelaus, the man, is to recount his experience in his ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... did it on purpose, but you're wrong. If I had, I'd have done it better than this. I wouldn't have this brutal pain." She put her fingers over her eyes. "It's horrible to complain! Only it's so bad! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... proscribed parliament, but intrusted every office of state to his favorites. He banished De Choiseul, Malesherbes, and Chalotais; and in their stead elevated the Maurepas, the D'Aiguillons, and that hateful Abbe Terray, who, for rapacity, were none of them better than Du Barry—and thus he ended by losing the love of his subjects. I have often pitied Louis XV. for degrading himself as he did before the eyes of his family, his subjects, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... one of the few men who understood the exceeding great virtues of second editions. He declared that a man who was so fortunate as to secure a second edition of Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary was in better case than he who had bothered himself to obtain a first. When it fell in with his mood to argue against that which he himself most affected, he would quote the childish bit of doggerel beginning 'The first the worst, the second the same,' and ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... beautiful of all. It has spaces of a grey for which there is no name, and no other cloud looks over at a vanishing sun from such heights of blue air. The shower-cloud, too, with its thin edges, comes across the sky with so influential a flight that no ship going out to sea can be better worth watching. The dullest thing perhaps in the London streets is that people take their rain there without knowing anything of the cloud that drops it. It is merely rain, and means wetness. The ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... I can hear a lot of troops marching outside. I don't think their presence bodes any good, and I think we had better be off. The Germans will be most awfully savage, and will be firing on the mob, ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... understood; not just at once, for he was too much of a Teuton to possess that gift of swift perception in which the French rejoice; Schmucke understood and loved poor Pons the better. Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other. An angel could not have found a word to say to Schmucke rubbing his hands over the discovery of the hold that gluttony had gained ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... heart. I trust that I may yet live to return among you, and to render you an account of what I have done for you and for the cause in Europe." Here I sat down, and was greeted by the deafening applause of the audience; and I did feel at the moment that I had somewhat got the better of Sir Ferdinando. ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... have been better aimed, had the sun been shining. The furious beast dropped in the middle of the path, rolled over on his back, clawed the air for a moment or two, and then became motionless. Had not Ashman been on the lookout when he reached the spot, he would ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... village, which, scarcely emerged from the early twilight, lay still and silent, except for the ceaseless, monotonous clang of the forges. Madelon was tired out; she knew it was too early for any train to start for Spa, and nothing better occurred to her than to sit down and rest once more in a sheltered corner amongst some bushes under a big hawthorn-tree growing on the bank of the river; and in a few minutes she was again sound asleep, whilst the mass of snowy blossoms ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... fidelity among men than either the Stoics or the Platonists; and I suppose the cause thereof was, that a man is either good or evil by custom, but none confideth in those that do not possess sanctity of life. Wherefore they were compelled to use greater fidelity, thereby the better to justify their profession, from which reason it likewise proceeds, that at this day few do equal the fidelity of usurers, notwithstanding they are most base in the rest of their life. Also among the Jews, whilst the Pharisees, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... Marah's bitter springs Are sweetened; on our ground of grief Rise day by day in strong relief The prophecies of better things. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... than the assassination that provoked it. There is no reason to doubt the conclusion in Sir Maurice de Bunsen's despatch (No. 161) that it could have been got over, and that Russia and Austria would have thought better of fighting and come to terms. Peace was really on the cards; and the sane game ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... of her heart attacks. I put her to bed in my room because it is more comfortable than the dining-room. Don't you think you had better go back ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... that. We see all the weakness of others, we have eyes for this, but we see none of our own weakness, we have no eyes for that. We see all the folly of others, we have eyes for this, but for our own stupid acts and words we are blind, we have no eyes for that. It would be better if we were well supplied with eyes within, instead of so many eyes without. It would be better for our neighbours, and it would be better for ourselves. In to-day's Gospel we hear of the chief Pharisees watching Christ. They had ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... followed the lure of rapid promotion and fanatically high pay and left the Federation regulars for the army of the Ullr Company. If he hadn't, he'd probably be a colonel, at five thousand sols a year, but maybe it would be better to be a middle-aged colonel on a decent planet than a Company army general at twenty-five thousand on this combination icebox, furnace, wind-tunnel and stonepile, where the water tasted like soapsuds and left a crackly film when it dried; where the temperature ranged, from pole to pole, ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... rich husband Euphemie had given up a young man of her fancy in Tarbes, her conduct during the two years she lived with Lacoste seemed to be irreproachable. Lacoste was rather a nasty old fellow from all accounts. He was niggardly, coarse, and a womanizer. Euphemie's position in the house was little better than that of head domestic servant, but in this her lot was the common one for wives of her station in this part of France. She appeared to be contented enough ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... a girl in the fields alone, and far away from home; a sudden desire to better his solitary condition seizes him, and without further ado he rides up, lays violent hands upon the damsel and carries her off. Again, at their feasts and merrymakings (in which the women are kept somewhat aloof from ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the good health we all keep with this big volume of work and the long hours. Not a man nor a woman has been ill a day. I have known something about work and the spirit of good work in other organizations of various sorts; but I never saw one work in better spirit than this. And remember, most ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... had attended this incursion and the spoil of war were potent inducements to the Tartars to repeat the invasion. While Kaotsou was meditating over the possibility of revenge, and considering schemes for the better protection of his frontier, the Tartars, disregarding the truce that had been concluded, retraced their steps, and pillaged the border districts with impunity. In this year (B.C. 199) they were carrying everything before them, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... which he placed so much confidence that he acted upon them to the letter—so says M. Colmache—and never, it would seem, in vain. They directed him rightly; and when, in old age, he had gathered around him at Vallencay all that remained of the wit, genius, and talent of French society in its better forms, he delighted to recount the instances in which this supernatural influence, like Socrates' daemon, had befriended him. He believed in the reality of this power when he believed in nothing else, and that is ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... be carefully removed, because the grain was for the racing-stable. The dainty creatures up there must have food free from dust, which makes them too thirsty. The hay supplied, for the same reason, had to be shaken before being used. No oats would do under 40 lb. the bushel, and the heavier the better. ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... you better. Mr. Anhalt, the battle I have just fought, I owe to myself: the victory I gained, I owe to you. A man of your principles, at once a teacher and an example of virtue, exalts his rank in life to a level with the noblest family—and I shall be proud ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... of his corps and division commanders for their opinions on certain propositions which he presented, and most of them still opposed the projected movement, I among the number, reasoning that while General Grant was operating against Vicksburg, it was better to hold Bragg in Middle Tennessee than to push him so far back into Georgia that interior means of communication would give the Confederate Government the opportunity of quickly joining a part of his force to that ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... Jerusalem. As David left it, the city was somewhat insignificant. The water from its fountains had been amply sufficient for the wants of the little Jebusite town; it was wholly inadequate to meet the requirements of the growing-population of the capital of Judah. Solomon made better provision for its distribution than there had been in the past, and then tapped a new source of supply some distance away, in the direction of Bethlehem; it is even said that he made the reservoirs for its storage ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... letters I am ashamed: mine are notes in comparison. How do you contrive to roll out your patience into two sheets? You certainly don't love me better than I do you; and yet if our loves were to b@ sold by the quire, you would have by far the more magnificent stock to dispose of. I can only say that age has already an effect on the vigour of my pen; none on yours: it ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... supposed that, because I so speak, therefore I have some sort of fear of the education of the people: on the contrary, the more education they have, the better, so that it is really education. Nor am I an enemy to the cheap publication of scientific and literary works, which is now in vogue: on the contrary, I consider it a great advantage, convenience, and gain; that is, to those to whom education has given a capacity for using them. Further, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... was filled full of crimes committed by the holy man Giovanni. And the Accuser represented in succession all the characters of the tragedy. He mimicked the groans of the victims and the voice of Giovanni, the better to strike awe into his audience, who seemed to hear and see Giovanni himself, intoxicated with hate and evildoing. And the Accuser tore his hair and rent his gown and fell back exhausted on ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... is fixed in the mind of man much better by the eye than by the ear, we have deemed it necessary, after giving an account of the degree of relationship, to have a table of them inserted in the present book, that so the youth may be able by both ears and eyes to gain a most perfect knowledge of them. [Note:—the pedagogical ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... while Mayor and Corporation sat in council? He was not the man to utter purely idle threats. What the dickens was he going to do? Something mean and dirty and underhand. I knew his ways, He was always getting the better of somebody. The wise never let him put in a pane of glass without a specification and estimate, and if he had not been by far the most competent builder in the town—perhaps the only one who thoroughly knew his business in all its branches—no one would ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... finds life full of interest. He is satisfied with himself and with the world. He assumes an aspect of positive rakishness, and intelligence, so to say, beams from his every limb. All day long he must be up and doing. For want of better business he will pursue a shrimp for hours at a time with the zest of a true sportsman. Now he darts after his intended prey like a fox-hound. Again he resorts to finesse, and sidles off, with eyes fixed in another direction, like a master of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... the men shall love me better, all the same. Beauty is not everything, my father. I have a greater attraction than soft ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... prayer to set him up again. How did this inconsistency happen? Answer: The way in which it pleased God to humble the Pope, was not the way which clerical wisdom and prudence had planned; and we all see now, that they are better pleased with the Pope and the Inquisition, than they were to have him lose his power in a way which endangered their own. Now, sir, if liberal principles do obtain, and if the cause of civil and religious liberty ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... been ruffled. I had come to believe that for me earthly troubles were no more. But there has come into my life a new concern. I have heard so much of thee, and before thy coming.' The recurrence of the phrase struck him. He would have asked how such could be, but he deemed it better to wait. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... ideas, distinct and different."—Locke cor. "Oh, when shall we have an other such Rector of Laracor!"—Hazlitt cor. "Speech must have been absolutely necessary previously to the formation of society." Or better thus: "Speech must have been absolutely necessary to the formation of society."—Jamieson cor. "Go and tell those boys to be still."—Inst., p. 265. "Wrongs are engraved on marble; benefits, on sand: those are apt to be requited; these, forgot."—G. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... rhyme was ready. In this manner he poured forth between thirty and forty stanzas, with still increasing animation; and wound up his poem with some beautiful images of love, happiness, and innocence. Of his success I could form some idea by the applauses he received from better judges ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... better already," said Bland. "The doctor gave me some medicine to quiet my nerves. I'll be all right to leave for the city to-morrow, I hope, although I feel that I need ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... think there ever was any country in a state of such rapid improvement as this at present; but we have not the same advantages for literary and philosophical pursuits that you have in Europe, though even in this respect we are every day getting better. Many books are now printed here, but what scholars chiefly want are old books, and these are not to be had. We hope, however, that the troubles of Europe will be the cause of sending us some libraries and they say that it is an ill wind that blows ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... whether Mr. Slope had not already within his breast a better prepared system of strategy, a more accurately defined line of hostile conduct than the archdeacon. Dr. Grantly was going to fight because he found that he hated the man. Mr. Slope had predetermined ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... thy lord lay dying, but now you have yourself to think of. Yet you seem more willing to live with the dead than to take heed what may happen to yourself in a few hours. I would have thee remember that a live dog is better than ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... buffaloes. Perhaps, thought they, there is, after all, nothing so strange in such a number of them being together. Perhaps the individuals of that colour, so rarely met with, usually associate together in this way, and keep apart from the black ones. What better fortune could have happened for them then? If they could only succeed in killing one of these creatures, it would be all that they could wish for, and all they wanted. The object of their expedition would then be accomplished; and nothing ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... well, that even a critical judge could not have pronounced him better or worse than his brother. After that they both repeated the complete overturn and recovery already described. In this effort, however, the lads had the free use of their paddles; but as in actual service the paddle ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... We cannot imagine a better illustration of the general habits that prevailed in Scottish society in regard to drinking about the time we speak of than one which occurs in the recently-published "Memoirs of a Banking House," that of the late Sir William Forbes, Bart, of Pitsligo. The book comprises much that ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... all that secures the stability of rights, was common everywhere: in England, under the heptarchy; in France, under the Carlovingians; in the various states of Germany; everywhere, except, perhaps, in a part of Italy, where small republics were springing up from municipal communes, which were better adapted to the ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... doctor appeared at my bedside. Meantime a change had come over me. I seemed to have lost the nervous excitability of a girl and to have become a woman, full of courage and hope. Dr. —— regarded me steadily for a moment; then,—"Ah! better this morning? That's my brave girl." Meeting his gaze fully, I replied, "I shall try henceforth to be brave, as befits the wife of a soldier." A frown appeared upon the doctor's brow. Tenderly placing his hand upon my head, he said, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... a most unvalu'd jewel You have in a wanton humour thrown away, To bless the man shall find him. He was an excellent Courtier and most faithful; a soldier that thought it As beastly to know his own value too little As devilish to acknowledge it too much. Both his virtue and form deserv'd a far better fortune: His discourse rather delighted to judge itself than show itself: His breast was fill'd with all perfection, And yet it seemed a private whisp'ring-room, It made ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... and represented ever as a very wicked man, in the Athenian theaters; neither did Hesiod avail him by calling him "the most royal Minos," nor Homer, who styles him "Jupiter's familiar friend;" the tragedians got the better, and from the vantage ground of the stage showered down obloquy upon him, as a man of cruelty and violence; whereas, in fact, he appears to have been a king and a lawgiver, and Rhadamanthus a judge under him, administering the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... king, the whole cooled casting was disinterred. All was fair except in one strange spot. But as he suffered no one to attend him in these inspections, he concealed the blemish by some preparation which none knew better to devise. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... cream candy can be made than that known as opera cream. This may be colored and flavored in many different ways or made up in various forms. When chocolate is added to it, a better fudge than the ordinary kinds is the result. Sufficient time should be allowed for the making of opera cream, for it is necessary that this candy stand for several hours before it is ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... of, your wife that should have been, she whom you feel you could love forever. She would always have flattered your little vanities, she would understand and admirably serve your interests. She is tender and gay, too, this young lady who reawakens all your better feelings, who ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Gunther / by far of better mood Than he had been before it; / joy thus did spread abroad 'Mid host of knights full noble / that from his lands around To his court had been invited, / and ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... work better than he knew, but how well he loved Miss Delamar neither he nor his friends could tell. She was the most beautiful and lovely creature that he had ever seen, and of ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... somewhat formally early at the schoolhouse the next morning. "Perhaps," she said, with an odd mixture of dignity and timidity, "we'd better, before school commences, go over the lessons for ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... all?" I cried, contemptuously. "Yes; that's all. There you are, heathen. Take it, and—no, you can't make much of it. That's no use, my man. We must find better places than this, or you'll never go back to China a rich man and become ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... stood a carafe with water. He filled a large glass, and drank it at one draught; this made him feel better, and he went out. But, once outside, he was so overcome, that he lost his way in the long passages and interminable staircases, in spite of the directions hung up at every turn, and had finally to ask a waiter, who pointed ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... specific title for the volume would have suited me better; but not being able to satisfy myself in this direction, I cast about for a word thoroughly in the atmosphere and spirit of the book, which I hope I have found in "Wake-Robin," the common name of the white Trillium, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Polke, as he handed a chair to the visitor. "So you've seen about this in the newspapers, sir?" he went on, turning to Mr. Leonard Hollis. "And you thought you'd better come over, ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... Bowen had dreamed her, then the late Mr. Bowen, when cast into his deep sleep, must have had Lina Ridgely in his eye. But this seemed to be personalising the fantasy unwarrantably, and pushing it too far. For like reason he forbore to say that if Mr. Waters's theory were correct, it would be better to begin with some one whom nobody else had dreamed before; then you could be sure at least of not having a wife to somebody else's mind rather than your own. Once on his way to Palazzo Pinti, he stopped, arrested by a thought that had not ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... period of probation. "The axe laid to the root of the trees" is familiar enough to those who know anything of forestry. The woodman barks some tree which seems to him to be occupying space capable of being put to better use. There is no undue haste. It is only after severe and searching scrutiny that the word goes forth: "Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" But when once that word is spoken, there is no appeal. ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... because I had no opportunity,' said Mrs. Woodbourne; 'Lizzie came and told me all, the instant she knew that she had done wrong; but I thought it would harass you, and you were so much occupied that I had better wait till all this bustle was over, but she told me everything most candidly, and would have come to you, but that Mr. Roberts was with you at the time.—My dear Lizzie, do not distress yourself so much, I am sure you have suffered a ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seem to you. 'Father,' said I, one morning, 'it is no use talking; I will not go into the Church,—that's positive. Give me your blessing and a hundred pounds, and I'll go up to London and get a living instead of a curacy.' My father stormed; but I got the better at last. I talked of becoming a private tutor; swore I had heard nothing was so easy,—the only things wanted were pupils; and the only way to get them was to go to London and let my learning be known. My poor ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "You'd better ask somebody that knows about it!" repeated Margaret Bean, in her malicious meekness. Then she shut ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... No better picture could be found of the "world" of to-day, a perpetual Pele Mele, where such advantages only are conceded as we have been sufficiently enterprising to obtain, and are strong or clever enough ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... with a little sigh of weariness. "I think," she said slowly, "I think we had better not talk about these things, Doctor. You are a preacher. Your views are ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... could have saved us. There's a great deal said about different kinds of love in this world, but I can't help thinking that the love between brothers and sisters that have been brought up together and have had very few other people to care about is a higher, better sort than any other in the world. There's less selfishness about it—no thought but for the other's good. If that can be made safe, death and pain and poverty and misery are all little things. And wasn't I fond of Aileen, in spite of all my hardness and cross-grained ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... It went better than we had expected; of course, not like an express train, but we could not expect that the first time. Some of the dogs had grown too fat in the course of the winter, and had difficulty in keeping up; for them this first trip was a stiff pull. But most of them were ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... and exclaimed, "Ah, Heaven help me in this fresh trouble! you know the neighbourhood better than I do; do you take my pig and let me have your goose," said he to ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... Mainwaring, "if you're in a hurry, you'd better go in there and knock. I hear some one ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... sooner we set about it the better, for when wan's mind is made up, talk iss only ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... with my relatives. While I might easily conceive a better set of uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, and so on, yet Destiny gave me precisely the relatives I need. I may not want them, but I need them. So of my friends and acquaintances and fellow workmen. Every ...
— 21 • Frank Crane
... individual value, and with the performance of these they die. Only the reproductive members are immortal in the sense that Amoeba is, for they only have a place in the chain of consecutive generations of Volvox colonies. From the standpoint of the nutritive individual it is better to be relieved of the reproductive task in order that there may be no interruption of its specialized activities for the good of all, but the entailed mortality is certainly disadvantageous to it. It is the higher interest of the colony as a whole that ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... believe Betty would mind even that, if her husband only seemed to care—to—to understand, you know, how it had been with her and how—Crickey! I guess they've come," broke off the old man suddenly, craning his neck for a better view ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... Guillaume. The general holds as prisoners my betrothed wife, Countess Themire Dealba, and my adopted daughter, Sophie Botta, or, if he prefers, la Princess Marie. I demand my loved ones in exchange for Madame and Mademoiselle Guillaume.' I have no further demands, monsieur, and the sooner you return the better. I shall await you in yonder redoubt, where ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... it in fat, black letters on the boards carried by the sellers of newspapers. Some few people who had nothing better to do went down to the Museum on the tops of omnibuses. But by the time they got there there was nothing to be seen. For the Babylonian Queen had suddenly seen the closed gates, had felt the threat of ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... says, encouragingly. "It is better to be stiffly erect than to be crooked, and as for the person who spoke, she could not ride a Newfoundland dog," and with that he touches his hat, and rides lightly across the ring to speak to a lady whose horse has, in the opinion of the gallery, been showing ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... someone being punished and resenting the punishment. And she felt horribly dull. Her mourning prohibited her from seeking distractions. People were gossiping about her unpleasantly already. She remembered Dindie Ackroyde's warning, and knew she had better heed it. She felt heartless because she was unable to be really distressed about the death of her father. Old Fanny bored her when she did not actively worry her. She was terribly ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... became omnipotent afterward: viz., from the time that He began to have those over whom He exercised power; and in this way He will appear to have received a certain increase, and to have risen from a lower to a higher condition; since there can be no doubt that it is better for Him to be omnipotent than not to be so. And, now, how can it appear otherwise than absurd, that when God possessed none of those things which it was befitting for Him to possess, He should afterward, by a kind of progress, come to have them? But if there never was a time when He ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... be apparent that both intention and motive have ethical significance. We have our opinion of men capable of harboring certain intentions. But we recognize that some men may harbor them with better motives than others. And we can see that a man's intention may be bad, and yet his motive, considered in itself, be good. How we are to rate the man, morally, becomes ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... the priest, with twinkling eyes, "it isn't likely that we could improve upon Almighty God's design. We're very simple, you know. . . . Look, he's signalling. We're going to start. Come to the prow. We shall see better ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... outset of our meeting a great personal relief was experienced by both Van Helsing and myself. Mrs. Harker had sent a message by her husband to say that she would not join us at present, as she thought it better that we should be free to discuss our movements without her presence to embarrass us. The Professor and I looked at each other for an instant, and somehow we both seemed relieved. For my own part, I thought that if Mrs. Harker realized ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... a low, pained voice, 'I am not tired, let us both walk,' and going to Maude he said something to her which Jerrie could not hear, except the words, 'Don't you think it better so?' ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... it may be the will of God in another. Mrs. Moore's own health is much broken, and she is about to try what Cheltenham can do for her, while I proceed to finish my printing in town. It would be far better for me to remain in my present quiet retreat, where I am working quite alone, but the devils beckon me nearer them, and I must begin in a few days. Direct to me, under cover to Croker—you see I take for granted ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... is a very right feeling; for the step is a solemn one, and should not be taken without reverent thought. You cannot do better than to talk it over with Mr. Trotter. If you have any difficulties, you can tell him; and I'm sure he would be delighted to help you. Isn't it so, mother? Well, dear," he continued, "you can run away now; but bear in mind what I have said, and I shall hope to hear that you have made the ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman's thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy's forehead with his wings. "How cool I feel," said the boy. "I must be getting better"; and he ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... now that this deal had been brought off successfully, it was only due her and himself that he take a little time off. In his present mood he convinced himself, as do most American business or professional men, that he was being driven in his work, and that he wanted nothing better than a let-up from the grind. As a matter of ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... believe I have carefully and faithfully tested the matter. I have found that when the horses were allowed the range of a blue grass pasture at night, they endured work the best because they digested their grain and hay better, and good digestion made good appetites. In fact, I consider pasture the best food and the best medicine a horse can be given. If his coat is rough, if he is stiff and lifeless, if he is losing flesh and strength, turn him on pasture and he ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Elsa would have been better in some respects, but Hedwig—ah, yes, she, too, is a good girl a little wild perhaps—it will wear off. Have ...
— The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl • Jerome K. Jerome
... not," she answered; her eyes, however, would not meet his. "I think uncomfortable describes it better." ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... conceity in pretty mottoes and sayings, wheirof the walls and roofs of all the roumes are filled, stuffed with good moralitie, tho somethat pedantick. See Spotiswood of him in Anno 1622, page 543. A most sweit garden, the knot much larger than that at Hamilton and in better order. The rest of the yeard nether so great nor in so good order nor so well planted with such varietie as is in Hamilton yeards. The knot heir will be 200 foot square, a mighty long grein walk. Saw figs at a verie great ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... wild disorder. In the heat of the melee three of the Orkneymen were badly beaten, and for a month their lives hung in the balance. Captain Macdonell later sent several of the Irish back to Great Britain, saying that such 'worthless blackguards' were {49} better under the discipline of ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... on anything sprightly, I should let you hear every other post; but a dull, matter-of-fact business like this scrawl, the less and seldomer one writes the better. ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... attentively even to the poor speakers in order to make the time pass; keeping quiet was as dull as listening. This society of "creatures that once were men" had one fine characteristic—no one of them endeavored to make out that he was better than the others, nor compelled the others to acknowledge ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... that we do not know ourselves? It is certainly a hard task to learn the truth about ourselves, and I appreciate the courage your last letter shows; you have faced the truth, and having learned it, you write it to me in all simplicity. I like you better now, Oliver Gogarty, than I ever did before, and I always liked you. But it seems to me that to allow you to confess yourself without confessing myself, without revealing the woman's soul in me as you have revealed the man's soul in yourself, ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... but Mad Jack's were obeyed. His object was to throw the ship into the wind, so as the better to admit of close-reefing the top-sails. But though the halyards were let go, it was impossible to clew down the yards, owing to the enormous horizontal strain on the canvas. It now blew a hurricane. The spray flew over the ship in floods. The gigantic masts ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... views. A little farther down the stream there was another elevation called the Aventine Hill, which seemed to him more suitable for the site of a town. The sides were less precipitous, and thus were more convenient for building ground. Then the land in the immediate vicinity was better adapted to the purposes which they had in view. In a word, the Aventine Hill was, as Remus thought, for every substantial reason, much the best locality; and as for the fact of their having been washed ashore at the foot of the other hill, it was in his opinion an insignificant ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... been willing to do much more than give her clothes, but I instinctively felt that my appeal to her better feelings had fallen on ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... of territory. Volagases can scarcely have been pleased at these results of his complaints; he bore them, however, without murmuring, and, when (in A.D. 138) Hadrian died and was succeeded by his adopted son, T. Aurelius, better known as Antoninus Pius, Volagases sent to Rome an embassy of congratulation, and presented the new monarch with a crown ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... received was meagre, but he could hardly have put what knowledge he had to better advantage. After he had been relieved from the arduous life of the camp, he began to satisfy again his desires for self-culture. His correspondence towards the close of his life shows a marked improvement ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... at the cost of much toil and labour. The holy martyrs died fighting for the faith of Christ. But there are in our time, people who by the mere telling of their deeds, seek honour and glory among men. There are also some among you who like better to preach on the virtues of the saints than to imitate their labours.... When thou shalt have a psalter so shalt thou wish for a breviary, and when thou shalt have a breviary, thou shalt sit in a chair like a great prelate, and say to thy brother: ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... city. Their bands acted under royal commissions, some as honest soldiers, but some as the enemies of any who owned a cow or a barrel of flour, or from whom, under torture, could be wrested a guinea. All who were thus organised came at length to be dreaded, and this whether they were bad or better. Friend Masters had suffered within the week, but, once over the Schuylkill, he assured me, there need be no fear, as our own partisans and foragers were so active to the north of the stream as to make it perilous ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... problem altogether, and that, perhaps, fifteen for one, might be found an eligible proportion. The Financier is so good as to inform me, that this would be higher than the market would justify. Confident of his better information on this subject, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... until politics took such a turn as would drive Lentulus into a more tractable attitude. Cornelia found the days monotonous and dreary. Her uncle's freedman kept her under constant espionage to prevent a chance meeting with Drusus, and but for Agias she would have been little better than a prisoner, ever in charge of ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... heart," said G.J. "I'm engaged with Molder to-night. We shall have some private chamber-music at my rooms—just for ourselves. You ought to come. Much better for ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... has both vigor and culture is sure to absorb older nations whose vigor is waning and younger nations whose civilization is undeveloped, just as an educated young man is sure to supplant an old man in his dotage and to get the better of a muscular ignoramus. That nations, as well as individuals, should do this is, in Mommsen's opinion, ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... said an old heathen, 'is nearest the gods'; but I would rather modify the statement into, 'He that needs most, and knows it, is nearest the gods.' For surely Christ is more than mammon; and a spirit nourished by calm desires and holy thoughts into growing virtues and increasing Christlikeness is better than circumstances ordered to our will, in the whirl of which we have lost our God. 'In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God and the God of peace shall keep your hearts ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren |
