"Common" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the watery comedies of society—this laborious life of a poor sculptor—is not to be passed over if we are to make any estimate of his art. He, it is related, always becomes enraged at the word "inspiration," enraged at the common notion that fire descends from heaven upon the head of the favoured neophyte of art. Rodin believes in but one inspiration—nature. He swears he does not invent, but copies nature. He despises improvisation, has contemptuous words ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... said the white-haired man pleasantly. "I was taking a walk in the garden when I heard the excitement. I got to the wall-top just in time." He paused, and added, "I do hope you're not just a common murderer with the police after him! We can't offer asylum to such—only a breathing-space and a chance to start running again. But if ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... Mainly as the result of the exertions of a few heroic women, one of the foremost of whom is her who stands arraigned as a criminal before this Court to-day. For a thousand years the absurdities and cruelties to which I have alluded have been embedded in the common law, and in the statute books, and men have not touched them, and would not until the end of time, had they not been goaded to it by the persistent efforts of the noble women ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... their fare was miserable; no meat was ever to be found, seldom fish, and not even an egg; this last for the very good reason that there was not a single hen in the village! These useful domestic fowls, now so common everywhere, were originally brought from the East, and had not yet found their way to this secluded place. The people had not even heard of such "strange birds." This troubled the kind duchess, who well knew the great help they are in housekeeping, and she determined ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... and own it in their own right. The mother's property passes to her children, but the father's passes to his mother's kin. The husband, in fact, is not regarded as related to the wife. Relationship means descent from a common mother, whereas descent from a common father is a negligible fact, no doubt because formerly it was a questionable one. Women administer their own property, and, as I am informed, administer it more ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... Members who were really concerned for the forces were up and fighting in the interests of the special system of retrenchment they advocated; the Government were disinclined to stick to their guns and insist upon the question being one for the Government to deal with. The result was the common one in such cases—the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into and report upon the conduct of the forces for the past year, and make such recommendations for retrenchment as the Commission should deem advisable. With the very limited ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... of Pere-Lachaise, in the vicinity of the common grave, far from the elegant quarter of that city of sepulchres, far from all the tombs of fancy which display in the presence of eternity all the hideous fashions of death, in a deserted corner, beside an old wall, beneath a great yew tree over which climbs the wild convolvulus, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... people by the tender care he was taking of his mother, and by diligence and faithfulness in his work, fell a victim to the passion of gambling, robbed money packages that passed through his hands as a cashier in an express office, was caught, convicted, and sentenced to prison as a common felon, to the saddening of all ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... last hour about a lying story that came from the kitchen. It's you that ought to be ashamed, old lady. Not, indeed, for believing ill of an old friend—for that's nature in you—but for not having common sense, just common sense to guide you, and a little common decency to warn you. Look now, there is not a word—there is not a syllable of truth in the whole story. Nobody ever thought of your nephew asking my niece to marry him; and if he did, she wouldn't have him. She looks ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... American wine quite another thing," replied the doctor. "Cheap wine for the people, as matters now stand, is only another name for diluted alcohol. It is better than pure whisky, maybe, though the larger quantity that will naturally be taken must give the common dose of that article and work about the same effect in ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... and he has not as yet learned the true nature of religion.' The 'sophistical' interest of Phaedrus, the little touch about the two versions of the story, the ironical manner in which these explanations are set aside—'the common opinion about them is enough for me'—the allusion to the serpent Typho may be noted in passing; also the general agreement between the tone of this speech and the remark of Socrates which follows afterwards, 'I am a diviner, but ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... dignified and courtly an English gentleman, that Eustace never even for a moment suspected any undercurrent of madness in that sound practical intelligence. Indeed, no man could talk with more absolute common sense about his daughter's future, or the duties and functions of an Admiralty official, than Michael Trevennack. It was only to his wife in his most confidential moments that he ever admitted the truth as to his archangelic ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... find out. You know, I never have liked that Nan Sherwood. She is a common little thing. And I don't believe they came honestly by that money they brought ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... received their inspirations from Mr. Gutzlaff or not matters little, differed on most points, but were agreed on this, that the trade in opium was morally indefensible, and that we were bound, not only by our own interests, but in virtue of the common obligations of humanity, to cease to hold all connection with it. Those who had surrendered their stores of opium at the request of Captain Elliot held that their claim for compensation was valid, in the first place, against the English government alone. ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... she will look among the common people. Still less likely. There is no solution of the problem, then. This young lady belongs neither to society, nor to the tradesmen's class, nor to the common people, and she can never enter any ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... More principally the Common-weale of England, and in it all men of all factions, and all fashions whatsoeuer. Atheists (if they think there be a God) haue good cause to thanke God, acknowledging his mercie toward them in sparing vs, and so sauing the bad for the [dr]righteous ...
— An Exposition of the Last Psalme • John Boys
... in love," thought Shears. "But what on earth can Clotilde Destange and Maxime Bermond have in common? Does she know that Maxime is ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... writer does he stand apart from the great currents of life and select some exceptional phase or odd combination of circumstances. He stands on the common level and appeals to the universal heart, and all that he suggests or achieves is on the plane and in the line of march of the ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... hunting is not one of the lost arts is apparent even in our day, for the term "undue influence" is as common in our courts as Ambrose Bierce's definition of "husband," or refined cruelty, or "injunctions" restraining husbands from disposing of property, or separate maintenance, or even "heart balm" and the consequent breach ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... of the Court of Common Pleas delivered the unanimous opinion of the Judges upon the said question,—"That it is not competent to the Managers for the Commons to examine the witness, Philip Francis, Esquire, to any account of the debate which was had on the 9th ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... higher in the system, which occurs a full mile farther on,—the Dipterians at the bottom, the Acanthodians in the middle, and the Cephalaspides atop; and was informed by Mr. William Watt, a competent authority in the case, that the arrangement is comparatively a common one in the quarries of Orkney. How account for the phenomenon? How account for the three storeys, and the apportionment of the floors, like those of a great city, each to its own specific class of society? Why should the first floor be ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... side I had died myself, and were lying with the envenomed arrow through my heart. Would that this had been, O Artemis, thou that art queen chief of power to womankind. Then would our parents have embraced and wept for us and with ample obsequies have laid us on one common pyre, and have gathered the bones of all of us into one golden urn, and buried them in the place where first we came to be. But now they dwell in Thebes, fair nurse of youth, ploughing the deep soil of the Aonian plain, while I in Tiryns, rocky city of Hera, am ever thus wounded at ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... faced together, crumbled away before the disintegrating influences of petty personal jealousies. When once self-regard gets in, it is like the trickle of water in the cracks of a rock, which freezes in winter and splits the hardest stone. No common action for a great cause is possible without the suppression of sidelong looks towards private advantage. Joab and Abiathar tarnished a life's devotion and broke sacred bonds, because they thought of themselves rather than of God's will. Surely they ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... doubtless only a subordinate symptom, even if it be admitted that actual hematemesis did occur. For the difficulty of distinguishing a flow of blood from the stomach, from a pulmonic expectoration of that fluid, is, to non-medical men, even in common cases, not inconsiderable. How much greater then must it have been in so terrible a disease, where assistants could not venture to approach the sick without exposing themselves to certain death? Only two medical descriptions of ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... there was a silence. Then it occurred to Oleron that this was common vulgar grumbling. It was not his habit. Suddenly he rose and began to stack cups and ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... pretence to love England. Gilbart never quite knew why he tolerated him. But so it was: they had met in the reading-room of a Sailors' Home, and had somehow struck up an acquaintance, even a sort of unacknowledged friendship. Their common love of books may have helped; for Casey—Heaven knew where or how—had picked up an education far above Gilbart's, and amazing in a common stoker. Also he wore some baffling, attractive mystery behind his reserve. Once or twice— certainly not half a dozen times—he had ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Observator Scarcity of Books in Country Places; Female Education Literary Attainments of Gentlemen Influence of French Literature Immorality of the Polite Literature of England State of Science in England State of the Fine Arts State of the Common People; Agricultural Wages Wages of Manufacturers Labour of Children in Factories Wages of different Classes of Artisans Number of Paupers Benefits derived by the Common People from the Progress of Civilisation Delusion which leads Men to overrate ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Complete Contents of the Five Volumes • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was owing to long-protracted droughts, which, by drying nearly all the fountains, had compelled the game of various districts to crowd the remaining springs, and the lions, according to their custom, followed in the wake. It is a common thing to come upon a full-grown lion and lioness associating with three or four large young ones nearly full-grown; at other times, full-grown males will be found associating and hunting together in a happy state of friendship: two, three, and four full-grown ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... surely be so infatuated as to look for anything else in Spangenberg's talk beyond a jesting attempt to see to what lengths you would go in your obstinate pride. No wonder the worthy gentleman felt greatly annoyed when you told him you should only see common covetousness in any Junker's wooing of your daughter. But all would have been well if, when Spangenberg began to speak of his son, you had interposed—if you had said, 'Marry, my good and honoured sir, if you yourself came along with your son to sue for my daughter—why, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... common theft! Someone overheard the talk you had with your brother. But how about the key? ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... came to his shanty with an excuse, for the purpose of observing its weak points, and that no doubt they had a scheme in their heads for robbing him, either at night time, or while he was absent digging and washing during the day. The men he had shot, it seems, were common thieves—one, a deserter from the garrison at Monterey, and the other belonging to a similar band of robbers to that by which our party had been attacked, ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... old miniature-painters, blue, and full to a fair green margin. One notices along its course a greater proportion than elsewhere of still untouched old seignorial residences, larger or smaller. The range of old gibbous towns along its banks, expanding their gay quays upon the water-side, have a common character—Joigny, Villeneuve, Julien-du-Sault—yet tempt us to tarry at each and examine its relics, old glass and the like, of the Renaissance or the Middle Age, for the acquisition of real though minor lessons on the various arts which have left themselves a central ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... interest and united them in alliance with his own nation. But impelled by eagerness for revenge, he did not appreciate the good effects which might have flowed from a reconciliation with that numerous and warlike nation, whom he considered as traitors to the common cause. Having satiated his revenge, he fortified himself in an advantageous post in their territory on the banks of the Rio-claro, probably on purpose to gain more correct information respecting the state of the city he ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... of the workers is not the New York best known to the country at large. The New York of Broadway, the New York of Fifth Avenue, of Central Park, of Wall Street, of Tammany Hall,—these are by-words of common reference; and when two years ago the daily press printed the news of the strike of thirty thousand shirt-waist makers in the metropolis, many persons realized, perhaps for the first time, the presence of a new and different New York—the New ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... man. A kinder-hearted creature never lived, and they say he hasn't yet got over crying for his little curly haired sister who died ever so long ago. But he knows nothing about business, politics, the world, and those things. He is dull at trade—indeed, it is a common remark that "everybody cheats Chalmerson." He came to the party the other evening, and brought his guitar. They wouldn't have him for a tenor in the opera, certainly, for he is shaky in his upper notes; but if his ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... laughed scornfully. "A caballero!" she cried: "who will serenade you at two o'clock in the morning when you are dying with sleep, and lie in a hammock smoking cigaritos all day; who will roll out rhetoric by the yard, and look like an idiot when you talk common-sense to him; who is too lazy to walk across the plaza, and too proud to work, and too silly to keep the Americans from grabbing all he's got. I met a few dilapidated specimens when I was in Los Angeles last year. One beauty with long hair, a sombrero, and a head about ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... asked him who he was. "I am the husband of your youngest princess," he answered. "No, no, indeed you are not," they said; "for he is a poor, common-looking, and ugly man." "But I am he," answered the prince; only no one would believe him. "Tell us the truth," said the servants; "who are you?" "Perhaps you cannot recognize me," said the young prince, "but call the youngest princess here. I wish to speak to her." The ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... Kipling has enjoyed substantial rewards is not because of his political views, nor because of his glorification of the British Empire, but simply because of his literary genius. He is a brilliant and salient exception to the common run of poets, not merely in royalties, but in creative power. Furthermore, shortly after this lecture was delivered, Alfred Noyes and then John Masefield passed from city to city in America in a march of triumph. Mr. Gibson and Mr. De La Mare received homage everywhere; "Riley day" ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... monomaniacs about something else. It isn't good enough. I want everything, and I'm going to get it—or have a good try for it. I'll never be a martyr if I can help it. And I believe I can help it. I believe I've got just enough common sense to save me from being a martyr —either to a husband or a house or family—or a cause. I want to have a husband and a house and a family, and a cause too. That'll be just about everything, won't it? And if you imagine I can't look after all of them at once, all ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... scenery must be understood before the idea can be developed, the briefest possible description is not out of place. Subjectively, a touch of landscape or weather is allowable, but it must be purely incidental. Weather is a very common thing and is ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... impatient of servitude, had long been engaged in strife with Montezuma. Cortes flattered himself that his oft-proclaimed intention of delivering the Indians from the Mexican yoke would induce the Tlascalans to become his allies and at once to make common cause with him. He therefore asked for leave to cross their territory on his way to Mexico; but his ambassadors were detained, and as he advanced into the interior of the country, he was harassed for fourteen consecutive days and nights by continual attacks from several bodies ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... part, Nelly entered the cab. She would "not go back!" And she would "go with dear Paul!" Her heart was breaking. Nelly Bolivar was "a good-for-nothing, common tattle-tale and the whole school probably knew all about her ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... as to the first part of it, I was a common frequenter of the church of God. And was also, by grace, a member with the people over whom Christ ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... good idea. How in the name of common sense could you expect young sap-heads like you boys to understand anything about a woman? I know what I'm talking about. A single woman never shows her true colors, but conceals her imperfections. The average man is not to be blamed if he fails to see through ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... white roses; but the first idea of a porphyry rock is that it shall be purple,—just as the first idea of a rose is that it shall be red. The purple inclines always towards russet[44] rather than blue, and is subdued by small spots of grey or white. This speckled character, common to all the crystalline rocks, fits them, in art, for large and majestic work; it unfits them for delicate sculpture; and their second universal characteristic is altogether in harmony with this consequence ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... Marsham's son!—that defection, realized or threatened, was beginning now to hit him hard. Amid all their disagreements of the past year his pride had always refused to believe that Marsham could ultimately make common cause with the party dissenters. Ferrier had hardly been able to bring himself, indeed, to take the disagreements seriously. There was a secret impatience, perhaps even a secret arrogance, in his feeling. A young man whom he had watched ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and they looked toward him as if they would ask his help, but were too proud to do so. And then of a sudden one of them spoke my name, and I knew him, though his face was half-hidden in the mud of the field on which some common chance had sent him down. It was that man of ours who had told me that there was always the chance of escape, and had tried to gnaw my bonds when we were in the ship's forepeak—Sidroc, the courtman. I did not pretend to know him then and there, thinking it might seem ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... it from the housetops. In his young days he had been a sailor, and the salt-airs of all the seas blew from him yet. He was a sturdy and loyal Christian, and believed he was the best one in the land, and the only one whose Christianity was perfectly sound, healthy, full-charged with common sense, and had no decayed places in it. People who had an ax to grind, or people who for any reason wanted wanted to get on the soft side of him, called him The Christian —a phrase whose delicate flattery ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... for the convenience of bathing. After viewing this, he returned to his former station, when he re-seated himself, with a dignity of look and manner surpassing all description; and we took our departure, after a brief common-place conversation. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... bubbling, or, as it were, seething of the liquid, which has accompanied the whole of this process, you will find that it is produced by the evolution of little bubbles of air-like substance out of the liquid; and I dare say you all know this air-like substance is not like common air; it is not a substance which a man can breathe with impunity. You often hear of accidents which take place in brewers' vats when men go in carelessly, and get suffocated there without knowing that there was anything evil awaiting them. And if you tried the experiment with this liquid ...
— Yeast • Thomas H. Huxley
... Hindoo, she knew well how fiendishly the priests loathed the Christian missionaries; and it was common knowledge that the Maharajah was cross-hobbled by the priests. The Maharajah was a fearful man, and, unless the priests and Jaimihr threatened him with a show of combination, there was a slight chance that he might dread British vengeance too much to dare permit violence to ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... Anthony Ross had been faithful to his relations whether he felt affection for them or not; sometimes even when they had not a thought in common with him and he rather disliked ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... follow you," said the man who had spoken first, "you do not believe it possible to reorganize society on the basis of common interest?" ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... common a feeling in Oriental royal houses, that it is hardly allowable to quote anything from their history; but we may be permitted to allude to the effect of one instance of paternal hate in the Ottoman family at the time of its utmost greatness. Solyman the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... be seen that the common sense of the speakers shaped crude rumour to suit themselves. Had they left it crude, it would have died. It is upon the nice sense of the probable and possible in talkative ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... as beautiful But theirs was love in which the mind delights To lose itself when the old world grows dull, And we are sick of its hack sounds and sights, Intrigues, adventures of the common school, Its petty passions, marriages, and flights, Where Hymen's torch but brands one strumpet more, Whose husband only ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the religion has the common weakness of all polytheism. Men were afraid of the gods; there were thousands and thousands, hosts of them. At every turn you ran into one, a new one; you could never be certain that you would not offend some unknown god or goddess. Superstition ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... nations, starving in the byways of England and of France. What a fate for such a man that he should have been so unhappy for eight years; should have led the most penurious of roving lives, and almost certainly have been in prison as a common tramp.[80] It was all very well to romance about a poverty-stricken youth. But when youth had fled there ceased to be romance, and only sordidness was forthcoming. From his twenty-third to his thirty-first ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... judicial, praetorian, conventional, or common: by the latter being meant those which ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... of her unquenchable gift of song, of the true poet's temperament, to which life is for ever new, beautiful, and glad. It was also the result of her ever-increasing spirituality of nature. This took no shape of creed, worship, or what the world's common consent calls religion. Most of the words spoken by the teachers of churches repelled Mercy by their monotonous iteration of the letter which killeth. But her realization of the solemn significance of the great fact of being alive deepened every hour; her tenderness, her ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... home-coming. From that, to making up my mind to go to the Derby was but a step, I took it, and on the great day I made one of the mighty crowd on Epsom Downs. I don't remember much about the race. I met many friends who asked me, as is common in such cases, if I was back already; a question to which it seems difficult to find a suitable reply, if one's bodily presence is not to be accepted as a sufficient evidence of the fact. Many others volunteered to put me on to various absolute certainties, and one man chilled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... returned from a journey among our sister Republics of the Western Hemisphere. I have received unbounded hospitality and courtesy as their expression of friendliness to our country. We are held by particular bonds of sympathy and common interest with them. They are each of them building a racial character and a culture which is an impressive contribution to human progress. We wish only for the maintenance of their independence, the growth of their stability, and their prosperity. While we have had wars in the Western ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... and this was the way of it:—One day, Sidonia beat this same Pug-nose most unmercifully with the broomstick, and chased her out into the convent square, still striking at her, which sight, however, the nuns little heeded, for this spectaculum was now so common that they only thanked their stars it was not their turn, and passed on. But Anna Apenborg met her by the well, and as the horrible old Pug-nose was screeching and roaring at the top of her voice, and cursing Sidonia, she asked, "What now?—what ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... you ever happen to question me, that could lead to your discovery of your lost love's whereabouts. It was considered, I conclude, that any meeting between you two must needs result unpleasantly. At any rate, there was a strong desire to avoid you; and in common duty to my friend I was ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... made a vow to ding King Charles aff the throne, and that neither he, nor his posteriors from generation to generation, shall sit upon it ony mair; and John Gudyill threeps ye're to gie a' the church organs to the pipers, and burn the Book o' Common-prayer by the hands of the common hangman, in revenge of the Covenant that was burnt ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... The thing receded. I was just thinking of going home when Follet appeared at the gate. Then I realized how futile had been our common reticence. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... than enough is found in her authorized rituals to compel all who hold to the Gospel and the integrity of primitive times, to withdraw their assent and consent from her worship. But with this principle before us, surely common justice and common prudence require that we should see for ourselves the practical workings of the system. "By their fruits ye shall know them," is a principle no less sanctioned by the Gospel than suggested by common sense and experience And, indeed, the shocking lengths ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... recent events go far to prove that Japan will be outstripped in the race for progress by its slow-going neighbor. What profoundly impresses any visitor to China is the stamina and the working capacity of the common people. Tireless laborers these Chinese are, whether they work for themselves or the European. What they will be able to accomplish with labor-saving machinery no one can predict. Certainly should they accept modern methods of work, with the same enthusiasm ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... letters were posted Jude mentally began to criticize them; he wished they had not been sent. "It is just one of those intrusive, vulgar, pushing, applications which are so common in these days," he thought. "Why couldn't I know better than address utter strangers in such a way? I may be an impostor, an idle scamp, a man with a bad character, for all that they know to the contrary... Perhaps ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... kind common enough in these hills, but nothing fit to affright a servant of the true God," echoed Cairnes, striding past me. "I am not wont to fear heathen idols, Master Benteen, nor will I bear back now before those ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... and the cacique separated, charmed with one another, and the more astonished of the two was not, perhaps, the old native. The rest of his tribe appeared to live in the practice of the excellent precepts indicated by their chief. Land was common property amongst the natives, as much so as sun, air, and water. The Meum and Tuum, cause of all strife, did not exist amongst them, and they lived content with little. "They enjoy the Golden Age," says the narrative, "they protect not their possessions ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... the colophon ran, 'Impressa Oxonie et finita anno domini M.cccc.lxviij., xvij. die decembris.' The facts that two other books that are dated 1479 (the Aegidius de originali peccato and Sextus ethicorum Aristotelis) have many points in common with the Exposicio, that the Exposicio has been found bound with other books of 1478, and that the dropping of an x from the date in a colophon is not an uncommon misprint, have led to the conclusion that the Exposicio was printed in 1478 and not 1468. The printer of these first Oxford ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... drinking had become a common vice at Roslyn School. Accordingly, when Eric came in with Wildney about half an hour after, Owen and Montagu heard them talk about ordering some brandy, and then arrange to have a "jollification," as they called ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... by common calculation The years of man amount to; but we'll say He turns four-score, yet, in my estimation, In all those years he ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Ebene, and those which are exported hence are a good commodity there: you know I have plenty of them; take what you will; fill fifty pots, half with the gold dust, and half with olives; which being a common merchandise from this city to that island, none will mistrust that there is any thing but olives ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... to provide yourself with a hole to creep out at, you have pretended to believe your own execrable falsehood, in presence of this poor young lady, that you might afterwards call in aid the evidence of your own assumed conviction. Come, sir! such stories will not go down with people of common sense or common humanity." ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the Mussalman conquerors of India could not have communicated what they never possessed. There is no record that theatrical entertainments were ever naturalised amongst the ancient Persians, Arabs, or Egyptians. With the exception of a few features in common with the Greek and the Chinese dramas, which could not fail to occur independently, the Hindu dramas present characteristic features in conduct and construction which strongly evidence both ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... stood in doubt at this, he continued: "But I'll gladly join your band, and you take me, as a common archer. For there are others older and mayhap more ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... knows his grandmother, as 'as bin up for drunk two hundred times, and is proud of it. Stretchers is as common to her, sir, as kissings is to a handsome young gent like you. An' the boy takes arter her. A deep young cuss," whispered Granny ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... truth of my life in all its strictness and purity, they burst into curses, they branded me with contempt, they hurled mud at me. They were disturbed because I dared to live alone, and because I did not ask them for a place in the "common cell for rogues." How difficult it is to be truthful ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... but there was no sign of yielding in his face as he looked up. He was seated before a small table upon which a common lamp was burning. His clothes hung about him loosely. His face was haggard. A short, unbecoming beard disfigured his face. He wore no collar or necktie, and his general appearance was altogether dishevelled. Forrest ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... begun. He was careful in the choice of his words, careful in the choice of his books, and would recommend nothing but the best. "I may not have genius enough," he would say, "to distinguish between better and best, but I do not lack common sense, to differentiate tares from weeds." Above all, he possessed a sense of honor, the greatest stimulus, as he maintained, to noble endeavors. "For as marriage is necessary to perpetuate the race, and ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... provision is controversial. It is as distasteful to me as I suspect it is to you. In its defence, let me treat the Greek letter and math formula cases separately. Using LaTeX encoding for Greek letters is purely a stopgap until Unicode comes into common use on enough computers so that we can use it for Etexts which contain characters not in the ASCII or ISO 8859/1 sets (which are the 7- and 8-bit subsets of Unicode, respectively). If an author uses a Greek word in the text, ...
— People of Africa • Edith A. How
... neighbouring district to Singhbhum. As might be expected there is considerable resemblance between those Santal Tales and the ones now reproduced. I have heard some of Mr. Campbell's Santal stories told by Hos precisely as he relates them, and there are many incidents common to both collections. On the other hand there is no resemblance between these Kolarian tales, and the Bengal stories published by Rev. Lal Behari De. In the latter I only notice one incident which appears in the ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... is a slim, shrivelled grain of a brownish hue, and gathered by the Indians in large quantities for food. There are tracts of arable land covered with elm, linden, pine, hemlock, cherry, maple, birch and other timber common to a northern climate. From the same plateau flow the numerous branches of Red river, and other streams that flow into lake Winnipeck, and thence into Hudson's bay. Here, too, are found some of the head branches of the waters of St. Lawrence, that enter the Lake of the Woods, and ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... foolish, but I've got plumb weary and sick of it. It stops right here or you won't get no 'Paches," snorted Hopalong, peering intently through a hole in the shack. The more they squabbled the better they liked it,—controversies had become so common that they were merely a habit; and they served to take the grimness out of ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... size of a fire-engine house, was held at a rent of $75,000. A gentleman who wished to find a law office, was shown a cellar in the earth, about twelve feet square and six feet deep, which he could have at $250 per month. One of the common soldiers at the battle of San Pasquale was reputed to be among the millionaires of the place, and had an income of fifty thousand ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... served that term, I know that it is a stretch. "What's he in for?"—"Dunno, but I hear he put somethin' in a paper they didn't like."—"What, a stretch for that!"—And I venture to assert that, although the prisoner who uttered this ejaculation was on the wrong side of a gaol, his unsophisticated common sense on this point was infinitely superior to the bigotry of Giffard, Harcourt, and North, and of the jury who assisted in sending us to gaol for "putting something in a ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... well shaped, a fine skin, fresh and high-coloured in tint, though rather loose; of short stature, stout frame, timid carriage, irregular walk, and, when not moving, a restlessness of body in shifting first one foot and then the other without advancing—a habit contracted either from that impatience common to princes compelled to undergo long audiences, or else the outward token of the constant wavering of an undecided mind. In his person there was an expression of bonhommie more vulgar than royal, which at the first glance inspired as much derision ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... floating at sea. As the day grew the men left the fire at the back of the beach, and came down to the sea-front where the waves were continually casting up fresh spoil. And there all worked with a will, not each one for his own hand, but all to make a common hoard ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... and during ten months' attendance here, they have been still greater, and though there is evidently a large balance in my favor, I have been refused money for my support. I have never asked of Congress anything but common justice, in the payment of my just demands, out of which, I have now been kept for three years. My necessities would long since have justified my seizing on the public property here to the amount of the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... accumulation of matter. Its entire strength rested on the meaning of that cabalistic word, "conspiracy." He continued:—"If, my lords, I look into the dictionary for the meaning of that word, I find that it is 'a secret agreement between several to commit a crime;' and that is the rational, common-sense definition of it. This word, however, in recent times, has been taken under special protection by the government; and the definition of it now is, not only a secret agreement between several to commit crime, but they have taken two loops to their bow, and the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... And yet have I striven. High did I hold the ideals which first inspired me, I have overcome much, have tried to keep to the high set purpose. Yet I am but common clay, after all." ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... sharp; sc. febris, fever), the common name given to a form or stage of malarial disease; the ague fit is the cold, shivering stage, and hence the word is also loosely used for any such paroxysm. Simple ague is of much the same type ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... which, by an inner quality or essence, are evil; and the other, of such as are mala ab extero, or what may be connected with them and made evil only by a positive law of the State, in which is vested the duty of watching over the common good. The fantastic notions of certain libertines, who, setting at naught the experience of the world, and fondly imagining that wisdom will die with themselves, have insinuated a doubt of the rightful power of the law-giver ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... there were ominous political rumblings, but I, in common with the great majority, concluded that the storm would blow over as it had done many times before. Moreover, I was so pre-occupied with my coming task as to pay scanty attention to the political barometer. I completed the purchase ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... she had passed. Young as she was, she had seen much of slavery, and had, doubtless, profited by the lessons thereof. At all events, it was through cruel treatment, having been frequently beaten after she had passed her eighteenth year, that she was prompted to seek freedom. It was so common for her mistress to give way to unbridled passions that Nancy never felt safe. Under the severest infliction of punishment she was not allowed to complain. Neither from mistress nor master had she any reason to expect mercy ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... because they have the power of launching themselves into the unseen. We cannot. This is the reason why cataclysms, things like the Flood recorded in the Book of Genesis, and the French Revolution, always come upon societies unprepared for them. The prophets foretell them, but the common man has not the amount of imagination which would make it possible for him to believe the prophets. "They eat and drink, marry, and are given in marriage," until the day ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... served in several sittings, in the tent. Before the workers left in the evening, Aaron would give each a drink out back, scharifer cider, feeling that they'd steamed hard enough to earn a sip of something volatile. There are matters, he mused, in which common sense can blink at a bishop; as in secretly trimming one's beard a bit, for example, to keep it out of one's soup; or plucking a guitar to ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... Horace suggest that on smaller farms, where a better class of slaves would be required, these home-bred ones were looked on as the mark of a rich house, "ditis examen domus."[319] Secondly, a certain number of slaves had become such under the law of debt. This was a common source of slavery in the early periods of Roman history, but in Cicero's day we cannot speak of it with confidence. We have noticed the cry of the distressed freemen of the city in the conspiracy of Catiline, which looks as ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... exciting herself over-night. When I went into her room, she was suffering from a nervous head-ache, and was not able to rise at her usual hour. She proposed of her own accord that I should go alone to Browndown to see Oscar on my return. It is only doing common justice to myself to say that this was a relief to me. If she had had the use of her eyes, my conscience would have been easy enough—but I shrank from deceiving my dear blind girl, ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... exception of Mrs. Williamson, who proved to be a good sailor, and they remained in their staterooms. I had thought that I, too, was an immune, not having been sick since we left San Francisco, but the motion of the boat proved to be too much even for me, and I was forced to pay common tribute to Neptune that the King of the Seas is wont to exact from most land-lubbers. Tener and Fred Pfeffer were about the only ball players that escaped, and that Pfeffer did so I shall always ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... these occasions he entered a very common cafe near one of the gates, and as he felt hungry he determined to get his dinner. He had long felt a desire to taste those "frogs" of which he had heard so much, and which to his great surprise he had never yet seen. On coming to France he of course felt confident that he ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... printers fashioned the characters of their type after the letters that the scribes had used in long-hand writing. Different kinds of common hand-writing gave rise, therefore, to such varieties of type as the heavy black-faced Gothic that prevailed in the Germanics or the several adaptations of the clear, neat Roman characters which predominated in southern Europe and in England. The compressed "italic" ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes |
