"Better" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is what I have got to find out. If I had been properly educated, I should have known better than to date poor Papa's signature three days after he died. Now I must educate myself. I have to gain experience, and get clear about religion, and law, and things, and whether Society is right or I am—and I must go away and never come back any ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... very cheery about things," I find in my diary about this time. And well he might be. A man could hardly be better served. We slaved until we were nearly dead-beat, and then we found something else to do until we were quite dead-beat. Ship's company and landing parties alike, not only now but all through this job, ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... which declares that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; adopted as it was as early as 1791. If suffrage was intended to be included within its obligations, language better adapted to express that intent would most certainly have been employed. The right of suffrage, when granted, will be protected. He who has it can only be deprived of it by due process of law; but, in order to claim protection, he must first show that he has ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... touched glasses and drank. I am sure I wished no ill to King George; and if he had been there himself in proper person, it's like he would have done as I did. No sooner had I taken out the drain than I felt hugely better, and could look on and listen, still a little mistily perhaps, but no longer with the same groundless ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... part of their daily drill. And suddenly, as one of the boats lay off waiting for the others, they caught a glimpse for the first time of my conning-tower so close to them. I saw them shouting and pointing, while the men in the other boats got up to have a better look at us. For my part, I cared nothing, for I took it for granted that they already knew that a submarine had destroyed them. One of them clambered back into the sinking ship. I was sure that he was about to send a wireless message as to our ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it you were compelled to think. And enforced thought was an infernal nuisance. The beastly trenches had their good points after all. There you were not called upon to think of anything; the less you thought, the better for your job; you just ate your bully-beef and drank your tea and cursed whizz-bangs and killed a rat or two, and thanked God you ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... and understand exactly all that he reported, rather than to flatter herself from it. Whatever her motive was, he was aware that through it all she permitted herself a closer and fuller trust of himself. At times it was almost too implicit; he would have liked to deserve it better by laying open all that had been in his heart against Jeff. But he forbore, of course, and he took refuge, as well as he could, in the respect by which she held herself at a reverent distance from him when he could ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... discuss that later. There's another matter I'd like to speak with you about. Stone wants to see you, even yet. I want to tell you, Mr. Burnit, he can get along a great deal better without you than you can without him, as you are probably willing to admit by now. But he still wants you. Go and ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... was in no way inclined to ridicule religion or anything which she thought to appertain to it. It may be presumed that among such things she did not include Mrs. Proudie, as she was willing enough to laugh at that lady; but Mark, had he known her better, might have been sure that she would have sat out ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... They know exactly what to expect, and behave with greatest decorum. They never enter the tower until the bearers have left it, and usually are as deliberate and solemn in their movements as a lot of undertakers. But sometimes, when they are particularly hungry, their greed gets the better of their dignity and they quarrel and fight ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... historian Karamzin had declared that henceforth Clio must be silent or accord to Russia a prominent place in the history of the nations. Now, by the Hegelian theory, the whole of the Slav race was left out in the cold, with no high mission, with no new truths to divulge, with nothing better to do, in fact, than to imitate ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... two of them sat on my shins, whilst other two held my hands, and she bade a third pair beat me. So they beat me till I lost my senses and my voice failed. When I revived, I said to myself, "It were easier and better for me to have my throat cut than to be beaten thus!" And I remembered how my cousin used to say to me, "God keep thee from her mischief!" and cried out and wept, till my voice failed and I remained without breath or motion. Then she sharpened ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... looks to-day! He seems so much happier. I wish we could always be like this. I am sure if it were not for Etta we should understand each other better.' ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... told him he had better be satisfied with that day's work, and let Mr. Godwin go home. He yielded to this expostulation, though he might have made considerable ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... their European homeland. In his first letter to the Emperor Cortes wrote: "The sea coast is low, with many sandhills.... The country beyond these sandhills is level with many fertile plains, in which are such beautiful river banks that in all Spain there can be found no better. These are as grateful to the view as they are productive in everything sown in them, and very orderly and well kept with roads and convenience for pasturing all sorts of cattle. There is every kind of game in this country, and animals and birds such as are familiar to us at home.... ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... feet long, and of hickory or oak, with crosspieces, one of them serving for a handle, forming the bed of the cart, under the centre of which was a wooden axletree, the wheels being also made of wood, with a light iron band, and the entire weight of the vehicle about sixty pounds. Better carts were provided ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... his dearest wishes gratified, perhaps the pupil was little better off. If cleverness, like fever, were contagious, it had been all very well. But the master was but an indifferent master. He could not, or would not, instruct. He was himself somewhat deficient in education—had ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... his card—that is to say, his address—and it would have been an easy matter to send a servant to his house. She was strongly tempted to do so; but she ultimately decided that it would be better to wait—that an hour more or less would make but little difference. She had sent her trusty servant, Job, for Baron Trigault; he would probably return with the baron at any moment; and the baron would advise her. He would know at once what was the best course for her to ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... this convince you," replied Dorriforth, "that what we teach is truth; for you find you would be deceived did you not trust to persons who know better than yourself. But, my dear Miss Milner, we will talk upon some other topic, and never resume this again—we differ in opinion, I dare say, on one subject only, and this difference I hope will never extend itself to any other. Therefore, let not religion be named between us; for as I ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... Rachel, longing for the man to go. But when he was gone, she wished him back—anything would be better than this aimless wandering from room to room, and from yard to garden ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... once punishes them for wilful idleness, and protects them from tyranny or fraud on the part of their employers. Till the last two years the newcomers received their wages entirely in money. But it was found better to give them for the first year (and now for the two first years) part payment in daily rations: a pound of rice, four ounces of dholl (a kind of pea), an ounce of coconut oil or ghee, and two ounces of sugar to ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... water as a beverage it is important to know how to bathe properly, such knowledge being simple and plain enough if only common sense is used. Usually the more simply a bath is administered the better are the results. Some people seem to think that in order to derive any benefit from a bath it is necessary to employ some unusual or complicated process. Nothing is further from the truth. The plain, tepid bath is the best for ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... wishes to return home," said the General, "and see to it that you take her there safely, and that you find the lost Hero. And find a better plot for your next comedy," the General added, as the young ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... left me,—utterly in the cold—more desolate than I am here even though I should spend the night among the trees. But I will go back, and will tell your father everything. If my father were other than he is,—if my brother were better to me, you would ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... 1960; negotiations to create the basis for a new or revised constitution to govern the island and to better relations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots have been held intermittently; in 1975 Turkish Cypriots created their own Constitution and governing bodies within the "Turkish Federated State of Cyprus," which was renamed the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" in 1983; a new Constitution for the ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... of the senses sufficed to make of Helen Keller a woman of exceptional culture and a writer, who better than she proves the potency of that method of education which builds on the senses? If Helen Keller attained through exquisite natural gifts to an elevated conception of the world, who better than she proves that in ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... at the Lescott house for two weeks after that. He had begun to think that, if his going there gave embarrassment to the girl who had been kind to him, it were better to ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... are on the mountain tops can as yet perhaps only recognize. You deem you are in darkness, and I see a dawn. The new generation of the aristocracy of England are not tyrants, not oppressors, Sybil, as you persist in believing. Their intelligence, better than that, their hearts are open to the responsibility of their position. But the work that is before them is no holiday-work. It is not the fever of superficial impulse that can remove the deep-fixed barriers of centuries of ignorance ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... not care anything about the fame—it would not be anything to me to be a great author. If it could be done, nothing would please me better than to publish it anonymously—to let no one ever know that it was mine. If I could only have the little that I need to be free, I would publish all that I ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... how indignant I am—" said Heyst. "But since you are down here now," he went on, with the ease of a man of the world speaking to a young lady in a drawing-room, "hadn't we better sit down?" ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... possibility that in a relativist interpretation of all truth a meaning may be found for the distinction between 'true' and 'false.' Now, not even a sceptic could deny that the size of an object is better measured by a yard-measure than by the eye, even though it may be meaningless to ask what its size may be absolutely; or that it is probable that bread will be found more nourishing than stone, even though it may not be a perfect elixir of life. Even if he ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... healed. I did not, I believe, break the bone at all, but tore away the ligament on one side, that keeps the upper joint in its socket. The cold water pumping is a capital thing, and I give it a douche every time I take my bath. It might, perhaps, be a little better for bandaging, but will get well without it.... A healthy body, with common attention to common-sense, will recover, undoctored, from a great many evils. In almost all cases of slight fractures, cuts, bruises, etc., if the patient is ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... a manifest and positive good. A practical construction, thus supported, shows that it has reason on its side and is called for by the interests of the Union. Hence, too, the presumption that it will be persevered in. It will surely be better to admit that the construction given by these examples has been just arid proper than to deny that construction and still to practice on it—to say one thing and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... weeks to come. His office-work was not heavy, though he was more and more trusted. At times he had to bite his lips, as his brain came to a sudden stop in its work when the whistle sounded for him in the midst of his own personal copying or reading. But as the evenings grew longer and his father better, he had more time at home to work on his essays. He had however, decided to give up trying for two prizes, and he also had become very doubtful about the certainty of receiving even one; as his ideal of an essay grew and perfected itself, and as he ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... native Egyptian is in religion allied to the Turk, his religious fervor was not great enough to induce him to rise against British control. Among the better educated of the Egyptians and especially among those who had traveled, there was a strong "Nationalist" movement. At times, even in the period of peace, this movement had threatened to make matters extremely unpleasant for the British rulers. For some years before ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... could of been better. I had the boys together. We was doing so well that I was riding the cushions and I went around planning the jobs. Nice, clean work. No cans tied to it. But one day I had to meet Suds down in ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... stood up I felt dizzy and faint, but I was resolved and stubborn. Besides, I craved fresh air and thought that an airing would revive me. In fact, once out of doors and in my litter, with all Uncle's sliding panels open, I felt very much better. I told my bearers to take me to ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Johnson returned with White. White told his story briefly, exhibited his bruise, showed the marks of the cords on his wrists, and was dismissed. I suggested that further conversation had better take place in the presence of Mr Abney, who, I imagined, would have something to say on the subject of ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... a strange thing about doctors that the worse they be the better they be. I mean that if you hear anything of this sort about 'em, ten to one they can cure ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... seems to be an animal who varies with circumstances. I was blind then, unreasonable, I know not what. Now the bandage has been torn from my eyes; the wretchedness and solitude of my prison has taught me better. I see the cancer that is eating into our society; perhaps, after all, it must be torn out ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... to marvel at its beauty. If they ask me why I wear so regal a gem, and where I got it, I tell them that I am not quite sure that the jewel is mine, and that if I ever find the person who seems to have a better right to it than I, I shall give it up. Meanwhile I like to wear the locket where I can sometimes look at the pearl, since it is a reminder of what I think was the strangest adventure I ever had in the Philippine Islands. And I ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... which you charge upon some of their tempers, the splendour of your family, and the excellent character of some of them (of all indeed, unless your own conscience furnishes you with one only exception) will, on better consideration, do every thing with them: for they may be overcome; perhaps, however, with the more difficulty, as the greatly prosperous less bear controul and disappointment than others: for I will own to you, that ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... they are clumsy conspirators compared to him. I have been in the river half the night listening at the open stern-window of a Reval pink to every word they said. His Majesty can safely come to Konigsberg. Indeed, he is better out of Dantzig. For the whole country is riddled with that which they call patriotism, and we treason. But I can only repeat what his Majesty disbelieved the day before yesterday—that the heart of the ill is Dantzig, and the venom of it Sebastian. Who he really is and what he is about you must ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... himself that either of these results was more than possible. In that case, there remained only one resource; and it was of so terrible a nature that the curate positively shuddered at its contemplation. But it might even come to that; and better even that, he told himself, than the exposure, the ridicule, and the professional ruin that must ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... visited heavy sins with heavy chastisements. They whisper flattering words in my ear; they curse me when my back is turned. The gods themselves must be my enemies, or why do they rob me of everything I love, deny me posterity and even that military glory which is my just due? Is Bartja so much better than I, that everything which I am forced to give up should be his in hundred-fold measure? Love, friendship, fame, children, everything flows to him as the rivers to the sea, while my heart is parched like the desert. But I am king still. I can show him which is the stronger of us two, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... curious irony, the Government places the portraits of the dead rebels who gave its statesmen many an anxious day and many a nightmare; and so it will go on, perhaps, until the contemplation of these pictures inspires some boy with an equal or better head and a stronger hand, ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... quite vex myself about my stupid joke," said Wilhelm. "I ought to have known him better; he is of a strange, unhappy character. Give me your hands! We will mention to no one what has occurred; it would only give occasion to a deal of gossip, and wound him deeply, and he is an excellent, ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... a simple ring and tag put through the cow's ear-lobe would prove eminently satisfactory! The feelings of the cowboys, when told that they would be required to dismount from their horses, walk up to each cow in turn and politely examine her tag, perhaps with the aid of spectacles, may be better imagined than described. It is sufficient to say that the New England society's idea never got further than Massachusetts, if it was, indeed, ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... with the appearance of trying to remember. "You'd better call me Pestalozzi," he answered, with a ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... had been terribly beaten by Lee, who was now expected to invade the North. The South was triumphant; so much so, indeed, that its Government thought the war itself had now been won. But Lincoln, Grant, and Lee knew better. ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... of our army before Delhi, it seems, from better accounts, to be hardly less than 5000 men, of which one-half are British infantry; and the besieged seem, by the closest inquiries, to reach ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... been able to get a franc cleverly warm in their pockets these ten years, before forth it was drawn in the form of a fine; while as for Marrast, he has the perfect air and bearing of a bandit, so often has he seen the inside of a dungeon; and our friend Albert isn't much better looking. As for Louis and myself, why, we never knew what it was to have a franc get warm in our pockets, so we escaped having any drawn forth by Ministers, and they have never thought us worth prosecuting or imprisoning. ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... with you of a plan which Mrs. Hastings has in view, but think, perhaps, I had better ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... a political meeting; at least so Fix conjectured, who said to Mr. Fogg, "Perhaps we had better not mingle with the crowd. There may be ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... way; he loved her much, but she was growing fast into womanhood, and he did not quite know what to do with her. Saint-Cyr was well-born and he was clever. If only his health were to take a turn for the better, all might go well. But then, if not? He looked at the young man's pale face and remembered what his stethoscope had revealed. Still, in such an early stage these physical warnings often came to nothing. Rest, and fresh air, and happiness, might set ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... horrors of the Revolution. They listened to Burke as he built up his theory of political immobility on the basis of an absolute perfection in the constitution of things as they were. But even in this moment of reaction they still clung unconsciously to a belief in something better, to a trust that progress would again be possible, and to the man who reflected their trust. Like them, Pitt could understand little of the scene about him, that seething ocean of European change where states vanished like dreams, ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... "We'd better put it off for half an hour," proposed Skipper Jack, with a laugh. "That'll give Williamson a chance to have that smoke of ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... do," Toby interrupted him. "I don't mean that sort of ginger. How many men of this battalion feel instinctively, and know as a positive fact, that—man for man—they are better than the Huns? That's the point, and training behind won't help that; at least, it won't start it. Once give it to them as a foundation, and the training will gain five hundred per cent. in ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... a secret she kept it well; in their noisy, busy midst she was as much alone as though she were on Robinson Crusoe's desert island. Outwardly those ten months had changed her little—her brilliant, dusk beauty was scarcely dimmed—inwardly it had changed her greatly, and hardly for the better. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... against them. Authors have never manifested much faculty for harmonious combination, and a literary strike was no more conceivable then than now. In time a chance of the overplus became hardly separable from the method of paying dramatists. It was thought, perhaps, that better works would be produced by the writers who were made in some sort dependent for profit upon the success of their plays and partners in the ventures of the managers. In such wise the loss sustained from the condemnation of a play at its first representation would not fall solely ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... will understand the letter I wrote him last night, breaking the engagement. We may be honest with each other now; there is no peace of the family to provide for. This night's talk, and I leave myself, my whole self, with you, to do with as you think best for him. If you think better to have it over at one blow, tell him the worst. The facts are enough if you leave out the excuses. But if you want to soften it for the sake of his faith in general,—isn't there some such idea, that men lose their faith in ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... it seemed to me and to the Thompson boy, who was moved to speak feelingly on the subject, and in fact to all of us, that excessive slimness might have its drawbacks. Since that time several of us have had occasion to change our minds. With the passage of years we have fleshened up, and now we know better. The last time I saw the Thompson boy he was known as Excess-Baggage Thompson. His figure in profile suggested a man carrying a roll-top desk in his arms and his face looked like a face that had ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... Great Unpublished—in the same way as I understand there are a number of extraordinary geniuses in the dramatic line, who have called themselves the Great Unacted. I can only hope that advancing civilization will bring better days to us both—types for me—actors ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... who must have been long exposed to nearly uniform conditions, should be specially affected by any change in their habits, as seems to be the case. Civilised races can certainly resist changes of all kinds far better than savages; and in this respect they resemble domesticated animals, for though the latter sometimes suffer in health (for instance European dogs in India), yet they are rarely rendered sterile, though a few such instances have been recorded. (47. 'Variation of Animals,' ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... signal from my master—the raising of his sword—and then we are to fall upon you and make sure of our work. He warned me that if we made a botch of it you would probably send us all to Heaven, and if we let aught be known about it, we should all be hanged; and so, methinks, I had better go be hanged." ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... It would be like Rupert to track him, like Rupert to conceive such an attack, like Rupert to be ready either for a fearless assault from the front or a shameless shot from behind, and indifferent utterly which chance offered, so it threw him one of them. Mr. Rassendyll asked no better than to meet his enemy thus in the open. They could fight a fair fight, and if he fell the lamp would be caught up and carried on by Sapt's hand or mine; if he got the better of Rupert, the letter would be his; a moment would destroy it and give safety to the queen. ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... enough water in them to sink them to a certain depth. Then the slats, as you see, are nailed two-thirds of the way around the barrels, leaving just enough space for the water to flow in and out freely. They put the fish in that to tow them home alive. The slats are better than netting because sometimes the fishes catch their scales in the meshes ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... succour nor aid nor counsel hath she, save of you alone. You are her affiance and her succour, and therefore ought you to remember that the good knight Joseph of Abarimacie, that took down your Body when it hung upon the rood, was her own uncle. Better loved he to take down your Body than all the gold and all the fee that Pilate might give him. Lord, good right of very truth had he so to do, for he took you in his arms beside the rood, and laid your ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... intended by his own example to foster the idea among his tribal brethren that the outrage was so grave that it demanded immediate and prompt redress. The carrying out of this redress was of the greatest importance to him. The sooner it was executed the better it ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... take charge of them?" inquired Anaxagoras. "I gave my estates to your father, from the conviction that he would take better care of them than I could do; and in this ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... more or a night less, to such a project as his? Months might elapse before the Goths retired from the walls. It was better to suffer delay than to risk discovery. He determined to leave the place, and to return on the following night provided with a lantern, the light of which he would conceal until he entered the cavity. Once there, it could not be perceived by the sentinels above—it would guide him ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... dreadful, but that's the way I feel. I can't help my feelings, can I? The further mother and I are apart, the better we love each other. Well! I suppose I've got to go and see her bossing a lot of men, instead of sitting at home, like a lady;— and I'll get a dreadful blowing up. Of course she knows about the engagement now, ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... sober free trade Manchester, the community which is supposed to understand the worth of money better than any other in the world. Has it really gained by its Jingo policy? Professing to be the stronghold of free trade, it rejected the great free-trader, John Bright, when in Sir John Bowring's war he asked for justice to China. It rejected Mr. Gladstone when he sought the suffrages of South-east ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... silent caresses, heartwrung sobs, broken sighs, burning tears, were all that passed in this sad interview, while Madame de Villefort, leaning on her husband's arm, maintained all outward forms of respect, at least towards the poor widow. She soon whispered to her husband, "I think it would be better for me to retire, with your permission, for the sight of me appears still to afflict your mother-in-law." Madame de Saint-Meran heard her. "Yes, yes," she said softly to Valentine, "let her leave; but do you stay." Madame de Villefort left, and Valentine remained alone beside the bed, for the procureur, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... women, stole looks at the handsome, flawlessly dressed, interesting-looking Barney, Barney had yet another of those concoctions which the discreet waiter served in a tea-cup. He'd done a great little job, you bet! Not another man in New York could have done better. He was sure going to put Maggie across! And in doing so, he was going to do what was ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... to find that you grow just, and that you do conceive at last, that I could do better than stay in England for politics. "Tenez, mon enfant," as the Duchesse de la Fert'e said to Madame Staal;(883) "comme il n'y a que moi au monde qui aie toujours raison," I will be very reasonable; as you have made this concession to me, who knew I was in the right ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... down in your yard, and put it up instead?" The Brigadier joined in the discussion. "We must have better observation in this ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... cooking "by guess." If the various ingredients are measured accurately, the dish will taste better and ...
— Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918) • C. Houston Goudiss and Alberta M. Goudiss
... was easily the master. He had that power which our anaemic age can hardly comprehend, of writing, writing, writing, without fear of exhaustion, without irritability or self-criticism, without danger of comparing the better with the worse. Five great volumes of small print, all good—men of that facility never write the really paltry things—all good, and most of it glorious; some of it on the level which only the great poets reach here and there. It is in reading this man who rhymed ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... end of the narrative the visitor burst into a roar of laughter and confessed that he had personated the supernatural visitant, having wagered a dozen bottles of wine with the landlord of the Boar's Head that he could get the better of Mike Wild. For all this the old tree bore, for many years, an ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... had finished, the silence remained unbroken, then gave way only to an outburst of applause. And one did even better than applaud. Bending forward, his beautiful face quite radiant with his pleasure, the curly-headed page pulled a golden ring from his pouch and tossed ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... dependent for our knowledge of the details of what happened at this time on the accounts of Thomas's friends and admirers, but there is no reason to doubt their substantial accuracy. It is clear that there were better grounds in fact for the hesitation of Thomas than for the insistence of Henry, but they were apparently concealed from the king. His mother is said to have tried to dissuade him, and the able Bishop of Hereford, ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... complying with times and occasions, by accepting the current invitations of the day, is an impediment to any system of intellectual employment; and whatever the world may think of it, the time devoted to public dinners and suppers, routs and parties, is little better than time thrown away. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... my mother. She began to laugh. It was what we call her cut-finger laugh, her bandage laugh. It rolled all around father's angriness and made it feel better almost at once. ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... back to your regiment, and endeavour to serve your country with better spirit. You may thank the jury that you are not sent to prison, and your good fortune that you were not at the front when you tried to commit this cowardly act. You are ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to exasperation by her fidgeting; Sonia endured it with a perfect patience. Five times Germaine asked her whether she should wear her heliotrope or her pink gown at a forthcoming dinner at Madame de Relzieres'. Five times Sonia said, without the slightest variation in her tone, "I think you look better in the pink." And all the while the pile of addressed ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... if he have better liquors than this which hath ripened upon the sands of the Lido. Take another draught, for the second taste is thought to be better ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a question be asked? Has it ever been pretended, is it possible to maintain, that scarcity is better than plenty? ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... and councils, or the major part of them, were empowered, from time to time, to make, ordain, and constitute laws, ordinances, and officers for the better government of the colony, provided that none of these laws affected life or limb in the settlers. Their enactments were also required to be, in substance, consonant to the jurisprudence of England, and the King or the council in the mother-country ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... facilities barely adequate; international facilities slightly better domestic: coaxial cable and microwave radio relay trunk service international: country code - 509; satellite earth station - 1 Intelsat ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... I hate to caress you inside four walls, as if you were only a passing whim. This is unworthy of you. You are Love, who came to seek me out on the most beautiful of nights. I like you better in the open air. You look more handsome to me then, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the captain, "I can speak better standing. Maria Port, I have found out that you have been trying to make people believe that I am engaged ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... vehicles and outward ornaments, and viands, and drinks, and mansions, and seats, and beds, and all utensils for use and show, should be assigned to the king. By such means the king will succeed in discharging his duties of protection (the better) and become irresistible. He should speak with smiles. Addressed sweetly by others, he should address others sweetly. Grateful (to those that serve him), firmly devoted (to those that deserve his respect), and with passions under control, he should give unto others their due. Looked upon by ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... himself selfish. He took everything, and gave nothing. He's much older than I, so I've had a chance to see its effect on him. He's cold, he has no faith, even in his own nature; when you talk to him about making the world better he tells you you're ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... had better be careful about the young man, Polly," says her father, as they are promenading the lawn at the river's edge, in ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... I am restored, and to my sense again, Which I had lost in this so blinding suit. Caesar hath taught me better to refuse, Than I knew how to ask. How pleaseth Caesar T' embrace my late advice for ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... not stoop to flatter me. The very vestments of you Levites should exhale infectious humility; and I especially need exhortations against pride, my besetting sin. I built this chapel, not because I am good, but in order to grow better. Every dwelling has its room in which the inmates gather to eat, to study, to work, to sleep; why not to pray, the most important privilege of many that divide humanity from brutes? After all, the pagans were ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... unmoored and sailed from the bay, steering to the north in hopes of finding a better anchorage. The wind was very light, and the progress was so slow that it gave Terreeoboo an opportunity of sending off a further present of food. Soon after a gale sprang up, and the canoes which had accompanied them beat a hasty retreat, leaving a good many, mostly women, on board ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... that her mind is endowed with force and ability on occasion to grasp the spokes of fortune's wheel, or produce works which need not shrink from public criticism. Deborah herself felt that it would have better become a man to fulfil the mission with which she was charged—that a cozy home had been a more seemly place for her than the camp upon Mount Tabor. She says: "Desolate were the open towns in Israel, they were desolate.... Was there a shield seen or a spear among forty ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... shall suppose that because I say so much more of him than of his brother Editor, it is because my heart felt warmer towards him. I had, indeed, the warmest of feelings towards both, then. If anyone were to ask me which I liked the better, I should find it impossible to answer. They were both true friends. They made a great intellectual partnership. They were complementary to each other in an extraordinary degree. It was quite remarkable ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... middlin' and better. Patty had the croup and we sat up two nights firing up the croup kettle. Now he's better, but he still ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... professor. Downstairs, his talk was cheery, careless; no one, seeing the doctor for the first time, would have suspected that anything was on his mind. The professor, though, knew his old friend better, yet he forebore to put a question. He knew that, when Doctor Keltridge was quite ready, he was wont to speak; ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... so evil a plot that, heathen though she is, she recoiled, and indignantly refused. So they quietly drugged her food, and did as they chose with her. And now the knot she did not tie, and which she wholly detested at first, seems doubly knotted by her own will. Oh, to know better how to ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... May you a better Feast neuer behold You knot of Mouth-Friends: Smoke, & lukewarm water Is your perfection. This is Timons last, Who stucke and spangled you with Flatteries, Washes it off and sprinkles in your faces Your reeking villany. Liue loath'd, and long Most smiling, smooth, detested ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... in which these papers were written created certain repetitions. After careful consideration I have concluded to let them remain. They are upon subjects of vital concern. Where it is necessary to remember, it is better to be wearied than to forget. And these papers were meant to be helpful. They are merely plain talks ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... upon my dear uncle and benefactor. He did what he liked with his own. He felt that the estate would be better in my hands than ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... refuse him the hand of the girl, though he claimed the fealty of the British realms. But he has passed away, and I am about to follow him into a world where we shall find but one Lord to serve; and it may have been better for us both had we more remembered our duty to him, while serving the princes of the earth. One thing further—know you this officer of your Congress ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I,—rejoicing once again to stand Where Siloa's brook flows softly, and the meads Are all enamell'd o'er with deathless flowers, And Angel voices fill the dewy air. Strife is so hateful to me! most of all A strife of words about the things of GOD. Better by far the peasant's uncouth speech Meant for the heart's confession of its hope. Sweeter by far in village-school the words But half remembered from the Book of Life, Or scarce articulate lispings ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... eggs or 10 yolks of eggs, 1 quart of milk, sugar and vanilla to taste. Beat the eggs well while the milk is being heated. Use vanilla pods to flavour—they are better than the essence, which is alcoholic; split a piece of the pod 3 or 4 inches long, and let it soak in the milk for 1 hour before it is set over the fire, so as to extract the flavour from the vanilla. Sweeten the milk and let it come nearly to boiling-point. Carefully stir the milk ...
— The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book • Thomas R. Allinson
... backward. The fact that in every generation great men come from the lower social levels shows that the lower classes are not entirely devoid of capacity; nevertheless it seems probable that a low grade of intelligence would stand a better chance of escaping elimination in the struggle for existence when placed in a simple environment than when placed in a complex one. Consequently, under modern conditions, we might expect a peasant or peon population to average lower ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... the Romans had better success in this and the following campaign;(753) for Cn. Scipio extended his conquests as far as the river Iberus,(754) defeated ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... powerful constriction by getting at the snake's head. But the serpent had so knotted himself on his own head, that Mr. Cops could not reach it, and had thrown himself on the floor in order to grapple with a better chance of success, when two other keepers coming in broke the teeth of the serpent, and with some difficulty relieved Mr. Cops from his perilous situation. Two broken teeth were extracted from the thumb, which soon healed, and no material inconvenience was the result ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... her arm away, averted her profile, grated: "If you miss her so much, perhaps you'd better run after her. Really, I wouldn't ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... benefit of new arrivals at the University, the Minnesota Menorah seems certain to make this year the most successful in its history. The meeting, which follows an established custom at Minnesota, was well attended by both students and alumni, and enabled both elements to become better acquainted. The early part of the evening was devoted to a general reception; this was followed by a short entertainment, and then a very interesting discussion of Menorah ideals and duties by various members of the faculty ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various |
