"Criticise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to criticise any member of her husband's family; their faults are out of her reach except by the force of tactful example. Her concern is with herself and him, not his family, and a wise girl, at the beginning of her married life, will draw ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... own. The tone of it is infinitely more manly: one seems to hear a deep, decisive voice replying to tones far less sweet and serious. M. De Banville revenged himself nobly in later verses addressed to Gautier, verses which criticise the genius of that workman better, we think, than anything else that has been written of him in prose ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... a great difference to the people here if you interest yourself in them," he rejoined. "I tried to explain to Mr. Tredegar that I had no wish to criticise the business management of the mills—even if there had been any excuse for my doing so—but that I was sure the condition of the operatives could be very much improved, without permanent harm to the business, by any one who felt a personal sympathy for them; and in the end ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... a little prepared by her discursive reading and discussion under the Widgett influence for ideas and "movements," though temperamentally perhaps she was rather disposed to resist and criticise than embrace them. But the people among whom she was now thrown through the social exertions of Miss Miniver and the Widgetts—for Teddy and Hetty came up from Morningside Park and took her to an eighteen-penny dinner in Soho and introduced her to some art students, who were also Socialists, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... with no personal malignity. Save for the action of the literary defence, if I may so term it, my article would have been as ephemeral as the mood which induced its composition. I make full admission of Rossetti's claims to the purest kind of literary renown, and if I were to criticise his poems now, I should write very differently. But nothing will shake my conviction that the cruelty, the unfairness, the pusillanimity has been on the other side, not on mine. The amende of my Dedication in God and the Man was ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... every Scot—secured to him by the Treaty of Union and confirmed by the Disruption—to criticise his minister with much freedom, but this privilege is exercised with a delicate charity. When it is not possible for a conscientious hearer to approve a sermon, he is not compelled to condemnation. "There wes naething wrang wi' the text," affords an excellent ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... of an ecclesiastical character, and he probably cultivated with new diligence his blossoms of poetry, which, however, were in some danger of a blast; for, submitting his productions to some who thought themselves qualified to criticise, he heard of nothing but faults; but, finding other judges more favourable, he did not suffer himself to sink into despondence. He easily discovered that the only stage on which a poet could appear with any hope of advantage was London; a place too ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... spent in their studios where, seated in the most comfortable chair he could find, he would smoke lazily and watch them at work and criticise freely. Men grumbled and laughed at his presumption, but were ready to acknowledge the justice of his criticism. He had an excellent eye for color and effect and for the contrast of light and shade, and ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... The marriage law is too arbitrary; it allows no scope for individual action, and yet the subject is so delicate, so intricate, that none but the keenest and nicest balanced minds dare attempt to criticise, much less improve it. The misconstructions of a person's motives are so great that many who see its errors, tremble and fear to speak of them. But if we are to bring any good to the covenant, so sacred in its offices, ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... I am so tired of being tied to a book,' he said passionately. 'Tied? I am a book. Everyone I meet sees in me, not a man to be judged and liked for himself, but something to criticise and flatter and compare with the ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... food—considering the cost of provisions and the charge she made for her table—was very good. Only it had become a habit for certain of the boarders, led by the jester, Crackit, to criticise ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... skepticism of the Revolution. The reaction had taken place, the Goddess of Reason was dethroned, and the burning words and vivid eloquence of Chateaubriand appealed at once to the heart and the imagination of his countrymen. They did not criticise, they only admired. Politically he was also a rising man. The world, or at least the French world, expected great things from the writer of the pamphlet, "De Buonaparte et des Bourbons." His manners were courtly and distinguished, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... they can be justified by these tests but that it is not by these tests that they are judged even to-day, by the professors of the chief religions of the world. It is the temper and not the conclusions of the religious bodies that I would criticise. These sexual questions are guarded by a holy irascibility, and the most violent efforts are made—with a sense of complete righteousness—to prohibit their discussion. That fury about sexual things is only to ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... such attitude. Not he! The city's great names had scant respect from him! Not for an instant did he hesitate to criticise or analyze the most renowned. It was not long before he learned all about the Cora trial and Keith's subsequent efforts to discipline McDougall and ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... seriously to criticise such abuses of language? Yes, for very seriously are they put forth in our books and journals. Nor can we flatter ourselves that they are the careless expressions of uneducated writers, ignorant even of the terms of their own language. They are current ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... was liberty of conscience to criticise the pastor, he was autocrat of Longmeadow. One who preceded Pastor Storrs had it told about him that two of his deacons wanted him to appoint Ruling Elders. He appointed them; and asked them what they thought the duties were. ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... AEneas, and succeeding too for a while in raising the more than equivocal character of his hero, by placing him in the picture-gallery of the Queen of Carthage, and giving him leisure to contemplate and to criticise, and poetically to describe to his silent and spiritless lounger-friend many noble and many touching works. In this passage we also obtain the great Latin poet's opinion of the ameliorating effect of "collections." The hero of the AEneid knew immediately he was among an amiable people. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... brave and experienced young officer who would have done all this?" said a cold sarcastic voice, which Syd recognised directly. "No: stop. Don't tell me, but tell him that it is a great mistake for young gentlemen in the midshipmen's berth to criticise the actions of their superior officers, who may be entirely wrong, but whether or no, their ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... heard something like it before. But there had been strength, and the power to do, and the will to act in every intonation of his speech. She remembered every word San Miniato had spoken, far better than he would remember it himself in a day or two, and she was ready to analyse and criticise now what had charmed and pleased her a moment earlier. Why was he going over it all to her mother, like a lesson learnt and repeated? She was so glad to be alone—she would have been so glad to think alone of what she had taken for the most ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... the self-conscious stage, and unfolding with unparalleled freshness and power all the various activities of the human mind. We can only point out a few of the lines of development which become prominent at this period. And firstly we notice the rise of rationalism, that is of the impulse to criticise belief and to ask for that element in it which approves itself to the reflecting mind. Reason asserts its right to judge of tradition; the doubter suggests emendations in the legend; the piously inclined turn their attention to those parts only which are capable of lofty treatment. ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... know; but you must consider the silly way that he's been reared. I don't like his taking upon himself to criticise what we choose to do; but no doubt Goldsworthy IS a pretty big pill to swallow—to a chap like him, always so faddy about breeding and manners, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... cove on the truck with Robin Hood. He had struck up a friendship with the stranger and liked him, as every one did. The young man was quiet, industrious, intelligent. He did not encourage questions about himself, but Tom was the last one to criticise reticence. ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... had held himself in readiness to attend the bedside of all who might call upon him to speak cheering, hopeful words to the dying. But now our little community has become educated and they are able to criticise. As we look around the church we are lost in wonder as to what has come to the people. The older ones are sadder and a spirit of unrest seems to have seized upon the middle aged, while the very children have lost ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... little police force hustled vehicles out of the way and even stopped tram-cars when necessary; while the band tortured selections from Handel and Beethoven to the intense delight of passers-by, many of whom paused to criticise shortcomings in the procession among themselves. In about an hour it reached its destination, where Kumodini Babu's uncle received the guests. The family barber carried Samarendra in his arms to ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... Torquemada, Alexander Sixtus and other most religious brethren, he was ready to set up the stake and fagot and cauterize sin with fire. One thing you can say about the religious folks that are big with cocksureness and a mission—they may make mistakes, but the mistake doesn't talk and criticise. ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... is not to be too severely blamed, since it is a question of pavilions which are to disappear after an existence of six months. Economical reasons are always worthy of respect, and the modesty of the Municipal Council on this occasion ought to be praised. But what one has a right to criticise is the unhappy idea which placed these pavilions in such a manner as to completely obstruct the view of the exterior porticos of the palaces and industrial sections when one stands before the central dome in the centre of the garden. This criticism once made, there only remains to give ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... hard-bitten, tough band of veterans, weather beaten, scarred in numerous fights or by the backwoods scourge of small-pox, compact, muscular, fearless, loyal, cynically aloof from those not of their cult, out-spoken and free to criticise—in short, men to do great things under the strong leader, and to mutiny at the end of three days under the weak. They piled off the train at Sawyer's, stamped their feet on the board platform of the station, shouldered their "turkeys," and straggled off down the tote-road. ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... aware that those who criticise an existing state of things ought to be prepared with some constructive legislation which would remedy the evils they denounce. Though it is unlikely that the Government of India will take my advice, either wholly or in good part, I hereby exhort them to quit the folly ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... my province to criticise the Nicene Creed, which is virtually the old Apostles' Creed, with the addition of the Trinity, as defined by Athanasius. The subject is too complicated and metaphysical. It is allied with questions concerning which men have always differed and ever will differ. Although the Alexandrian ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... to me, even now, as I read it again, it is charged with the inspiration of that wonderful art, so true, so tender, that made its last act a miracle. I saw old men sob, and young men bow their heads to hide the emotion which they could not check. I saw that audience which had come to criticise, tremble and break into tumultuous weeping. Beside me, a greyheaded man was crying as any child. Yet why do I go on? No one who saw Clarissa Lambert can ever forget—no one who saw her not can ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... she said disgustedly. "I ought to be kicked. Why do you let me talk so much? It's awful cheek of me to dare to criticise you. I'll never do it again. He may be an angel for all I know. Esther, if you don't stop crying I shall cry too, and then there'll be ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... have inconceivable prejudices against the connubial state. If it be permitted to a member of the Established Church to cavil at any sentence written by Saint Paul,—and I think that liberty may be permitted to a simple layman, since eminent members of the clergy criticise the whole Bible as freely as if it were the history of Queen Elizabeth by Mr. Froude,—I should demur at the doctrine that it is better to marry than to burn: I myself should prefer burning. With these sentiments it would ill become any one entitled ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... publication of the Official Papers, on reviewing the whole facts of the case, in a debate upon it in parliament, declared "that he found much to criticise in almost all the parties concerned, except Mr. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... he must be saved by faith in the Person and Work of the Mediator. The very disposition to quarrel with this method implies arrogance in dealing with the Most High. The least inclination to alter the conditions shows that the creature is attempting to criticise the Creator, and, what is yet more, that the criminal has no true perception of his crime, no sense of his exposed and helpless situation, and presumes to dictate the terms of his ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... Agelastes," said the Princess; "we should not criticise the animal which kneels to take us up.—Come, lady of a foreign land," she continued, turning to the Frank Count, and especially his Countess— "and you her gallant lord! When you return to your native country, you shall say you have seen the imperial ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... granted he aims to live the Christian life in every act, in every thought. The superstructure—the practices of the Catholic Church to-day, the failures and sins of clerical society, the rigid ecclesiasticism—these he must in loyalty to fundamental truth, criticise, and if need be, condemn, where they interfere with the exercise of pure religion. But Benedetto engages very little in controversy; his method is to glorify the good, sure that the good requires only to be revealed in all its beauty and charm ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... that "the demand for commodities, which can only be got by labor, is as much a demand for labor as a demand for beef is a demand for bullocks." Criticise this position. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... who brought matters to a climax. "I refuse to listen," said she, with something very like a stamp of her plump little foot. "Mr. Elmendorf forgets himself entirely when he attempts to—to criticise my conduct." ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—Dryden, Pope, Johnson—looked upon Shakespeare with an indulgent eye, as a great but irregular genius, after much the same fashion as did the old sea-dogs of Nelson's day regard the hero of Trafalgar. 'Do not criticise him too harshly,' said Lord St. Vincent; 'there can only ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... rate, he said, almost cheerfully, "I'll read you what I wrote this morning," and she had to let him, though she felt that it was taking her at a moment when her wish to console him was so great that she would not be able to criticise him. But she found that he had done it so well there was no ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... picture, would listen to the criticisms. . . . Under these circumstances, they say that he was censured by a shoemaker for having represented the shoes with one latchet too few. The next day, the shoemaker, quite proud at seeing the former error corrected, thanks to his advice, began to criticise the leg; upon which Apelles, full of indignation, popped his head out and reminded him that a shoemaker should give no opinion beyond the shoes,[721-1]—a piece of advice which has equally passed ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... far away from the card-players. There was nothing at all remarkable in this, as Mr. Furnival and one or two others who did not play commerce were also there; but nevertheless they were separated from those of the party who were most inclined to criticise their conduct. ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... because he had been drunk, but because he had taken advantage of the young girl's position to abuse her fiance in his stupid jealousy, knowing nothing of their mutual relations and obligations and next to nothing of the man himself. And what right had he to criticise him in that hasty and unguarded manner? Who had asked for his opinion? Was it thinkable that such a creature as Avdotya Romanovna would be marrying an unworthy man for money? So there must be something in him. The lodgings? But after all how could ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of that, mother!" exclaimed the young man, patience at last ceasing to be a virtue. "Criticise me if you wish to; but I will hear nothing ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... jacket, that warned him not to imagine his back view, and held him constantly a little to the rear of Lady Camper, lest she should be troubled by it;—and he knew the habit of the second rank to criticise the front—how consent to face the outer world in such style side by side ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the Great Pyramid, made to the Royal Society 16th December 1867, Professor Smyth most unexpectedly, and quite out of his way, took occasion to criticise severely the remarks contained in the ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... the ball-room," she said. "By the way, you have not told me if you like my dress?" she added, anxious to bring him to the one subject she had at heart. "Do you remember that when we were children, Norman, you used to criticise my dress?" ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... other, is not without its difficulties. Why, for instance, should the promontories be a mile awry? There is, however, yet another mode of accounting for their formation, which I am not in the least disposed to criticise. ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... though they may not be strictly true, they illustrate the stern virtues for which he was celebrated among the Corsicans, and show what kind of men this harsh and gloomy nation loved to celebrate as heroes. This is not the place either to criticise these legends or to recount them at full length. The most famous and the most characteristic may, however, be briefly told. On one occasion, after a victory over the Genoese, he sent a message that the captives in his hands should be released if their wives and sisters came to ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... neither height, nor proportion, nor design. Yet the doorway taken by itself, or together with the bay on either side, is a very successful composition, and on a brilliantly sunny day so blue is the sky and so white the stone that hardly any one would venture to criticise it for being too elaborate and over-charged, though no doubt it might seem so were the stone dingy and the ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... you are not English. It isn't so much your pronunciation, but you put words in odd places in the sentence and some of your expressions are most unusual," she ended apologetically. "I like them. It is interesting to hear things called by new names. Just now Fran said 'poke fun' when she meant 'criticise,' and Roger says a thing is 'fine and dandy' when I should call it 'top-hole.' That is the difference, is ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... the match. So far, however, the prospect of the young people coming together was not encouraging. Martha was somewhat given to flirtation. George was as jealous as ever, and was unable to conceal his feelings, which, as he had now no right to criticise her conduct, so angered the girl that she not unfrequently gave encouragement to others solely to show her ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... from London was in our office the other day, signifying a desire to make some arrangement to bring it out there. I have heard almost no unfavorable criticism of the story—nothing which you could make serviceable in its revision. I have heard Dr. P. criticise Ernest—of course the character and not your portrayal. For myself I consider the character a natural and consistent one. Perhaps few men are found who are quite so blind to a wife's wants and yet so devoted, but—I don't know what the wives might say. We have had hundreds ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... legitimate to criticise Berkeley, but it is not legitimate to misunderstand him; and yet the history of his doctrine may almost be called a chronicle of misconceptions. It has been assumed that he drew no distinction between real things ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... your pen who will just possess quantum enough of mathematical knowledge to be able to read the first chapter without being able to follow you into its application, and as these, moreover, are the very people who will think themselves privileged to criticise and use their privilege with the least discretion, I cannot recommend too much clearness, fulness, and order in the expose of the principles. Were I you, I would devote to this first part at least double the space you have done. Your familiarity with the results and formulae ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... celebrity as a poet, he is one of the most elegant scholars which America has produced, and, until recently, held the professorship of modern languages at the neighbouring university of Cambridge. It would be out of place here to criticise his poetry. Although it is very unequal and occasionally fantastic, and though in one of his greatest poems the English language appears to dance in chains in the hexameter, many of his shorter pieces well upwards from the heart, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... threefold: (1) They rebuke his over-accentuated individualism. (2) They reveal the fundamental contrast between the infinite God and finite man. In the light of this revelation Job plainly recognizes his presumption and folly in attempting, with his limited outlook, to comprehend, much less to criticise, the mighty ruler of all the universe. (3) After Job had thus been led out of himself into personal companionship with God he was content to trust his all-wise guide, even though he recognized his own inability to fathom ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong, mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people whose simple annals I am relating—my position is merely that of a reporter—: but personally I think highly of Bream's sturdy common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant gun at me in a dark corridor, I would climb on to the roof and ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... chancel, where Dora Meadows was already ensconced. Lady Latimer presently arrived alone: Mr. Logger had committed himself to an opinion that it was a shame to waste such a glorious morning in church, and had declined, at the last moment, to come. He preferred to criticise preachers without ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... of not reading the works which they affected to criticise. On the present occasion we shall anticipate the author's complaint, and honestly confess that we have not read his work. Not that we have been wanting in our duty—far from it—indeed, we have made efforts almost as superhuman as the story itself ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... rich men who can scarcely put together a grammatical sentence; of poorer men who are, in church affairs, unscrupulous politicians; of women who carp and gossip; and of all sorts of men and women who desire to rule, criticise, hinder, and distrain. They, too, are the very people who, in the ears of God and of the community, have vowed to love him and to uphold his work! The more intellectual and spiritual he is, the more he is troubled ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... exceedingly narrow, and that the gossip applies itself therefore to a much smaller number of persons and things. But it is as venomous, the backbiting as severe and merciless among Indians as among us; and there is the same disposition to criticise everything that does not strictly pertain to us and to our favourites, the same propensity to slander the absent and to be of the same opinion as those present so long as ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... notice a young person, Isabelle by name, and with a playfulness that I, for my part, do not consider criminal, you endeavoured to place an assassine for her, just above her white bosom, complimenting her upon its fairness as you did so. This proceeding, which I do not criticise, greatly shocked and incensed a certain actor standing by, called Captain Fracasse, who rushed forward and ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... "mix up ideas as much as you please, and make fun of them,—I'm accustomed to that; but don't criticise a work of which you know ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... president, "I must remind you that you are not here to serve as counsel for the prisoner, or to criticise the decisions of this court. You must confine yourself to a statement of facts, and not express your opinion ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... This is not to be denied. For good or for evil such a result has come about; and we live in times of unquiet thought, which form a real and painful trial to many minds. It is not my intention at present to deplore or to criticise this modern tendency, but rather to point out how it may be accepted, and yet religion in the highest sense saved to us, if not without struggle (for that is always impossible in the nature of religion), yet without that intellectual conflict for which ...
— Religion and Theology: A Sermon for the Times • John Tulloch
... and Chattanooga. This is one of the effects of the discharge of spies captured in Western Virginia and East Tennessee. A military police, if properly directed, composed of honest men, true Southern men, might do much good, or prevent much evil; but I must not criticise Gen. Winder's inefficiency, for he acts under the instructions ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... hireling Hessians roll their drums through ports and towns; the wily Indian joins the invader; his army is famine-smitten and thinned with fever, and drill in rags, while Congress meets in secret halls but to impede his plans and criticise; and while he holds the scales and looks toward the end, and makes retreat best serve the cause, what rivals rise! See brilliant Gates appear! Does he not know this rivalry and hear the plaudits that surround the name of Saratoga? I've shared ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... those books which we cannot criticise. The author of a book which we could criticise would have ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... an air of reserve (although there are times when I let myself go); quite correctly dressed; nothing to criticise and nothing ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... assent—"and I could or would find nothing good in it. To me it seemed atheistic, fallacious, heretical. You perceive I am not sparing myself in these admissions," he interposed, "but I have been doing some serious thinking during my return voyage, and now I am going to read that book again; not to criticise, but to get at its true ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... the empirical side, by Descartes from the intellectual, created as great a revolution in knowledge as the Renaissance had produced in literature or the Reformation in religion; and a body of materials was presented from which philosophers ventured to criticise the Bible and the dogmatic teaching of the Church. This fourth great period of free thought, which extends to the present time, has been marked by more striking events than former ones.(70) Though the movement relates to a similar sphere, the history is ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... represent the architecture or sculpture of modern England. You may urge that I ought rather to describe the qualities of the refined sculpture which is executed in large quantities for private persons belonging to the upper classes, and for sepulchral and memorial purposes. But I could not now criticise that sculpture with any power of conviction to you, because I have not yet stated to you the principles of good sculpture in general. I will, however, in some points, tell you the ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... relations. The science of tastes has yet to be founded. Till then, chefs de cuisine and the clever caterers for banquets will remain isolated geniuses or empirics; while, as regards wine-tasters and gastronomists, they approve or they criticise, but they do not establish any rules. It would be a curious collection that would comprise all the expressions used by wine-tasters, wine-merchants, commercial travellers, amateurs (by far, indeed, the most numerous class), ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... correspond once a month. There were no events to chronicle in the Haworth letters. Quiet days, occupied in reaching, and feminine occupations in the house, did not present much to write about; and Charlotte was naturally driven to criticise books. ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... had reached the oasis where the first night was to be passed an hour before, and found the camp already established, tents pitched, and everything so ordered that Sir Aubrey could find nothing to criticise; even Stephens, his servant, who had travelled with him since Diana was a baby, and who was as critical as his master on the subject of camps, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... less funny perhaps but decidedly more brilliant jests, until at last we retire one by one from the conversation and watch him with savage, weary eyes over our pipes. He invariably beats me at chess, invariably. People talk about him and ask my opinion of him, and if I venture to criticise him they begin to look as though they thought I was jealous. Grossly favourable notices of his books and his pictures crop up in the most unlikely places; indeed I have almost given up newspapers on account of him. Yet, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... returning from some church ceremony, Flora said to me, "Oh, Aleister" (we were already engaged secretly), "papa is going to ask you next winter to stay at Hootawa. Before I forget, I want to warn you never to criticise the pictures. They are mostly of the Dutch and English School, and I dare say you will find a great many of the names wrong; but, you know, papa is irritable, and it would offend him if you said that the 'Terborch' was really by Pieter de Hooghe. You can easily avoid saying anything—and then, ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... of The Golden Bough, I asked my neighbour, who had read it, if to a Japanese who got its penetrating view some things could ever be the same again. He answered frankly, "There are things in our life which are too near to criticise. Do you know that there are parts of Japan where ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... wins—who will dare to criticise the wisdom of his policy fifty years from to-day? If we lose, who will give us credit for our high ideals of Civil Law in times of war? You have the chance to-day to win. Leap into the saddle and command the obedience of every man, woman ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... this graceful and classic compliment; but strange to say, does not feel disposed to criticise it. Jacques has never seemed to her so intellectual a man, so true a gentleman as at this moment. The reason is that Belle-bouche has caught a portion of her visitor's disease—a paraphrase which we are compelled to make use of, from the well-known fact that damsels are never ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... period that most young fellows go through," I said. "They then make sonnets to the moon, become pessimistic, criticise everything, and feel certain that they will become the hub of the universe one day. They prefer vegetable food to ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... back into his breeding—drew deeper and more manifest. If he could have spoken at such times, he would have said: "I have been a long time alone, and I cannot always be asleep; but you know best, and I must not criticise." ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that grew everywhere hereabouts; for the common, so far from being barren, was a perfect sheet of greenest, softest turf, sowed with minute and rare flowers. Often a square foot of ground presented me with enough of beauty and variety in colour and form to criticise and contemplate for ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... should I? There will be nobody there to criticise me. There are no preparations to make, so I needn't fuss. Biddy's right. It's the best ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... addition, as a rule, of facetious allusions to torture and the knout! My ignorance, however, of Finland as she really is was probably unsurpassed before my eyes were opened by a personal inspection, so I cannot afford to criticise. ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... and the constitution might have emerged from his head completely armed, like the Minerva of Jupiter, or the legislation of the ancients, were it not that in our days every one sought to be engaged in the task, or to criticise it. Yet, with the exception of some modifications, his plans were generally adopted, and he had in the committees more ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... think it a little presumptuous of me to criticise one of the operations of a great captain, but I cannot refrain from commenting that the sending of Mortier to the left bank was a move which had not been sufficiently considered, and was an error which could have had ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... were known to resent the familiar tone in which Mr Sparks had been heard to criticise the pomps and vanities exhibited at Lexley Hall by the Althams of the olden time, was a certain General Stanley, who, inhabiting a fine seat of his own at about ten miles' distance, was fond of bringing over his visitors to visit the old Hall, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... extremely difficult in the atmosphere of that home to criticise one whom he knew to be considered as a friend of ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... off badly when asked why he had come to this sudden decision. He could not equivocate; and when Mrs. Wilson asked him point-blank if Berenice had been treating him badly, he could only take refuge in the reply that it was not for him to criticise what Miss Morison chose to do. He persisted in his resolution to return to Boston, feeling obstinately that he could not with dignity remain where he was while Berenice was there. A man of the world would at once have seen ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... criticise their sleek juniors, with a round assertion that if these youngsters had had to fight their way on a crust, as the veteran said he did, they would be vastly better men for it. I do not believe it. Hard work, and even disappointment ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... another, making a scene picturesque whether or no. I cannot rid myself of the feeling that there is something false, a kind of humbug, in all this. At any rate, the traces of it do not contribute to my enjoyment, and, indeed, it ought to be done so exquisitely as to leave no trace. But I ought not to criticise in any way a spot which gave me so much pleasure, and where it is good to think of Wordsworth in quiet, past days, walking in his home-shadow of trees which he knew, and training flowers, and trimming shrubs, and chanting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... divined, and when she told him what he had long suspected, that his mother's name was unknown to the Hamiltons of Grange, he accepted the fact as but one more obstacle to be overthrown in the battle with life which he had long known he was to fight unaided. To criticise his mother never occurred to him; her control of his heart and imagination was too absolute. His only regret was that she could not live until he was able to justify her. The audacity and boldness of his ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... pictures and music, we cannot criticise justly without taking more into consideration than is actually before us. We feel almost inclined to say that if the passage is by Buffon it is probably right, and if by M. Gueneau de Montbeillard, probably wrong. It must also be remembered that, as we learn from the preface already ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... husband had in the long run done most for herself; and the warm confidence with which he had laid his length upon them was a pressure gentle compared with her stiffer persuadability. I'm bound to say he didn't criticise his benefactors, though practically he got tired of them; she, however, had the highest standards about eleemosynary forms. She offered the odd spectacle of a spirit puffed up by dependence, and indeed it had introduced her to some excellent society. She pitied me for not knowing certain ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... postpone the Duma, then the peril will be upon thine own head!" I heard Rasputin shout. "Why allow these revolutionary deputies to criticise thy policy and undermine thy popularity with the nation? It is folly! Such policy is suicidal, and if thou wilt persist I shall withdraw and return to my home, well knowing that to-morrow the day of ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... not concern me, and I presume neither to criticise nor to advise. Please be so good as to detain me no longer, and believe me when I repeat that I have no intention whatever of meddling with any of your affairs, or ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... have impell'd Your princely Highness in this wise to act Toward your Sovereign Lord and Emperor, Beseems not us to expound or criticise. The Swede is fighting for his good old cause, With his good sword and conscience. This concurrence, This opportunity, is in our favor, And all advantages in war are lawful. We take what offers without questioning; And if all have ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... any kind without first discussing them with the Council of State. This Council, composed of the most enlightened and learned men of France, prepared laws, which were then presented to the Legislative Corps, which could criticise them very freely, since voting was secret. Presided over by Bonaparte, the Council of State was a kind of sovereign tribunal, judging even ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... together and make things hum. Now here's a bit of advice. Old Tom Sayers likes plain, practical statements that he can weigh and consider. Put all your proposed plans into writing. Put down hard, concrete facts in terse English. Make it as brief as possible. Don't be afraid to criticise if you can suggest improvements. Don't mince words. He loves simplicity and frankness. And if you do as I say in that regard, and make plain to him the ideas you've made plain to me—you'll get the job, and we'll ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... must begin by quoting you at large: I shall then proceed to criticise your utterance from several points of view, divine and human, in the course of which I shall attempt to draw again, and with more specification, the character of the dead saint whom it has pleased ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... deny the truth of Nero's words. "That is true, Caesar, and therefore I do not presume to criticise or even to have an opinion upon acts of state policy. These are matters utterly beyond me. I know nothing of the history of the families of Rome. I know not who may, with or without reason, deem ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... my countryman, he will much oblige all scientific antiquarians, and me, though not a Dr. Heavybottom, especially. I need not make apologies for my bad English, and hope none of your many readers will criticise ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... But the child had no care about those questions. Now God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost are in perpetual session in regard to this world and kindred worlds. Shall you, His child, rush in to criticise or arraign or condemn the divine government? No; the Cabinet of the Eternal Three can govern and will govern in the wisest and best way, and there never will be a mistake, and like razor skillfully swung, shall cut that which ought to be cut, and avoid that which ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... that he has heard one of the audience criticise severely this wisdom,—not sparing Socrates himself for countenancing such an exhibition. Socrates asks what manner of man was this censorious critic. 'Not an orator, but a great composer of speeches.' Socrates understands ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... over and digest my past experiences. Then it was that the truth of a very ancient adage struck upon my mind, namely, that money is power. Had I sufficient money I could laugh at unjust critics for example; indeed they or their papers would scarcely dare to criticise me for fear lest it should be in my power to do them a bad turn. Again I could follow my own ideas in life and perhaps work good in the world, and live in such surroundings as commended themselves to me. It was as clear as daylight, but—how ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... measured by the laws I gave; and, consequently, to set up some little judges, who, not understanding thoroughly, would be sure to fall upon the faults, and not to acknowledge any of the beauties; an hard measure, which I have often found from false critics. Here, therefore, if they will criticise, they shall do it out of their own fond; but let them first be assured that their ears are nice; for there is neither writing nor judgment on this subject without that good quality. It is no easy matter, in our language, to make words so smooth, and numbers so harmonious, that they ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... his way up from the ranks. Perhaps his long fight against the practise of flogging unruly sailors helped to add to the number of his enemies, for those in authority were outraged that this Jewish upstart should criticise a custom so deeply rooted in the traditions of the navy. Another man of quieter temper might have tried to combat the prejudice and hatred which met him at every turn; but Levy's nature was not a patient one. When raised to the rank of captain, he felt that he could not ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... sight,—and was tingling with a keen sense of shame. Sunday after Sunday, putting on his best clothes, he had walked over to the untidy house north of the Park, first to see Maisie's pictures, and then to criticise and advise upon them as he realised that they were productions on which advice would not be wasted. Sunday after Sunday, and his love grew with each visit, he had been compelled to cram his heart back from between his lips when it prompted him to kiss Maisie several times and ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... extremely unpleasant reading. Generals Joubert and Smit, who had been described with admirable truth and candour, were so enraged that they demanded the instant dismissal of the 'conceited young popinjay' who had dared to criticise his masters. The President, however, who had been described as an ignorant, narrow-minded, pig-headed, and irascible old Boer whom—with the others thrown in—the writer could play with and twist round his finger as he chose, was not disturbed ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... and somewhat dull Epoch, that awkward corner turn'd for days More quiet, when our moon 's no more at full, We may presume to criticise or praise; Because indifference begins to lull Our passions, and we walk in wisdom's ways; Also because the figure and the face Hint, that 't is time to give ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... is it? Twelve dollars? For the privilege of suffocating in this compact little Black Hole? By my halidom, Comrade Gooch, that gentleman whose name you are so shortly to tell us has a very fair idea of how to charge! But who am I that I should criticise? Here are the simoleons, as our young friend, Comrade Maloney, would call them. ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... snare of the moment. No untried man dare say that he would have behaved better in his place. He escaped. He thought it natural to escape. His class thinks it was right and proper that he did escape. It is not the man I would criticise, but the manifest absence of any such sense of the supreme dignity of his position as would have sustained him in that crisis. He was a rich man and a ruling man, but in the test he was not a proud ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... act of drying myself when I was accosted by the proprietor of the hotel adjacent to the shore. "You have no business to be bathing here," he shouted. "I'm not," I said; "I'm bathing on the other side." In the same way, if anyone on either side of the water is unintelligent enough to criticise Mr. Leacock's humour, he can always say it comes from the other side. But the truth is that his humour contains all that is best in the humour ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... the Sylvania as he was shaking her now. He was a prudent young man, and I never had occasion to criticise what he did. He understood the present situation as well as I did. The levee force was waiting to close the gap, and thus save many more lives miles from the scene of its operations. We must get through at once, or the ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... "I do not criticise," continued their president, magnanimously, "nor do I complain of any one. Each in this world has his or her mission, and the most ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... manner which is rather too decisive and too peremptory; it is not, however, my intention that it should be so; I entreat you to correct, and even publicly to punish me whenever I am guilty. Do not treat me with the least indulgence, but criticise to the utmost. So clear-sighted a judge as you has a right to be severe; and I promise you that the criminal will endeavor to correct himself. Yesterday I had two of your acquaintances to dine with me, Baron B. ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... evening. "I feel as if I were not in a great city at all, because there are not the evidences of a large and wealthy population that we have everywhere in New York." Archie spoke of New York as if he had lived there always, and found much to criticise in Chicago. But toward evening he went up to Lincoln Park and the beautiful North Shore, and he felt that there was nothing more beautiful in New York than this magnificent park, and this handsome Lake Shore Drive, ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... him a little bow; she was trembling, though she would not have him see it. "We are not here," she said, "to criticise my father." Lucy was scarcely half aware how much she had gained in composure and the art of self-command. "I think he would have been more wise and more kind to have done himself what he thought to be his duty; but what does that matter? You must not try to convince me, please, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... play. I would treat Lord Canning as I would treat Sir John Bowring; and I would treat Sir John Bowring as I would treat Lord Canning. Do not let us have in the service of the State low-caste men who may be trampled upon at pleasure, and high-caste men whom nobody dare criticise. ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... be the work of an historian, to criticise would be superfluous. They have been so many Malvolios, all alike anxious to win the favour of that capricious Lady Olivia Erin, and not one of them has succeeded, though several have merited better fortune than they met with on ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... Ferrars with Lady Montfort surprised some, but, on the whole, pleased everybody. They were both of them popular, and no one seemed to envy them their happiness and prosperity. The union took place at a season of the year when there was no London world to observe and to criticise. It was a quiet ceremony; they went down to Northumberland to Lady Montfort's father, and they were married in his private chapel. After that they went off immediately to pay a visit to King Florestan and his queen; Myra had sent her ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... It is the letter of a patriot, but not of an intriguer. Fremont establishes an absurd rule concerning the breach of military discipline, and shows by it his ignorance and narrow-mindedness. So Fremont, and other bungling martinets, assert that nobody has the right to criticise the actions of ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... our own day. The second is a work by Mr. James Parton, an American author, whose book (published by Harper Brothers, of New York) treats of "Caricature, and other Comic Art in all Times and many Lands." It is obviously no part of my duty (even if I felt disposed to do so) to criticise the work of a brother scribe, and that scribe an American gentleman. Covering an area so boundless in extent, it is scarcely surprising that Mr. Parton should devote only thirty of his pages to the consideration of English caricaturists and graphic ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... is not more modern and powerful than it is has been made a cause of complaint against the Secretary of the Navy by persons who at the same time criticise and complain of his endeavors to bring the Navy that we have to its best and most efficient condition; but the good sense of the country will understand that it is really due to his practical action that we have at this time any effective ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... to distinguish my Johnny from the legion of other Johnnies, I prefixed the term Jew to his other name, and addressed him as Jew Johnny. How he had picked up his knowledge I cannot tell, but he could talk a little broken English, besides French, which, had I been qualified to criticise it, I should have found, perhaps, as broken as his English. He attached himself very closely to me, and seemed very anxious to share my fortunes; and after he had pleaded hard, many times, to be taken to the Crimea, I gave in, and formally hired him. He was the best and faithfullest ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... Method is Private Judgment, not Church Authority. But private judgment generates authority; authority, first legitimate, that of knowledge, grows into the illegitimate authority of prescription, calling itself Orthodoxy. Then Private Judgment comes forth again to criticise and reform. It thus becomes the duty of each individual to judge the Church; and out of innumerable individual judgments the insight of the Church is kept living and progressive. We contribute one such private ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... belonged to the late Ministry, but had somewhat out-Heroded Herod in his Conservatism, so as to have been considered to be unfit for the Coalition. Of course, he was proud of his own staunchness, and a little inclined to criticise the lax principles of men who, for the sake of carrying on her Majesty's Government, could be Conservatives one day and Liberals the next. He was a laborious, honest man,—but hardly of calibre sufficient not to regret his own honesty in such an ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... path between a gray and a gay life by keeping it radiant and bright. Read and think and talk of cheerful, hopeful, interesting subjects. Avoid small gossip, and be careful in your criticism of neighbors. Sometimes we must criticise, but speak to people whose faults you feel a word of counsel may amend, not ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... time to literary pursuits. Scott commented on the fact, saying, "Southey's ideas are all poetical," and, "In this respect, as well as in many others, he is a most striking and interesting character."[275] Nevertheless Scott found it easy to criticise Southey's poems adversely, as we may see from his correspondence. Writing to Miss Seward he pointed out flaws in the story and the characterization of Madoc,[276] yet after repeated readings he saw enough to convince ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... beside his directness of aim, if not always of achievement, his clearness of vision, his almost business-like adjustment of effort to result, the vagueness and desultoriness of Coleridge look looser and, in the literary sense, more disreputable than ever. Here was a man who could not only criticise but create; who, though he may sometimes, like others, have convicted his preaching of falsity by his practice, and his practice of sin by his preaching, yet could in the main make practice and preaching fit together. ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... that will do. And now I crave your patience and a boon, Which is to listen, while I read my rhyme, A floating fancy of the summer time. 'Tis neither witty, wonderful, nor wise, So listen kindly—but don't criticise My maiden effort of ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... she admitted, "but it isn't nice for you to criticise Mr. Forbes' secretary. He is a trusted employee, and of great use in ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... existence. When the Government shall succeed (if it shall succeed) in conquering a peace, in subjugating the South, and shall undertake to carry out the Constitution as of old, with all its pro-slavery compromises, then will be my time to criticise, reprove, and condemn; then will be the time for me to open all the guns that I can bring to bear upon it. But blessed be God that 'covenant with death' has been annulled, and that 'agreement with hell' no longer stands. I joyfully accept ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... All either man is justified in saying is that he, personally, wouldn't get much fun out of doing it the other way. As a matter of fact, human nature generally goes beyond its justifications and is prone to criticise. The Englishman waxes a trifle caustic on the subject of "pigging it"; and the American indulges in more than a bit of sarcasm on the subject of "being led about Africa like a ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... misinformed authors, Hippolyte Bonnelier, Comtesse de Mirabeau, Chennevieres, etc., have taken great advantage of the liberty used in works of imagination. There is only one reproach to be made—that they did not have the genius of Balzac. But we may criticise more severely the so-called historical writings about Mme. de Combray, her family and residences, and the Chateau of Tournebut which M. Homberg shows us flanked by four feudal towers, and which MM. Le Prevost and Bourdon say ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... some matting, upon which a number of worshipers were kneeling and supplicating "Allah," their supreme being. There was an earnestness that bespoke sincerity, and an all-abiding faith. I could but think how few of us who would criticise are true to ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... that though it is unfinished, and perhaps in part damaged by some restorer, I feel great hesitation in regarding it as Duerer's handiwork. In both cases the magnificent design is his, and that alone in either is fully representative of him. Mr. Campbell Dodgson ventures to criticise the profusion of drapery as excessive, but my feeling, I must confess, endorses Duerer's in this, rather than that of his learned critic. To me this profusion, and the grandeur it gives as a mass in the design, is of the very essence of what is most ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... those sweet fruits of love, without counting the other things that he raised, carved, and caressed with the chisels, smoothed down with his file, and fashioned in a manner that would make their use intelligible to the mind of a greenhorn, and stain his verdure in a single day. The ladies would criticise these beauties, and all of them were smitten with the youthful Cappara. And the youthful Cappara would eye them up and down, swearing that the day one of them gave him her little finger to kiss, he would ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... in his life enhance his praise? Did he make any mistake? Does Browning think so? How does Browning defend him? What imagery in the poem seems especially effective? Are you reminded of anything in "Rabbi Ben Ezra"? Criticise the rhymes and metre. ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... it may be more, and perhaps thou thyself, Novimus et qui te, &c. We have all our faults; scimus, et hanc, veniaim, &c.; [106]thou censurest me, so have I done others, and may do thee, Cedimus inque vicem, &c., 'tis lex talionis, quid pro quo. Go now, censure, criticise, scoff, and rail. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... sorry, but you are illogical. You acknowledge that this is a subject about which you know nothing, yet almost in the same breath you criticise and condemn. Men blame women for having no sense of justice, but they are just as bad. They are worse, and with less excuse. Women's perceptions are so keen that they see every side of a situation, so it ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... "religious" life. It has seemed expedient, because supplementary, then, to put next to it his work on Our Daily Life, which was meant for those who are "in the world"; and which may give pause to some who might otherwise criticise the first hastily, perhaps condemning it as unpractical, or even objectionable in a world where, after all, men must eat and drink and live, and where some, therefore must provide the necessary means. Most intensely practical is this second treatise, and perhaps nowhere more so ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... criticise mother like that, Aunt Anne, and, of course, she knows a great deal more about bringing up children than you do. If you had not interfered, Dick would have given the proper reason, and, certainly, if we do what we shouldn't it's ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... do Pinkerton the justice to say that none of them were bad, and some had remarkable merit. They went off slowly, but for handsome figures; and their places were progressively supplied with the work of local artists. These last it was one of my first duties to review and criticise. Some of them were villainous, yet all were saleable. I said so; and the next moment saw myself, the figure of a miserable renegade, bearing arms in the wrong camp. I was to look at pictures thenceforward, not with the eye of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have died to regain our liberty." But Fichte neither resumed nor died! Herder criticised his countrymen for their slavish following of French forms and models in their literature, as in their art and social life. And well he might thus criticise, when one remembers how cramped was the literary vision even of such men as Voltaire and Heine. We have already mentioned some of Voltaire's literary judgments in the preceding chapter, and Heine ventured to compare Racine to Euripides! No wonder that Germany needed schooling in taste, if such were ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... not the place, nor have I the space to criticise the various special theories of descent. One, however, must receive particular notice. According to Ameghino, the South American monkeys (Pitheculites) from the oldest Tertiary of the Pampas are the forms from which have ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... happiness is what I venture to consider more important than the gim-cracks created by those same humans. Man first, then man's work, that's the order of mundane importance to me. And if you've got to criticise the work, for God's sake do it with your ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... is the very composition of the Celtic mind, which naturally tends to firm belief, because it is given exclusively to traditions, past events, narratives of poets, historians, and genealogists. Had the Irish at any time turned themselves to criticise, to doubt, to argue, their very existence, as a people, would have ceased. They must go on believing, or all reality vanishes from their minds, accustomed for so many ages to take in that solid knowledge founded, it is true, on hearsay; but how else can truth reach us save by ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... a complicated one. He has not only to conduct, in the spirit of the author's intentions, a work with which the performers have already become acquainted, but he must also introduce new compositions and help the performers to master them. He has to criticise the errors and defects of each during the rehearsals, and to organize the resources at his disposal in such a way as to make the best use he can of them with the utmost promptitude; for, in the majority of European cities nowadays, musical artisanship is so ill distributed, performers ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... piece with the tone of Scripture throughout. It never palliates the faults even of its best men. It tells its story without comment. It never indulges in condemnation any more than in praise. It is a perfect mirror; its office is to record, not to criticise. Many misconceptions of Old Testament morality would have been avoided by keeping that simple fact ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... touching and very warm affection between Longfellow and Lowell. Mrs. Lowell says of it, "I have never seen such a beautiful friendship between men of such distinct personalities, though closely linked together by mutual tastes and affections. They criticise and praise each other's performances with frankness not to be surpassed, and seem to have attained that happy height of faith where no misunderstanding, no jealousy, no reserve exists." Often in his diary Longfellow speaks of "walking to see Lowell," who was either "musing before his fire ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... was arranged that they should have a holiday, and all be together again. It gave Bob a thrill of pleasure when he thought of meeting Dick and Ed and proudly exhibiting his fur to have them examine and criticise the skins and compliment him. It would make a break in ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... is no exaggeration to say that they were ignorant of every principle of every branch of political science. So long as our domestic administration was confined merely to the raising of a revenue, they levied taxes with gross facility from the industry of a country too busy to criticise or complain. But when the excitement and distraction of war had ceased, and they were forced to survey the social elements that surrounded them, they seemed, for the first time, to have become conscious of their own incapacity. These men, indeed, were the mere children of routine. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... to all the boarders as she was to Mrs. Shaughnessy herself. If she had a history, she kept it carefully from curious ears. Mrs. Shaughnessy was evidently satisfied, and quite challenged criticism of her favorite. Indeed, there was nothing to criticise. It was generally understood that she was a widow, who had to get on in the world as best she could, and thus the public sympathy was secured, and an embargo laid upon gossip. To be sure, there were certain men in Lucky-dog, of a class which has its representatives everywhere, ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... begin to complain, to criticise. God patiently says nothing but provides for their needs. But Moses has not yet reached the high level that later experiences brought him. He is standing to them for God. Yet he is very un-Godlike. Angrily, with hot word, he smites the rock. Once smiting was God's plan; then the quiet ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... tone was casual; her manner had a quality somewhat aggressively democratic. It said that under her welcome lay the right to criticise, which she would have exercised with equal freedom had her visitor been the Lord Bishop John Calcutta himself; and it made short work of the idea that she might be over-gratified to receive Holy Orders in any form. She was not unwilling, however, to show, ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... the other hand, lest we should subside into doing good, hoping better, and making the best of things in a practical way, the whole has to be reviewed at the end of each week by a hard hebdomadal board, on which a dozen clear thinkers sit aside and criticise all the rest of us. Perhaps it is a part of the irreverence of our times that one should gradually lose awe in the presence of this weekly printed wisdom. Or is it that experience finds types are ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... dear brother White is doing, but some criticise the idea of his opening the house of God every evening for amusements as well as prayer. Some don't believe in mingling ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley |
