"Improving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spirit of moderation rarely met with, does not go to the extent of absorbing this product by raising the rent, but allows the cultivator to enjoy the results of his labor; even then justice is not satisfied. The tenant, by improving the land, has imparted a new value to the property; he, therefore, has a right to a part of the property. If the farm was originally worth one hundred thousand francs, and if by the labor of the tenant its value has risen to one hundred and fifty thousand francs, the tenant, who produced this ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... letter 35 last night. To-day we again spent in improving our billets. The sailor is always known as the handy man, but I doubt if he would have a look in even with amateur Tommies like ourselves. We made scrapers for each barn door out of nothing, mats to scrape our boots on out of straw, ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... pursuits of a husbandman; and, to his manner of thinking, there was no lot or calling in life so happy, and none more honorable. Having now ample time for the indulgence of his tastes, he set about improving and beautifying his plantations, of which he had several, in the most approved style of that day. He planted orchards of various fruits; set his hillsides in grass; drained his marshes, and turned them into rich meadow-lands; built mills ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... to other outlets for an active, beneficent nature, Osborne, with its works of building, planting, and improving going on for years to come, had also its farms, like the Home Farm at Windsor. And the Prince was fond of farming no less than of landscape-gardening —proud of his practical success in making it pay, deeply interested in all questions ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... likely to take part in that sort of thing, and that is the child's nurse at the Squirrel Inn; but if she really is given to study, I suppose she might help you to improve your mind, and if you are what you used to be, it will stand a good deal of improving." ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... the Claustro dos Filippes the work of Joao de Castilho comes to an end. He had been actively employed for about forty years, beginning and ending at Thomar, finishing Belem, and adding to Alcobaca, besides improving the now vanished royal palace and even fortifying Mazagao on the Moroccan coast, where perhaps his work may still survive. In these forty years his style went through more than one complete change. Beginning with late Gothic ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... strictness. Family ties are knitted more closely together. Parents take a deep interest in the education of their children, and the children become in turn teachers to the parents of much that is improving and civilizing. In the field there are generous rivalries between families to see which will cultivate the largest patches of corn and cotton. Greater neatness and order are observable about the dwellings, and wherever new cabins have been erected—always by negro carpenters—there has been ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... say so," said John, who felt the necessity of being instructive, and of improving the occasion to elevate the moral tone of his little elf. "Goodness lasts, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... isn't worn one bit? Just look at it, madame! Oh, the kind man! He is a good man, that's a fact. There are some people who the older they get the harder they grow; but he,—why he's getting soft and improving with time, like your ratafia! He is ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... Probably, for something in them brought back her conference with the Major on Boxing Day morning when her mother was at church. What was that she had said to him when she was sitting on his knee improving his whiskers?—that if she, later on, saw reason to suppose his suspicions true, she would ask her mother point-blank. Why not? And here she was with the same suspicions, quite, quite independent of the Major. And see how dark it was in both rooms! ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... here," continued Cousin Gustus. "I know a man who was very much addicted to these neuralgic headaches, who committed suicide by throwing himself from the bathroom window, solely owing to neuralgia. And the rain does nothing towards improving matters. They say the German guns bring on the rain. I tell you there is no limit to their guilt. Look at this morning's paper: 'The enemy bombarded this section of our front with increasing intensity during the day....' I ask ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... usefulness. In war times, owing to his knowledge of the waterways and of science, he had been able to build, with a speed fairly romantic, a gunboat fleet to patrol the Mississippi. Already now greater schemes for improving this central highway of our country were in his mind, but as yet the fullness of the time was not come. Still, he was no longer merely the careful son and father striving to protect his beloved ones and with no dreams of broader duties; ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... mind or body, yet we doubt whether just now we—— Thou knowest," he continued, interrupting himself, and in a lower tone, "that although Haroun al Raschid was certainly our forefather, yet our blood, improving by descent, is even purer and more illustrious than his. We cannot, therefore, condescend to imitate him in the way you speak of. But we will undertake a work that shall be far more pleasing to the Prophet. With our own hands will we embroider a twelfth under petticoat ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... extent of the debt which we owe the American Navy for the manner in which it has co-operated, not only in connection with the convoy system, but in fighting the submarines. If the naval position is improving to-day, as it is, it is due to the fact that the British and American fleets are working in closest accord, supported by an immense body of skilled workers on both sides of the Atlantic, who are turning out destroyers ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... necessity of holding our original front line against strong counter attacks, it had been arranged that our machine guns should take up permanent positions in this line. This was done, and Lieut. Wollaston was supervising the work of his teams and improving their positions when he saw that a considerable number of men were coming back from the Redoubt. Their officers and N.C.O.'s killed, they themselves, worn out by the exertions of the past 24 hours, half gassed by the chlorine which still hung about the shell holes, shot at by machine ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... excess, of the above properties, suggests a word or two on how these natural defects may, to a certain extent, be remedied artificially. It stands to reason, that if organic matter in a soil renders its absorptive power greater, a simple method of improving a soil defective in this property is by the addition of organic matter. One of the benefits of ploughing-in green crops on sandy soils is undoubtedly due to this fact; the addition of farmyard manure having also a similar effect. The absence of a sufficient amount of retentiveness, ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... works of utility carried on by convict labour during the tenure of the office of Superintendent of Convicts by Captain Man was the widening and improving of the Bukit Timah Canal, in order to drain the adjacent low lands, and render them capable for cultivation by market gardeners. In the cutting of these artificial channels the convicts from India had great aptitude, and some of them had been employed on similar work in their ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... self-supporters,—in fact, about such an assemblage as any town between New York and Chicago might give us. But while there is a large enough company to furnish a delightful coterie, there is absolutely no social life among them.... Town and country need more improving, enthusiastic work to redeem them from barrenness and indolence. Our girls need a chance to do independent work, to study practical business, to fill their minds with other thoughts than the petty doings of neighbors. A What-to-do Club is one step toward higher village life. ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... undue leaning against the people, and because his estate is admitted to be most reasonably let. It is further proved, and every man who has any knowledge of Ireland knows the fact, that the most comfortable and improving tenantry hold at will. Mr Guinness, the extensive agent, holding employments in twenty-seven counties, and himself a proprietor in Tipperary, confirms the fact of leases being generally granted in that county; and contrasts the state of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... MacNicols got altogether two pounds and eight shillings for that load of mackerel; and out of that Rob spent the eight shillings on still further improving the net, the two pounds going ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... "My health seems improving, especially from riding and the warm bath. Six Englishmen will be soon in quarantine at Zante; they are artificers[1], and have had enough of Greece in fourteen days. If you could recommend them to a passage home, I would thank you; they are good men enough, but do not quite ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... and decorate the old ideas with more attractive skill. Their aims are thus more and more limited to manual dexterity, and their fancy paralyzed. Also, in the course of centuries, the methods of every art continually improving, and being made subjects of popular inquiry, praise is now to be got, for eminence in these, from the whole mob of the nation; whereas intellectual design can never be discerned but by the few. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... "Their aim is improving," remarked Mr. De Vere, as he coolly looked at the pursuing tug through the glasses, "but we are leaving ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... the TURKS. All the different members of this great family have had very striking features in common,—the most extraordinary being an incapability of reaching the highest culture, of progressing indefinitely, improving continually. A strange law of their being seems to have condemned them to stop short, when they had attained a certain, not very advanced, stage. Thus their speech has remained extremely imperfect. They spoke, ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... mortgage note (signed always in presence of the wife, when the borrower was married) the amount of the illegal interest. The peasant, delighted to feel he had to pay only his five per cent interest annually, always imagined he should be able to meet the payment by working doubly hard or by improving the land and getting ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... watchmaker's shop; it is all alive with the tick-tick of a dozen chronometers. La Bruyere's observations are noted in a manner that is disjointed, apparently even disordered, but it was no part of his scheme to present his maxims in a system. We shall find that he was incessantly improving his work, revising, extending and weighing it. He was one of those timid men who surprise us by their crafty intrepidity. It was dangerous to publish sarcastic "portraits" of well-known influential people, and there are few of these in the first edition, but when the success of the book ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... spent four years, beloved by the natives, teaching them agriculture, treating their sick (the poor without charge), improving their schools, and visited from time to time by patients from abroad, drawn here by his fame as an oculist. Among these last came a Mr. Taufer, a resident of Hong-Kong, and with him his foster-child, Josephine Bracken, the daughter of an Irish sergeant. The pretty and adventurous ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... shred of the mantle of their good name had dropped upon her, big enough to cover also this poor little thing who had come of no such parentage. With her passion for redemption therefore, she seized every chance of improving her acquaintance with Florimel, and it was her anxiety to gain such a standing in her favour as might further her coveted ministration, that had prevented her from bringing her charge of brutality against Malcolm ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... talented than his nine brothers and sisters, by improving every opportunity he could wring from a youth of unremitting toil, his love for knowledge grew with what it fed upon, and carried him to undreamed-of heights. In palaces and council halls, the words of the "Learned ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... means as the above are impracticable, much can be done to aid the tissues in their struggle by improving the condition of the circulation in the inflamed area, so as to ensure that a plentiful supply of fresh arterial blood reaches it. The beneficial effects of hot fomentations and poultices depend on their causing a dilatation of the vessels, and so inducing a hyperaemia in the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... according to their different environments. The horse, the elephant, the camel, the pig, the deer, the rhinoceros gradually emerge out of the chaos of evolving forms. Behind them, hastening the course of their evolution, improving their speed, arms, and armour, is the inevitable carnivore. He, too, in the abundance of food, grows into a vast population, and branches out toward familiar types. We will devote a chapter presently to this remarkable phase ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... Convention, and then copies will be sent by him to those who send to him the money (50 cents fur one copy, twenty dollars for 50 copies, 35 dollars for 100 copies) either before or after or at the Convention. He being a man of property and known as our trusty fellow labourer for improving the condition of mankind, has charge of the business department at our Peace Union, while, I the writer of this book and of this article am bound to devote my precious time to spiritual objects for ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... expense laid out a proper piece of land for a decoy, or duck-coy, as some call it. The works were but newly done, the planting young, the ponds very large and well made; but the proper places for shelter of the fowl not covered, the trees not being grown, and men were still at work improving and enlarging and planting on the adjoining heath or common. Near the decoy-keeper's house were some places where young decoy ducks were hatched, or otherwise kept to fit them for their work. To preserve them from vermin (polecats, kites, and such like), they ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... received. There was once a lady, sober in mind and sedate in manner, whose plain dress exactly represented her desire to be inconspicuous, to do good, to improve every day of her life in actions that should benefit her kind. She was a serious person, inclined to improving conversation, to the reading of bound books that cost at least a dollar and a half (fifteen cents of which she gladly contributed to the author), and she had a distaste for the gay society which was mainly a flutter of ribbons ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... will for you gratis than let you make your own. The General can believe in nothing but in well-trained troops. Curlydown would willingly have expended the whole net revenue of the post-office,—and his own,—in improving the machinery for stamping letters. But he had hardly succeeded in life. He had done his duty, and was respected by all. He lived comfortably in a suburban cottage with a garden, having some private means, and had brought up a happy ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... out of the 'Prentice's Garland or the 'Prentice's Delight, or the 'Prentice's Warbler, or the Prentice's Guide to the Gallows, or some such improving textbook. Now he's going to beautify himself—here's a ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Was he improving?... Uncle Pascal, surrounded by his wife, his daughters-in-law and even the most distant relatives, who had been gathered together by misfortune, received with melancholy satisfaction this interest of the entire ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... home; with you the home means the estate, the succession of honors or titles, the surety that the conditions of life shall all be kept intact. With us the children who do not expect, and generally succeed in improving the fortunes of the house, are marked exceptions. Do I make ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... our care, you're improving, my "Pet," a bit. Promising Novice, of that there's no doubt. But up to Champion form? No, not yet a bit. Just try that on, and you'll soon get knocked out. Can't say exactly how long we must bide with you, ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... not very material, said the lady. Hither repaired Horatio, who, as he hoped by his profession to advance his fortune, which was not at present very large, for the sake of his dear Leonora, he resolved to spare no pains, nor lose any opportunity of improving or ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... England and America are deceived about the value of voting as a means of improving conditions of workingmen. Possibly women are deceived about the value of voting as a means of improving ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... indiscriminate novel or story reading. Here again the virtue of self-control comes in to help do the right and avoid the wrong. If you discover that your taste is more for the improbable highly-wrought pages of fiction than for such works as are known to everyone as standard and improving, let it be a sign to you that you should summon your self-control and compel yourself to a different sort of reading. If you find that you cannot relish or fix your mind upon standard works of history biography, travel, or any of the many excellent books written to bring ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... small part of Hedemark was baptized; but the king did not desist from his expedition before he had introduced Christianity over all Hedemark, consecrated churches, and placed teachers. He then went to Hadaland and Thoten, improving the customs of the people, and persisting until all the country was baptized. He then went to Ringerike, where also all people went over to Christianity. The people of Raumarike then heard that Olaf intended ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... watching over their dead with pious care. Hundreds of men have been employed in making the improvements already mentioned, and many others I have not time to notice, and a number are still at work. They are planting trees, making and improving walks, placing sod upon the graves, and otherwise beautifying ...
— A Letter to Hon. Charles Sumner, with 'Statements' of Outrages upon Freedmen in Georgia • Hamilton Wilcox Pierson
... furnish a further motive for using every endeavour to preserve those pictures that remain to us; but probably a far greater number have perished from damp or neglect, and a strange combination of mischief and ignorance. Let us hope that in this respect the times are improving. For one, I cannot consent to the wanton destruction of a single portrait, though Horace ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... of the Mississippi an important relinquishment of native title has been received from the Delawares. That tribe, desiring to extinguish in their people the spirit of hunting and to convert superfluous lands into the means of improving what they retain, has ceded to us all the country between the Wabash and Ohio south of and including the road from the rapids toward Vincennes, for which they are to receive annuities in animals and implements for ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Thomas Jefferson • Thomas Jefferson
... back to school, our chances seemed improving, we spent another holiday at the pew-opener's. I had got money, and we were indiscreet enough to go to see some wax-works. Next day her father came to see her; he ordered her to tell where she had been. She ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... presented myself, and confronted not Miss Steele but Miss Bousfield, who addressed me in terse and forcible language, and gave me to understand that I was a person of extremely second-rate character and attainments. I acknowledged it, but hoped for an opportunity of improving her impressions. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... said Captain Lee, glancing sternly at the prisoners, and stanching a cut in his forehead with a handkerchief as he spoke; "our police arrangements are improving daily, as scoundrels shall find to ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... years old," he said. "The Rev. Henry Homer deserved well of his British countrymen when he gave to the world—it was in 1767—his 'Inquiry Into the Measures of Preserving and Improving the ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... and in Federal Land Bank v. Bismarck Lumber Co.,[89] the like result was reached with respect to an attempt by the State to impose a retail sales tax on a sale of lumber and other building materials to the bank for use in repairing and improving property that had been acquired by foreclosure of mortgages. The State's principal argument proceeded thus: "Congress has authority to extend immunity only to the governmental functions of the federal land banks; the only governmental ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... invite the Sniatynskis and several other people to dinner. Sniatynski has spread the news of my founding a museum for the public, and I am at present the hero of the day. All the papers write about it, improving the occasion as usual by pitching into those that waste their substance abroad instead of doing good to the country. I know their style so well, and it amuses me. There are the usual phrases about a citizen's duties and "noblesse oblige," but it suits my purpose. ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... made him a visit, still hoping to find He had took better care for improving his mind: He told me his dreams, talk'd of eating and drinking, But he scarce reads his ...
— Divine Songs • Isaac Watts
... its mal'aria; has renounced the monopoly of corn and tobacco; has taken the University out of the hands of the Barnabites, and introduced the teaching of the physical sciences, formerly prohibited by the Church; has spent since his accession near 200,000 liv. on improving the roads throughout the duchy, and is now engaged in framing a constitution which shall deprive the clergy of the greatest part of their privileges and confirm the sovereign's right to annex ecclesiastical territory for ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... is impossible that such a man can have any but narrow views; and, besides, most celebrated people lose on a close view."— "Not always, General," observed I—"Ah!" said he, smiling, "that is not bad, Bourrienne. You are improving. I see I shall make something of you ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the dog Pluto with her always, and generally a volume of some new novel under her arm. I am ashamed to be obliged to confess that this young heiress was very frivolous, and liked reading novels better than improving her mind by the perusal of grave histories, or by the study of the natural sciences. She spent day after day in happy idleness—reading, sketching, playing, singing, talking, sometimes gaily sometimes seriously, to ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... morning David again buttoned his coat; but he got on much better this day than the former: he was less awkward and less idle, though not less observant than before: and he succeeded ere evening in tracing, in workman-like fashion, a few draughts along the future column. He was evidently greatly improving. On the morning of Wednesday he threw off his coat; and it was seen that, though by no means in a hurry, he was seriously at work. There were no more jokes or laughter; and it was whispered in the evening that the strange Highlander had made astonishing progress ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... to express the peculiar charm of spontaneous poetic expression as contrasted with "care," 'i.e.' the art of revising and improving, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... empire, Catherine labored to reform its institutions and to civilize her subjects. Her labors in bettering the laws and improving the administration of the government, have caused her to be likened to Solon and to Lycurgus; while her enthusiasm for learning and her patronage of letters led Voltaire to say, "Light now comes ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... apostles to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's. Cultivate a tender regard for each other. If difference of opinion on any measures occur, never suffer it to produce alienation of affection. You have already had opportunities of improving your minds by reading, and the Board are gratified by the reflection that you bear with your books that are calculated to add to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... and Flanders were scourged back to the chains which they had so recently broken, the affairs of the Prince of Orange were not improving in Zealand. Never was a twelvemonth so marked by contradictory fortune, never were the promises of a spring followed by such blight and disappointment in autumn than in the memorable year 1572. On the island of Walcheren, Middelburg ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... if all but knew it, there is not in the press any reading so improving as the "obits" (to use the newspaper term), none of so softening and refining a nature, none so calculated to inspire one with the Christian feelings of pity and charity, with the sentiment of malice toward none, to bring anon a smile of tender regard for one's fellow mortals, to ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... go, and yet he did not wish to stay unless Margaret added her invitation to her mother's. He felt vaguely that his reluctance did him credit, and that he was improving. He could not remember a time when he had not taken without question whatever the gods sent, and this unaccustomed qualm of modesty caused him to suspect that there were depths in his nature hitherto unexplored. It always ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... had all achieved it—all six. They had grown up sturdily, emerging into sobriety and decorum by much the same degrees as the old house, under John Murchison's improving fortunes, grew cared for and presentable. The new roof went on, slate replacing shingles, the year Abby put her hair up; the bathroom was contemporary with Oliver's leaving school; the electric light was actually turned on for the first time in honour of Lorne's return from Toronto, a barrister ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... now working tack and tack, but the Osprey was still improving her position, and as they neared St. Catherine's Head she was a good quarter of a mile to the good. Still Carthew maintained his good temper, but Bertha could see that it was with an effort. He seemed to pay but little attention to the sailing of the Phantom, ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... wish to go on improving myself and being useful. Surely it was not wrong, papa. Don't you see, I did not want to let myself be worried into letting myself go out, and spoiling all my happiness and improvement and work, and getting to care for ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... those countries where this improvement is most advanced that the feudal institutions are the most completely obliterated, and the general prosperity the greatest. In like manner the gospel method of extinguishing slavery is by improving the condition of the slave. The grand question is, How is this to be done? The abolitionist answers, by immediate emancipation. Perhaps he is right, perhaps he is wrong; but whether right or wrong, it is not the practical question for the North. Among a community ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... originally began. One or two newspapers with an ethical turn, which had borrowed from the pulpit a trick of improving the sensational events of the day for the edification of their readers, and which possessed a happy knack of writing about anything and anybody without perpetrating a libel or incurring a charge of contempt of court, had printed articles ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... you I 'blabbed' a great deal less than you seem to suppose," said the prince, with some annoyance. Clearly the relations between Gania and himself were by no means improving. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "I will reform. I will eat all the chocolates you can bring me, and I will sleep with your flowers at my bedside. There! Am I improving?" ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and a French government. He concluded by affirming, that if they in good earnest desired to see England hold the balance of Europe, and be indeed at the head of the protestant interest, it would appear by their improving the present opportunity, The lords immediately drew up a warm and affectionate address, in which they expressed their resentment of the proceedings of the French king in owning the pretended prince of Wales for king of England. They assured his majesty they would assist him to the utmost ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... was a systematic plan for improving the pictures on the walls of the American home. Bok was employing the best artists of the day: Edwin A. Abbey, Howard Pyle, Charles Dana Gibson, W. L. Taylor, Albert Lynch, Will H. Low, W. T. Smedley, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... conspicuous and more personal part in the preparation (with the Baptist scholar, Horatio B. Hackett) of the enlarged American edition of Dr (afterwards Sir) William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible (1867-1870), to which he contributed more than 400 articles besides greatly improving the bibliographical completeness of the work; was an efficient member of the American revision committee employed in connexion with the Revised Version (1881-1885) of the King James Bible; and aided in the preparation of Caspar Rene Gregory's Prolegomena to the revised Greek ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... have told Lucy so.' I must write the letter out again—'and I have told Lucy so. But Lucy seems very uncertain, and in these days young people must decide for themselves.' I said that because I didn't want Mrs. Vyse to think us old-fashioned. She goes in for lectures and improving her mind, and all the time a thick layer of flue under the beds, and the maid's dirty thumb-marks where you turn on the electric light. She keeps ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... feverishly building the new port, the Assembly at Williamsburg was discharging the purchasers of marsh lots from the necessity of building on and improving them; approving the proposition "for appointing fairs to be kept in the Town of Alexandria."[23] Fairs and lotteries were the principal source of municipal income in early years; the journals of the House of Burgesses contain frequent requests ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... robbed of every joy which life afforded. Listen: much misery may be contained in a few words. Attracted by my native country, I quitted you and the service. What pleasing pictures did I draw of a life employed in improving society, and diffusing happiness! I fixed on Cassel to be my abode. All went on admirably. I found friends. At length, too, I found a wife; a lovely, innocent creature, scarce sixteen years of age. Oh! how I loved her! She bore me a son and a daughter. Both were endowed by nature ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... use of ardent spirits, the baneful effects of which are too generally known, and too extensively felt, to need any particular description here. The farmer and the merchant will alike find their account in encouraging and improving the produce of the brewery. The farmer can raise no crop that will pay him better than hops; as, under proper management, he may reasonably expect to clear, of a good year, one hundred dollars per acre. ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... kind friend who had always taken a sincere interest in my welfare; but he was become too infirm to enjoy comfort, and then to die is a blessing. I am glad he left your son his estate, but it was want of knowing the world if he thought of improving the Property by keeping him out ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... on a sofa, pulled close to the fire, and when the doctor came, my landlady was always at his heels, Sarah Ann's dismal face showing at the door. The doctor is a personal friend of my own, and each day he said I was improving ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... town, with scanty resources of society, and yet scantier of honourable or useful occupation. Here also we do but describe what we have too frequently seen—the English gentleman, who at home would have been improving his estates, and aiding the public institutions of his country, abandoned to utter insignificance; his mind and resources running waste for want of employment, or, perchance, turned to objects to which even idleness might reasonably be preferred. We have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... increase their parents' incomes. The diminished birth-rate has accompanied higher moral transformation. It has introduced a finer economy into life, diminished death, disease, and misery. It is indirectly, and even directly, improving the quality of the race. The very fact that children are born at longer intervals is not only beneficial to the mother's health, and therefore to the children's general welfare, but it has been proved to have a marked and prolonged influence on the ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... shoot. He watch'd the rising blossoms as they grew, Preserv'd with constant care their lively hue, Spread o'er each flow'ret a protecting veil To shelter it from trial's rougher gale, And clear'd, with strenuous and unceasing toil, From each insidious weed th' improving soil. His patient diligence had won at length A partial triumph over nature's strength: Tho' unsuppress'd th' internal weakness still With frequent bias pois'd the wavering will, Still losing ground, it seem'd to die away, Like nightly storms before advancing day: When thrice seven rolling ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... in his service. Do not say that you do the best that you can; for I am persuaded that there is none of you but may do more for Him than ye do. Do not say that ye improve the talent that He hath given you to trade with, for ye but misimprove it; and the best of you, we fear, come short of improving it. If ye improve it, ye should find it increase upon your hand, and you would appear like his children. But because people do not improve their time and abilities to lay them out for God, it procures a curse. For though our obligations go ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... flight. I owed their presence to Gorman's exertions in the House of Commons. He told me that he intended to interest the Government in Tim's invention on the ground that it promised an opportunity of popularising and improving national education. I had a seat kept for Ascher beside the Cabinet Ministers. I did not suppose that he would particularly want to talk to them, but I was sure that they would like to spend the evening in the company of ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... reference to the Suvar@naprabhasa sutra shows that the Buddhist missionaries used to get certain preparations for improving their voice in order to be able to argue with force, and they took to the worship of Sarasvati (goddess of learning), who they supposed would help them in bringing readily before their mind all the information ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... Juliet the potion. The last act, after an elaborate orchestral movement describing the sleep of Juliet, takes place in the tomb of the Capulets. MM. Barbier and Carre could not resist an opportunity of improving upon Shakespeare, and prolonged Romeo's death agony, in order to enable him to join in ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... Mr. Short, improving the time Mr. Gull stopped to breathe, "well, I had some idea of so doing." "Hidea!" quickly responded the broker; "why will you 'esitate? read that!" and he handed a paper to Mr. Short which paper he kept for reference, and pointed out to him an ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... conversation does not consist in exhibiting your own superior knowledge on matters of small consequence, but in enlarging, improving and correcting the information you possess by the authority of others.—SIR ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... which, it seems, had taken place in the British army, were scarcely to be paralleled; and it is said, so strongly did the idea of a retreat prevail, that Chester was fixed on as their rendezvous. I can discover no other cause for not improving this happy opportunity, than the extreme haziness ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... literary reader the doubt will arise, whether the writer of this work might not have more profitably employed his time, during the last ten years, in creating thoughts than in "improving" land,—in diffusing information than in selling milk. As a poetic, scientific, and practical farmer, he has doubtless silenced all cynic doubts of his capacity to make four or six per cent. on the capital he invested in land; but it is plain, that, without capital, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Gharandel. It is reached in two hours from the bitter spring in the Wadi Hawara, believed to be the Marah of the Bible. Burckhardt conjectures that the juice of the berry of the gharkad, a shrub growing in the neighbourhood, may have the property, like the juice of the pomegranate, of improving brackish water; see p. 475, Baedecker's Egypt, 1879 edition. Professor Lepsius was responsible for the chapter ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... answered; "but Lulu is improving wonderfully under his tuition, and should not, I think, be allowed to lose the advantage of it ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... lived their little day, ruining hundreds ere they fell. One of them was for a wheel for perpetual motion — capital, one million; another was "for encouraging the breed of horses in England, and improving of glebe and church lands, and repairing and rebuilding parsonage and vicarage houses." Why the clergy, who were so mainly interested in the latter clause, should have taken so much interest in the first, is only to be explained on the supposition that the scheme was projected ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... growth of the proletariat, the concentration of ownership into the hands of a few owners, and the exploitation by those owners of the mass of the community, had no fatal or necessary connection with the discovery of new and perpetually improving methods of production. The evil proceeded in direct historical sequence, proceeded patently and demonstrably, from the fact that England, the seed plot of the industrial system, was already captured by a wealthy oligarchy before the series of ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... There was now no question in his mind but what the city was the place for any one who wished to become either rich or famous. It would certainly be impossible for him to make a name for himself in this village, while in the city he would have every opportunity for improving himself, and advancing himself in every way. He wondered, indeed, that he had never thought of going to New York before, and was disgusted with himself when he thought of the time he had wasted ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... with certainty of being received and adopted as citizens; and I regret to say such persons contemplating colonization do not seem so willing to migrate to those countries as to some others, nor so willing as I think their interest demands. I believe, however, opinion among them in this respect is improving, and that ere long there will be an augmented and considerable migration to both these ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... cheered them, and he promised further supplies. He also relieved Stephen's mind about his brother, telling of his inquiry at the Dragon in the morning. All that day the condition of such of the prisoners as had well-to-do friends was improving. Fathers, brothers, masters, and servants, came in quest of them, bringing food and bedding, and by exorbitant fees to the jailers obtained for them shelter in the gloomy cells. Mothers could not come, for a proclamation had gone out that none were to babble, and men were to keep their wives at home. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... misrepresentation, and indifference, be removed by the force of truth and sound reason, and women be admitted to their legitimate position in society, with equal prerogatives accorded to them, that they may thereby more perfectly exert their natural influence in improving the world. ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... the ruins of Fort St. Louis, and were well within the precincts of the little city, when, as they pulled up from a final gallop, mention was made of Doctor Keene. He was improving; Honore had seen him that morning; so, at another hour, had Frowenfeld. Doctor Keene had ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... difficulty is," she wrote, "they are taken away from school so young to be married and thus lost to us. Still it is good to think that they receive some religious instruction, and matters in regard to girls and women in India are gradually improving. Not quite so much stress is laid on child-marriage; indeed, some native societies are being formed for the purpose of opposing this custom, and many more girls are allowed to attend school than used to be ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... uninterrupted transit of our correspondence in the mails of those countries to the countries beyond. The mail service in California and Oregon is still in an unsettled state: some suggestions are made for improving its details. The Postmaster General recommends a considerable reduction in the rates of postage: he advises that the inland letter postage be reduced to three cents, the single letter, when pre-paid, and be fixed at the uniform rate of five cents when not pre-paid; and also, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... alarming, it has been steady and rapid. [Footnote: The facts upon winch these statements are based are recorded in the Report of the Sanitary Commission of Massachusetts, 1850,—in the Annual Reports of the Boston City Registrar,—in the Annual Reports of the New York Society for Improving the Condition of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... building of stone has been erected for gymnastic purposes. As new buildings have been constructed, old ones have been rearranged and better adapted for the various uses of the college, and so it has been provided with the means of enlarging and improving its work, and it is believed that few, if any, of our colleges are better equipped in this ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... ameliorating the condition of those who are in a future state, and for improving the ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... much at first, alarmed at the strange appearance of "Chukuroo," but by a sharp application of spur and jambok I prevailed upon him to follow, and presently, the ground improving, I got alongside, and, firing at the gallop, sent a bullet through her shoulder. She continued her pace with blood streaming from the wound, and very soon reached an impracticable thorny jungle, where I could not follow, ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... confessed my secret to them! It is written above that I am to know every sorrow! Heaven has cruelly tried me, but to-day a ray of pity seems to have fallen upon my miserable fate. The princess is steadily improving, and I have received good news ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... woman who wishes to become a link between these things and a purchaser must begin by improving or adapting them. She must show the knitter of tidies an imported golf stocking with all of the latest stitches and stripes and fads, and if the yarn can be had, undoubtedly the tidy-knitter can make exactly such another. When a good pair has been produced, the ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... and when to the northward of the latitude of Cadiz, the ship encountered unusually bad weather. Instead of improving, it became worse and worse; two of her boats were washed away, the wheel and the steering apparatus damaged, and numerous other injuries were received. She would, indeed, have been compelled to put ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... was with a solid shot. The gunner aimed the piece himself, and the shot was seen to tear up the water alongside of the enemy. He discharged the piece four times more with no better result. Evidently he had not got the hang of the gun, though he was improving at every trial. ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... of reading which is neither so heavy with erudition as to weigh us down nor so light with the flying folly of prejudice as to make us distracted with its dust, there is perhaps too little. The thoughtful and improving passage for the unoccupied half hour of him who hurries through these closing years of the century does not abound, but is rather wanting in the intellectual provision ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... letter reported that his condition was improving. Perhaps he might soon return. Then the money would enable her to weave a joy into the sorrow that awaited him. It had always been a humiliating thought that he had lost his own house and was obliged to live in a hired one, and at least she could ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... we indicated that we were leaving to continue negotiations under conditions which were seemingly improving for us and becoming worse for our enemies. We observed the movement in Austria-Hungary, and there were signs indicating (this was made the basis for statements by representatives of the German Social Democracy in the Reichstag) that Germany was on the ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... Commonwealth seemed to him to justify, he did not hesitate to apply the executive veto when his judgment dictated, even in relation to measures of current popularity. He thoroughly reorganized the militia of the State, thereby greatly improving its character and efficiency, besides largely diminishing its annual cost. His appointments to office, though sometimes sharply criticised, proved, almost without exception, to have been judiciously made, and in many instances exhibited ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... if he had been gifted with a disposition as unmercurial as that of Daubeny himself. In order to make sure of his lessons, he went over them with Henderson (who entered eagerly into his wishes) with such care, that they, both of them, astonished themselves with their own improving progress. If they came to any insuperable difficulties, Kenrick or Power gladly helped them, and explained everything to them with that sympathetic clearness of instruction which makes one boy the best teacher to another. The main difficulty still continued to be the repetition, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... four days passed most quietly, with no circumstance to mark them excepting the receipt of a note or two from Lyme, which found their way to Anne, she could not tell how, and brought a rather improving account of Louisa. At the end of that period, Lady Russell's politeness could repose no longer, and the fainter self-threatenings of the past became in a decided tone, "I must call on Mrs Croft; I really must call upon her soon. Anne, have you courage to go with me, and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... now really to feel better: I think my cough is less, and I eat a great deal more. They cook nice clean food here, and have some good claret, which I have been extravagant enough to drink, much to my advantage. The Cape wine is all so fiery. The climate is improving too. The glorious African sun blazes and roasts one, and the cool fresh breezes prevent one from feeling languid. I walk from six till eight or nine, breakfast at ten, and dine at three; in the afternoon it is generally practicable to saunter again, now the ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... man Your Magnificence," that being, it seems, the proper official style in addressing the burgomaster. And May took him back to America, to see his married daughter and divers old friends. He remained there till the beginning of September, improving, as he thought, in health, but meeting towards the close an awkward bathing accident, which involved no risk of drowning, but gave him a shock that was followed by a week or two of troublesome attacks of pain across the chest. There is very much in the letters of the time about ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... suffer because they have sinned; like sick men, they must go to the physician and be healed. On this representation of Plato's the criticism has been made, that the analogy of disease and injustice is partial only, and that suffering, instead of improving men, may have ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... child of your years going to a distant land; nor could I have acquiesced in such a separation under any other care than that of the most excellent parent and guardian who accompanied you. You have arrived at years capable of improving under the advantages you will be likely to have, if you do but properly attend to them. They are talents put into your hands, of which an account will be required of you hereafter; and being possessed of one, two, or four, see to it ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... many shells were expended on the Premier Mine. The mines, it may be said, were the objectives of special bombardments until the end; but, so far, we were not inclined to think highly of the enemy's marksmanship. The shells fell a long way short, albeit not so short as at first; the aim was improving. Given time, the Boer would yet hit his target; but of course he ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... under my direction. The Commission has still a legal existence, although for several years no appropriation has been made for defraying its expenses. Believing that this Commission has rendered valuable service and will be a most useful agency in improving the administration of the civil service, I respectfully recommend that a suitable appropriation, to be immediately available, be made to enable ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... led to take an interest in the application of radioactivity in medicine. The lecture on The Use of Radium in Medicine deals with this subject. Towards the conclusion of this essay reference will be found to a practical outcome of such studies which, by improving on the methods, and facilitating the application, of radioactive treatment, has, in the hands of skilled medical men, already resulted in ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... but the deal was his, and he had the money to throw away. Some men get their fun making over the earth. When one place is finished, they lose interest and go looking for a chance to put their time and dollars into improving somewhere else. Besides,"—and she took this other woman into her abrupt and rare embrace—"I happen to know he had an offer for his option and refused a good price. Now, come, Marcia and Frederic ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... wanting a lock of potatoes for seed in the springtime; and if it isn't that, it'll be something else. And who would the creatures go to in their trouble but the old priest that christened and married the most of them? But, indeed, thanks be to God, things is improving. The fishing brings in a lot of money to the men, and there's a better breed of cattle in the country now, and the pigs fetch a good price since we had the railway to Clifden, and maybe the last few years I might have saved a little, but I didn't. Indeed, I don't know ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... this vast extraction of wealth from a country lessening in its resources in proportion to the increase of its burdens was not calculated for a very long duration. For a while the Company's servants kept up this investment, not by improving commerce, manufacture, or agriculture, but by forcibly raising the land-rents, on the principles and in the manner hereafter to be described. When these extortions disappointed or threatened to disappoint expectation, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... so brutal as it is complacent. For the most part we do not really understand, in our daily lives, what we are about. Hence society degenerated, as it always does, in the confident and stubborn belief that it was improving the time and doing God's service. But He that sitteth in the heavens must have laughed, He must have had us ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... Parliament for Poole, and son of Sir John Trenchard, Secretary of State to King William. Retiring to his family mansion of Whitminster, in Gloucestershire, on the banks of the Stroud, he employed himself in making that stream navigable to its junction with the Severn, in improving his buildings, and in ornamenting his grounds, which lay pleasantly in the rich vale of Berkeley. Here his happiness was interrupted by the death of one among his former playmates at Eton, whom he had most distinguished by his affection. This was Captain Berkeley, an officer, who in ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... the serpent, with a touch of irony in his voice. "There is nothing so improving as a good, square, ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... fatigued and over-excited, I recline apart on the sofa, or bury myself in the recesses of a fauteuil; when I am aware that my mind is wandering away to forbidden themes, I force my attention to what is going forward; and often see and hear much that is entertaining, if not improving. People are so accustomed to my pale face, languid indifference and, what M—— calls, my impracticable silence, that after the first glance and introduction, I believe they are scarcely sensible of my presence: so I sit, and look, and listen, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... from your child would make you happier than all the learning that you make so much fuss about, and a caress or a spank from you—each at the proper time—would do little Zeno more good than all the world-improving discoveries in search of which you ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... telegrams to various stations at home and abroad, with the object of improving the science of meteorology, and issuing storm ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... should not be;—expressed the hope that the next legislature would do its full duty upon the matter; referred also to the much needed repairs just made, and hoped they would be carried still further, improving the manner of lighting the prison by having a small gas jet at each cell, also provide a library room, &c.; but of course I wholly avoided alluding to the internal management of matters at the institution. My attention was called particularly to this point, ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... before a message came to his mother telling her that he could earn enough by the sale of his little drawings to pay one of the village-lads to fetch wood and water, and to do other little things for her; that he was improving very fast, and that he had good reason to hope that he should one day be able to earn enough to keep ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... that I was to be endowed: to what extent and upon what conditions I was now left for an hour to meditate in the wide and solitary thoroughfares of the new town, taking counsel with street-corner statues of George IV. and William Pitt, improving my mind with the pictures in the window of a music-shop, and renewing my acquaintance with Edinburgh east wind. By the end of the hour I made my way to Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate words, in possession of a ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and at the end we pack up and tramp forth again. We generally make our final camp about 8 o'clock, and within an hour and a half most of us are in our sleeping-bags.... At the long halt we do our best for our animals by building snow walls and improving their rugs, &c. ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Either of these stretching movements will give you an erect position, and you can maintain this thereafter by keeping the head in the right position-chin inward, downward and backward. These stretching movements will be equally effective for improving ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... normal, and all needless near work forbidden, the myopia may be held in check, and any considerable increase prevented. Teachers are usually the first to notice such defects, but many parents do nothing when their attention is called to the matter. But happily these conditions are improving, and the school nurse and school clinic, and all the clinics maintained by public and private charities, are accomplishing wonderful results. When preventive medicine and preventive social service are joined in the effort to help mankind, there must result ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... municipal concerts, university extension courses-such enterprises will doubtless become universal. The work of the National Government in spreading knowledge of scientific methods of agriculture and of practicable methods of improving country life- information about the installation of plumbing systems, water supply, sewage systems, electric lights, etc.- is of wide educational value. In 1911 the average schooling of Americans was five years apiece. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... have helped to develop the cotton industry of France and England, as well as the work-girls who languish in the factories of Manchester and Rouen, and the inventor who (following the suggestion of some worker) succeeds in improving the looms. ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... the music was already set. In 1852 he furnished a revised libretto, and the music was revised to suit it. The work was not finished until 1860, and owing to the difficulty of filling the cast satisfactorily, was not brought to rehearsal until the fall of 1863. While still correcting and improving it, Meyerbeer died, and it was not produced until two years later. Shortly after the Paris performance it was brought out in London, with Mlle. Lucca in the part of Selika. Mme. Zucchi was one of the earliest representatives of the slave ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... gymnastics comprises, first the appropriate discipline of the voice for its formation and development, by strengthening it, by extending its compass, and by improving its quality so as to render it full, sonorous, and agreeable; and, secondly, the training of the voice in those modifications which are used in the expressions of thought and feeling, including all that variety of management which appears in the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... and every prayer were useless; he brought forward the necessity of initiating himself into all the details of an important contract, the facilities he should have in his new position of improving himself in his trade, and the hopes he had of turning his knowledge to advantage. At last, when his mother, having come to the end of her arguments, began to cry, he hastily kissed her and went away that he might ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester |
