"Bettering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... getting knowledge, work for their employers as they would for themselves, cease to use the power of the unions unjustly, cultivate amicable relations with everybody, and try in all possible ways to make true men of themselves? If the men had worked along this line they would have found they were bettering themselves in every way faster than they could by ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... assured," said mother, colouring like the furze as it took the flame and fell over, "that our kinsman here hath received rough harm on his peaceful journey from Dulverton. The times are bad, as we all know well, and there is no sign of bettering them, and if I could see our Lord the King I might say things to move him! nevertheless, I have had so much of my own account to ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... wicked earth, and started new, He saw fit to put the sons of Ham in subjection. They're slaves of each other in Africa, and I reckon they're treated no better than they are here. Abuses can't be helped in any system, sir, though we are bettering them. Were the poor in London in the days of the Edwards as well off ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... satchel tucked under his arm, his body bent almost double, running like a jack-rabbit. Ere Kirkwood could get under way, in pursuit, the mate had dodged out of sight round the corner. When the American caught sight of him again, he was far down the block, and bettering his pace ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... my tutor, and prepared me for Caius College. I owe him, not only the little learning I have, but the little good that is left in me. I owe to him apparently, also, whatever chance of bettering my prospects may arise ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by a spirit of fanaticism, undoubtedly, have labored with as much earnestness as if the world's salvation depended upon their efforts, without the least hope of bettering its condition, for the false philosophy of materialism which they advocate gives to a man nothing to live for except his own animal nature. This philosophy says all is well as long as you dodge the sharp corners ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 12, December, 1880 • Various
... when it sets out upon its career of conquest is active, energetic, inured to warlike habits, simple in its manners, or at any rate simpler than those which it conquers, and, comparatively speaking, poor. It is urged on by the desire of bettering its condition. If it meets with a considerable resistance, if the conquest occupies a long space, and the conquered are with difficulty held under, rebelling from time to time, and making frantic ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... be contented during this generation with the assurance that geographically the Union has been preserved, and that each contending warrior has once more taken up the peaceful struggle for bettering and beautifying the ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... particular piece of advice does not necessarily signify that she either expects or wishes it to be followed, since had she been present at the Creation she would have cheerfully pointed out to the Deity His various mistakes, and have offered her co-operation toward bettering matters, and have thought a deal less of Him had He accepted it; but this is merely a habit—" "Yes?" said Bettie, yawning; and she added: "Do you know, Robin, the saddest and most desolate thing in the world is to practise an etude of ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... seventh day, and I felt that if He needed rest on that day I was sure that I must have rest. So the Sunday work was not carried on any more in that laundry. He said that the Lord had sent me to that laundry for the bettering of all in it. The gentleman was from Philadelphia and his name was ...
— A Slave Girl's Story - Being an Autobiography of Kate Drumgoold. • Kate Drumgoold
... widening her 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 from ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... instead of brooding upon the emptiness and unanswered needs of his life or upon his failing physical powers. Mrs. Eddy's sect, more than any other one of the cults which believe in and practise this method of bettering the patient's physical condition through his mind, has forced the most hide-bound medical practitioners to take account of this old but ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Meare's dog team 750, and Wilson's 600. We found the surface very bad, most of the ponies sinking deep in the snow. After doing roughly five miles we halted and had a meal. Oates was called into our tent and consulted with a view to bettering the conditions for the ponies. As a result it was decided to march by night and rest during the day when the sun would be higher and the air warmer. There was quite a drop in the temperature between ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... landed estates to the eldest sons; younger sons and the scions of the middle classes were left with exceedingly limited opportunities or means of attaining estates in England, or, for that matter, of ever bettering their condition. Also, if England was to sustain its existing population, the nation must have sources of raw materials other than the dwindling supplies in the land, and it must have also outlets for ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... of us have never realised that there is such a thing as being thus possessed with a divine life, partly because we do not understand that such a fulness will not be distinguishable from our own self, except by bettering of the works of self, and partly because of other reasons which I shall have to touch upon presently! Brethren, we may, every one of us, be filled with the Spirit. Let each of us ask, 'Am I? and if I am not, why this emptiness in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... luxury, the stateliness and good taste. To have known it in this way, to have been almost part of it and then to leave it, to go back to a hugger-mugger existence in a wretched bungalow hounded by debt, pinched and bound hard and fast by poverty, which offered no future prospect of bettering itself into decent good luck! Who ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... put in the pillory among them) the poems are going into a second edition, Chapman says, and 'Aurora Leigh' into a fifth. Also Chapman junior, who has come out here to see after Lever, smoothes me down a little about Robert, and says that the sale is bettering itself, and that a new edition of the 'Poems' will soon be wanted. I just now see a pleasant notice of myself in 'Bentley's Magazine.' Abuse of the 'Congress Poems,' of course. Then a side stroke at 'Aurora Leigh,' which was original, of ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... other words, a question whether the people of this Union, in forming their common social compact, as avowedly for the purpose of promoting their general welfare, have performed their work in a manner so ineffably stupid as to deny themselves the means of bettering their own condition. I have too much respect for the intellect of my country to believe it. The first object of human association is the improvement of the condition of the associated. Roads and canals are among the most essential means ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... years were far less than they seemed. Although a farmer in a small way, he committed the sad error of engaging in stock speculations, more with a view of diverting his mind from his gnawing grief than with the hope of bettering his fortune. It is hardly necessary to relate what followed. He was successful for a time, and improved his financial standing. He gladly welcomed Tom Gordon beneath his roof, for he knew his own boy could not have a playmate whose company would be more improving ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... considerably annoyed, and told me that Major Swinley should not have permitted me to leave Tauranga before the application for leave had been approved by himself; but, as he had done so, he would not stand in the way of my bettering my position, and would accept my resignation. I thanked him and returned to the steamer, which ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... public-spirited body of citizens; they are men of substance; most honourable; most humane, too; and, as events were to show, most human. With fine foresight they detected in the conflagration of patriotism which consumed the consumer, a chance of bettering themselves. Having a constitutional right to do it, they took this tide in their affairs at what they (rather hastily) conceived to be its flood. Actuated by motives of the new ("enlightened") self-interest, they had proceeded to run up the prices of their goods ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... encouragement to these earnest toilers in this far-away field to know that there was appreciation on the part of the Government of the Christian work among these Indians. Great care, intense study, great deliberation of action will be necessary if these new Government officers succeed in bettering the condition of the red men, as they are doubtless sincerely desirous of doing. They must know what they are doing, ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889 • Various
... deeply an arrow which is so rough? Are you getting too old to make good spears and arrows, Mok?" And the man fumed a little. Old Mok made no reply, but he thought long and deeply after Ab had left the cave. Certainly Ab must have good arrows! Was there any way of bettering them? And, the next day, the crippled old man might have been seen looking for something beside the creek where it found its exit from the valley. There were stones ground into smoothness tossed up along the shore and the old man studied them most carefully. Many times he had bent over a stream, ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... practical, but neglecting to practise the most important things, who would laugh at the idea of Clare being practical, seeing he did not trouble his head about money, or "getting on in the world"—what servants call "bettering themselves;" but such a practical man will find he has been but a practical fool. Clare took heed to do what was right, and grow a better man. Such a life is ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... the benefits that could be conferred upon mankind, I found none so great as the discovery of new arts, endowments, and commodities for the bettering of man's life.... But if a man could succeed, not in striking out some particular invention, however useful, but in kindling a light in nature—a light that should in its very rising touch and illuminate all the border regions that confine upon the circle of our present knowledge; and ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... resolved that he would turn a "scab" unknown to the association, and continue his work; but having a neighbor whom it was impossible for him to deceive, he went to him and said that he knew his circumstances, and that his family must perish or go to "the bettering-house" unless he continued to work. This neighbor, Swain, replied that he knew his condition was desperate, but that a man had better make any sacrifice than turn a "scab" at that time. He presently informed against ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... Personal influence and social power told as the days went by. The saloon-keepers felt it and grumbled, but the assistant superintendent was too great a favorite for them to dare say much. The Sunday work ceased. Every improvement for bettering the conditions under which the men worked was put in—better air-pumps; a large shaft-house with dressing-rooms for the men, to save them from going out while heated, to be exposed to winter's cold; a hospital for the sick; lower prices at the company's store; Finnegan's ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... constituted to be its mode of birth, consciousness, and death. And if the choice must be made on the broad scale, it is our practical faith that the service of the best, even to the point of death, is due to the least in the hope of bettering the lot of man. Hence, as we are willing that in communities the noblest should die for a cause, we consent to the death of high civilizations, if they spread in some Hellenization of a Roman, some Romanizing of a barbaric world; and to the extinction of aristocracies, if their virtues ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... the sudden, by looking of the book only, without reading or construing anything at all, an usage right worthy and very profitable for all men, as well for the understanding of the book, as also for the aptness of framing the author's meaning, and bettering thereby their judgment, and therewithal perfecting their tongue and utterance of speech." In speaking of his own methods, however, Wilson's emphasis is on his faithfulness to the original. "But perhaps," he writes, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... rich class, whose riches are the cause of the poverty of the masses, is the justification for the Socialist demand that the cost of bettering the condition of the people must be met by the taxation of the rich. The Socialist's ideas of taxation may be briefly summarised as follows: (1) Both local and national taxation should aim primarily at securing for the communal benefit all 'unearned' or 'social' ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... unpoetic word, and bettering the elocution, but missing the writer's thought (of the unknown path,—instead of going to many "worlds"). The Unitarians have their version, with substitutes for the ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... lady—for I suppose there is no chance in the world of your marrying her in any other way—it will be better both for you and her that you should avoid for the future these meetings in the gardens or elsewhere, and cast your thoughts in some other direction for the bettering of your fortunes." ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... convinced; in short, if Slavery is to be introduced into land hitherto free, it is perhaps questionable if it be not better to send for the ill-used and degraded slave from Africa, and leave the more elevated slave in his comparatively happy home in the Old Slave States; the plea may be used for bettering the condition of the former, but that plea cannot be used ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... chance of my bettering myself," said the Military Man. "Now that the Regiment has come from India, I can't afford to live at home, and I can't exchange because of my liver. Promotion was never slower than in 'Ours,' and my look-out is about the most ghastly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 31, 1892 • Various
... as the special matter in hand was concerned, the worsting of Hillsborough, though a gratification, did not result in the bettering of Franklin and his co-petitioners. April 6, 1773, he wrote: "The affair of the grant goes on but slowly. I do not yet clearly see land. I begin to be a little of the sailor's mind, when they were landing a cable out of a store into a ship, and one of 'em said: ''T is a long ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... to make the trial and exert his Manitou utmost to that end; though, to do him justice, the Manitou king was perfectly willing—glad, you may have it—to let Ben Logan alone. He knew very well that he could do nothing for the bettering of such a boy, which nature—best of mothers—had not done for him already. No need to set Ben's heart a-bleeding to develop the good that was in it, or to crumble ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... where the name of Jesus is scarcely ever mentioned but in blasphemy, and His precepts [are] almost utterly unknown . . . [where] the few who are enlightened are too much occupied in the pursuit of lucre, ambition, or ungodly revenge to entertain a desire or thought of bettering the moral state of their countrymen." This report, in which Borrow confesses that he "made no attempts to flatter and cajole," must have caused the British Minister some diplomatic embarrassment when he read it; but it seems to have been presented, although, as is scarcely ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... of being initiated into the Black Art—the Art of communicating with the Unknown (Daramara) in order to acquire certain great powers, should dismiss from his mind all ideas of moral progress, and wholly concentrate on the bettering of his material self—on acquiring riches and fame in the physical sphere. His aspirations must be entirely earthly, and all his affections subordinate to his main desire for wealth and carnal pleasures. Having acquired this preliminary ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... in and on man, whom we can see and have cognizance of, not only with our physical senses, but by the intimations of the divinity which abides within us.* We can see, feel, and appreciate the virtue of a fellow-mortal who consecrates himself to the Divine idea through untiring exertion for the bettering of the condition of the world around him, whose agony he makes it his duty, only to satisfy his burning desire, to mitigate. The fact in its ghastly reality lies before us that the majority of mankind labour and are being crushed under the tremendous trinity ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... kind; though I've always heard my father say that civilisation was founded upon the instinct of ownership, and that it was the only thing that had advanced the world. And if you dread the danger of giving her advantages, as you say, or bettering her worldly lot," she continued, with a smile for his quixotic scruples, "why, I'll do my best to reduce her blessings to a minimum; though I don't see why the poor little thing shouldn't get some good from the inequalities ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... teacher should fail to make use of many modern careers that impress upon children the devotion of lives spent in bettering the conditions under which people live. Among some of these may be mentioned Colonel George E. Waring, the sanitary engineer who really cleaned the streets of New York; General W. C. Gorgas, who led in the conquest of the great yellow fever plague; Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... save the King!" It is a large economy In God to save the like; but if He will Be saving, all the better; for not one am I Of those who think damnation better still; I hardly know, too, if not quite alone am I In this small hope of bettering future ill By circumscribing, with some slight restriction, The eternity ...
— English Satires • Various
... de Balzac undoubtedly put their heads together, to seek for some means of bettering a situation so painful and humiliating for a young man of twenty-five. Accordingly, when chance seemed to offer them a good opportunity, they hastened to ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... period of the Crusades, encouraged vagabondage in all classes. The extent to which travelling was carried in the Middle Ages for purposes of pilgrimage and commerce, out of pure curiosity or love of knowledge, for the bettering of trade in handicrafts or for self-improvement in the sciences, has only of late years been estimated at a just calculation. "The scholars," wrote a monk of Froidmont in the twelfth century, "are wont to roam around the world and visit all its cities, ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... for him who, bettering not with time, Corrupts the strength of Heaven-descended will, And ever weaker grows through acted crime, Or seeming ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the course of which Fletcher of Saltoun expatiated upon the hardships and miseries which the Scots had sustained since the union of the two crowns under one sovereign, and the impossibility of bettering their condition, unless they should take care to anticipate any design that tended to a continuation of the same calamities. Another resolve was produced by the earl of Rothes, importing, that the parliament should proceed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... of Centralia are urged to attend a meeting tomorrow in the Chamber of Commerce rooms to meet the officers of the Employers' Association of the state to discuss ways and means of bettering the conditions which now confront the business and property interests of the state. George F. Russell, Secretary-Manager, says in his note to business men: 'We need your advice and your co-operation in support of the movement for the defense of ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... patiently and honestly to search after this cause, and not look to superficial trifles such as possible variations and improvements in order and machinery, and polity or creed, or anything else, as the means of changing and bettering the condition of things, but to recognise this as being the one sole cause that hinders—the slackness of our own hold on Christ's hand, and the feebleness and imperfection of our own spiritual life. Dear brethren, there is no worse sign of the condition of churches ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... Divine disposer of events with an eye of gratitude for the blessing which I hope He intends to bestow on me, in bestowing you. I sincerely wish that He may bless my endeavours to make your life as comfortable and happy as possible, both in sweetening the rougher parts of my natural temper, and bettering the unkindly circumstances of my fortune. This, my dear, is a passion, at least in my view, worthy of a man, and, I will add, worthy of a Christian. The sordid earth-worm may profess love to a woman's ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... build theories on board ship about bettering myself socially and all that, but it's rot; I'll be knocked over by one of the country witches, I know I shall,—I feel it. I love the sound of the Devon on their lips, and the clear eyes of them, and the bright ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... science and household economics are new sciences developed under the active interest of college women in the last twenty-three years. Their real hold upon the public, however, and their enlarged avenue for bettering the home, the food, the health of the nation, and consequently its usefulness, happiness, and prosperity has come within the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... bucket where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are"—cast it down in ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... king's proclamation' in 1786, which was supplemented by the society for 'the Suppression of Vice' in 1802. I don't suppose that vice was much suppressed. Sydney Smith ridiculed its performances in the Edinburgh for 1809. The article is in his works. A more interesting society was that for 'bettering the condition of the poor,' started by Sir Thomas ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... unreasonable when, having enough to content themselves with at home, they go in search of something else. I have often seen people who, not content with sufficiency, have aimed at bettering themselves, and have fallen into a worse position than they were in before. Such persons receive no pity, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... patterns on the tops of gate-posts, did devote their leisure intervals to rearing fortresses like this. Edinburgh Castle could not be conceived, much less built, nowadays, when all our energy is consumed in bettering the condition of the 'submerged tenth'! What did they care about the 'masses,' that 'regal race that is now no more,' when they were hewing those blocks of rugged rock and piling them against the sky-line on the top of that great stone mountain! It amuses ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... encounter the lovely Natalie Haldin, a sister in spirit to Helena, to Lisa, to any one of the Turgenieff heroines. Charm is hers, and a valiant spirit. Her creator has not, thus far, succeeded in bettering her. Only once does he sound a false note. I find her speech a trifle rhetorical after she learns the facts in the case of Razumov (p. 354). Two lines are superfluous at the close of this heart-breaking ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... my well-contented day, When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, Compare them with the bettering of the time, And though they be outstripp'd by every pen, Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, Exceeded by the height of happier men. O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: 'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, A dearer birth than this his love had brought, To march ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... exiles are now men of large income.—"The dwelling in which we breakfasted to-day," says the traveller, "was that of a person who had been sent to Siberia against his will. Finding that there was but one way of bettering his condition, he worked hard, and behaved well. He had now a comfortably furnished house and a well-cultivated farm, while a stout wife, and plenty of servants, bustled about the premises. His son had just arrived from St Petersburg, to visit his exiled father, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... for bettering the family circumstances, and by certain minor forces which cannot now be named, my father began to think seriously of casting his lot with the great stream of emigrants. Many family councils were held before it was agreed that the plan must ...
— From Plotzk to Boston • Mary Antin
... you, or someone, step in and deal with the matter comprehensively, without paying regard to vested interests? Surely, if the right people would only put their heads together, they must hit on some method of bettering the present wretched condition of those much ill-used but patient and long-suffering creatures, among whom the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... increase vasomotor tension, although peripheral nerve irritation may be diminished. Hence a fair dose of morphin hypodermicaly with a small dose of atropin, if respiratory depression is feared, is a physiologic method of bettering the condition. In this kind of heart attack a drug which often acts well is nitroglycerin. It may be given hypodermically in a dose of from 1/200 to 1/100 grain, or a tablet may be dissolved on the tongue, and the dose be repeated once or twice ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... There was enough money to educate him, and he is sufficiently well provided for to be independent of the world so long as he is content to live here with great economy. But of course this gives him few opportunities of bettering himself.' ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... all day & every day without a break. I know familiarly several very satisfactory people & meet them frequently: Mr. Hamilton, the Sloanes, Mr. & Mrs. Fells, Miss Waterman, & so on. I shouldn't know how to go about bettering my situation. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... fugitives. While escape was possible the risk was very great. Also, Agathemer argued, we were too near to Rome to be safe if we got clear away. Between dread of death if caught and fear of we knew not what if we escaped, we stuck to our cookery. Mixed with our projects for bettering our prospects we talked much of our amazement at the treatment which the deputation and its associates had met in Italy. Manifestly the townsfolk and their officials were not only overawed, but helpless. If there had been no Rome, no Republic, no Praetorians, no Prefect of ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... often morbidly far-sighted. Mr. Carleton had a very large tenantry around him and depending upon him, in bettering whose condition, if he had but known it, all those energies might have found full play. It never entered into his head. He abhorred business, the detail of business; and. his fastidious tastes especially shrank from having anything to do among those whose ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... congestion of both lungs had shut off any probability of recovery, and the sculptor had asked his pupil to send his body home. "It's not a pleasant place to be lying while the world is moving and doing and bettering," he had said with a feeble smile, "but it rather seems as though we ought to go back to the place we came from in the end. The townspeople will come in for a look at me; and after they have had their ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... to dwell upon this fact, that, the moment life has an inspiring significance, and the moment also the men, industries, and conditions around us become instrumental toward resolving that, in this moment one must begin, so far as he may, bettering these conditions. If I hire a man to work in my garden, how much is it worth to me, if he bring not merely his hands and gardening skill, but also an appreciable soul, with him! So soon as that fact is apparent, fruitful relations are established between us, and sympathies begin to fly like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... humour bettering as mine went down. "Oh, no; you are jealous. He is more sought after than any gentleman at the assemblies, and Miss Dulany vows his steps are ravishing. There's for you, my lad! He may not be able to keep pace with you in the chase, but he has writ the most delicate ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... husbands look upon their own wives with a vicious disdain, and many fathers their children; so I, betwixt two equal merits, should always be swayed against my own; not so much that the jealousy of my advancement and bettering troubles my judgment, and hinders me from satisfying myself, as that of itself possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules. Foreign governments, manners, and languages insinuate themselves into my esteem; and I am sensible that Latin ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the earth, and hiding my light under a bushel. My mother had done her utmost to persuade me that I was capable of great achievements; but my father, who thought ambition was the surest road to ruin, and change but another word for destruction, would listen to no scheme for bettering either my own condition, or that of my fellow mortals. He assured me it was all rubbish, and exhorted me, with his dying breath, to continue in the good old way, to follow his steps, and those of his father before him, and let my highest ambition be to walk honestly through the world, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... reformation of the church in Gaul. Here the clergy were sadly demoralized, and the churches and monasteries had been despoiled of much of their property in the constant turmoil of the time. Boniface succeeded, with the help of Charles Martel, in bettering affairs, and through his efforts the venerable church of Gaul, almost as old as that of Rome itself, was brought under the supremacy of the pope. In 748 the assembled bishops of Gaul bound themselves to maintain the Catholic unity of faith and follow strictly ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... desirous of doing something better for myself than working all my life on a sewing-machine. And besides, I have no doubt there were folks around us who were quite as inquisitive as to how we managed to get along, and that, too, from mere idle curiosity, without any view to bettering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... encourage thrift (savings banks; children's brigades), and to spread an elementary and religious education (mutual schools; infant schools) that would train the poor in self-help were the most prominent. "The Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor." founded in 1796, became a very important early-nineteenth-century institution. Branches were established all over England. Soup-kitchens, clothing-stations, savings banks, and schools ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... better what I want to say all through; and in process of time, possibly I shall manage to say it. I must say I am a very bad workman, mais j'ai du courage: I am indefatigable at rewriting and bettering, and surely that humble quality should get me ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the war our people gladly welcomed the Japanese, because this seemed to herald needed reforms and a general bettering of conditions, but soon it was seen that no genuine reforms were intended and the people ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... there are works of philanthropy still to be done here. The objection is absolutely irrelevant. The work of missions is not an indefinite 'doing good.' It is the bearing of a specific good to those who have not received it. It is not, per se, the bettering of temporal conditions. It is the securing to those who believe its message the best eternal conditions. It is not a matter of 'elevation'—it is a matter of translation. Not into a bettered life, but into ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... bent and notched, but those of the Gods were like new. And new they were: new and new after every blow struck or cast thrown. For with three strokes of his hammer Goibniu would be fashioning a spear-head, and after the third stroke there could be no bettering it. With three chippings of his knife, Luchtine had cut a handle for it; and at the third chipping there would be no fault to find with the handle either by Gods or men. And as quickly as they made the spear-heads and the shafts, Creidne the Brazier had the rivets made to ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... evangelicals lies outside our subject, the character of its influence on society may be gathered from their efforts for the suppression of the slave trade; from the stricter observance of Sunday which became general towards the end of our period; from their plans for bettering the condition, and their care for the education of the poor. The institution of Sunday schools was largely due to Robert Raikes, of Gloucester, who began his work in 1780. Six years later some 200,000 children ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... who are really Chamars; in the Central Provinces the Dohors are a well-known subcaste of Chamars, but in Berar they appear to have obtained a separate name, under which about 6000 persons were returned in 1911. They work in leather like the Chamars or Mochis. With the ambition of bettering their social status among the Hindus the caste strictly observe the sanctity of animal life. No Dohor may molest an animal or even pelt it with stones. A man who sells a cow or bullock to butchers is put out of caste, but if he ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... annoying. Flitch was a stable-boy, groom, and coachman, like his father before him, at the Hall thirty years; his father died in our service. Mr. Flitch had not a single grievance here; only one day the demon seizes him with the notion of bettering himself he wants his independence, and he presents himself to me with a story of a shop in our county town.—Flitch! remember, if you go you go for good.—Oh, he quite comprehended.—Very well; good-bye, Flitch;—the man was respectful: he looked the fool he was very soon to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... infirm; and neither the honor nor the gain held out by them was sufficient to determine me to their cultivation: for I was not, thank Heaven, in a condition which compelled me to make merchandise of science for the bettering of my fortune; and though I might not profess to scorn glory as a cynic, I yet made very slight account of that honor which I hoped to acquire only through fictitious titles. And, in fine, of false sciences ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... cowboy sang to me, in typical cowboy music, Larry Chittenden's entire "Cowboys' Christmas Ball"; since that time the poem has often come to me in manuscript form as an original cowboy song. The changes—usually, it must be confessed, resulting in bettering the verse—which have occurred in oral transmission, are most interesting. Of one example, Charles Badger Clark's "High Chin Bob," I have printed, following Mr. Clark's poem, a cowboy version, which I submit to Mr. Clark and his admirers ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... sea-sand, by long triall and experience, hath bin found to be very profitable for the bettering of land, and especially for the increase of corne and tillage, within the counties of Devon and Cornwall, where the inhabitants have not commonly used any other worth, for the bettering of their ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... did have any idea of bettering conditions as they now prevailed; for not a word came in reply, to Thad's request for several minutes. During this time the boys sat there and watched the queer actions of the engine that Thad was bending over, now doing this and again that in order ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... but it's a large class, Denyven. Every soul of us has the privilege of bettering out condition if we have the brain and the industry to do it. Energy and intelligence come to the front, and have the right to be there. A skillful workman gets double the pay of a bungler, and deserves it. Of course there will always be rich and poor, and sick and ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... action. I never heard anybody doubt that the evil may be thus increased, or diminished; and it would seem to follow that good must be similarly susceptible of addition or subtraction. Finally, to my knowledge, nobody professes to doubt that, so far forth as we possess a power of bettering things, it is our paramount duty to use it and to train all our intellect and energy to this supreme service ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... must obey for very shame and weariness, if for nothing else. This is in my eyes the second part of a woman's parish work. I entreat you to bear it in mind when you hear, as I trust you will, lectures in this place upon that SANITARY REFORM, without which all efforts for the bettering of the masses are in my eyes not only useless, ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... at the commencement of his pontificate, softened some of the rigors with which they were afflicted, and had directed that they might spread beyond that ignominious precinct; nor, however great was the outcry about it among the mob, did he forego the idea of bettering the condition of the followers of the Mosaic law." He was disposed to give them civil rights; and if he did not think of extending his concessions even to political privileges, yet he would give this as the main reason ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... endeavoring to make the world believe, that the opposition to it arose from a few men only, of "no property" and "desperate fortunes," who were "endeavoring to bring things into confusion, that they might have the advantage of bettering their fortunes by plunder." Little did they think that it was then known, as it now appears in fact, that those who were assiduously watching for places, preferment and pensions, were in truth the very men of NO ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... human conduct, and particularly the conduct of young persons, is more generally influenced by hope than by fear,—that more are deterred from early and imprudent marriages by the hope and prospect of maintaining and bettering their condition in life, than by the fear of absolute destitution. The examples of the Highlands and of Ireland are more than enough to show, that this last is not a motive on which the legislator can place reliance, as influencing the conduct of young persons ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... Tumble up, and to work, work," is the cry; and, now, from twelve o'clock (mid-day) till dark, the human cattle are in motion, wielding their clumsy hoes; hurried on by no hope of reward, no sense of gratitude, no love of children, no prospect of bettering their condition; nothing, save the dread and terror of the slave-driver's lash. So goes one day, and ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... the subject of one short elegy, [115] and enters largely into another. When travelling with the pro-praetor Memmius into Bithynia, he visited his brother's tomb at Rhoeteum in the Troad. It was on his return from this journey, undertaken, but without success, in the hope of bettering his fortune, that he wrote the little poem to Sirmio, [116] which dwells on the associations of home with a sweetness perhaps unequalled ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... committee on expenditures, and a member of the judiciary, &c. I directed my attention to the incorporation of a Historical Society; to the preparation of a system of township names derived from the aboriginal languages; and to some efforts for bettering the condition of the natives, by making it penal to sell or give them ardent spirits, and thus desired to render my position as a legislator useful, where there was but little chance of general action. As chairman of the committee on expenditures, I kept the public ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... stand for a type of the change which had passed upon Genoa and has passed or is passing upon all Italy. The trouble is that Italy is full of very living Italians, the quickest-witted people in the world, who are alert to seize every chance for bettering themselves financially as they have bettered themselves politically. For my part, I always wonder they do not still rule the world when I see how intellectually fit they are to do it, how beyond any other race they seem still equipped ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... countries the conscience of man seems to have been first awakened to his innate power of bettering his own condition by well directed observation, by the elaboration of laws, and by forethought for the future. Between Egypt on the one hand, and Chaldaea with that Assyria which was no more than its offshoot and prolongation, on the other, there are strong analogies, as will be clearly ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... fancy you may be all the readier to believe me, if you know that what I have said to you, I have said with the certain knowledge in me that I am a dying man. There is no disguising, Mr. Blake, that you interest me. I have attempted to make my poor friend's loss of memory the means of bettering my acquaintance with you. I have speculated on the chance of your feeling a passing curiosity about what he wanted to say, and of my being able to satisfy it. Is there no excuse for my intruding myself on you? Perhaps there is some excuse. A man who has lived as I have ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... than all, she was poorly provided with money, and this need, rather than Vincent's love-lorn babbling about Olympia, reminded Rosa to call upon the Spragues for help. She wrote at once to Olympia, telling the distressing story, and then set about bettering Vincent's surroundings. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... familiarity; I hated the thing, but it had made good its place in the map of my life; secondly, from the impossibility of inflicting a slight; thirdly, because I rather chose to bear the ills I had than fly to others that I knew not of. Who revolts save in the glowing hope of bettering his lot? I must marry; who was there to be preferred before Elsa? It did not occur to me that I might remain single; I should have shared the general opinion that such an act was little removed from treason. It ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... living on the old farm, the French Canadian takes it off his hands, and not only improves the farm, but raises big crops of boys. So with Italians, Swedes, Germans, Irish, Jews, and Portuguese, and all the rest. We are a nation of immigrants, a digging, hewing, building, breeding, bettering race, of mixed blood and varying creeds, but of fundamental faith in the wages of going on; a race compounded of materials crude but potent; raw, but with blood that is red and bones that are big; a race that is accomplishing its vital tasks, and, little by little, transmuting brute forces and ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... Civil Service examinations, or, having originally intended to take up the teaching profession in England, are subsequently induced to come out to India by disappointments at home or by the often illusory hope of bettering their material prospects. When they arrive they begin work without any knowledge of the character and customs of the people. Some are employed in inspection and others as professors, and the latter especially are apt to ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... Sir W. Coventry did of himself take notice of this business of the Treasury, wherein he is in the Commission, and desired that I would be thinking of any thing fit for him to be acquainted with for the lessening of charge and bettering of our credit, and what our expence bath been since the King's coming home, which he believes will be one of the first things they shall enquire into: which I promised him, and from time to time, which he desires, will give him an account of what I can think of worthy his knowledge. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... power attained by the Trade Unions has at times been used as selfishly as the power of the employers has been. But when we remember that until the first quarter of the nineteenth century combinations of workmen, even to respectfully ask an increase of wages or a bettering of work conditions in lessening of hours and in sanitary and moral provisions in work-places, was legally a "conspiracy," and liable to harsh punishments, we must be glad that at any temporary cost the main army of laborers has been organized from a mob of oppressed individual ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... help realizing that chance had brought him to the most important decision of his life; for he could no longer doubt that he had won complete mastery over the heart of the loving girl. He had never thought of bettering his condition; he had never even wished such a thing, for a life without needs is a happy life, good for body and soul. He loved his freedom; he was exactly what he wanted ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... Egypt had fallen because the priestly order was lowered, while I asserted that the misery of the people was the cause of the suffering of the State, to which thou, so far as I remember, didst answer: Let Mefres occupy himself with bettering the priesthood, Pentuer in improving the lot of common people, while I will avoid destructive war between ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... her dressing-room. She had not undressed, but was standing by a window. She made no sign that she heard him enter, and he hesitated. Why try to talk things out with her? Why hurt her? Why not let things drift along? There was no hope of bettering them. One of two things he must do, either tear open the situation between them, ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... as the "Christian Connection" in the New England States, and had been eminently successful in winning converts. But these churches were poor, and he having married a wife, his compensation did not meet his necessities, and like many others he went to California with a hope of bettering his fortunes. Afterwards he came to Lawrence, in Kansas, under the auspices of the Emigrant Aid Society. But his freighting teams having been plundered of a stock of goods, which they were bringing for him from Leavenworth to Lawrence, ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... found plenty to occupy his attention. He could discover numerous ways of bettering the conditions of affairs, and took keen delight in making changes calculated to lessen the ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... political ideas, but never received a penny in return. He was a Boss indeed, directing party affairs with the strong hand of a Dictator, but he sought no profit and gained none, not even the thanks of those he served. So far from bettering his fortunes, his public activities involved constant demands upon his private purse. Not only party friends but party enemies called on Thurlow Weed for help when in distress, knowing that his hands ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... became the editor of Astounding Stories magazine and applied himself at once to the task of bettering the magazine and the field of s-f writing in general. His influence on science-fiction since then has been great. Today he still remains as the editor of that magazine's evolved and redesigned ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... tired of him she frankly admitted. He was such a slow old coach, and she did not care for the sort of life he led. There was no prospect of his ever bettering himself or her. She further went on to say that her parents had, as he knew, for some time considered the question of emigrating to Australia, the pig-jobbing business being a poor one nowadays. They had at last decided to go, ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... working ten hours a day for very little money, isn't she? You know she is, when she could make a great deal of money by working half as hard. We have some influence with theatrical people, and we meant merely to put her in the way of bettering her position, and to give her the chance to do something which she can do better than many others, while almost any one, I take it, can sweep and make beds. If she were properly managed, she could become a great dancer, and delight thousands of people—add ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... care for him. And yet, if possible, there was greater dread entertained by his wife now than there had been on the former occasion. Then he could scarcely make his position worse, and there was a possibility of his bettering it; now there was everything to lose and nothing ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... with a fresh and noble endeavor after bettering the homes of the poor originated, I had almost said of course, by a woman, the experiment was in several places made of gathering small assemblies of the poor in the neighborhood of their own dwellings, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... secure some rest, whilst he was still in easy communication with both the marching column and his own men. He reaped the advantage of his forethought. As my command had to assist the wagons and the artillery, no such means of bettering the situation was possible for us. I had notified Willich that I would be in person at the extreme rear of my command so that he could communicate with me most promptly and obtain my support if he were seriously attacked. The brigade in the lead was directed ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... these wisdoms next day when he asked her to walk with him to the village. He told her, as they walked, of the various projects for using his life to some advantage that he had used to make—projects for improved agricultural methods and the bettering of the conditions of life in the country. Althea had read a great deal of political economy. She had, indeed, ground at it and mastered it in the manner advised by Franklin to Helen. Gerald found her quiet comments and criticisms very illuminating, ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... a surprise that he must be almost as rich as old J. John Reynolds, who was still drawing wealth from a comparatively small loan—futilely at his age, unless he had really aimed at the ideal of bettering ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... like some folk, but on more improvements on my own farm. I make my property more valuable, and I've got to pay for it, if you please. Why, they should ought to pay me. What's farming coming to, I'd like to know, if we've got to pay for bettering ourselves? The Government ud like to see all farmers in the workhouse—and there we'll soon be, if they go on at this rate. And it's the disrespectfulness to Poor Arthur, too—he left Donkey Street to me—not a bit to me and the rest ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... 'em very close; but I could n't help overbearing some of the things he said to her, for, you see, he used to follow her up into the parlor, they talked pretty low, but I could catch a word now and then. I heard him say something to her one day about "bettering her condition," and she seemed to be thinking very hard about it, and turning of it over in her mind, and I said to myself, She does n't want to take up with him, but she feels dreadful poor, and perhaps he has been saving ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... which tend so powerfully to expand the ideas, received no encouragement; the majority of men died without ever having ventured out of the neighborhood in which they were born. For them there was no hope of personal improvement, none of the bettering of their lot; there were no comprehensive schemes for the avoidance of individual want, none for the resistance of famines. Pestilences were permitted to stalk forth unchecked, or at best opposed only by mummeries. Bad food, wretched clothing, inadequate shelter, were suffered to ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... civics is to create in the pupils ideals of citizenship that may influence their conduct in after life. The most powerful agency to use for this object is the life of some useful and patriotic citizen who gave his talents and energy to the bettering of his country. In using biography for this purpose the pupils should be given only such facts as they can comprehend, and these facts should be made as real, vivid, and interesting as possible by appropriate personal details and concrete description. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... grievances and political rights have been widely disseminated among the masses, and these are not engendered or fostered by the prevalence of distress or that want of employment which not unnaturally turns the thoughts of the idle and unoccupied to the most desperate expedients for bettering their condition, but they are the mere aspirings of a fierce democracy who have been gradually but deeply impregnated with sentiments of hatred and jealousy of the upper classes, and with a determination ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... whom this part of my discourse is directed, mind only such things as are useful to the bettering of manners. And such we are to put in mind that it is an absurd thing, that those who delight in fables should not let anything slip them of the vain and extravagant stories they find in poets, and that those who affect language should pass over nothing that is elegantly and floridly ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Germany became the preoccupation of all Germans. From abstractions they turned with a new intoxication to what they conceived to be the concrete. Entering thus late upon the stage of national politics, they devoted themselves, with their accustomed thoroughness, to learning and bettering what they conceived to be the principles and the practice which had given success to other nations. In this quest no scruples should deter them, no sentimentality hamper, no universal ideals distract. ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... If in his writings he is inconsistent, let them [i.e., the Arians] not draw him to their side, for on this assumption he is not worthy of credit. But if, when he had written his letter to Ammonius, and fallen under suspicion, he made his defence, bettering what he had said previously, defending himself, but not changing, it must be evident that he wrote what fell under suspicion by way ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... that a fall in wages, an increase in hours, a deterioration of labor conditions mean wholesale moral as well as economic degeneration, and the needless sacrifice of human lives and human happiness, while a rise of wages, a lessening of hours, a bettering of conditions, mean an intellectual, moral and social uplift of millions of American men and women. There are employers to-day who, like the great coal operators, speak as though they were lords of these countless armies of Americans, who toil in factory, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... is the traditional American—and human—view that the natural world exists for the primary purpose of bettering the lot of such human beings or groups of human beings as may have the ingenuity and the vigor to extract its treasures or to adapt it to their use. Quite often the activities for which this view provides justification are exploitative—they use up natural resources or ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... plan that leads to success in philanthropy as surely as it leads to success in politics or war. Those who have undertaken to civilize our Deep Sea fishermen must continue to dare without ceasing; they must educate the thousands of good men and women whose sacred impulses lead them to aim at bettering this blind and struggling world; spiritual enthusiasm must be backed by material force, and the material force can only be gained when the great, well-meaning, puzzled masses are enlightened. We all know the keen old saying about the man who ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... are To the beholder and the sufferer: Bettering them both, but by a double strain, The first by patience, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... manfulness in saying to his Majesty that the treasure-chest must ever be empty if the old disorder were suffered to prevail. Likewise they approved the well-devised plan which he had proposed for the bettering of such matters, and my heart beat high with pride as I perceived the great esteem in which the worshipful elders of our town ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... reception, which was a great disappointment to Miss Anthony. They had shared so much trouble that she felt most anxious they should share this one great pleasure. In the diary at midnight is recorded: "Fiftieth birthday! One half-century done, one score years of it hard labor for bettering humanity—temperance—emancipation—enfranchisement—oh, such a struggle! Terribly stormy night, but a goodly company and many, many splendid tributes to my work. Really, if I had been dead and these the last words, neither press ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... reference to such calamities as drought, and failures of harvests, and the like, as these affect communities, we may, at all events, affirm that, in the case of the individual, he is a wise man who regards all outward evil as having a possible bearing on his bettering spiritually. 'If a drought comes, learn to look to your irrigation, and don't cut down your forests so wantonly,' say the wise men nowadays; 'if pestilence breaks out, see to your drainage.' By all means. These things, too, are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... imprisonment St. Croix was released, when he flew to the Marchioness and instructed her in the art, in order that she might employ it in bettering the circumstances of both. She assumed the appearance of a nun, distributed food to the poor, nursed the sick in the Hotel Dieu, and tried the strength of her poisons, undetected, on these hapless wretches. She bribed one Chaussee, St. Croix's servant, to poison her own father, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... their fellows by the shortest cut they can find, whether it fits in a theory or not. I don't care two pins for all the social theories that were ever made unless they help to make better men and women by bettering their lot. I have had cranks of that order, who rated as sensible beings in the ordinary affairs of life, tell me that I was doing harm rather than good by helping improve the lot of the poor; it delayed the final day of justice we were waiting for. Not I. I don't propose to wait ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... stood talking a while about certain public schemes that were in progress for the bettering of Ancoats. Then he said ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that is by a show-down," he said. "Under the circumstances, further bettering is out ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)
... thoughts were at this moment occupied by another subject of absorbing interest. 'No,' she returned with modest dignity; 'I have at present no desire to alter my condition, but I have for years been intent upon bettering yours. I may be presumptuous in supposing it possible that any effort of mine could do so; but I was resolved to make the trial, and this shall speak for me.' As she concluded, she drew from a closet the ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... has, it will be observed, 'no affinity with that instruction in mere empirical routine which has sometimes been vaunted as the proper education for the industrial classes'—an absurd and shallow system which has been urged by quacks and dabblers in world-bettering, and which has been exhausted without avail in England—the system dear to single-sided Gradgrinds and illiterate men who grasp a twig here and there without knowing of the existence of the trunk and roots. It lays down a perfectly scientific ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... For gratitude from men—but more are blessed In the sweet ignorance that they are fair; And through their proper functions live and rest, Breathing their fragrance out with joyous air, Content with praise of bettering what is best. ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... Edinburgh. He was fully ten years my senior, and when working at Douglass's I looked up to him as a man of authority. I had obtained from him many a valuable wrinkle in mechanical and technical construction. After I left Edinburgh he had emigrated to the United States for the purpose of bettering his condition. But he promised me that if disappointed in his hopes of settling there, he should be glad to come into my service if I was ever in a position to give him employment. Shortly after my removal to Patricroft, and when everything had been got into full working order, I received a letter ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... Dr. Channing that Dorothea Lynde Dix drank in this theory with passionate faith, and proceeded at once to convert it into action. She was governess of Dr. Channing's children, and had long been interested in bettering the condition of convicts; but now her attention was turned to the insane and she proceeded at once to master the whole question of insanity, its origin, its development, and its treatment, so far as it was then known. Enlisting the aid of a number of broad-minded ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... own labored breathing as he plunged through the East Entry, Jason heard panting behind him. Holland. Holland bettering his promised three minutes—and with a forbidden disarmer in his hand. Guiltily, Jason felt the weight of the disarmer he had ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... a welcome New Year's gift. There are two things I really care about—one is the progress of scientific thought, and the other is the bettering of the condition of the masses of the people by bettering them in the way of lifting themselves out of the misery which has hitherto been the lot of the majority of them. Posthumous fame is not particularly attractive to me, but, if I am to be remembered ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... which we have referred, the "City Mission Home for Little Wanderers," and the "Five Points House of Industry," are all working hard for the purpose of bettering the condition of the poor and wretched of the City. They are employing a band of energetic, hard- working Christian men and women, and are doing good daily. There is no doubt, however, that they succeed best with children. After the devil has set his mark on men and women, it ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... too, would be the evolution of the modern methods of raising and bettering the condition of the poor,—the evolution, especially, of the idea that men are to be helped to help themselves, in opposition to the old theories of indiscriminate giving, which, taking root in some of the most beautiful utterances ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... chief aim in life should be to better himself, to keep bettering himself; and in this high duty the poet helps him. Poetry is the great educator of the feelings. By seizing and holding up to view the noblest and cleanest and best there is in human life, poetry ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... when they saw that two had shaken off the yoke, would go over to the party of that nation which professed the patronage of liberty. If freedom was not actually preferable to servitude, yet the hope of bettering their circumstances by a change, was more flattering to every one ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... in which Cerimon, the man withdrawn from the world to study the bettering of man, revives the body of Thaisa, are the most ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... Korea, for instance, he can only adopt an agnate and one of a lower generation than his own. But in Japan his choice is not so limited. In so praiseworthy an act as the perpetuation of his unimportant family line, it is deemed unwise in that progressive land to hinder him from unconsciously bettering it by the way. He is consequently permitted to adopt anybody. As people are by no means averse to being adopted, the power to adopt whom he will gives him more voice in the matter of his unnatural offspring than he ever had ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... entailed upon them, without any corresponding salaries. The case of Orange has been already alluded to, and there were many other nobles less able to afford the expense, who had been indulged with these ruinous honors. During the war, there had been, however, many chances of bettering broken fortunes. Victory brought immense prizes to the leading officers. The ransoms of so many illustrious prisoners as had graced the triumphs of Saint Quentin and Gravelines had been extremely profitable. These sources of wealth had now been cut off; yet, on the departure of the King ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and men formerly poor now suddenly become rich, which gives a zest to the extension of the contest nothing else could produce. Indeed, the poorer orders of Somali are only too glad to have a good pretext for a fight, as a means of bettering their condition, by adding a few more head of cattle to their stock. Were this not the case, there would be no fighting whatever, as the sultan would be powerless to raise an army against the inclination of the people. War only ceases when both sides become exhausted, and withdraw ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke |
