"Better half" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrived when demands for a recognition of the personal, civil and political rights of one-half—unquestionably the better half—of the people cannot be laughed down or sneered down, and recent indications are that they cannot much longer be voted down. It was quite clear on Friday and Saturday, when petitions from the best citizens of twenty-three States were presented in House ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... dream of the picturesque days when, as shown in Ujvary's great panorama of the sister towns in 1680, Buda was by far "the better half," and Pesth was a tiny spot. You may visit the tomb of Gul Baba, father of the roses, a shrine of pilgrimage to all good Turks. You may find a good quarter of an hour in the Church of St. Matthias, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... the kitchen while her light rolls fer supper was raisin' and got a ruckus fer it," was his mild answer. Dabney lived his connubial life mildly in the midst of the storms of his better half. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... ever remain our only wisdom to labour to transform those parts which we judge to be evil into likeness or conformity to those we judge to be good: and surely he who neglects the forces of hope and adoration in that effort, neglects the better half of his practical strength? The central proposition of Christianity, that this end can only be attained by contemplation and imitation of an example, is, we shall in another place (pp. [305-312]) find, maintained as true in regard ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... jerking his hat over his shoulder in the direction of the door, with an air of perfect confidence in his better half. 'It's ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the same rooms as were occupied twenty-seven years ago by the teacher of languages, to whom I had gone for lessons while I was with Cardinal Acquaviva. The landlady was the wife of a cook who only, slept with his better half once a week. The woman had a daughter of sixteen or seventeen years old, who would have been very pretty if the small-pox had not deprived her of one eye. They had provided her with an ill-made artificial eye, of a wrong size and a bad colour, which gave a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the soup that makes the soldier.' Excellent as our troops are in the field, there cannot be a more unquestionable fact, than their immense inferiority to the French in the business of cookery. The English soldier lays his piece of ration beef at once on the coals, by which means the one and the better half is lost, and the other burned to a cinder. Whereas, six French troopers fling their messes into the same pot, and extract a delicious soup, ten times more nutritious than the simple roti could ever be."—BLACKWOOD'S Edinburgh Magazine, ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... cult," said Cyrus. "The credit of the notion belongs not to me, but to my esteemed better half. A ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... soldier." Excellent as our troops are in the field, there cannot be a more unquestionable fact, than their immense inferiority to the French in the business of cookery. The English soldier lays his piece of ration beef at once on the coals, by which means, the one and the better half is lost, and the other burnt to a cinder. Whereas six French troopers fling their messes into the same pot, and extract a delicious soup, ten times more nutritious than the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... you. I'm hearty. How's all your kith an' kin? I thought of coming down to the island, to see you, but now you're here, I'll put off the trip a week or so. Jist say to the boys I'm making a crossgun for 'em. Give my regards to your better half, and I wish you'd tell Scipio that the melon he sent me was luscious. I'm here on a kind o' important business; came clear up from town to inquire about this expedition. You're managing the colony matters, and you're the codger to give me the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... of the courteous host, flattered to receive such a visitor on any terms, especially proud and cordial in view of the prospect of a connection between the families. He maintained a penitential attitude under the depressing shadow of the absence of his better half, which certainly was made the most of by both; somewhat artificially, a perceptive visitor might have said, if one had been there to see. The jeremiads over this unfortunate misadventure must have lasted fully ten minutes before a lull came; for the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... trains cleft our party into a better and a worser half. The beautiful girls, our better half, fled westward to ripen their pallid roses with richer summer-hues in mosquitoless inland dells. Iglesias and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... oh yes, My bosom's better half, I can.—With thee, I'll gladly seek the coast unknown, and leave The lessening mark of irksome life behind. With thee, my friend, 'tis joy to die!—'tis glory! For who would wait the tardy stroke of time? Or cling like reptiles to the verge of being, When we can bravely leap from life ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... what Harry Carradyne can want it for?" mused Philip Hamlyn, bowing to the imperative decision of his better half. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... in a new country. It was a scheme of kind intention for the reformation of criminals that were not utterly bad, while the English Government would keep all the worst prisoners at home under lock and key. But the colonies had no desire to receive even the better half of the prisoners. They were afraid that cunning criminals would sham a great deal of reformation in order to be set free, and would then revert to their former ways whenever they were let loose in the colonies. But Earl Grey was resolved to give the criminal a fair chance. Ships ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... tobacco, makes a triumphal entry into the main street at full gallop, and pitching his tent before the court-house, walks into the parsonage—war plumes, moccasins, and all—gives us complimentary seats, and eats the better half of our dinner. This incident is a source of pride to ourself beyond any thing experienced by any urchin besides. We boast of it frequently, and, being disliked therefor, commit several impromptu scalpings on ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... could not see her, for which I was sorry, as I wished very much to have some conversation with her about the ways of the Irish wanderers. I was thinking of going to look for her up "Paddy's dingle," but my wife meeting me, begged me to go home with her, as it was getting late. So I went home with my better half, bearing my late ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... admitted on trial for three weeks; but no eggs came. And the Tom Cat was master of the house, and the Hen was the lady, and they always said, "We and the world!" for they thought they were half the world, and by far the better half. The Duckling thought one might have a different opinion, but the Hen ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the fire, although, it must be confessed, he relished the chestnuts. She was a crafty woman, and kept out of sight in the transaction while she urged him on, so that people saw only Mr. Smith in the wrong-doing, when, if they could have peeped behind the curtain, they would have seen that his "better half" ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... better half, standing before him with a great loaf clasped to her bosom, 'if you turn a horse from the stable between full and half full, like as not he will return of ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... something elemental in that still sleep. And the old lady in the next led, with a brown wrinkled face and bright black eyes brimful of life, seemed almost vulgar beside such remote tranquillity, while she was telling Barbara that a little bunch of heather in the better half of a soap-dish on the window-sill had come from Wales, because, as she explained: "My mother was born in Stirling, dearie; so I likes a bit of heather, though I never been out o' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Thomas Smith, contains some amusing contemporary gossip. He describes the sculptor much as we see him in this plate—his figure short, his head big, his shoulders narrow, his body too large. His worthy better half held strong opinions upon the sculptor's models—"abandoned hussies, with whom she had no patience"; and Miss Coleman having ventured to visit the scene of her early labours in a carriage and pair, the wrath of the virtuous ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... speedily launched. Probably we might have continued on our original status of dignified and distant acquaintance. As a member of the colonel's household he could have nothing in common with me or mine, and his acknowledgment of the introduction of my own charger—the cavalryman's better half—was of that airy yet perfunctory politeness which is of the club clubby. Forager, my gray, had sought acquaintance in his impulsive frontier fashion when summoned to the presence of the regimental commander, and, ranging alongside to permit the shake of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... beam, did not fail to observe the rich, tender tone of the voice, and it would have required almost total darkness to obscure the beauty of her face. Her companion was older and coarser, and he found delight in the belief that she was the better half of ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... Christmas. His wife and he parted company on the question of Free Education. Peter felt that, having brought nine children into the world, it was only fair he should pay a penny a week for each of those old enough to bear educating. His better half argued that, having so many children, they ought in reason to be exempted. Only people who had few children could spare the penny. But the one point on which the cobbler-skeptic of the Mile End Road got his way was this of the fees. It was a question of conscience, and Mrs. ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... sense of his dependence upon divine aid, and he did not fail to begin each day with prayer, while his heart was continually breathing a petition for guidance and support. "To pray well," he often said, "is the better half of study."(159) ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... lasted for the better half of a fortnight; the Dubarry gone almost a week. Besenval says, all the world was getting impatient que cela finit; that poor Louis would have done with it. It is now the 10th of May 1774. He ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... thought on. If it pass against us, We lose the better half of our possession; For all the temporal lands, which men devout By testament have given to the Church, Would they strip from us; being valu'd thus: As much as would maintain, to the King's honour, ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... pay his wages for another quarter if he failed to find a place by New Year's. The girl is quite useless except in cooking, of which more orally. I cannot enumerate all the little trifles, and certainly Kahle does not belong to the better half of gardeners. * * * I feel so vividly as if I were with you while writing this that I am becoming quite gay, until I again recollect the three hundred and fifty miles, including one hundred and seventy-five without a railroad. Pomerania is terribly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... is sad, When her spring-time of life is far advanced and she still occupies a vacant inner-room. A girl feels wounded in her heart, When she regrets having allowed her better half to go abroad and win a marquisdom. A girl is glad, When looking in the mirror, at the time of her morning toilette, she finds her colour fair. A girl is joyful, What time she sits on the frame of a gallows-swing, clad in a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... very shadow does not often cut somebody. A friend of ours went to buy his wife a pair of gaiters; he brought them home; she found all manner of fault with them; among other drawbacks, she declared that for the price her better half had given for the gaiters, she could have got the best article in Waxend's entire shop! He said she had better take them back and try. So she did, and poor Mr. Waxend had an hour of his precious time used up by the lady's attempt to get a more expensive pair of gaiters ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... to be a stern reproach, the page frightened ran away, leaving the books, the task, and all. Thereupon, the seneschal's better half added this prayer to the litany—"Holy Virgin, how difficult ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... reminded her of so much. She knew now that this mock marriage was in a sense a true one; that is, so far as she was concerned, for from that hour she had indeed given her spirit into his keeping—not herself, but her better half and her love; and those solemn words over her in that dreadful place and time had consecrated the gift. It was nothing, it meant nothing; yet on her it should be binding, though not on him. Yes, ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... profanations of marriage. They begin to write about it and lecture about it. It is the tendency now to endeavor to help the erring by showing them the physical law. This is wise and excellent; but forget not the better half. Cold bathing and exercise will not suffice to keep a life pure, without an inward baptism, and noble, exhilarating employment for the thoughts and the passions. Early marriages are desirable, but if (and the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... himself in the conventional black suit. In order to economize time, he pulled his best clothes over his working garments, and hastily rubbing his face and hands with a coarse towel, he hurried towards the church. Within ten minutes he was back again loading up coal, his better half being ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... what do you know of the war? No enemy has set foot upon your soil, no Englishman has seen his womankind dishonoured or his home crumble into ashes. The war to you is a thing of paper, an abstraction—that same war which has turned the better half of my beloved country into a lurid corner ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... events described in the last chapter. There is a reverse to every medal, and even daylight would not be so charming were it not followed by night. However good and perfect woman may, generally, be, there are some who by no means share the easy disposition of Gudbrand's better half. Need I say that the fault is, usually, in the husband? If he were only to yield, on all occasions, would he be troubled? Yield? exclaim some fierce moustachioed individuals. Yes, indeed, yield, or hear the penalty that ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... "full up," as it always is, so they carried the living corpse out on a stretcher, and hubby went batching with his burden in a three-roomed house on Bancroft Street. When it became hubby's duty to cook the meals and carry half of them to bed for his better half every morning before breakfast he began to taste silly and smell sort of henpeck like. He persisted humbly, lovingly, self-sacrificingly, henpeckedly, however, until one morning his sun rose brighter than it had ever done before and he saw a faint glimmer of light through the ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... before. I am going to Mrs. Dunn's through the day, and Peggy is good enough to say she will be glad to keep me, though I lose my better half in Jane. I think I really have some taste and talent for millinery, and I mean to try to cultivate it; for if we begin business together in Melbourne, it may be very useful. Jane and I lay awake half the night, talking over our plans, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... numbers inside of hospitals and asylums, and outside as well, who owe to this vice their awful condition. Plenty of half-witted men whom one meets in the every-day walks of life have destroyed the better half of their understanding ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... every line of each other's faces by heart gathered regularly from sheer boredom whether the game amused them or not. Neither Mrs. Trevor nor her bosom-friend Mrs. Baird, the regimental surgeon's better half, ever attempted it; but they invariably attended and sat together, usually talking scandal of Mrs. Norton as she played or chatted with the men. Mrs. Trevor's chief grievance against her was that the General ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... believe it to be broader, deeper, more worthy of the great Demiurgus than that which pictures him telling a priest how to carve his pantaloons or sacrifice a pair of pigeons, than standing idly by with his hands under his coat-tails, while some drunken duffer beats the head of his better half with a bootjack, or a bronze brute rips the scalp from a smiling babe. If that's the kind of a hairpin who occupies the throne of Heaven, I don't blame Lucifer for raising a revolution. I would have taken a fall out of him myself, even had I known that my viscera would be strewn across the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... consequences of his ignorance, his meanness of mind, his transports of infirm fancy, and his guilt. Let us hasten to redeem ourselves. The field is open for a commanding British military force to clear the Peninsula of the enemy, while the better half of his power is occupied with Austria. For the South of Spain, where the first effort of regeneration was made, is yet free. Saragossa (which, by a truly efficient British army, might have been relieved) has indeed fallen; but ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... goes to reconnoitre the place of his buried treasure, he finds all safe, and taking the better half of the fruit, he marches away with a proud step to the Elderkin house. The basket is for Phil. But Phil is not at home; so he leaves the gift, and a message, with a short story of it all, with the tender Rose, whose eyes dance with girlish admiration ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... first to give in. For a time, they got him about between them. Then Furst grew obstreperous, and wanted to pour his beer on the floor as soon as it was set before him, so that they were put out of two places, in the second of which they left Krafft. But the better half of the night was over before Schilsky was comfortably drunk, and in a state to unbosom himself to a sympathetic waitress, about the hardship it was to be bound to some one older than yourself. He shed tears of pity at his lot, and was extremely communicative. "'N KORPER, SCHA-AGE IHNEN, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... yours was the nobler birth, For you of man were made, man but of earth— The sun of dust; and though your sin did breed His fall, again you raised him in your seed. Adam, in's sleep again full loss sustain'd, That for one rib a better half regain'd, Who, had he not your blest creation seen In Paradise, an anchorite had been. Why in this work did the creation rest, But that Eternal Providence thought you best Of all his six days' labour? Beasts should do Homage ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... difficult to find together such a group of happy faces. Gerald Cavanagh and his wife, Tom M'Mahon and his better half, and several of the neighbors, of every age and creed, were all assembled; and, in this instance, neither gray hairs nor length of years were looked upon as privileged from a participation in the festivities of the evening. Among the rest, gaunt and grim, were the three Hogans, looking ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... no other hope remains than that of seeing him again in Paradise. A sign of God was this happy death to him; yet, even more than this death, were his regrets increased to leave me in this world the wretch of many anxieties, since the better half of myself has departed with him, and nothing is left for me than this loneliness ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... have it all their own way now in romance. They carry off all the prizes, just as girl students do in the studios of Paris. Up to a certain point, within their own limits, they are supreme. Half the modern romance, and many people think the better half, is written by women. That is perfectly natural, an obvious result of modern society. The romance to which our age best lends itself is the romance of ordinary society, with delicate shades of character and feeling in place of furious passion or picturesque incident. Women are by nature ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... year 1891 Masonic revelations in Paris had become too numerous for one more or less to fix the volatile quality of public interest unless a new horror were attached to it. Passwords and signs and catechisms, all the purposes and the better half of the secrets—everyone outside the Fraternity who concerned themselves with Masonry and cared for theoretical initiation knew these, or was satisfied by the belief that he did. The literature of Anti-Masonry became a drug in the market, failing some novelty in revelation. The last work of Leo ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... jelly; Mrs. Tip Pulsifer had brought her "paytent gradeated medicent glass," hoping it would be useful; Mrs. Henry Holmes had no idea what was needed, but just grabbed a hot-water bottle as she ran. Elmer Spiker's better half was there to demand her injured boarder at once; he paid for his room at the tavern; it was but right that he should occupy it and that she should care for him. When she found that she could not have him entirely, she compromised on the promise that she ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... most dismal start imaginable. Thick as a hedge, snow falling and drifting with keen southerly wind. The men pulled out at 3.15 with Chinaman and James Pigg. We followed at 4.20, just catching the party at the lunch camp at 8.30. Things got better half way; the sky showed signs of clearing and the steering improved. Now, at lunch, it is getting thick again. When will the wretched blizzard be over? The walking is better for ponies, worse for men; there is nearly everywhere ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... easy enough for some of us, such as Hankey, for instance," added Hankey's better half. "And there ain't as much wisdom to look at as you could put on the point ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... a few seconds later abruptly terminated an emotional crisis was in itself a very commonplace one. Monsieur the proprietor deemed the moment advisable for solving a question which was beginning to distract his better half in the kitchen. He advanced towards them, all smiles ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... turned a card and lost. While High was putting away the money, I grabbed up the right card and turned up the corner again. Then I offered to bet him $1,000 that I could turn the winner. While this was going on the lady was giving her better half a piece of her mind. She was telling him that he was a fool; that he could not see anything, and that she could turn the right card every time. She got out her purse, took out $80 in gold, and asked him how much money he had left. He told her $70. She said, "Give it to me, and I will ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... for long enough, and several of his descriptions (his picture of a glacier, for one), given with a rather irritatingly childlike air of new discovery, cannot escape the charge of commonplace. But his reflections, for once in a way the better half of experience, more than make good this defect. His essay on Paris, for instance—"the city of unshed tears"—is something more than interesting, and his analysis of the cause of the successes of the French army, in the face of ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... summer's morn, the spark was led To rise, and leave his wife asleep in bed; He sought at once the garden, where he found The servant-girl collecting flow'rs around, To make a nosegay for his better half, Whose birth-day 'twas:—he soon began to laugh, And while the ranging of the flow'rs he prais'd, The servant's neckerchief he slyly rais'd. Who, suddenly, on feeling of the hand, Resistance feign'd, and seem'd to make a stand; But since these liberties ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... Rudolph. And his main policy. To enthral the sluggard nature in ourselves Is, in good truth, the better half of the secret To enthral the world: for the will governs all. 40 See, the sky lowers! the cross-winds waywardly Chase the fantastic masses of the clouds With a wild ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Shrunk to a thing of nought.—Oh! how he longs To have his passport sign'd, and be dismiss'd! 'Tis done! and now he's happy! The glad soul 730 Has not a wish uncrown'd.—Even the lag flesh Rests, too, in hope of meeting once again Its better half, never to sunder more. Nor shall it hope in vain:—the time draws on, When not a single spot of burial earth, Whether on land, or in the spacious sea, But must give back its long-committed dust Inviolate!—and ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... wencher's word!—Why should you speak so contemptibly of the better half of mankind? I'll stand up for the honour of ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... this evening, you two," the "Old Man" was saying, a few minutes later. He had been home long enough to consult the "Commanding General," as he frequently referred to that smiling better half, and to compare notes as to the condition of the larder and cellar. He had flung conventionality to the winds, as most of us had to in early Arizona days. "You others," he said, "have suffered so often from my steaks and stories, you're glad not ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... the bad example of the average mortal husband and wife, this divine couple were engaged in a quarrel, even at this early hour of the day. They were frightfully rough, and our ferry, striking on something at the bottom, nearly upset us into the cold embrace of the god and his irate better half. ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... marriage there had been little which could make him so unhappy as any slight cloud between his better half and himself. If he had only known how heavy an anxiety had burdened her during the past few days! But, as usual, she had put off as long as possible the unpleasant communication. Her money was now almost spent, and there was no prospect that they should soon have ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... answer (I guess he knows more than her Highness) and looked aside, grumbling something just to calm his better half. ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... earnestly, 'no, I revere you. I esteem and admire you above all human beings! You are the friend to whom my soul is attached, as to its better half. You are the most amiable, the most perfect of women; and you are dearer to me than language has ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gem of the book perhaps, as far as good novel-matter is concerned (for Jerome himself is not much more than a stalking-horse for satire), is Malvina, his first left-handed and then "regularised" spouse, and very much his better half. Malvina is Paul de Kock's grisette (like all good daughters, she is very fond of her literary father) raised to a higher power, dealt with in a satiric fashion unknown to her parent, but in perfectly kindly temper. She is, though just a little imperious, a thoroughly "good sort," ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... be the last person speaking Cornish can hardly be maintained, though even she did not speak it habitually. Her married name appears to have been Jeffery, but that did not matter; when the wife was the better half her maiden name often prevailed over that of the husband, in later days than this. In 1768 Daines Barrington visited her, and was heartily abused by her in Cornish because he slyly suggested that ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... along with his better half, and the lady stopped to see the now celebrated sorrel, and when Ray cordially addressed his post commander with the natural question, "What do you think of him, colonel?" he was genuinely surprised at the embarrassed, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... not, and his better half could not, stop. The first couple they came in contact with were hurled to the other side of the room; a second and a third fell, and still the corporal wheeled on; two chairs and a table were swept away in a moment. Three young women, with baskets of cakes and nuts, were thrown down ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the Duckling was taken on trial for three weeks, but no eggs came. And the Cat was master of the house, and the Hen was the lady, and always said "We and the world!" for they thought they were half the world, and by far the better half. It seemed to the Duckling that one might have another mind, but the Hen ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... money to pay for his month's mining; so a halt was called, and the woman quickly poured out dust enough from a cracked teacup to satisfy the demands of government, and then Mike was restored to the dirty arms of his better half. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... my better half," cried Kat, with a flourish of her hat. "It's bliss to hear you talk. Your words are ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... book; even Ulysses, who was a thrifty, shifty fellow enough, with some touch of the sea-captain in him, was not a patch upon my hero, Sindbad of Bagdad, from whose tale I believe the Greek fellow stole half his fancies, and those the better half. ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... men and measures rule—it is quite as true that noble-minded statesmen, philanthropists and reformers may make it the weapon with which to reverse the above order of things, as soon as they can have added to their now small numbers the immensely larger ratio of what men so love to call "the better half of the people." When women vote, they will make a new balance of power that must be weighed and measured and calculated in its effect upon every social and moral question which goes to the arbitrament of the ballot-box. Who can doubt that when ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... had but one mind throughout our lives. Our souls were wrapped up in each other's; our aims and designs one, our loves one, and our resentments one. We so studied one the other, that we knew each other's mind by our looks. Whatever was real happiness, God gave it me in him; but to commend my better half, which I want sufficient expression for, methinks is to commend myself, and so may bear a censure; but, might it be permitted, I could dwell eternally on his praise most justly; but thus without offence I do, and so you may ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... a horse is different, you never get tired of a good one. He don't fizzle out1 like the rest. You like him better and better every day. He seems a part of yourself; he is your better half, your 'halter hego' as I heard a cockney once ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... of the family to see their reverend teacher was heartfelt and unreserved. A vigorous gripe of the hand, by the elder dragged him into the house, and a sentence of unusual length, from his better half, assured him of that welcome which the blunter action of her venerable husband had already sufficiently declared. Nor was the young adventurer who accompanied the preacher, suffered to remain long unconsidered. When John Cross had told them who he was, or rather when he had declared ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... aid of garden-syringes and hose,—and when Adam Frost, the sexton, was always to be found meditating, and even surreptitiously drinking beer, in a quiet corner of the churchyard, because he was afraid to go home, owing to the persistent housewifely energy of his better half, who 'washed down' everything, 'cleaned out' everything, and had, as she forcibly expressed it, 'the Sunday meals on her mind.' It was a day, too, when Bainton, released from his gardening duties at the rectory at noon, took a thoughtful stroll by himself, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... was to be expected. Her eyes were sparkling, her lips twitching with the mental ebullition going on within; but Agatha turned abruptly away. Mrs. Cranston then sought to search her husband's face, but the captain was forearmed and chose to keep his back towards his better half and to pull on his arctics and overcoat and gather up his little hurricane lamp. The trumpet was sounding first call for tattoo, and though it was no concern of his, for Mr. Sanders, his cheery subaltern, had just gone whistling by on his ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... since it is descended, if not even immediately, yet by filiation, from the Divine Being, is just as unlimited, powerful, and eternal as its sire and grandsire. Now, the whole mischief, if we may call it so, having arisen merely through the one-sided direction of Lucifer, the better half was indeed wanting to this creation; for it possessed all that is gained by concentration, while it lacked all that can be effected by expansion alone: and so the entire creation might have been destroyed by ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
