"Habit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Autobiography, quite as much as what he has there told us, that excites popular curiosity," the following anecdote told by John Neal, one of Jeremy Bentham's secretaries, may be found interesting. The father of John Stuart Mill, it seems, was in the habit of borrowing books of Bentham, and was even allowed the privilege of carrying them away without asking permission—a courtesy so well utilized that from five to seven hundred volumes found their way in time from Bentham's library into the study of the elder ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... with the chances of the poor boy's recovery. Nevertheless the event seems to have satisfied Philip's highest hopes; for that same night (so Don Carlos afterwards related) the holy monk Diego appeared to him in a vision, wearing the habit of St. Francis, and bearing in his hand a cross of reeds tied with a green band. The prince stated that he first took the apparition to be that of the blessed St. Francis; but not seeing the stigmata, he ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... from the Republican to this place and every winter the Sioux had come in with their ponies loaded down with buffalo, beaver, elk, and deer skins, which they exchanged with the traders at Gilman's. War had, however, put a stop to these peaceful pursuits; still the Sioux could not give up the habit of travelling these favourite trails. The ponies often came in from the Republican, not now laden with furs and robes, but each bearing a Sioux warrior. The overland coaches offered a great temptation to the cupidity of the Sioux, and they were not slow to avail themselves ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... fellow, who had been bred to butchering, but urged by his parents to attend school, in order to learn the elegant accomplishments of reading and writing, in which he was sadly deficient. He was in the habit of talking and laughing pretty loud in school-hours, of throwing wads of paper reduced to a pulp by a natural and easy process, of occasional insolence and general negligence. One of the soft, but unpleasant missiles just alluded to flew by the master's head one morning, and flattened ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... years, and having a natural taste for languages, acquired, during this time, a fair knowledge of the tongues of most of the Northern tribes, as well as a smattering of French. He also became well versed in woodcraft, and so thoroughly Indian in appearance and habit that when he was again captured by a marauding party of Maquas, or Mohawks, it was not detected that he was of white blood until he was stripped for the ordeal of the gantlet, in an Iroquois village. His identity being thus discovered, his latest captors washed from him his Caughnawaga paint, ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... calm face up toward the firmament and tears glistened in his eyes. Then perhaps from the old habit and need of following a sermon with a ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... subscribe—save for the purpose of being married. The nation suffered by reason of this complete severance. Trade excepted, there was no community of interest between Church and Dissent. Sobriety, gravity, a decent way of life, the sense of religious obligation (even when united with the habit of extempore prayer, and a hereditary disrespect for bishops' aprons), are national assets, as the expression now goes, which cannot ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... first few months everything went smoothly. He was in the habit of taking Jennie to the theater now and then, and if he chanced to run across an acquaintance he always introduced her as Miss Gerhardt. When he registered her as his wife it was usually under an assumed name; where there was no danger of detection he did not mind using his own signature. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... beached it there. Then all sprang out, drew it up on the land, and, after turning it over, propped it up at an angle. When this was done they sat under it in a close group, sheltered from the rain. They were using their great canoe as a roof, after the habit of ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... years old, the boy had found a place as newsboy on the Grand Trunk Line running to Detroit. In the intervals between his raids upon the helpless passengers with his newspapers, periodicals, novels, and candies, he kept up the habit of reading, and by practice acquired a remarkably clear and finished handwriting. His next step was to secure the sole right of selling newspapers on the train, and he soon had four boys under him to assist him in the work. Having then bought a lot of old type from some printing-office, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... play stated as a thing already determined in all its particulars, previously to the trial of professions, as the relative rewards of which the daughters were to be made to consider their several portions. The strange, yet by no means unnatural, mixture of selfishness, sensibility, and habit of feeling derived from, and fostered by, the particular rank and usages of the individual;—the intense desire of being intensely beloved,—selfish, and yet characteristic of the selfishness of a loving and kindly nature alone;—the self-supportless leaning for all ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... is that habit should be there, like the hem of a handkerchief, to keep the fabric together; but that it should not be relentlessly and oppressively paraded; the triumph is to have habits and to conceal them, just as in ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... more disturbing to the functioning of a staff than undue eccentricity on the part of the commander or of senior members of the staff. For instance, a personal habit to be rigorously suppressed—a habit not infrequently in evidence, especially under strain of active operations—is that of absent-mindedly pocketing documents needed in the work under way. This subject might, but for limitations ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... the Italians have got into the habit of calling Rome. I have been told that they put the "a" instead of the "e" because they like to open their mouths as much as possible in that sunny and ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... fragrant and strong. Both the travelers partook heartily, having eaten nothing since noon, with the exception of a little fruit purchased from the car window at one of the stations. Herbert was not usually in the habit of drinking tea at night, but on this particular occasion he wanted to keep awake, and therefore drank ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... the habit of using slips of paper—the blank turn-overs of old-fashioned letters before note paper came into fashion—and arranging in subjects as well as I could; but many a note so made has often caused me a long hour's looking after: this ought not so to be; pigeon-holes or portfolios, numbered or ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various
... men unhappily do not plunge head-foremost, or Miss Carrington would have had him long before. But he was at least in for it half a leg; and a desperate maiden, on the criminal side of thirty, may make much of that. Previous to the visit of the Countess de Saldar, Mr. George had been in the habit of trotting over to Beckley three or four times a week. Miss Carrington had a little money: Mr. George was heir to his uncle. Miss Carrington was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is a monster still— An Hydra we may scotch but hardly kill; For if with sword of Truth we lop a head, How soon another groweth in its stead! All men are slaves. Yea, some are slave to wine And some to women, some to shining gold, But all to habit and to customs old. Around our stunted souls old tenets twine And it is hard to straighten in the oak The crook that in the sapling had its start: The callous neck is glad to wear the yoke; Nor reason rules the head, but aye the heart: The head is weak, the throbbing heart is strong; But where ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... looked upon him merely as somebody who deserved to be good-humouredly tolerated? And was his openness only due to the consciousness of his (Morgan's) being an outsider, into whose ears he had got into the habit of speaking thoughts he would have told to no other living person, pretty much as he might have written them in a diary? Such a habit was easy to acquire with regard to an outsider whom one came into contact with periodically, ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... stillness after the noisy day was good, and her eyes closed. For some time she lay back in her chair, and presently the old habit of her childhood asserted itself and, opening her eyes, she nodded as if to some one and began ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... now bringing me nearer to this life which I am at last to know; and I gaze absent-mindedly at the Bray country, that lovely country red with the gold of autumn. By force of habit, my nerves spell out a few sensations which my thoughts do not put into words. My heart is beating. Now, with no idea or purpose in my mind, I am speeding with a full heart towards the girl who was at least the inspiration of a splendid hope and above ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... returned Pettifer. "Widowers—yes. They miss so much—the habit of a house with a woman its mistress, the companionship, the order, oh, a thousand small but important things. But a man who has remained a bachelor until he's thirty-four—that's a different case. If he sets his heart at that age, seriously, for the first time on a woman and does not get her, ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... Three thousand men of the Old and the Young Guard were still there. This was the whole of the Grand Army, and of that gigantic body there remained nothing but the head. But at the news of Napoleon's departure, these veterans, spoiled by the habit of being commanded only by the conqueror of Europe, being no longer supported by the honor of serving him, and scorning to act as guards to another, gave way in their turn, and ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... got into the habit of using it, now I have seen what a slave it can make of a strong ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... verses are singularly complimentary to Ephesus. The threat is qualified. There is no history to show that she did not repent. But the cruelest habit the modern prophecy-savans have, is that one of coolly and arbitrarily fitting the prophetic shirt on to the wrong man. They do it without regard to rhyme or reason. Both the cases I have just mentioned ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from the captain, himself, so far as the black was concerned, else Smudge would certainly have gone into the ocean, like a bundle of straw. Marble had in him a good deal of the indifference to bodily suffering that is generated by habit, and, aroused, he was a dangerous, and sometimes a hard man; but, in the main, he was not cruel; and then he was always manly. In the short struggle which he had passed, he had actually dropped his pike, to knock an Indian down with his fist; bundling the fellow through a port ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... reasoned with in his days of soberness, and had often promised to reform; but so many around him drank that he could not resist the temptation to drink also, and therefore broke his promise. This habit had so fastened itself upon him, that, like one in the coil of the serpent, the more he strove to escape the closer it ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... hear one of a course of lectures. Mr. Ripley was the chairman, and the ever bounteous joyousness of his nature sparkled out in wit and mirth. These meetings were free, and discussion was invited, but there was present an excitable woman who had a habit of rising at any moment, no matter who was speaking, to make odd remarks and inquiries. She was considered a great nuisance, especially at the meetings of the antislavery societies, where she was often found, and I more than once saw her "suppressed" by police ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... give attention without listening, and wrung his hands in silence; so that I was in a fair way of being infected by his behaviour, when Jackson returned, and, perceiving the deference I paid to Strap, although in a footman's habit, distributed his crumbs of comfort with such mirth, jollity and unconcern, that the features of the distressed squire relaxed by degrees; he recovered the use of speech, and began to be a little more reconciled to this lamentable event. We dined together on boiled beef and greens, brought ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... who had, on engaging me, so particularly wanted to know if I could sing, and had never asked me to do so, dismissed me quite abruptly, as was his habit. His quick alertness, keen shrewdness and sharp suspicion caused him to speak abruptly—almost churlishly—to those about him. I, however, now understood him. Yet I wondered what evil ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... a habit of hers to imply a weighty opinion by suddenly breaking off, a form of speech known to the grammarians by a name which would have astonished Mrs. Clover. Few women of her class are prone to this kind of emphasis. Her friendly manner had a quietness, a reserve in ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... served under Captain and Sargento-mayor Don Antonio de Vera in the garrison of San Salvador in Hermosa Island; for he has the necessary qualifications and abilities, and has served your Majesty thirteen years past in military habit and profession in the states of Flandez, having been a soldier, commander of a squadron, and a sergeant, being present on the occasions and at the places where his services were needed, where he performed distinguished services. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... "Bart". It's funny, Stanton thought, how habit can get the best of a man. Yoritomo had known the truth all along. And now he knew that his pupil—or patient—whichever it was—was aware of the truth. And still, he had ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... daylight—the city itself has the effect of living in the open. Everybody is frankly interested in everybody else and in what is going on. Of all the cities the country, San Francisco is by weather and temperament, most adapted to the pleasant French habit of open-air eating. The clients in the barber shops, lathered like clowns and trussed up in what is perhaps the least heroic posture and costume possible for man, are seated at the windows, where they may enjoy the outside procession during the boresome processes of the shave and the hair-cut. In ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... period, nor would it have enjoyed, to any considerable extent, my personal or pecuniary support, he having something else to do with his money. (Printer, please put in a full stop somewhere here, Nicholas being a little out of the habit of writing for the periodical press.) He have also heard that it is proposed in literary circles to start a "Nicholas Society" for the purpose of printing a limited edition of my works including my lost treatise of Knur and Spell, on Japanese ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... a kind of literary superstition, which men are apt to contract from habit, and which-makes them look On any attempt towards shaking their belief in any established characters, no matter whether good or bad, as a sort of prophanation. They are determined to adhere to their first impressions, and are equally offended at ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... danger had been received—no injunction to be more than usually alert. It was the habit of the cavalry, which had so much outpost duty to perform, to be always ready, and cavalry officers were rarely taken by surprise. Early's precautions had been carefully taken and no hint of his purpose reached ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... of life is wide and varied. With unfailing faith and cheerful courage and a habit of seeing the humorous side of tragic catastrophes, she has done her work among the sick and forsaken, with no appeal to others save a certain few; and only those who have been steadied by her strong hands, and heartened by her ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... is seldom exhibited in the meridian of life; but which, when it conquers the nature of one who has buffeted the chances of the world with the loftiness of his sex and character, breaks down every barrier, and seems to sweep before it, like a rushing torrent, all the factitious defences which habit and education have created to protect the pride of manhood. Merry had often beheld the commanding severity of the lieutenant's manner in moments of danger, with deep respect; he had been drawn towards him by kindness and affection, in times of gayety and recklessness: but he ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... slowly up and down the long room, looking at his beautiful pictures, his beautiful china, his beautiful chairs, all the beautiful things that were his. His family took no notice of this roving up and down; it was a habit, and was tacitly accepted as meaning that he had, for the moment, had enough of the company, and even of his ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... about the Peanut plant that make it interesting to the naturalist. Its habit of clinging close to the soil, the closing together of the leaves at sunset, or on the approach of a storm, the beautiful appearance of a field of it when full grown, and the remarkable wart-like excrescences found upon the roots, are some of ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... and satisfied the people, I really know not; but certain it is, that innumerable attendants crowded about their doors every day: and if but a grave fellow in a velvet jacket, a band,[59] and a black cloak, which was the habit those quack conjurers generally went in, was but seen in the streets, the people would follow them[60] in crowds, and ask them[60] questions as ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... it was rather absurd your trying to come the judge over me, considering what we were talking about. You wouldn't have done it, I'm sure, if you'd stopped for a moment to consider the peculiar and rather delicate circumstances under which we are carrying on this negotiation. I expect the habit of talking in that judicial way was too strong for you. You forgot for the moment what it was we were speaking about, and thought it was some ordinary law case. The force of habit is a wonderful thing. Have ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... any desire to know more than the law allowed, and he asked no questions in regard to the enterprise in which he was engaged. In fact, one reason why he was chosen was because he had an excellent habit of minding his own business. Possibly Christy was more particular on this point than an ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... knee-breeches, white silk stockings, buckle shoes, and flat broad-brimmed beaver hat; walking erect with a bunch of flowers in his left hand, and his cane, held by the middle, borne on his right shoulder, as Smellie tells us was Smith's usual habit, "as a soldier carries his musket." When he walked his head always moved gently from side to side, and his body swayed, Smellie says, "vermicularly," as if at each alternate step "he meant to alter his direction, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... he himself was in no doubt whatever as to his being the most unpopular person in the Monarchy. But there was a certain grandeur in this very contempt of popularity. He never could bring himself to make any advances to newspapers or other organs that are in the habit of influencing public opinion either favourably or unfavourably. He was too proud to sue for popularity, and too great a despiser of men to attach any importance ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria. For many years previously the natives, who are not of a particularly warlike disposition, had been decimated, and the country laid waste, by the fierce Matabele, who were in the habit of making periodical raids into this fair land, and of killing the old men and the young warriors, who made but a slight resistance; of annexing the attractive ladies as wives and the fat cattle as prized booty, and then of retreating again south of the mighty river without fear of reprisals. For ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... by this time yet more expectancy in his voice. He still bowed, with respectful glances bent upon the lady. No presentation came, although in the easy habit of the place and time, such courtesy might perhaps have been expected. Why this stiffness among fellow travelers on a little ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... third century. (Origen, Comment, in ep. ad Rom. V. 9, Opp. IV. p. 565, declared child baptism to be a custom handed down by the Apostles.) Grown up people, on the other hand, frequently postponed baptism, but this habit ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... frequently with Alice Windham. He had fallen into a habit of coming to the ranch when wearied by affairs of state. He was a silent, brooding man, robbed somehow of his national heritage, a sense of humor, for he had Irish blood. He was a man of fire, implacable as an enemy, inalienable as a friend. And to Alice, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... Shrewsbury, a woman abandoned to gallantries. The earl, her husband, was killed by the Duke of Buckingham in a duel; and it has been said, that during the combat she held the duke's horse in the habit of a page.—P. ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... and make life hell for you because she'd been kicked out by the priest, but he hadn't pulled the wanting spell off her. Or anything else you wanted and couldn't keep against magic. Sure, they fed us. They had to, after they took away our fields and the kine, and got everyone into the habit of taking their dole instead of earning our living in the old way. They made slaves of us. Any man who lets another be responsible for him is a slave. It's a fine world for the Satheri, if they can keep the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... in its whole habit, it occupies but little space in the ground, and may be sown closer than other varieties ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... of different species, the monkeys, the hares, and you find wonderful differences of habit, each adapting the animal differently, but with equal effectiveness, to the life which he in particular is called upon to lead. The ants and bees are notoriously expert in the matter of instinct. They have colonies in which some of the latest principles of social organization seem to find ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... in a mind constituted like that of Lady Macbeth, and not utterly depraved and hardened by the habit of crime, conscience must wake some time or other, and bring with it remorse closed by despair, and despair by death. This great moral retribution was to be displayed to us—but how? Lady Macbeth is not a woman to start at shadows; she mocks at air-drawn daggers; she sees no ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... within me, I looked to the hills—with no hope that from them would come my aid—and there, on the edge of the sky, lifted against it, in a dip between two of the hills, was the form of a lady on horseback. I could see the skirt of her habit flying out against the clouds as she rode. Had she been a few feet lower, so as to come between me and the side of the hill instead of the sky, I should not have seen her; neither should I if she had been a few hundred yards further off. I shrieked at the thought that she did not see me, and I ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... ship; but no two captains trim ship alike. "When I take the bridge," says Captain Hodgson, "you'll see me shunt forty per cent. of the lift out of the gas and run her on the upper rudder. With a swoop upwards instead of a swoop downwards, as you say. Either way will do. It's only habit. Watch our dip-dial! Tim fetches her down once every thirty ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... is still identifiable in the Durham catalogue of 1391); and there are other instances of the kind. Such a phenomenon makes one very anxious to know how freely and under what conditions collegiate and monastic bodies were in the habit of parting with their books during the time before the Dissolution. Was there not very probably an extensive system of sale of duplicates? I prefer this notion," writes Dr. James, "to the idea that they got rid of their books ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... in the House of Lords for his Devolution plans Lord Lansdowne "declined to follow Lord Rathmore in the trenchant vituperation Lord Dunraven's scheme had encountered," and he admitted that Sir Antony MacDonnell had been in the habit of conferring with Lord Dunraven on many occasions, with the full knowledge and approval of the Chief Secretary, and had collaborated with him "in working out proposals for an improved scheme ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... imposed upon him the duty of meeting it, of paying fees for the education of his children, for hospital treatment, for medical inspection, and so forth. But that effort was not, and perhaps could not, in the existing condition of public opinion, be made; and the state has therefore got into the habit of providing and paying for all these things itself. When the majority of male adults earn twenty shillings or less a week, and possess a vote, there would be no raising of standards at all, if they had to pay the cost. Hence the state has been compelled step by step to meet the expense ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... services towards the festivity of the evening, supplied their room, whilst they refreshed themselves, and struck up an english country dance on one of the violins. The party attempted to dance it, but to show how arbitrary habit is, in the attempt, all those powers of grace, which they had before so beautifully displayed, retired as if influenced by the magic of some unpropitious spirit. Amongst the party, was a little girl, about nine ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... Such, however, is his habit only when driven by necessity. The Sauks lived too far south of the frozen regions to suffer such hardships, but one of the requirements of the war-feast was that each one of the party should eat all that he had cut from the carcass. To fail to do so was a sign of weakness sure to subject ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the future. Among them, and in the roar of the railroad shops and the bustle of the city, he lost, perhaps temporarily, that haunting sense of pain and gloom. Despite himself the deference shown him was flattering, and his old habit of making friends reasserted itself. His place was assured now. There were rumors in the air of branch lines for the Union Pacific. He was consulted for advice, importuned for positions, invited here and there. So that the days in Omaha ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... afternoon just a little bit more than common, poor thing, and put a bit of pink ribbon on and trimmed up her hat, and looked as if she began to see a little more interest in things. It didn't take much to make her look nice, particularly on horseback. Her habit fitted her out and out, and she had the sort of figure that, when a girl can ride well, and you see her swaying, graceful and easy-like, to every motion of a spirited horse, makes you think her handsomer than any woman can look on the ground. We rode pretty fast always, and ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... to get a heap of solid comfort out of chewing tobacco. Picked up the habit in Missouri, and took to it like a Yankee to pie. At that time pretty much every one in those parts chewed, except the Elder and the women, and most of them snuffed. Seemed a nice, sociable habit, and I never thought anything special about it till I came ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... acknowledged no religion. He stated that the Americans had scattered themselves over the country almost as far as Texas and corrupted the Indians and Creoles by the example of their own restless and ambitious temper; for they came from among people who were in the habit of saying to their stalwart boys, "You will go to Mexico." Already the frontiersmen had penetrated even into New Mexico from the district round the mouth of the Missouri, in which they had become very numerous; and the Bishop earnestly advised that ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... on his return, a remarkably handsome and noble-looking Indian—quite a youth—was leaning against the frame of the door, and according to the simple habit of his race, indulging his curiosity by looking at, and admiring all that he beheld within. Elmsley himself had gone out, but Von Vottenberg, still seated at the breakfast-table, was discussing, with its remains, the now nearly finished ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... vain. It was, therefore, particularly interesting to meet some one who had actually visited, and had just returned from, the spot in question. That islands do occasionally disappear entirely in these parts there can be little doubt. The Tahitian schooners were formerly in the habit of trading with a small island close to Rarotonga, whose name I forget; but about four years ago, when proceeding thither with the usual three-monthly cargo of provisions, prints, &c., they failed to find the island, of which no ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... are attributed to these unfortunate artificers; and they are also supposed to have the power of changing themselves into hyenas and other ravenous beasts. Nathaniel Pearce, the African traveller, relates that the Abyssinians are so fully convinced that these unhappy men are in the habit of rifling graves in their character of hyenas, that no one will venture to eat quareter or dried meat in their houses, nor any flesh, unless it be raw, or unless they have seen it killed. These Budas usually wear earrings of a peculiar shape, and Pearce states ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... his yellow fangs, as was his habit when uttering a cruel jest, and Nelly began to coax him, hoping to avert the unforeseen trouble she had set afoot. At last the king promised that he would take no steps against Hamilton, but I knew that royal promises were never worth the breath ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... conscience. Fifty years ago, madam, on this day, I committed a breach of filial piety, which has ever since lain heavy on my mind, and has not till this day been expiated. My father, as you recollect, was a bookseller, and had long been in the habit of attending Lichfield market, and opening a stall for the sale of his books during that day. Confined to his bed by indisposition, he requested me, this time fifty years ago, to visit the market, and attend the ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... tale serves to show how it simplifies life to have a time for everything and everything in its time. System was probably a habit in the Grundy family, and was so bred in Solomon's bones that it never occurred to him that he could reverse the order observed by the Grundys for generations back and be married on Thursday, for instance. ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... could be allowed to interfere with so important an event, and from most of their minds he had vanished. It was not so very unusual for the ong to claim a victim, and, besides, the youth had been warned by his elders that he should not go hunting alone as had been his habit of late. ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... black velvet and diamonds. Now she appeared in a startling tenue of khaki riding-breeches and flannel shirt, with one of the wide-brimmed cow-person hats. Even at the moment of greeting her I could not but reflect how shocked our dear Queen would be at the sight of this riding habit. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... face, with sparkling eyes, wearing his hair on his upper lip, after the old British fashion; his hair reddish, but in his latter days, time had sprinkled it with grey; his nose well set, but not declining or bending, and his mouth moderate large; his forehead somewhat high, and his habit always plain and modest. And thus have we impartially described the internal and external parts of a person, whose death hath been much regretted; a person who had tried the smiles and frowns of time; not puffed up in prosperity, nor shaken in adversity; ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... and is she weel-favoured? and what's the colour o' her hair? and does she wear a habit or a railly?" were the questions which the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... not in every case with the same details, but horribly common,—a man of the finest possibilities, of sturdy character, rising up to the heights of ambition, then losing his head, playing the game wantonly for mere pride and habit in it,—his judgment giving way, but playing on, stumbling, grasping at this and that to stop his sliding feet, breaking the elementary laws! And finally, in the face of disaster, alone in a hotel room the lonely old man—no doubt mentally broken by ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... barrister, but looked at Hume. He had an unpleasant habit of parting his lips closely to his teeth, like the silent snarl ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... near future, when we have acquired the necessary political and social education and the habit of behaving justly towards ourselves and towards our fellow-brothers; when free from all superstition, healthy, strong and vigorous, we find ourselves capable of governing ourselves, without there being the possibility ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... exclusively in the inculcation of certain very practical and unimaginative virtues, such as temperance, frugality, industry, moderation, cleanliness, and tranquillity. Sincerity and justice, and resolution—that indispensable fly-wheel of virtuous habit—are found in his table of virtues; but all his moral precepts seem to be based on observation and experience of life, and to express his convictions concerning what is profitable, prudent, and on the ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... observant. She had noticed two or three things. One, that there was no cross attached to the monk's rosary; another, that while he was labouring at his building he had slipped, and his left leg was exposed through his long habit, and the knee was on the back of the leg, and not the front; also the leg ended not in a foot, but in ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... themselves from toil, and to take part in the idleness. Some succeed in this, and they become just such carousers themselves; others gradually prepare themselves for this state; others still fail, and do not attain their goal, and, having lost the habit of work, they fill up the disorderly houses and ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... "Over his body was erected a very comely monument of long quadrangular form, having four corner pilasters supporting a fair table of black marble, and, within, the pourtraiture of the bishop lying in his Episcopal habit." This was destroyed in 1643. There was a long Latin inscription in prose and verse, and among the ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... inhabitants of the islands in that direction were less barbarous than those we had left. We thought, also, that we should be more likely to fall in with a whaler or sandal-wood trader belonging to New South Wales, which Mudge understood were in the habit of visiting the islands in those seas. Missionaries also, we knew, were settled on some of the islands to the southward; but, unfortunately, none of us had heard much about them, though we felt sure ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... muscles tighten, and knew that in a moment he would tear his victim to pieces. As his clenched fist came to the side of his body it struck something hard. His revolver! He had forgotten; he was not in the habit of carrying it. In an instant ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... make in the place he formerly occupied. Under his roof, you will find little of that ease and amiableness which are to be remarked in the other societies of Paris. Each individual is on his guard, and afraid of betraying himself by certain expressions, which the force of habit has not yet allowed him to forget. But if you are fond of good music, if you take a pleasure in balls, and in the company of femmes galantes or demireps; and even if first-rate jugglers, ventriloquists, and mimics amuse you ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... him of his habit, she at last returned to the churches as before, but love quickly brought tidings of this to the French gentleman, who then renewed his habits of devotion. He feared, however, that she might again throw some hindrance in his way, and that he might not have time to tell her what he would; and ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... himself the idol of his soldiers. He would go to sleep repeating the names of the corps, and even those of some of the individuals who composed them; he kept these names in a corner of his memory, and this habit came to his aid when he wanted to recognize a soldier and to give him a cheering word from his general. He spoke to the subalterns in a tone of good fellowship, which delighted them all, as he reminded them of their "common feats of arms." Then, in the third place, Bonaparte ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... up High Street, looking about everywhere but in the direction in which he was going (as is the habit of small boys), and wondering in his heart whether his funds could possibly stand the strain of another pennyworth of brandy-balls, he suddenly found himself in sharp collision with a man who expressed himself ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the Constitution alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what can not be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... no accurate description is given either of the character of the mine, or the nature of the employment in which the miners are engaged, whether they be coal, silver, or lead mines, and if they are in the habit of ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar
... and not in the habit of being spoken to as if I were a simple countrywoman," I objected. "But I will repeat what I saw last night, as it is no secret, and the telling of it won't hurt me and may ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... candidate, who might have earned his reward in the army or in the civil service. And so it often happened that he who to-day was a merchant or a soldier, to-morrow was made bishop or abbot. When, indeed, the fortunate man had a wife or was reluctant to assume the habit, he could readily get permission to place the benefice in the name of another, himself retaining the income.[104] "These new pastors," said Correro, "placed in charge of the churches men who had taken it into their heads to be clergymen ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... Carlo sucking an egg. Whisk! she was after him with a broom, and gave him a sound beating! But this did not cure Carlo of his bad habit. He went into the hen-house and ...
— Snubby Nose and Tippy Toes • Laura Rountree Smith
... serving their mothers with an unselfish devotion, or their sisters, or a cause for whose sake they forsook ease and left off thinking of themselves. It is unselfish action, growing slowly into the high habit of devotion, and at last, it may be, into a sort of consecration, that teaches a man the wide meaning of his life, and makes of him a steady professional in living, if the motive be not necessity, but love. Necessity may make a mere drudge of a man, and ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... practice continued for many years. “There is no time like the morning for a walk,” Swinburne would say, “The sparkle, the exhilaration of it. I walk every morning of my life, no matter what the weather, pelting along all the time as fast as I can go.” His perfect health he attributed entirely to this habit. ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... into Eurasia, as it was recognized by all intelligent people who took a warm interest in human progress that the use of tobacco in the form of cigarettes had an injurious effect on the young, through the pernicious habit of inhaling the smoke. Coffee and tea were put up in three grades at one dollar a package, the packages weighing in proportion to grade, and sugar was made and sold in two grades, viz., common sugar and refined. The common was put up in twenty-five-pound sacks and sold for one dollar a sack, ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... the corner of the room furthest from the windows and was shut tight. A closet, probably, and all the closets she had inspected so far had contained nothing but rubbish. However, Thankful was not in the habit of doing things by halves, so, the feebly sputtering lantern held in her left hand, she opened the door with the other and looked in. Then she uttered an exclamation ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I might otherwise have been; and if, as a teacher, I have been popular among them, it was to a great degree due to his influence. For, as will appear in many passages in this book, I have to a strange degree the habit of thinking over marked past experiences, and drawing from them precedents by which to guide my conduct; hence it has often happened that a single incident has shown itself in hundreds of others, as a star is reflected ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland |
