"Harmless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the third division of the vocabulary and can without hesitation be explained by English equivalents. In general, the principle will go rather far that the use of an occasional English word is entirely harmless, but that English sentences should as much as possible be avoided in elementary work. Connected translation, both from and into English, must absolutely be excluded from the first year's work, for the chief purpose of this year is not only the study of grammar ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... be ever remembered that digitalin is a cumulative poison, and that the same dose, harmless if taken once, yet frequently repeated becomes deadly; this peculiarity is shared by all poisons affecting ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... this harmless conceit on his part, and was even willing to cater to it a little by way of pleasing him. He seemed to me a man, honest, but slow of thought; rather practical and serious, and though overvaluing his own importance, yet not ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... no idea her husband could put on so tragical a mask. It is only harmless Harlequin who has been her companion. "The name! The name!! THE NAME!!!" Nedda sees catastrophe approaching and throws her character to the winds. She shrieks out a defiant "No!" and attempts to escape from the mimic stage. Silvio starts ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... letter ... do you fancy that in my memory the sting is not gone from it?—and that I do not carry the thought of it, as the Roman maidens, you speak of, their cool harmless snakes, at my heart always? So let the poor letter be forgiven, for the sake of the dear letter that was burnt, forgiven by you—until you grow angry with ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... the time, of the place, or of ourselves; and that the influence of solitude on our hearts and minds has not altered them for the worse, for it has not embittered us toward our fellow-creatures, and it has not dried up in us the sources from which harmless occupations and innocent pleasures may flow refreshingly to the last over the waste places of human life. Thus much for our own story, and for the circumstances which have withdrawn us from the world for the rest ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... theatricals. I thought to myself, this now is as it should be. It is good to shake off, now and then, this iron yoke round our necks. And after having once permitted us sailors to be a little noisy, in a harmless way—somewhat merrily turbulent—the officers cannot, with any good grace, be so excessively stern and unyielding as before. I began to think a man-of-war a man-of-peace-and-good-will, after all. But, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... certainly the explanation. And now, Mr. Annot, let me assure you that this disease is harmless. It ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... talk about British justice. Ye may thank yer stars at this very minute that the law hasn't its grip upon ye fer tryin' to kill a harmless boy. But I'll do it instead. I'll be the British justice, judge, lawyers, jury, and the whole dang concern combined. Now, look here, Tom Bunker, you apologise to that youngster fer what ye ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... creative power, words from that living Word, which he must study who would have his vision of God fulfilled, who would make of his 'good news' something more than a Poet's prophecy. He who found in the peaceful nitre, in the harmless sulphur, in the saltpetre, 'villanous' not yet, in the impotence of fire and sulphur, combining in vain against the motion of the resisting ball,—not less real to his eye, because not apparent,—or in the villanous compound itself, while yet the spark is wanting,—'rules' ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... cider. Temperance sentiment had not progressed far enough to bring hard cider under the ban, and Mr. Hathaway had lately pressed out a quantity of the old-fashioned beverage. The boys, supposing it a harmless drink, took all they desired—much more than they could carry. They were in a deplorable condition when Mr. Hathaway found them; and much distressed, the good old man put Eugene to bed and brought ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... an old-fashioned picture," said Bat, the quaint characteristics of the composition in the frame of the window appealing to him. "I wonder if I've not been a little hasty with these notions of mine about this place. That old lad looks as harmless as——" ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... Athenians, when they were dying of the plague, accused the Lacedaemonians outside the walls of poisoning their wells; or how, in some of the pestilences of the Middle Ages, the common people used to accuse the poor harmless Jews of poisoning the wells, and set upon them and murdered them horribly. They were right, I do not doubt, in their notion that the well-water was giving them the pestilence: but they had not sense to see that they were poisoning the wells themselves by their ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Still, harmless are these occupations, [xii] That hurt none but the hapless student, Compar'd with other recreations, Which bring together ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... Fioretti already exhales from these pages so full of candor and manliness; we can follow the missionaries stage by stage, then when they are settled, open the door of the monastery and read in the very hearts of these men, many of whom are as brave as heroes and harmless ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... clearness magnified the detail of the next, the portals of which were coral, dyed extravagantly and variously according to the secret of the sea, with its inexhaustible chemicals. Fish in unimaginable shapes, fantastic hues, and sea-things harmless and educative to the sight, roamed the coral gardens, retiring at will into sapphire-blue caverns or flashing in the clearness with lightning speed and scarce visible effort. Cream and yellow, old gold, blue, pink and lavender, the corals ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... pulling bravely and steadily, and their Bishop standing over them, trying to ward off the blows with the rudder, and gazing with the deep eyes and steadfast smile that had caused many a weapon to fall harmless! ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Oh, it was harmless enough, and yet you will confess it was very queer. I had gone out for a walk, but as the snow began to fall I took shelter under the shed which the workmen have built at the near end of the great new house. The men have gone, you know, and the owner ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... neighbourhood who was partly insane, and who, roaming amongst the castle ruins, usually ran straight towards any strangers as if to do them injury; but if we met him we must not be afraid, as he was perfectly harmless. We had no desire to meet a madman, and luckily, although we kept a sharp look-out, we did not see him. We found the ruined castle resting on a rock overlooking the sea with the rolling waves dashing on its base below; it was connected with the mainland by a very narrow strip broken through ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Carnival is often called in France after the last day of the period which he personates. He was brought before a mock tribunal, and being condemned to death was placed with his back to a wall, like a soldier at a military execution, and fired at with blank cartridges. At Vrigne-aux-Bois one of these harmless buffoons, named Thierry, was accidentally killed by a wad that had been left in a musket of the firing-party. When poor Shrove Tuesday dropped under the fire, the applause was loud and long, he did it so naturally; ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... lioness now began to growl or moan, complaining, I had no doubt, that I had bitten her and that it was obviously the duty of her lord and master to see that such a venomous creature as myself was rendered harmless before her precious darlings ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Bjorn, "I never had it in my head that any man should stand before me as a shield, but still as things are thou must have thy way; but for all that, with my gift of wit and my swiftness I may be of some use to thee, and not harmless to our foes." ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... potash as will stand on a three-cent piece, and then beat in three eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately. Pour this into a buttered earthen dish; bake in a quick oven, and serve at once. In all cases where cheese disagrees it will be found that the bi-carbonate of potash renders it harmless. ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... use my gun. I got one hand on his throat in the most approved style of the garrotte and just pressed. He wriggled a little at first, but I kept up the same even pressure, and presently he went limp. I knew then that he was harmless for the next ten minutes, so I released my hold, slipped my useless Colt into my pocket, and made to stand up. But at that precise moment the electric light in the hall went on, and a silvery ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... find nothing but a kind of careless mockery in his face—a hard half smile upon his lips as he went on saying the hard things which cut home and left me quivering, and which he yet uttered as if they had been the most harmless pleasantries or the merest ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... postmarked 'Jonah'—but don't be alarmed; they say it's a harmless one. I'm going to ride over with the mail. Just a little matter of twenty miles, a trifle out here! Kitty says she doesn't see how we can expect any letters to reach a place with such a name, but I've faith in the collection of relatives left ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... that, Oscar; every one except your Aunt Lizzie. She stood still and told us how harmless the snakes were until, knowing her I suppose, they all glided up to her when she climbed a chair, too, very quickly. Luckily Ned happened to be in the house and heard the commotion and ran in. He whipped the snakes up and wound them about his arm as coolly ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... beyond all these and other gratifications of the senses (which include not only those things usually known as "vicious," but all those which, though ordinarily regarded as "innocent," have yet the disqualification of ministering to the pleasures of the body—the most harmless to others and the least "gross" being the criterion for those to be last abandoned in each case)—must be carried on the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Senate, and not by lot; for the principle of the lot, he quaintly urged, was hostile to the right of election which belonged to the Senate. Against such conscious sophistry all the bolts of logic were harmless. The question was left undecided, in order that the Senate might forthwith declare in favour of its own right to determine every year not only the elections to, but the exclusions from, the Tribunate and the Corps Legislatif. A senatus ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... far better have rested on the impossibility and the uselessness, if possible, of a faultless translation; and admitting certain mistakes, and oversights, have recommended them for notice at the next revision; and then asked, what objection such harmless trifles could be to a Church that never pretended to infallibility! But in fact the age was not ripe enough even for a Hooker to feel, much less with safety to expose, the Protestants' idol, that is, ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... all beside, Harmless past me loves to glide; Change, that mortals must obey, Ne'er shall shake my gentle sway; Still 'tis mine all hearts to ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... mine harmless by discharging it prematurely with the aid of rifle and machine-gun fire would, of course, be made by the crew of the airship, but the trawling mine would prove a very difficult target to strike. If such a ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... countess, had become jealous of her political influence, and had endeavored to prevent his consulting her on public affairs. But all manoeuvres intended to disturb the conjugal felicity of the royal pair were harmless against the honest fidelity of the king, the graceful affection of the queen, and the firm confidence of each in the other. The people generally felt that the influence which it was now notorious that the ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Austin was in love with her. Now she knew it. He proclaimed it in a thousand ways. A note of exultation in his laugh, like that in a blackbird's call, alone proclaimed it. Instinct told her of harmless words she might use which would bring the plain avowal. But the hour was too delicate. As yet nothing was demanded. All was given. Her woman's vanity blossomed deliciously in the atmosphere of a man's love. Her heart had not yet received the inevitable summons to respond. She ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... kill the birds!—the happy birds That bless the field and grove: Such harmless things to look upon, They claim ...
— Gems of Poetry, for Girls and Boys • Unknown
... sign that tells you meals will be served and rooms provided. One of these is the rendezvous of Anarchists, who gather each evening and discuss the affairs of the world, and how to regulate them. But they are harmless Anarchists in San Francisco, for here they have no wrongs to redress, so they sit and drink their forbidden absinthe, and dream their dreams of fire and sword, while they talk in whispers of what they are going to do ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... of Chumbo, however, I was not satisfied that the antidote had been really required, for he confessed to me that he believed he had been bitten by a coral snake—which he declared was most venomous, whereas I have since learned that it is perfectly harmless. But I believe that no specific has yet been discovered to prevent the fatal effects of bites by the ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... on the death penalty," said Von Koren. "If it is proved that it is pernicious, devise something else. If we can't destroy Laevsky, why then, isolate him, make him harmless, send him to ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... beetles are harmless, old clothes retain no characteristics of their former owners, no matter how blood-thirsty, and empty bottles probably never contained fatal potions. If the place is dark, press your finger on this"—he thrust a small electric ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... a man at my instance issues a hundred and thirty-five writs, to be sure I must bear him harmless; how long has your ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... a rule, are very little used. They mostly consist of quassia, gentian and camomile, and these substitutes are quite harmless per se, but impart an unpleasantly rough and bitter ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... my life, perhaps, I was greatly puzzled. I could not see why I should be forbidden to refer to such a pleasant and harmless subject—a subject that, looked at from no matter what point of view, did not appear to me to be in the slightest degree indelicate. The more I thought over it, the more convinced I became that there was some association between ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... the whole mass of questions concerning the unseen world, which the priests had stimulated in his cousin's mind into an unhealthy fungus crop, were to Amyas simply, as he expressed it, "wind and moonshine;" and he treated his cousin as a sort of harmless lunatic, and, as they say in Devon, "half-baked." And Eustace knew it; and knew, too, that his cousin did him an injustice. "He used to undervalue me," said he to himself; "let us see whether he does not find me a match for him now." And then ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... these cops when they come up said the two men was desperate crooks wanted in every state in the Union; but I swore I knew them both well and they was harmless; and I made it right with 'em about the reward as soon as I got back to a check book. After that they'd have believed anything I said. And I sent something over to the Blackhanders that had turned out to help look, and something to Conductor ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... is likely to engage in pleasant and harmless flirtations if her bonnet is new and of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... being the choice of a sensible, intelligent man like Mr. Allen. In one respect she was admirably fitted to introduce a young lady into public, being as fond of going everywhere and seeing everything herself as any young lady could be. Dress was her passion. She had a most harmless delight in being fine; and our heroine's entree into life could not take place till after three or four days had been spent in learning what was mostly worn, and her chaperone was provided with a dress of the newest fashion. Catherine too made some purchases herself, and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... kissed me with an angelic tenderness. He said—oh, so softly and so sadly!—I have no life now, apart from you.' As those words passed his lips, the thought seemed to rise in my mind like an echo, 'Why not live out all the days that are left to me, happy and harmless in a love like this!' I can't explain it—I can't realize it. That was the thought in me at the time; and that is the thought in me still. I see my own hand while I write the words—and I ask myself whether it is really the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... cast a curious eye. To cityfolk a piece of rope is a harmless thing with which one may make a trunk secure or on occasion construct a clothes line on the roof of the apartment building, or in the kitchen on ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... with life endowed, take life away? Torture not the poor ant, which drags the grain Along the dust; it has a life, and life Is sweet and precious. Did the innocent ant Offend thee ever? Cruel must he be Who would destroy a living thing so harmless! And wilt thou, reckless, shed thy brother's blood, And agonize the feelings of a father? Pause, and avoid the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... truth, these orphans do not seem to grieve much for their bereavement, but lead a life of joyous and rather indolent oblivion in their quarter of the city. They are often to be seen sauntering up and down the street by which the Oharlesbridge cars arrive—the young with a harmless swagger and the old with the generic limp which our Autocrat has already noted as attending advanced years in their race.... How gaily are the young ladies of this race attired, as they trip up and ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... seen them," said the tutor, "in Monsieur Claude's pocket. When he can show me similar ones in a toad's head I will believe. Meanwhile, I must beg of you, Monsieur, to put up your sword. You must not kill this poor animal, which is quite harmless, and very useful in a garden—it feeds upon many insects and ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... said the priest, with a significant and peculiar look at Mrs. Mowbray, "I see no reason why this should be rejected. I should not have suspected you, madam, of such weakness. Grant there were evil spell, or charm, attached to it, which, trust me, there is not—as how should there be, to a harmless piece of gold?—my benediction, and aspersion with holy lymph, will have sufficient power to exorcise and expel it. To remove your fears it ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... similar practice is found, and where the practice is no longer irrational and anomalous, but in harmony with the manners and ideas of the people among whom it prevails. That Greeks should dance about in their mysteries with harmless serpents in their hands looks quite unintelligible. When a wild tribe of Red Indians does the same thing, as a trial of courage, with real rattlesnakes, we understand the Red Man's motives, and may conjecture that similar motives once existed among the ancestors of the Greeks. Our method, then, ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... insinuations become almost harmless; and the accusation of mere twaddling, such as that which was brought against Mr. Urquhart in the following lines, seems, by ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... it, was in fact work for a "harmless drudge," the definition of a lexicographer given in the book itself. Etymology in a scientific sense was as yet non-existent, and Johnson was not in this respect ahead of his contemporaries. To collect all the words in the language, to define ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... round me tho' he kept some Distance, and spoke in a threatning Tone. I answer'd in a melancholy one, and in my own Language, That I was an unfortunate shipwreck'd Man. The Youngster, I suppose, thinking me a harmless Animal, ventured to strike at me, and if I had not avoided the Stroke, I believe he had split my Skull, for his Spurrs were about Eighteen Inches long, near Five about, and as sharp ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... distinguished writer Letheby says of this parasite: "As found in the human subject (after death) it is usually in the encysted state, when it has passed beyond its dangerous condition, and has become harmless. In most cases, when thus discovered, there is no record of its action, and therefore it was once thought to be an innocent visitor; but we now know that while it was free, (that is, before nature ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... they meant by their rights, a question in which he was quite sincere, for he had not any idea of any rights that he had, except the right to hunt for a job, and do as he was told when he got it. Generally, however, this harmless question would only make his fellow workingmen lose their tempers and call him a fool. There was a delegate of the butcher-helpers' union who came to see Jurgis to enroll him; and when Jurgis found ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... reason to be ashamed. The whole of my public life may be comprised in eight or nine months of my 22nd year; and the whole of my political sins during that time, consisted in forming a plan of taking a large farm in common, in America, with other young men of my age. A wild notion indeed, but very harmless. ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... That's what worried me." All of a sudden, his hearers got a clear idea of what the man had suffered. It was plainly to be detected in his voice. "It might have been a harmless love affair, a flirtation, with letters involved, letters which she thought would distress me if I ever ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... tell a lie. Taylor says: "To tell a lie for charity, to save a man's life, the life of a friend, of a husband, of a prince, of a useful and a public person, hath not only been done at all times, but commended by great and wise and good men. Who would not save his father's life, at the charge of a harmless lie, from persecutors or tyrants?" Again, Milton says: "What man in his senses would deny, that there are those whom we have the best grounds for considering that we ought to deceive—as boys, madmen, the sick, ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... a rabbit, erect upon his haunches, working away at the twin brother of the acorn he had dropped upon my hat to break my reverie, rasping it audibly with his chisel-shaped teeth, and grinning at me just as coolly as though I were a harmless scare-crow. ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... and disastrous losses were ften inflicted on the wine-grower. Every one of these diseases was traced to the life of an organism. Pasteur ascertained the temperature which killed these ferments of disease, proving it to be so low as to be perfectly harmless to the wine. By the simple expedient of heating the wine to a temperature of fifty degrees Centigrade, he rendered it inalterable, and thus saved his country the loss of millions. He then went on to vinegar—vin aigre, acid ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... There he takes up his abode and holds communion with the contrite spirit. The real merits and consolations of virtue are secured to its possessor by the impartial legislation of righteous heaven. Intemperance in its effects, compared with slandering, is harmless; at least so far as producing discord is concerned. The peaceable drunkard, compared even with that church member, who is continually sowing discord in society, is an angel. Slander is but the infectious breath or a foul spirit, ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... respectable class. A little thin, whitish hair, parted in the middle, showed under her bonnet; her eyes, of the faded no-color of the old, stared unintelligently out of her hard, wrinkled face; her long, straight, hairy chin, rather hooked nose and thin-lipped mouth made an ensemble which suggested a harmless, tedious old lady who could "nag" when ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... an' I blamed soon shawed un he was out. Theer's a thing I can do an' shall do. 'T will sweep the ground from under un; 't will blaw off his vengeance harmless as a gun fired in the air; 't will turn his malice so sour as beer after thunder. I be gwaine to give myself up—then us'll see who's ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... you would indulge yourself in a little harmless mirth now and then, your mind would get rested and you would return to divine things with fresh zeal. Why should not the mind have its seasons of rest as well as ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... its handle and sheath, And its blade made of innocent wood; 'Twere well if all swords were as harmless as this, And as equally ...
— The Wonders of a Toy Shop • Anonymous
... not that a cruel and heartless doctrine which excludes from heaven so many harmless babes that have never committed any actual fault? To this I reply: Has not God declared that Baptism is necessary for all? And is not God the supreme Wisdom and Justice and Mercy? I am sure, then, that there can ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... between them. What if he did not intend going to church the next day? Was that any reason why he should not look a little tidier when his hard week's-work was over, and his nightly habit was turned into the comparatively harmless indulgence of a Saturday, in sure hope of the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... "He was born great; but they developed the animal in him." The greatness postponed its appearance, but the animality did credit to the development. "He used to love to beat his dogs; before long he beat his prostitutes." This harmless diversion accentuated itself in details, for which, till the acme, the reader must be referred to the original. The climacteric moment came. He had a mistress called "La Mantovana," whom he rather preferred to the others, because she was ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... a squirrel came tiptoeing across the moss, and struck tail momentarily to observe her. He looked critically at her, first with one round eye, and then, turning his sleek head, with the other, and decided that she was harmless. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... catching fire one by one, and the rafters were burning like tinder. But, inside, the children went on amusing themselves quite happily. The distracted Father said: "I will run in and save my children. I will seize them in my strong arms, I will bear them harmless through the falling rafters and the blazing beams." Then the sad thought came to him that the children were romping and ignorant. "If I say the house is on fire, they will not understand me. If I try to seize them, they will ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... witnesses to relate the reasons of her leaving the Harmless was impossible; and from such a party to send for Mrs Delvile, would, by her stately guardian, be deemed an indecorum unpardonable. She was obliged, therefore, to return to Portman-square, in order to open her cause in a letter ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... point of view," one of them would say, after an apparently harmless proposition had been advanced. "Perhaps so," the other would reply, clinging desperately to the advantage of the first service in definitions, "but you ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... minute plants which they bear along? There is nothing certain in the matter. Under any circumstances, they are excellent to drink, of a freshness quite enviable for the climate, and without after-taste, and perfectly harmless. Take a little of the water, Minha, and drink it; you will find ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... trying to get rid of its American stocks, and the United States were made to realize that in the hour of a political catastrophe every nation has to stand on its own feet, and that all the diplomatic notes and the harmless sentimentalities of foreign states will avail nothing. So it was after the terrible night of Port Arthur and so ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... the men almost beyond James's holding. Then the strength went out of her suddenly, she ceased to fight, and but for Colonel Sullivan's grasp she would have fallen her length on the floor. He knew that she was harmless then, and he thrust her into the nearest chair. He kicked the broken sword under the table, staunched the blood that trickled fast from his cheek; last of all, he looked at the men who were contending with James ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... What, are you answer'd yet? Some men there are love not a gaping pig;[101] Some, that are mad if they behold a cat; Now for your answer. As there is no firm reason to be render'd Why he cannot abide a gaping pig; Why he a harmless necessary cat; So can I give no reason, nor I will not, More than a lodg'd hate, and a certain loathing, I bear Antonio, that I follow thus A losing suit against him. ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... whelps, seventeen to one, they set upon her so thickly that their trouble was not to destroy one another. Near the beginning one cut her own flag-ship almost to the water-line. The first that smote the quarry—at ten knots speed—glanced and her broadside rolled harmless into the bay, while two guns of her monster adversary let daylight through and through the wooden ship. From the turret of a close-creeping monitor came the four-hundred-and-forty-pound bolt of her fifteen-inch gun, crushing the lone foe terribly yet not quite piercing through. ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... night." *8 Before these fires had become pale in the light of the morning, the Spaniards were roused by the hideous clamor of conch, trumpet, and atabal, mingled with the fierce war-cries of the barbarians, as they let off volleys of missiles of every description, most of which fell harmless within the city. But others did more serious execution. These were burning arrows, and red-hot stones wrapped in cotton that had been steeped in some bituminous substance, which, scattering long trains of light through the air, fell on the roofs of the buildings, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... remaining metals are not deposited from acid solutions. It is therefore necessary that the solution should be free from metals which may vitiate the results, or special precautions taken by which the impurities are rendered harmless. In such cases the simplicity of manipulation and the high degree of accuracy of the method have made it especially valuable. The electrolysis is generally conducted with platinum electrodes, of which the cathode takes ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... reference to the den age, when no such thing as science existed on the earth. these charges, that of heresy soon became the most dangers, and Gyraldus himself, when he afterwards republished a perfectly harmless youthful work, was compelled to take refuge neath the mantle of Duke Ercole II of Ferrara, since men had the upper hand who held that people had better spend their time on Christian themes than on mythological researches. justifies himself on ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... loveliness. But presently Athelny grew restless and announced that he would go and ask how Robert Kemp's mother was. He knew everyone in the garden and called them all by their Christian names; he knew their family histories and all that had happened to them from birth. With harmless vanity he played the fine gentleman among them, and there was a touch of condescension in his familiarity. Philip would not go ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... If there'd only been some reason. He was a harmless fellow. Altogether like a little lamb. It must be just that ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... as a peaceful, harmless grub," I explained, still somewhat bewildered by the feat I had performed, and considerably shaken by the fear that I was degenerating into a positive ruffian. "You will believe me, I hope, when I declare that I was merely acting in ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... pips to be crushed to a powder and taken in the proportion of 1 teaspoonful to a cup of hot water. This is a harmless sedative, and useful in ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... he did at last plant his foot on the veritable Land's End, he found that it was a precipice apparently sixty feet high, which descended perpendicularly into deep water. His meditated bathe was therefore an impossibility, for those glassy undulations, which appeared so harmless at a distance, gathered slow and gradual height as they approached the land, and at last, assuming the form of majestic waves, flung themselves with a grand roar on the stern cliffs which they have battered so long in vain, and ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... and in one case at least of inexcusably coarse insult; but he was by this time (1861) shorn of his temporal power, and had become the "Prisoner of the Vatican;" and his "liberalism," so much applauded in his ante-aggressive days, was all forgotten. Nevertheless, some of Punch's references were harmless and innocent enough, such as that in which he asks, in 1861: "Why can the Emperor of the French never be Pope?" and himself replies, "Because it is impossible that three crowns can ever ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... harmless things, so it doesn't matter," replied the Tiger. "For my part, I'm a savage beast, and have an appetite for all sorts of poor little living creatures, from a ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... idiotic. It was utterly irrational. It was an impossible end for an able-bodied young American, an excavator of no mean attainments, a young scholar and explorer of twentieth century science, a sane, modern, harmless young man, to die immured in the ancient walls of a Turkish palace—because he had invaded a marriage reception and intervened ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... rheumatism, and could take only long not rapid strides; and if the children had a tolerable start, and had not the misfortune to choose in their terror an impassable direction, they were pretty sure to get off. Jamie Duff, the most harmless and conscientious creature, who would not have injured a young fir upon any temptation, did take a wrong direction, caught his foot in a hole, fell into a furze bush, and, nearly paralysed with terror, was seized by the long fingers of Adam, and ignominiously lifted ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... old red shawl, then I shall make a gay show among the great ones in that astonishing rug. Yes, they are all lunatics, these lion-hunters; but this seems to be a harmless maniac, for she doesn't take my time, and gives me a good laugh,' said Mrs Jo, returning to her work after a glance from the window, which showed her a tall, thin lady in rusty black, skipping wildly to and fro on the lawn in pursuit of ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... state, these chemicals are not harmless, as is so generally believed. It is a very prevalent idea that when soda is neutralized by an acid, both chemical compounds are in some way destroyed or vaporized in the process, and in some occult manner escape from the bread during the process of baking. ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... mysterious and quite diabolical talent for making my un-friends uncomfortable, and declares he would compromise rather than fight me at any time. Of course it's ridiculous—just one of his jokes—and I'm really harmless and very much afraid. That's why I want you and me to ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... off and returned to the place where the gods were amusing themselves by using Balder as a target, hurling stones and darts, and trying to strike him with their battle-axes. But all these weapons were harmless. Then Loki, giving the twig of mistletoe to the blind god, Hoeder, directed his hand and induced him to throw it. When the mistletoe struck Balder it pierced him through and through and ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... Grape-growers commonly call these insects "thrips," a name, however, which really belongs to a very different class of insects. The injury done by this pest varies greatly with the season and the locality, in some regions it being comparatively harmless and in others exceedingly destructive in seasons when it occurs in abundance. There is great variation also in individual vineyards, those near favorable hibernating places and early spring food plants ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... rich old vrouw twenty years his senior, and that is all I have to say about him, except that if possible I disliked him more when he walked out of the house than when he walked in; though why I should have done so I do not know, for he was a harmless body. Perhaps it was because he played the flute, which I have always thought contemptible in ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... Rabbis and teachers so that they bent their heads and fled through the curtained entrances. But the Rabbis, the Pharisees, and the Temple guards assembled in the side courts, and quickly took counsel how they were to seize this madman and render Him harmless. For see, ever more people streamed through the gates into the forecourt, surrounded the angry Prophet, and shouted: "Praised be Thou, O Nazarene, who art come to cleanse the Temple! Praise and all ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... lamps; all undulating by me, bright-eyed and hissing, all made innocuous by fear,—even the terrible Death-adder, which I trampled on as I halted at the verge of the circle, did not turn to bite, but crept harmless away. I halted at the gap between the two dead lamps, and bowed my head to look again into the crystal vessel. Were there, indeed, no lingering drops yet left, if but to recruit the lamps for some priceless ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the proud presences that had stared at him down the vistas of Daunt House, and shone in cold transplanted beauty under his own painted cornices: there they were, gathered in humble promiscuity about his bent shabby figure, like superb wild creatures tamed to become the familiars of some harmless ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... on, things went forward of themselves. Again and again, some harmless observation on his part drew forth a caustic reply from her; it was as if, having once experienced it, she found an outcry of this kind a relief to her surcharged nerves. At first, what she said was directed chiefly against herself—this ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... There are innumerable varieties of serpents, big and small, venomous and harmless. It may almost be said (especially towards the plain) that every bush and every tree ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... have not succeeded. Let me ask you now:—How would you arrange goods—are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... but is seldom seen beyond the solstitial point, preferring the latitude within the tropics; he is also found in the Mediterranean sea, and also in the gulf of Lyons, where he is peculiarly savage. The blue shark, seen in the English channel, is seldom dangerous; others, larger but less harmless, infest the northern seas, and are often pursued by the whalers merely for sport. Then there is the spotted or tiger shark, not very large but exceedingly rapacious; the hammer shark, which derives its name ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... deadly as this. Grave and venerable judges, sages though they may be, rest upon it, and thereon base decisions involving millions of property, and sometimes life itself. And though, as Blackstone has declared, a bad precedent in law is comparatively harmless, inasmuch as succeeding judges are in no wise bound by it, but free, and in fact bound to decide the law as it was before the evil precedent was established, and to interpret it as it ought to be, yet in national affairs this is not so. No matter how ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Cocoa-butter is the substance generally chosen for cheap soluble pessaries, because it is easily obtainable, and has what is called a sharp melting point—that is, it dissolves or melts very suddenly and readily at body-heat, but is solid below that heat. Cocoa-butter in itself is quite harmless—usually non-irritating (unless it is "rancid")—and it gives some mechanical protection, in the same way as vaseline or any kind of fat or oil would do, provided, of course, it is in the right place to catch and entangle the spermatazoa and thus ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout
... then, under the influence of M. La Perruque's sermons, was an infatuated Royalist. It would be interesting to know more of this priest whose inspiration is obvious throughout the whole story. Louis XVIII agreed with M. Decazes that the man was quite harmless; and he was sent back ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... covered with dust and mud, their horses exhausted, to be met and passed by fresh posses starting out to continue the pursuit. The sheriff of Santa Clara County sent down his bloodhounds from San Jose—small, harmless-looking dogs, with a terrific bay—to help in the chase. Reporters from the San Francisco papers appeared, interviewing every one, sometimes even accompanying the searching bands. Horse hoofs clattered over the roads at night; bells were rung, the "Mercury" ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... back, he showed Bertie a stick of dynamite attached to a fish hook. Now it happens that a paper-wrapped bottle of chlorodyne with a piece of harmless fuse projecting can fool anybody. It fooled Bertie, and it fooled the natives. When Captain Hansen lighted the fuse and hooked the fish hook into the tail end of a native's loin cloth, that native was smitten ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... teasing began to show itself among the boys. They liked to frighten the girls, as thoughtless boys often do, and after such harmless pranks as spattering water over them, to hear their little screams of protest, they fell to the more dangerous, but very common, play of rocking the boat, threatening to ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... some people! What do you want me to do, Paul? Wait on her? Be her little maid? Soothe her nerves or what? I'll do it all, though in her eyes I shall remain both wretched and deformed, a creature to pity, the harmless, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... at the first possible instant. So promiscuous was the effect that it was a mere chance which prevented the vessel which bore the German Ambassador from being destroyed by a German mine. From first to last some hundreds of people have lost their lives on this tract of sea, some of them harmless British trawlers, but the greater number sailors of Danish and Dutch vessels pursuing their commerce as they had every right to do. It was the first move in a consistent policy ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... soft soap. This sort of paste one often sees in the country. But it is easy to omit the soap. On the next bread-making day, simply reserve a piece of the well-raised dough, and roll in butter. This gives a palatable and harmless crust. I have also experimented with a shortening of hot, fine-mashed potato and milk, which, if it may not be recommended to an epicure, is really better than it sounds, And does it not sound better ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... which sent a strange stirring of excitement along the nerves of the young man. He gathered his books to move away; but on second thoughts, looking through the long, swaying tendrils of the broom under which he sat, he resolved to remain. After all, the girls might be as harmless as his helper ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... the stomach. "Champagne," said Curran, "simply gives a runaway rap at a man's head." Dr. Druitt, equally distinguished by his studies upon wine and his standing as a physician, pronounces good champagne to be "a true stimulant to body and mind alike, rapid, volatile, transitory, and harmless. Amongst the maladies which are benefited by it," remarks he, "is the true neuralgia, intermitting fits of excruciating pain running along certain nerves, without inflammation of the affected part, often a consequence ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... Wittenberg, enjoying a harmless jest at Jena by the way. There his disguise of red mantle and doublet so deceived fellow-travellers that they told him their intention of going to see Martin Luther return, without realizing that they were speaking ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... eighteen elephants were made to fight with soldiers; and, as a yet more extraordinary phenomenon, the sanguinary Roman spectators showed signs of compunction at their sufferings. The poor beasts were quiet and harmless. When wounded with the lances, they turned away, threw up their trunks, and trotted round the circus, crying, as if in protest against wanton cruelty. The story went that they were half human; that they had been seduced on board the African transports by a promise that ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... is stilled. No gas fumes poison the winter air. No clouds of burning cities darken the sun. Better than all, no life blood flows; the fighting men rest in their lines, the bayonet is sheathed, the bullet sleeps harmless in its clip. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... main body and flying. The mass of the rioters, however, held their ground, seeing how small was the number of their opponents. A flight of arrows was shot when they were some sixty yards distant, but as all were bending forward in their saddles, and the arrows were shot in haste, most of them fell harmless; three or four of the horses were struck, and plunged violently from the pain, but still kept on with the others. With a shout the party fell upon the rioters, the weight of the riders and horses throwing great numbers to the ground, while the knights ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... only. He plots to be free of her: she goes to England and dies there to the genteelest of slow music. Their son Horatio falls in love with a certain Julietta, who is immured by wicked arts in the "Convent of Grey Penitents," tormented by the head, Gradisca, but rescued, and so forth. The book, if harmless, is about as worthless as a book can be: but it represents, very fairly, the ruck, if not indeed even the main body, of the enormous horde of romances which issued from the press towards the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... that. It remains, then, that you think me better than most people. But that I ain't vain enough to believe; though, from vanity, I confess, I could never yet, by my best wrestlings, entirely free myself; nor, indeed, to be frank, am I at bottom over anxious to—this same vanity, barber, being so harmless, so useful, so comfortable, so ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... it prefers the tropics: it is, however, to be seen in the Mediterranean, in the Gulf of Lyons, and is there remarkably fierce. In the English Channel you find the blue shark, which is seldom dangerous; there is also a very large-sized but harmless shark found in the north seas, which the whalers frequent. Then there is the spotted or tiger shark, which is very savage, although it does not grow to a large size; the hammer-headed shark, so called from the peculiar formation of ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... there, could have made any difference," added the captain, as he sounded his whistle again, and heard a faint response from the shore. "As long as he was not actually on board of the steamer, he was harmless." ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... it will only be a sham duel so far as we are concerned, but will, in the most harmless fashion possible, prove you to be a man of honor and courage. Major Sampson's scruples will vanish, and you will have the pleasure of gaining his daughter's ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... welcome half-heartedly, and questioned him craftily. A sheriff is not a detective, and does not mind giving harmless information; so Rowdy learned that they had traced Conroy thus far, and believed that he was ahead of them and making for Canada. He had dodged them cleverly two or three times, but now they had ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... must indeed have been qualmish prudes. Of all plays it is the most harmless. The scene in the fourth Act to which exception was taken seems to have been No. II, after the marriage of Gasper and Antonia, a most trifling and inept business. In Act V, IV, Alexis says to Viola: 'As for you Madam bread and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... the knife-throwing act. He recovered two thousand dollars damages. Another sprained an ankle. Had to pay him eight dollars a week for six months. Now they put the clause in the contract holding the circus harmless in such matters. Where it's a minor, they insist further that parent or guardian also ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... have a butler who has coughed his irresistible way through two-and-a-half generations. It is a perfectly harmless affliction, but it gets on nerves in the same way as it did when first it huicked and honked and strangled and choked in the seventies of last century. I can see no decrease in its vigour or its variety. It deserves the chance of immortality that I hereby offer it, thus giving it a place beside ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... in September and October who seldom arrived before November. War was coming. Hundreds of families whose men were in the army came to be within touch of the War Office and Aldershot, and the capital of the Empire was overrun by intriguers, harmless and otherwise. There were ladies who hoped to influence officers in high command in favour of their husbands, brothers, or sons; subalterns of title who wished to be upon the staff of some famous general; colonels of character and courage and scant ability, craving ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... area. The town of Anzin, on the bank of the river Scarpe, was filled with heavy batteries. To ride through it was to run the risk of many unpleasant surprises from the sudden firing of big guns by the wayside. Once, I was approaching an apparently harmless hole in a brick wall, when all of a sudden Dandy and I found ourselves enveloped in flame and almost stunned by a huge report. As we bounded past the hole, I saw a large gun moving up and down under the force of its recoil, and with smoke still ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... eyes, pink and white complexion, and a general wax-dollyness about her; and just such a tiny, foolishly obstinate mouth as usually goes with a face like hers. She is vain, but never ill-natured, unless it suits her purpose; frivolous, but in the main harmless; and, although indifferent to her husband,—of whom she is utterly unworthy,—takes care to be thoroughly respectable. Full of the desire, but without the pluck, to go altogether wrong, she skirts around the edges of her pet sins, yet having a care that all those who pass by shall see ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... wood-choppers do the most harm. If I had my way, there would be a big bounty for the destruction of foxes, and a heavy fine for all trappers of game. The country would be tenfold more interesting if it were full of wild, harmless, useful creatures. I hope the time will come when our streams will be again thoroughly stocked with fish, and our wild lands with game. If hawks, foxes, trappers, and other nuisances could be abolished, there would be space on yonder mountains for partridges to flourish by the million. ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe |
