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More "Criticise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as at the places which first produced them. Its individuals have the same faults, however, with the Germans, of making more use of their memory than their judgment. The chief employment of their literati is to criticise, or answer, the new performances ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... accomplishing anything worthy of honor, which requires effort and self-denial, they aim to secure a reputation for superior wisdom by criticising the Bible. There is much which the finite mind, unenlightened by divine wisdom, is powerless to comprehend; and thus they find occasion to criticise. There are many who seem to feel that it is a virtue to stand on the side of unbelief, skepticism, and infidelity. But underneath an appearance of candor, it will be found that such persons are actuated by self-confidence and pride. Many delight in finding something in the Scriptures to puzzle ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... those who criticise an existing state of things ought to be prepared with some constructive legislation which would remedy the evils they denounce. Though it is unlikely that the Government of India will take my advice, either wholly or ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... women is very seductive; and it is known that the girls, far from being untractable to the cura, consider themselves lucky to attract his attention, and their mother, father, and relatives share that sentiment with them. What virtue and stoicism does not the friar need to possess! Let those who criticise them on this point imagine themselves to be living in a village without relatives or friends, or any other fellow-countrymen, at least with whom they can converse; and then let them be candid. Don Inigo Azaola told me that, meditating ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... veterans criticise their sleek juniors, with a round assertion that if these youngsters had had to fight their way on a crust, as the veteran said he did, they would be vastly better men for it. I do not believe it. Hard work, and even disappointment and loss, are ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... transcends thought for the sake of experience, the philosopher must transcend experience for the sake of thought. As the poet sees all, and all in each, so the philosopher, knowing each, must think all consistently together, and then know each again. It is the part of philosophy to collect and criticise evidence, to formulate and coordinate conceptions, and finally to define in exact terms. The reanimation of the structure of thought is accomplished primarily in religion, which is a general conception of the world made the basis ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... foot too tall for you," said Rags, more because it amused him to prolong the scene than through a real desire to criticise. "You don't go in ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... part he would send me back to my company, where I would have to do duty like the rest. I told him I was one of the talking backest fellows he ever saw, and that one of my duties as a newspaper man was to criticise the conduct of the war. Then he said I might report to the captain of my company. It seemed hard to go into the ranks, after having had a soft job with the chaplain, and again as colonel's orderly, but I thought if I got my back up and ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... precise, the perfect, able to say, "It cannot be better done," yet re-engraving a portion of his best-known plate, and frankly leaving the rejected portion half erased?[6] Titian, whose custom it was to lay aside his pictures for long periods and then criticise them, imagining that he was looking at them "with the eyes of his ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... of claiming much originality for the modern deism of India. This work was written in 1645, and its Persian author describes, as a matter of every-day occurrence, religious debates between 'Jews, Nazarines, Mussulmen, and Hindus,' who meet more to criticise than to examine, but yet to hear explained in full the doctrines of their opponents, in just such tourneys of argument as we showed to be popular among the priests of the Upanishads and epic. Speaking of the Vedas, the author says that every ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... simple morning toilettes here, as we have no gentleman guests for whom to dress, nor ladies to criticise us; consequently a few brief moments before the mirror suffice to make us presentable. A black print wrapper made Gabrielle-fashion, with our hair brushed off plain from our faces, and flowing loosely a la belle sauvage, or in cool braids, is the order of the ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... the father of bigots and bores; As the sands of the sea were they. And Haw was the father of all the tribe Who criticise to-day. ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... Justice Blackburne interrupted. "It was too late," he said, "to criticise the evidence, and the Court had neither the right nor the power to alter or review it. If," he added, "you have any reason to give why, either upon technical or moral grounds, the sentence should not be passed upon you, we will hear it, but it is too late for you to review the ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... after the publication of the Official Papers, on reviewing the whole facts of the case, in a debate upon it in parliament, declared "that he found much to criticise in almost all the parties concerned, except ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Imperfections. In the mean while I should take it for a very great Favour from some of my underhand Detractors, if they would break all Measures with me so far, as to give me a Pretence for examining their Performances with an impartial Eye: Nor shall I look upon it as any Breach of Charity to criticise the Author, so long as I keep clear ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... bewilder those who also know that it is also in the sanctuary. Job's confession as to his rash speeches is the best estimate of many elaborate attempts to 'vindicate the ways of God to man.' It is better to trust than to criticise, better to wait than to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... motives of economy, was good. The rest ordered wine and Cornudet called for beer. He had a particular way with him of uncorking the bottle, of making the liquid froth, of gazing at it while he tilted the glass, which he then held up between his eye and the light to criticise the color; while he drank, his great beard, which had the tints of his favorite beverage, seemed to quiver fondly, his eyes squinting that he might not lose sight of his tankard for a moment, and altogether he had ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... political writings I select the following, and leave party men to criticise them—Coleridge being of no party, but guided, as will sufficiently appear to those who have read his works with attention, solely by philosophical principles, from which he never swerved. Nor did he desire ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... many different ways of going to a concert. You can be one of a party of fashionable people to whom music is a diversion, a pastime, an agreeable change from the assembly or the theatre. They applaud, they condemn, they criticise. They know all about it. Into such company as this, even I, whose poor old head is always getting itself wedged in where it has no business to be, have chanced to be thrown. This is torture. My cue is to turn into the Irishman's ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... said that some bold advocate Has dared to criticise my poem, His name I have not learned, his fate Will be a warning when ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams
... should she? She has no right to criticise what I do. She would not be so impertinent," said Jemima, feeling ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Latin Quarter, and I must do Pinkerton the justice to say that none of them were bad, and some had remarkable merit. They went off slowly, but for handsome figures; and their places were progressively supplied with the work of local artists. These last it was one of my first duties to review and criticise. Some of them were villainous, yet all were saleable. I said so; and the next moment saw myself, the figure of a miserable renegade, bearing arms in the wrong camp. I was to look at pictures thenceforward, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is still solid and beautiful, immutably serene. It radiates peace and strength. I neither criticise nor admire; my attitude is much more nearly that of worship, not of Perugino's images, but of a far-away ineffable mystery, which he in his time humbly sought to make a little more symbolically visible to men than any that came before him. For here we are in the presence ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... troops that were rated as effective were in so bad a condition that the hyperbolical Sergeant Johnson calls them "half-starved, scorbutic skeletons." That worthy soldier, commonly a model of dutiful respect to those above him, this time so far forgets himself as to criticise his general for the "mad, enthusiastic zeal" by which he nearly lost the fruits of Wolfe's victory. In fact, the fate of Quebec trembled in the balance. "We were too few and weak to stand an assault," continues Johnson, "and we were almost in as deep a distress ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... evening. "I feel as if I were not in a great city at all, because there are not the evidences of a large and wealthy population that we have everywhere in New York." Archie spoke of New York as if he had lived there always, and found much to criticise in Chicago. But toward evening he went up to Lincoln Park and the beautiful North Shore, and he felt that there was nothing more beautiful in New York than this magnificent park, and this handsome Lake Shore Drive, with its great houses whose lawns reached down almost to the lake itself. On the ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... not serve to enlighten him. But he was glad to notice that she was becoming reserved again. Mr. Vyner noticed it, too, and, raging inwardly against a tongue which was always striving after his undoing, began with a chastened air to criticise the architecture of the new chapel in Porter Street. Architecture being a subject of which the captain knew nothing, he discussed it at great length, somewhat pleased to find that both his listeners were giving ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... love for the race, or for the ideal of man, in each individual. In other and less pedantic words, he who is truly humane considers every human being as such interesting and important, and without waiting to criticise each individual specimen, pays in advance to all alike the tribute of good wishes and sympathy. Now this favourable presumption with regard to human beings is not a causeless prepossession, it is no idle superstition of the mind, nor is it a natural instinct. It is a feeling ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... man is justified in saying is that he, personally, wouldn't get much fun out of doing it the other way. As a matter of fact, human nature generally goes beyond its justifications and is prone to criticise. The Englishman waxes a trifle caustic on the subject of "pigging it"; and the American indulges in more than a bit of sarcasm on the subject of "being led about Africa like a ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... the grandiloquent words of the catalogue, "to bring before my countrymen the aesthetic and artistic capabilities, and the beauty in various forms, that are to be found in our great Indian Empire." To criticise the pictures in detail is impossible; but I will try to give an impression of the exhibition as a whole. Imagine a room hung with ordinary school slates, imagine that all these slates have been gilt, and that some have been adorned with gold ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... O art critics!" we hear him saying. "Well, here is another before you have adjusted your pince-nez, and I will brush it away before you have emitted your first Ah! I do not criticise. I paint—I paint for the love of it. I paint with the pigments of the firmament and the ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... of time has brought in his revenges. The Doctor himself has been dead his century. He died on the 13th of December, 1784. Come, let us criticise him. ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... the authority which complete political science procures, and the constitution might have emerged from his head completely armed, like the Minerva of Jupiter, or the legislation of the ancients, were it not that in our days every one sought to be engaged in the task, or to criticise it. Yet, with the exception of some modifications, his plans were generally adopted, and he had in the ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... been with other men I know not. For myself, I could not have come through that dreary winter unscathed without the influence of her, who would have been the first to disclaim such power. Among the velvet cushions of the east one may criticise the lapse of white man to barbarity; but in the wilderness human voice is as grateful to the ear as rain patter in a drouth. There, men deal with facts, not arguments. Natives break the loneliness of an isolated life by not unwelcomed visits. Comes a time when they ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... this biography of a bubble never wrote a biography before in all his life. This is his first printed work. Perhaps some old person will criticise it severely. ...
— The Nursery, February 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... life. It has seemed expedient, because supplementary, then, to put next to it his work on Our Daily Life, which was meant for those who are "in the world"; and which may give pause to some who might otherwise criticise the first hastily, perhaps condemning it as unpractical, or even objectionable in a world where, after all, men must eat and drink and live, and where some, therefore must provide the necessary means. Most intensely practical is this second ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... not let your nose, your Royal nose, Your large Imperial nose get out of joint; Forbear to criticise my perfect prose— Painting on ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... to criticise Rudyard Kipling as part of Victorian literature, because he is the end of such literature. He has many other powerful elements; an Indian element, which makes him exquisitely sympathetic with the Indian; a vague Jingo influence which makes him sympathetic with the man that crushes ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... not easy so to frame one's discourse concerning the operation of culture, as to avoid giving frequent occasion to a misunderstanding whereby the essential inwardness of the [x] operation is lost sight of. We are supposed, when we criticise by the help of culture some imperfect doing or other, to have in our eye some well-known rival plan of doing, which we want to serve and recommend. Thus, for instance, because I have freely pointed out the dangers and inconveniences ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... woman. "We shouldn't criticise our bethers. No, no! And this is a very cheerful par-r-rt of the house, so ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... forbidden to," answered Kenneth. "And I don't believe you've got any right to criticise the size of my subscription until ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the work of an historian, to criticise would be superfluous. They have been so many Malvolios, all alike anxious to win the favour of that capricious Lady Olivia Erin, and not one of them has succeeded, though several have merited better fortune than they met ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... collected, and the warriors disperse to their homes. Many hurry to the market-place to make purchases, to hear the latest rumour, or to watch the executions—for there are usually executions. Others stroll to the Suk-er-Rekik and criticise the points of the slave girls as the dealers offer them for sale. But the Khalifa has returned to his house, and his council have been summoned. The room is small, and the ruler sits cross-legged upon his couch. Before him squat the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... parts company with the dogmatic Socialist. There is no need to labour a distinction which arises from the nature and the activities of the two forces. British Liberalism is both a mental habit and a method of politics. Through both these characteristics it is bound to criticise a State so long as in any degree it rests on the principles of "Penguin Island"—"respect for the rich and contempt for the poor," and to modify or repeal the rights of property where they clearly conflict with human rights. But its ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... great attraction for me and one that is rare in these days—it is gay. And gaiety is frowned upon in modern music. They criticise Haydn and Mozart for their gaiety, and turn away their faces in shame before the exuberant joyousness with which the Ninth Symphony comes to its triumphal close. Long live gloom. Hurrah for boredom! So say our young people. They may live ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... you betrayed yourself into the committal of a serious imprudence, namely that of presuming to criticise unfavourably certain acts of our Lord the Inca, which, as you are surely aware, is a crime punishable with death. Do you ask how I happen to know this? I will tell you. It chanced that I was kept late from my bed last night by certain business ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... of turbulent and ambitious persons. Timid as I am, I was ever tempted to select a plain and common-place career, which I might have ennobled inwardly. I had lost the desire to know, to scrutinise and to criticise; it seemed to me as if it was enough to love and to feel; but yet I quite feel that as soon as ever the heart throbbed more slowly, the head would once more cry out ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... disposed nor prepared to take sides for or against the new hypothesis, and so, perhaps, occupy a good position from which to watch the discussion and criticise those objections which are seemingly inconclusive. On surveying the arguments urged by those who have undertaken to demolish the theory, we have been most impressed with a sense of their great inequality. Some strike us as excellent and perhaps unanswerable; ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... not say a spy while you're about it? It's all very well for you, Alexey Nilitch, to criticise when you stand aloof from everything. But you wouldn't believe it, Stepan Trofimovitch—take Captain Lebyadkin, he is stupid enough, one may say... in fact, one's ashamed to say how stupid he is; there is a Russian comparison, to signify the degree ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... public prints as to whether General Meade did or did not intend to leave the field. So far as the drawing up of an order of retreat is concerned, it ws undoubtedly right and proper to do so, for it is the duty of a general to be prepared for every emergency. It is easy to criticise, and say what should have been done, after a battle has been fought, after the position of troops is all laid down on the maps, and the plans of every commander explained in official reports; but amid the doubt ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... French are a nation of critics, and Taine is the critic of the French. This could not have been said with truth during the lifetime of Sainte-Beuve, but since his death it is true. There is nothing, apparently, which Taine is not competent to criticise, so subtle is his intellect, and so wide the range of his studies, but what he is most competent to criticise is Art. We have heard great things of a History of English Literature by him, but as it has not yet appeared in an English dress (although Messrs. Holt ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... Time will drive his chariot wheels across that bright face, cutting it up in deep ruts and gullies. But there is an eternal beauty on the face of some women, whom a rough and ungallant world may criticise as homely; and though their features may contradict all the laws of Lavater on physiognomy, yet they have graces of soul that will keep them attractive for time and ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... occasion like this the proprieties require that you merely pay compliments to the guest of the occasion, and I am merely here to pay compliments to the guest of the occasion, not to criticise him in any way, and I can say ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... theory of socialism, among those who are its most thoughtful exponents, and in a certain sense its leaders. They represent what these leaders think and say among themselves, and what they put forward when disputing with opponents who are competent to criticise them. But what they do not represent is socialism as still preached to the populace, or the doctrine which is still vital for socialists as a popular party. This is still, just as it was originally, the socialism of Marx in an absolutely unamended ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... allowed to drown the voice of the most honored guest at the table with their little bald chatter, so that even the cross-questioning genius of a Socrates would find itself at a discount; when they are allowed to criticise and contradict their elders in a way that would have appalled our grandmothers; when they are suffered to make remarks which are anything but reverent on sacred things—have I not some reason to fear that the one ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... gratifications and comforts, it would be, I should think, in overlooking a nation's battle-field—our nation's battle-field. But it is not for a humble lay member, whose business it is to practice rather than preach, to criticise. Are not the honorable members representatives of the people; and when they are cheered and refreshed, are not the 'dear people' through them cheered and refreshed? Besides, they may have so reluctantly ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and we start, two o'clock P.M., February 14th, 1879. Vandy has just come to announce that our carriage is ready. Good-bye! Am I to be disappointed? Of course I am. I have made up my mind to that, and having just had tiffin, and drank a whole pint of bitter beer, I feel myself quite competent to criticise the Taj with the best of them, and especially well fitted just now to stand no nonsense. We met an American who was travelling as a matter of duty, and had found, as far as travel was concerned, I suspect, that he belonged to the class represented by the grumbler in paradise, whose ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... return to power should be manifested. In December he visited Grenville at Dropmore, and expressed a certain discontent with the government.[13] It was his intention still to treat the ministers with tenderness, but to return to parliament and criticise their policy. It is easy to see that his object at this date was not to drive the government from office, but to give rise to a desire to re-enlist his own talents in the service of the country, and thus prepare the way for a peaceable resumption ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... Fopling, by command of Bess and so far as he might control himself, was paying no attention to Ajax. Ajax, for his part, was surveying Mr. Fopling with a sour stare, as though he found much in that young gentleman's appearance to criticise. At intervals, he made growling ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... "Souvenirs," would hit 'em hard. In order to whet the public interest, I asked the papers where I advertised to give the thing some editorial or other reference. But they was very cold and said the best they could do was to send their dramatic critics to criticise the show afterward. A lot of good that would do me! So I ...
— Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas • Rupert Hughes
... principal stay of the treble, his clear, strong voice carrying far; my function was to afford to him a rather uncertain support. My voice was not of the best nor was my ear quite sure. I ventured once to criticise a fellow-singer as being off the pitch; he retorted that I was tarred from the same stick and he proved it true, but there we sang together above the heads of venerable men who preached. They were good men, sometimes great scholars, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... Mrs. Fortescue softly, clasping her pearls about her white throat. "It's been a sad day to all of us, except the Colonel. Of course, I never attempt to criticise Colonel Fortescue's professional conduct, but I do feel lost ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... that brave fellow Loring, who ought to have been a sailor, faced down that quartette of "blue-bellied lobsters" up at headquarters. The General was not a popular character. His principal claim to distinction during the great war seemed to be that of being able to criticise every other general's battles and to win none of his own. "He never went into a fight that he didn't get licked," declared the exultant Moreland, "and now he's bowled over by his youngest lieutenant." The story of that interview went over ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... thy sweet self, dear lady guest, we find Juliet's dark face, Viola's gentle mien, The dignity of Scotland's martyr'd queen— The beauty and the wit of Rosalind. What wonder, then, that we who mop our eyes And sob and gush when we should criticise— ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... seemed atheistic, fallacious, heretical. You perceive I am not sparing myself in these admissions," he interposed, "but I have been doing some serious thinking during my return voyage, and now I am going to read that book again; not to criticise, but to get at its true inwardness if ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Dan and myself upon the second floor of the old Georgian house in pleasant, quiet Queen Square. For cook and house-maid on these days it would be a busy morning. Failing other supervision, Dan and I agreed that to secure success on these important occasions each of us should criticise the work of the other. I passed judgment on Dan's cooking, he upon ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... pictures that's on the carpet, wait till you hear the name of the painter. If it's Rubens, or any o' them old boys, praise, for it's agin the law to doubt them; but if it's a new man, and the company ain't most especial judges, criticise. "A leetle out o' keeping," says you. "He don't use his grays enough, nor glaze down well. That shadder wants depth. General effect is good, though parts ain't. Those eyebrows are heavy enough for stucco," says you, and other unmeaning terms like these. ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Mr. Ferrars with Lady Montfort surprised some, but, on the whole, pleased everybody. They were both of them popular, and no one seemed to envy them their happiness and prosperity. The union took place at a season of the year when there was no London world to observe and to criticise. It was a quiet ceremony; they went down to Northumberland to Lady Montfort's father, and they were married in his private chapel. After that they went off immediately to pay a visit to King Florestan and his queen; Myra had sent ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... discovery of Man. They were his youth personified. The note is still struck in the letters of his engagement period, and it was only forty years later, writing his Autobiography, that he was able to picture with a certain humorous detachment this group of boys who met to eat buns and criticise the universe. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... statements about New York, occurring in the pages of recent and reputable travellers, both French and English, which I find to be exaggerated almost to the point of monstrosity. What should we say of an American who should criticise the Commercial Road from the point of view of Fifth Avenue? After a week's experience of New York, I cannot but fancy that certain travellers I could mention have been guilty ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... untravelled dames of Fifth Avenue listening with wonder to a female lecturer who seems to have lived hand in glove with all the crowned heads of Europe; and who can tell them, not only Who's-Who, but also repeat their conversations, criticise their personal appearances, and describe the secret arts by which the men preserve their powers ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... petulant criticism, Bersenyev's half hearted enthralment, Insarov's recognition, and Zoya's indifference, being the facets for converging light on Elena's sincerity and depth of soul. Again one may note Turgenev's method for rehabilitating Shubin in our eyes; Shubin is simply made to criticise Stahov; the thing is done in a few seemingly careless lines, but these lines lay bare Shubin's strength and weakness, the fluidity of his nature. The reader who does not see the art which underlies almost every line of On the Eve is merely paying ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... because he had been drunk, but because he had taken advantage of the young girl's position to abuse her fiance in his stupid jealousy, knowing nothing of their mutual relations and obligations and next to nothing of the man himself. And what right had he to criticise him in that hasty and unguarded manner? Who had asked for his opinion? Was it thinkable that such a creature as Avdotya Romanovna would be marrying an unworthy man for money? So there must be something in him. The lodgings? But after all how could he know the character of the lodgings? ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... that they look down with a compassionate and self-conscious smile upon the egoistic implicit faith of congregations who still pray for good harvest-weather, and see in the damage done by a hailstorm a divine affliction; that they criticise it as a sad token of ecclesiastical darkness, when even church-authorities order such prayers in case of wide-spread calamities; that they fall into a passion over the {347} narrowness and the dulling influence of pedagogues ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... the contrary, they gloried in the name; Paul, a slave and an apostle; a slave, and so eligible for the honour of crucifixion; an apostle, and so sent with the good news of life. Respect of persons holds not in heaven; none there will criticise the clay out of which the first raiment of your soul was made. What need is there, then, that we should leave off holding the faith of our Lord Jesus, with respect of persons (there are few churches where the ministers dare to preach on such a text as that). Let us have done with such classifications. ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris
... committed a great sin. He has set out on the tracks of the prodigal son you've often read about, an' he's not sufficiently impressed with his guilt. When I get him into a proper frame o' mind I'll not be so hard on him. Now, Polly, go putt your doll to bed, and don't criticise ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... fell on the little gift as I looked and remembered, no one will wonder or criticise. The potatoes were cooked for breakfast, and "Susie ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... not attempt to do so by latitude and longitude, for that is a system of which the Latins have learned nothing. He himself, whilst still somewhat burdened by the authoritative dicta of "saints and sages" of past times, ventures at least to criticise some of the latter, such as Pliny and Ptolemy, and declares his intention to have recourse to the information of those who have travelled most extensively over the Earth's surface. And judging from the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... But back behind his straightforward democratic temperament there was a dash of good blood, the sifting down of generations of gentlemen and gentlewomen, that accounted for Harvey's inherent good taste. He could not criticise the technique of a picture, but he never selected a poor one. And the few books he really liked were the kind one can read once ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... betrayed such base, beggarly notions of authorship, that Lombardo could have wept, had tears been his. But in his very grief, he ground his teeth. Muttered he, "They are fools. In their eyes, bindings not brains make books. They criticise my tattered cloak, not my soul, caparisoned like a charger. He is the great author, think they, who drives the best bargain with his wares: and no bargainer am I. Because he is old, they worship some mediocrity of an ancient, and mock at the living ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... him to table one night a copy of the orders for the march and for encampment, which were adhered to with few changes during the whole advance, and we discussed them thoroughly when the meal was finished, nor could we discover in them much to criticise. ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... which he starts, that of the final judgment, in which each man shall give account of himself. What has that to do with the question in hand? This, that it ought to keep us from premature and censorious judging. We have something more pressing to do than to criticise each other. Ourselves are enough to keep our hands full, without taking a lift of our fellows' conduct. And this, further, that, in view of the final judgment, we should hold a preliminary investigation on our own principles of action, and 'decide' to adopt as the overruling law ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... right to criticise any member of her husband's family; their faults are out of her reach except by the force of tactful example. Her concern is with herself and him, not his family, and a wise girl, at the beginning of her married life, will draw a sharp line between her affairs ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... too decisive and too peremptory; it is not, however, my intention that it should be so; I entreat you to correct, and even publicly to punish me whenever I am guilty. Do not treat me with the least indulgence, but criticise to the utmost. So clear-sighted a judge as you has a right to be severe; and I promise you that the criminal will endeavor to correct himself. Yesterday I had two of your acquaintances to dine with me, Baron B. and his companion Monsieur S. I cannot say of the former, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... former is of little interest except to the antiquary. The latter has suffered so much from neglect or actual destruction as to be considered unworthy of the attention of either the artist in search of inspiration or the critic in pursuit of anything to criticise; but when every inconsiderable production in the little world of English art has had its bulky quarto written upon it, it is curious that no one has yet discovered what a splendid harvest awaits the investigation of these old ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... respectability of wealth, and the evil tendencies of modern thought. On the other hand, some alien strain had crept into Mr. Grierson, and he had not accepted the family traditions in their entirety; in fact, both his own relatives and those of his wife had found much to criticise in his ideas. Had he been able to shake himself free of the family, he would have liked nothing better than to possess a ranch in America or a sheep station in New South Wales. All his life, he longed, ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... continued Bruce; "I know it isn't exactly proper to criticise, but then if they'd had a little system about it old Eli Osborne's barn would still be standing. Now it's a heap of cinders. I tell you any ordinary troop of Boy Scouts has more snap than the Woodbridge Fire Department. I believe— By Jove, fellows. ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... stain had been detected on his private conduct: his fellow-monks, including one who had formerly been his secretary for several years, and who, with more than the average culture of his companions, had a disposition to criticise Fra Girolamo's rule as Prior, bore testimony, even after the shock of his retraction, to an unimpeachable purity and consistency in his life, which had commanded their unsuspecting veneration. The Pope himself had not been able to raise a charge of heresy against ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... returned loftily, "that if anyone has a right to complain of your costume, it is I. Know, therefore, monsieur le voyageur, that if I accept a man's arm, he is forthwith above the laws of fashion, nobody would venture to criticise him. You do not know the world, I see; I like ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... mean and frowsy room, and shuddered. Yet what could he do? What right had he to interfere, to criticise, ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... upon him, finding in the restfulness of such a friendship the healing of which she stood in need. She worked at her music with suddenly renewed enthusiasm, secure in the knowledge that Peter was always at hand to help and criticise with kindly, unerring judgment. She ceased to rail at fate and almost learned to bring a little philosophy—the happy philosophy of laughter—to bear ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... mercy of rich men who can scarcely put together a grammatical sentence; of poorer men who are, in church affairs, unscrupulous politicians; of women who carp and gossip; and of all sorts of men and women who desire to rule, criticise, hinder, and distrain. They, too, are the very people who, in the ears of God and of the community, have vowed to love him and to uphold his work! The more intellectual and spiritual he is, the more he is ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... terror to society and a walking menace to the social circle in which he revolved. His death was a necessity, and, except here and there a friend of blunted moral instincts, there will be found but few to mourn his death or criticise the manner of his taking off. To say that Marshal Neagle should have acted in any other manner than he did means that he was to have left Justice Field in the claws of a tiger, and at the mercy of an infuriated, angry monster, who had never shown mercy or generosity to ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... to tell of God's dealings with them. But all was done gravely and decently. There was no pressing of excited and ignorant young people to the "anxious seats," no singing of "revival hymns." They sang the Psalms from first to last—the old, rough version, which people nowadays criticise and smile at, wondering how ever the cramped lines and rude metre could find so sure and permanent a place in the hearts and memories of their fathers. It is said now that these old psalms are quite ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... high spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong, mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people whose simple annals I am relating—my position is merely that of a reporter—; but personally I think highly of Bream's sturdy common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant-gun at me in a dark corridor, I would climb on to the roof and pull it ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... judge of poetry," replied his father. "It is wretched stuff, and I am ashamed that you are known as the author. Look here, let me show you wherein it is defective;" and here Mr. Franklin began to read it over aloud, and to criticise it. He was a man of sound sense, and competent to expose the faults of such a composition. He proceeded with his criticisms, without sparing the young author's feelings at all, until Benjamin himself began to be sorry that ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... and had determined that if work could retrieve them they should not be lost forever. Therefore, she had to suffer people like Mrs. O'Connor, not gladly, but with the resignation due to the hests of Providence which one must obey but may legitimately criticise. Mrs. Makebelieve said definitely that she detested the woman. She was a cold-eyed person whose only ability was to order about other people who were much better than she was. It distressed Mrs. Makebelieve to have to work for such a person, to be subject to her commands ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... German Division was lured into the line opposite us at least three days before the battle. Our assault made not the slightest difference to this. Our object on the 1st was to capture Gommecourt, and this we failed to do. It is comparatively easy to criticise after the event and find mistakes, but there were one or two obvious reasons for the failure which were apparent to all. The rapid dispersal of the smoke barrage, the terrible enfilade bombardment from the ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... civilisation throughout the district. Had not the monastic system been good, it would not have lasted so long; had it not had within it the elements of weakness, it would not have come to such an untimely end. And even while we criticise it is well to recall the words of Newman: "Not a man in Europe who talks bravely against the Church, but owes it to the Church that ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... sees every day, she may feel in a sort of take-for- granted way, without thinking about it," said Letty. "But, to tell the truth, I should feel it as impertinent of me to criticise Cousin Godfrey's person as to pass an opinion on one of the books he reads. I can not express the reverence I ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... was an act of courage rather than of statesmanship, but the king could not brook opposition. Broglie refused to appear before the court and fled to France. In his absence he was condemned to banishment and the payment of costs. The powerful clerical party regarded him as a martyr and continued to criticise the policy of the Protestant king with watchful and hostile suspicion. Nor were the Belgian liberal party more friendly. They did not indeed support the clerical claim to practical predominance in ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... his Creator. I do not for a moment suggest that Belloc, having chosen to be English, is conscious of anything but loyalty to the country of his adoption. The thing lies far below the mind's conscious movements. Belloc thinks of himself as an Englishman with a patriotic duty to criticise his country, but his feelings are not really those of an Englishman. Once at least he recognised this when he wrote ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... had acquirements which no one else could lay claim to. He had attained professional honours which put every one of his class in the shade. He could give information which no one present had heard before from any of their ministers or teachers. He criticised every one, but no one could criticise him. He put every one right in politics, divinity, medicine, exegesis of Scripture. What had he not read? Where had he not been? Was not he a philosopher? an historian? a theologian? a physician? In fact, was not he the wise ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... all is not told. Why do they still dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics. Though we wear no crape, the thought of that man's position and probable fate is spoiling many a man's day here at the North for other thinking. If any one who has seen him here can pursue successfully any other train of thought, ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... humanist—contribute each a definite momentum. Luther, for his part, incarnates the spirit of revolt against tyrannical authority, urges the necessity of a return to the essential truth of Christianity as distinguished from the idols of the Church, and asserts the right of the individual to judge, interpret, criticise, and construct opinion for himself. The veil which the Church had interposed between humanity and God was broken down. The freedom of the conscience was established. The principles involved in what we call the Reformation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... round the King of Navarre, the Prince of Conde, and Admiral de Coligny, and became, under their direction, though in a minority, a powerful opposition, able and ready, on the one hand, to narrowly watch and criticise the actions of those who were in power, and on the other to claim for their own people, not by any means freedom as a general principle in the constitution of the state, but free manifestation of their faith, and free exercise of their own ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... highest interest. The history and genesis of it is as follows. Shortly after the publication of the well-known and exquisite little poem on the god Pan in the Cornhill Magazine, my brother Anthony wrote me a letter venturing to criticise it, in which he says: "The lines are very beautiful, and the working out of the idea is delicious. But I am inclined to think that she is illustrating an allegory by a thought, rather than a thought by an allegory. ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... immense calamities, the Celts are the prime authors of this vein of piercing regret and passion,—of this Titanism in poetry. A famous book, Macpherson's Ossian, carried in the last century this vein like a flood of lava through Europe. I am not going to criticise Macpherson's Ossian here. Make the part of what is forged, modern, tawdry, spurious, in the book, as large as you please; strip Scotland, if you like, of every feather of borrowed plumes which on the strength ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... with something more tangible than a sarcastic verse. He quite admitted, even to himself, that a critic had every right to criticise—that was what he was for—but he claimed that a man who pretended to be an author's friend and who praised his books to his face, had no right to go behind his back and pen a criticism so scathing ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... certainly prevents criminals from shirking their labor, and soon converts a lazy tramp into a rustling coal miner. There is one thing, however, that is connected with this system of punishment that I will criticise. The officer under whose immediate control the prisoner is placed fixes the period of his confinement in the dungeon. It gives the officer a good opportunity to abuse a prisoner he may dislike. These subordinate officers are not all angels. Some of them are lacking in sympathy. They have become ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... not fail to observe, that Plato says that speech is composed OF these, not BY these; nor must we find fault with Plato for omitting conjunctions, prepositions, and the rest, any more than we should criticise a man who should say such a medicine is composed of wax and galbanum, because fire and utensils are omitted, without which it cannot be produced. For speech is not composed of these; yet by their means, and not ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... whole, Mr. Noel's book has an emotional rather than an intellectual interest. It is simply a record of the moods of a man of letters, and its criticisms merely reveal the critic without illuminating what he would criticise for us. The best that we can say of it is that it is a Sentimental Journey through Literature, the worst that any one could say of it is that it has all the merits ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... Tante (from which novel Mr. HADDON CHAMBERS has adapted this play) was that many chapters went by before the reader realised that Madame Okraska was indeed an impossible woman. One began by liking her; went on to criticise; decided that she wasn't so nice as the author intended her to be; and then discovered suddenly that she wasn't intended to be a sympathetic character at all, and that, in fact, our changing attitude towards her had been just the changing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... individual taste and judgment of the editor, precludes the possibility of an edition that will satisfy all in all cases. Chopin's pupils, who reject the editing of their master's works by outsiders, do not accept even the labours of those from among their midst. These reasons have determined me not to criticise, but simply to describe, the most notable editions. In speaking of the disputes about the correctness of the various editions, I cannot help remembering a remark of Mendelssohn's, of which Wenzel told me. "Mendelssohn said on one occasion in his naive manner: 'In Chopin's ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the fifth century before Christ who became unsettled by new ideas, and the student of a modern University who has been the subject of a similar 'aufklarung.' We too observe that when young men begin to criticise customary beliefs, or to analyse the constitution of human nature, they are apt to lose hold of solid principle (Greek). They are like trees which have been frequently transplanted. The earth about them is loose, and they have no roots ...
— The Republic • Plato
... AND INFLUENCE. Shakespeare holds, by general acclamation, the foremost place in the world's literature, and his overwhelming greatness renders it difficult to criticise or even to praise him. Two poets only, Homer and Dante, have been named with him; but each of these wrote within narrow limits, while Shakespeare's genius included all the world of nature and of men. In a word, he is the universal poet. To study nature in his works is like exploring ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... correspondents, can elucidate the history of the instruments made by my countryman, he will much oblige all scientific antiquarians, and me, though not a Dr. Heavybottom, especially. I need not make apologies for my bad English, and hope none of your many readers will criticise it in ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... actions; conceiving that although I am responsible to you for the telling of this tale, I am answerable to many for the part I played in the circumstances here related; and that, on the other hand, though no one can find much fault with me for my doings, none but you will have occasion to criticise my ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... reception at the hands of many of its reviewers. The Saturday Review was furious. "When a writer," it exclaimed, "who has not given as many weeks to the subject as Mr. Darwin has given years, is not content to air his own crude though clever fallacies, but assumes to criticise Mr. Darwin with the superciliousness of a young schoolmaster looking over a boy's theme, it is difficult not to take him more seriously than he deserves or perhaps desires. One would think that Mr. Butler was the travelled and laborious observer of Nature, and Mr. Darwin the pert ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... there has been a tendency to criticise England's post-war activity in securing oil reserves for the future. Self-interest has clearly dictated the necessity for improving England's weak position in regard to this vital energy resource. The success of this movement obviously means a lessening of the future ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... very palatable. The pastry and desert conclude their dinners, which certainly deserve the praise of being both cheap and abundant. The fruit is astonishingly cheap; I. have seen excellent peaches sell for a sous apiece. A traveller is not, however, in general disposed to criticise these singularities, either in the hour or order of the repast with too much severity, as the remark attributed to Alexander the Great, has probably been made by many of less celebrity, "that night travelling serves ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... course, known to us that the natives are given to making rather a silly noise over this flag of theirs, but in this instance—the pioneer fighting his way into the wilderness and hoisting it above his frontier home—I felt strangely indisposed to criticise. I understood that he could be greatly cheered by the flag of the country he ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... respectful and quite unabashed. He had meant no insolence. But M. Etienne had dared criticise the duke and that Vigo ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... the Christian life in every act, in every thought. The superstructure—the practices of the Catholic Church to-day, the failures and sins of clerical society, the rigid ecclesiasticism—these he must in loyalty to fundamental truth, criticise, and if need be, condemn, where they interfere with the exercise of pure religion. But Benedetto engages very little in controversy; his method is to glorify the good, sure that the good requires only to be revealed in all its beauty and charm in order to draw irresistibly to itself ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... courtship all she said was sweet, For you had died to win a glance; Her little platitudes seemed neat, Breathed 'mid the pauses of the dance. You would have felt a heartless fiend To criticise, when by her side; Nor would the lady have demeaned Herself to answer, had ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 7, 1891 • Various
... precisely the opposite, and it is the service of God that will effloresce into all service of man. Judas did not do much for the poor, and a great many other people who are sarcastic upon the 'folly,' the 'uncalculating impulses' of Christian love, with its 'wasteful expenditure,' and criticise us because we are spending time and energy and love upon objects which they think are moonshine and mist, do little more than he did, and what beneficence they do exercise has to be hallowed by this reference to Jesus before it can ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Australian, was established by Mr. Wentworth and Dr. Wardell. A second of the same kind soon followed, and was called the Monitor. These papers found it to their advantage, during the unpopularity of Darling, to criticise severely the acts of that Governor, who was defended by the Gazette with intemperate zeal. This altercation had lasted for some time, when, in the third year of Darling's administration, a very small event was sufficient to set the ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... writings, who the reciters were, and who the transcribers were." {63a} We very seldom are told by Scott who the reciters were and who the transcribers, but our critic's information is here mournfully limited—by his own lack of study. Colonel Elliot goes on to criticise a very curious feature in Scott's version of 1806, and finds certain lines "beautiful" but "without a note of antiquity," that he can detect, while the sentiment "is hardly of the kind ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... living, and Mr. Blackall was a Fellow of that society, who, after the fashion of the times, had waited long for his living and his wife. Jane had known him well and liked him much, though with sufficient detachment to remember and to criticise his demonstrative manners, his love of instructing others, and other little peculiarities. The 'friend' of 1798 must have been a young Cambridge don; and she was not likely to have had an opportunity of knowing individually more than one of ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... woman she is lovely is to criticise her openly to her face. Please do not make such a careful perusal of ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... been saved at a time when the island was sadly in want of money; the natural surface of the firm soil would have been preferred by all vehicles except during rain, when they would have adopted the metalled parallel way. It is easy to criticise after the event, and there can be no doubt that upon our first occupation of the island a much greater traffic was expected, and the road between the two capitals was arranged accordingly. We halted for the night ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... somewhat less free and independent than their grandfathers had been, and they had learned what it was to have an irresponsible ruler sitting at his desk in Boston and signing warrants for the arrest of loved and respected citizens who dared criticise his sayings and doings. "Taxation without representation" was not for them a mere abstract theory; they knew what it meant. It was as near to them as the presidency of Andrew Jackson is to us; there had not ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... "Nativity" that has not been better done by others; yet, as a whole, it is good; and if the subject demands a more creative power, and a higher daring than was habitual to him, we are yet charmed with the good sense throughout; and while we look, are indisposed to criticise. We have already remarked how much Sir Joshua was indebted to a picture by Domenichino for the "Tragic Muse." Every one knows that he borrowed the "Nativity" from the "Notte" of Correggio, and perhaps in detail from other and inferior masters. His "Ugolino" was a portrait, or a study, in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... forgotten there. For over half a century he had held himself in readiness to attend the bedside of all who might call upon him to speak cheering, hopeful words to the dying. But now our little community has become educated and they are able to criticise. As we look around the church we are lost in wonder as to what has come to the people. The older ones are sadder and a spirit of unrest seems to have seized upon the middle aged, while the very children have lost something ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... surely showing great confidence in a young actor and author—to criticise the play of acknowledged dramatists who had been the talk of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... criticise the shades and variations of innovating speculation with any marked nicety. Anything with the stamp of rationality on its phrases or arguments was roughly set down to the school of the philosophers, and Rousseau was counted one of their number, like Voltaire or Helvetius. The Emilius appeared in ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... They rebuke his over-accentuated individualism. (2) They reveal the fundamental contrast between the infinite God and finite man. In the light of this revelation Job plainly recognizes his presumption and folly in attempting, with his limited outlook, to comprehend, much less to criticise, the mighty ruler of all the universe. (3) After Job had thus been led out of himself into personal companionship with God he was content to trust his all-wise guide, even though he recognized his own inability to fathom the mysteries of the universe or to solve ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... He proceeds to criticise the moral systems from Hobbes downwards. His remarks (Lecture 76) on the province of Reason in Morality, with reference to the systems of Clarke and Wollaston, contain the gist of the ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... yielded by the bucket that had repeatedly, as he imagined, touched the bottom of the well. "Now this sudden invasion of somebody's—heaven knows whose—house, and our dropping down on it like a swarm of locusts: I dare say it isn't civil to criticise it when one's going too, so almost culpably, with the stream; but what are people made of that they consent, just for money, to the violation ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... from those books which we cannot criticise. The author of a book which we could criticise would have to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... not required to criticise, thank you. Turned out of our studies, we are, just as if we were no better than little Manders minor. Only inky schoolboys we are, and must ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... remarkable, is the very composition of the Celtic mind, which naturally tends to firm belief, because it is given exclusively to traditions, past events, narratives of poets, historians, and genealogists. Had the Irish at any time turned themselves to criticise, to doubt, to argue, their very existence, as a people, would have ceased. They must go on believing, or all reality vanishes from their minds, accustomed for so many ages to take in that solid knowledge founded, it is true, on hearsay; but how else can truth reach us ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... set up the stake and fagot and cauterize sin with fire. One thing you can say about the religious folks that are big with cocksureness and a mission—they may make mistakes, but the mistake doesn't talk and criticise. ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... that unparalleled loveliness of colour which time alone can impart. It was, excepting in vastness, like a cathedral interior, and in some ways better than even the best of these great fanes, wonderful as they are. Here, recalling them, one could venture to criticise and name their several deficits:—a Wells divided, a ponderous Ely, a vacant and cold Canterbury, a too light and airy Salisbury, and so on even to Exeter, supreme in beauty, spoilt by a monstrous organ in the wrong place. That wood and metal giant, ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... month the American Stage suffered the loss of three celebrities: Edwin Adams, George L. Fox, and E.L. Davenport. While the Theatre never interested me, and I never entered one, I cannot criticise the dead. Four years before in the Tabernacle I preached a sermon against the Theatre. I saw there these men, sitting in pews in front of me, and that was the only time. They were taking notes of my discourse, to which they made public replies ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... my judgment have not changed since 1905. I now refer, gentlemen, to the articles and speeches which you have published about my country and which have aroused widespread interest. I will not criticise your utterances one by one. If I did that I might have to speak on occasion with a frankness that would be ungracious, considering the fine appreciation which both of you still feel for old Germany. It would be specially ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... undecided, for an enterprise which requires such a degree of tact and judgment as the conduct of a new journal,—and a journal, too, which is to address itself to the beau monde. However, it is not for me to criticise a selection which brings a ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... unconscious and habitual lines appear in the face. The kind of books one loves to read, the amusements one seeks, the friends he chooses, are all revelators. Recently an English traveler published a volume of impressions concerning America. Finding little to praise, the traveler finds much to criticise and blame. During his two or three weeks' sojourn in our cities, he tells us that he found sights and scenes that would shame Sodom and Gomorrah, and bemoans the fact that in this young, fresh land things should be as bad as in London and Paris, whither the scum and ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... philosopher, Robert, who was not more distinguished as a ruler than as a man of learning. He was indeed the only monarch of our age who was, at the same time, the friend of learning and of virtue, and I trusted that he might correct such things as he found to criticise in my work." Having learned the reason of the great poet's visit, King Robert fixed a day for the consideration of Petrarch's work; but, after a discussion which lasted from noon until evening, it was found that more time would be necessary on account of the many matters which came up, and so ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... professor whose duty it is to criticise and approbate the pieces for this exhibition wish they ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... taste] aesthetics. man of taste &c. ; connoisseur, judge, critic, conoscente, virtuoso, amateur, dilettante, Aristarchus[obs3], Corinthian, arbiter elegantiarum[Lat], stagirite[obs3], euphemist. "caviare to the general" [Hamlet]. V. appreciate, judge, criticise, discriminate &c. 465 Adj. in good taste, cute, tasteful, tasty; unaffected, pure, chaste, classical, attic; cultivated, refined; dainty; esthetic, aesthetic, artistic; elegant &c 578; euphemistic. to one's taste, to one's mind; after one's fancy; comme il ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... It looks very much as though the most serious mistakes are being made on the side of too little sacrifice or none. Yet clearly some serious mistakes are made on the other side too. But no one may criticise another. Each must decide for himself. In the judgment of charity we are to presume that each is doing what he thinks right and best. We are, none of us, the keeper of ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... nothing is at once more plebeian and unphilosophical than—censure, in a world where nothing can be perfect, and where apathy is held to be good-breeding; item, (I am quoting Scott,) that "it is much more easy to destroy than to build, to criticise than to compose;" item, (Sir Walter again, ipsissima verba, in a letter to Miss Seward,) that there are certain literary "gentlemen who appear to be a sort of tinkers, who, unable to make pots and pans, set up for menders of them, and often make ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... revolt against tyrannical authority, urges the necessity of a return to the essential truth of Christianity as distinguished from the idols of the Church, and asserts the right of the individual to judge, interpret, criticise, and construct opinion for himself. The veil which the Church had interposed between humanity and God was broken down. The freedom of the conscience was established. The principles involved in what we call the Reformation were momentous. Connected on the one side with scholarship and the study of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... pretended to criticise, to myself ... yet, in my heart, I liked his frank rejoicing in his fame, his notoriety, and only envied him his ability ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... rose in his breast at his old master's words. These ignorant country people, to dare to criticise his glittering golden pheasant, whom he was very nearly making up his mind to take for a wife! This aspect of the case, that even these unimportant old ladies could question the position of his choice, galled him. He had spent up to the last ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... morning, and flies down the steps with the air of one who has performed her whole duty. Now that she has attained to married respectability, she feels quite free to criticise the rest of the world, and she rejoices in the fact that she does carry more weight than ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... of all things, even of those that, perhaps, exceed my capacity, and that I do not conceive to be, in any wise, under my jurisdiction. And, accordingly, the judgment I deliver, is to show the measure of my own sight, and not of the things I make so bold to criticise. When I find myself disgusted with Plato's 'Axiochus', as with a work, with due respect to such an author be it spoken, without force, my judgment does not believe itself: it is not so arrogant as to oppose the authority of so many other ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... variants are preserved (e.g. labour instead of labor, criticise instead of criticize, etc.); the translators' comments are in square brackets [...] as they are in the text; footnotes are indicated by * and appear immediately following the passage containing the note (in the text they appear at the bottom of the page); and, finally, ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... so," laughed Elnora, "but it hasn't hurt him. I've never seen anything I could criticise. He's teaching me so much, unconsciously. You know he graduated from Harvard, and has several degrees in law. He's coming in the morning, and we are going to put in a ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... second clerk, not to criticise such innocent disdain of the public eye and ear—to him an every-day sight—but with a feeling for the picturesque and in mild humor making the point that such messages, so given, were hardly calculated to make life easier for Hugh. The mud clerk and ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... compels her to return it. Oh, that he should see her here, singing before all these people! For the first time a terrible sense of shame overpowers her; a longing to escape the eyes that from all parts of the hall appear to stare at her and criticise her voice—herself! ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... is not the place, nor have I the space to criticise the various special theories of descent. One, however, must receive particular notice. According to Ameghino, the South American monkeys (Pitheculites) from the oldest Tertiary of the Pampas are the forms from which ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... insults them. There, go on." He proceeded. The warlike portions did not rouse him much; he said all that was out of date, or should be; the spirit displayed was barbarous; yet the encounter single-handed between Marcius and Tullus Aufidius he delighted in. As he advanced, he forgot to criticise; it was evident he appreciated the power, the truth of each portion; and, stepping out of the narrow line of private prejudices, began to revel in the large picture of human nature, to feel the reality stamped upon the characters who were speaking ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... sides. Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage; Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb. And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath Of patriots bursting with heroic rage, Or placemen, all tranquillity and smiles. This folio of four pages, happy work! Which not e'en critics criticise; that holds Inquisitive attention, while I read. Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break: What is it, but a map of busy life, Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns? Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge, That tempts ambition. On ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... same as that in the mind of the paternal Henri IV when he united the scattered factories with royal interest and patronage, but with always the large end in view of benefiting his people financially, as well as in the province of art. With our modern republican views we can criticise the disinterestedness of a monarch who maintains a factory at enormous public expense exclusively for the indulgence ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... said the second censor, "take him all in all, is certainly the most complete and unblemished performer that ever appeared on our stage, notwithstanding the blind adoration which is paid to his rival. I went two nights ago, with an express design to criticise his action. I could find no room for censure, but infinite subject for admiration and applause. In Pierre he is great, in Othello excellent, but in Zanga beyond all imitation. Over and above the distinctness of pronunciation, the dignity of attitude, and expression ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... heretical. You perceive I am not sparing myself in these admissions," he interposed, "but I have been doing some serious thinking during my return voyage, and now I am going to read that book again; not to criticise, but to get at its true inwardness ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... live the Christian life in every act, in every thought. The superstructure—the practices of the Catholic Church to-day, the failures and sins of clerical society, the rigid ecclesiasticism—these he must in loyalty to fundamental truth, criticise, and if need be, condemn, where they interfere with the exercise of pure religion. But Benedetto engages very little in controversy; his method is to glorify the good, sure that the good requires only to be revealed in all its beauty and charm in order to draw irresistibly ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... a spot of pink came into each cheek, as she replied: "It is not of the slightest interest to me whether you are ashamed of me or not! You are in no way responsible for my actions and you have no right to reprove or criticise me. I may have broken the conventions of hospitality, but that is between me and Mrs. Farrington. Your opinion of me means nothing to ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... our Navy is not more modern and powerful than it is has been made a cause of complaint against the Secretary of the Navy by persons who at the same time criticise and complain of his endeavors to bring the Navy that we have to its best and most efficient condition; but the good sense of the country will understand that it is really due to his practical action that we have at this time any effective naval ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... divertise exercise misprise supervise advise chastise criticise disfranchise emprise exorcise premise surmise affranchise circumcise demise disguise enfranchise franchise reprise surprise apprise comprise despise disenfranchise ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... as a set of Herods, and filled the house with Covenanting ministers and outlawed persons, his only comfort and sympathizer was Lady Cochrane's daughter Jean. This young woman had of late taken on herself the office of protector, and had shown a tendency to criticise both her mother's words and ways, which led to one or two domestic scenes. For though her ladyship was loud against the tyranny of the government, she was an absolute ruler in her own home. And that day she was going to assert herself and put ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... turned out that I had really not deserved any particular one, it was reckoned as offsetting some of my naughty pranks that had happened to escape discovery. "Anything but coddling." That is indeed a very good principle, and I do not care to criticise it, in spite of the fact that its application did not help me, not even as a hardening process; but whatever one may think of it, my mother now and then carried ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... Every Citizen is a revolution. That is, he destroys, devours and adapts his environment to the extent of his own thought and conscience. This is what separates the human social effort from the non-human; the bee creates the honey-comb, but he does not criticise it. The German ruler really does feed and train the German as carefully as a gardener waters a flower. But if the flower suddenly began to water the gardener, he would be much surprised. So in Germany the ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... minutes during the remainder of the afternoon Morris visited the safe and inspected the diamonds until Abe was moved to criticise his partner's behavior. ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... watched you as a younger brother watches, lovingly, jealous yet proud of you, alert for a failing or a weakness which I never found—or, if I thought I found a flaw in you, knowing that it was but part of a character too strong, too generous for me to criticise." ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... and in the comments of people upon genuine works of art. I have, for example, seen a picture of a lion with iron bars riveted to the frame and extending over it,—a represented lion in a real cage! And I once heard a man criticise one of Degas' paintings on the ground that "if the dancing girl were to straighten her bent body she would bump her head on the frame!" The rule that the color of the frame should harmonize with the main tones of the picture is no proof ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... is the capital of one of the smaller kingdoms of the world, which those who rule it are anxious to force into the position of a great power. One need not criticise their action too hardly; their motives can hardly be anything but patriotic, considering the fearful sacrifices they impose upon their country. But they are not the men who brought about Italian unity. They are the successors of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... ready to come to them, and in the meantime here is something for you to criticise,' said she, taking from the recess of her matronly workbasket a paper with a pencilled poem, on the Martyrs of Carthage, far more terse and expressive than anything she used to write when composition ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sweet self, dear lady guest, we find Juliet's dark face, Viola's gentle mien, The dignity of Scotland's martyr'd queen— The beauty and the wit of Rosalind. What wonder, then, that we who mop our eyes And sob and gush when we should criticise— ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... will even admit, if you so desire, that there are certain souls usually styled "privileged," for I have never heard anybody deny the virtues of temperament. So, I have nothing to say about women of that species. I do not criticise them, nor have I any reproaches to make them; neither do I believe it my duty to praise them, it is sufficient to congratulate them. However, if you investigate them you will discover the truth of what I have been saying since the commencement of our correspondence: the ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... night before Mr. Roberts and his young clerk were invited in to admire and criticise the new room. Mr. Roberts, at least, was prepared to ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... the lotteries, stopped in front of the shooting galleries to criticise the shots, and interested himself specially in a very simple game, which consisted in throwing a big wooden ball into the open mouth of a mannikin carved and painted on ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... gentleman who had belonged to the late Ministry, but had somewhat out-Heroded Herod in his Conservatism, so as to have been considered to be unfit for the Coalition. Of course, he was proud of his own staunchness, and a little inclined to criticise the lax principles of men who, for the sake of carrying on her Majesty's Government, could be Conservatives one day and Liberals the next. He was a laborious, honest man,—but hardly of calibre sufficient not to regret his own honesty in such ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... want to make a confession. I don't understand Mary. After your brother Henry died, when we insisted that Mary come and live with us, it seemed wicked to leave her in that great house alone—and we have no children. Now, there are times I am almost sorry we did it. It isn't that I want to criticise Mary"—noticing her husband's look of surprise—"I know she loves us both and yet—well, I have the feeling that we don't really know her. The intimacy I had longed for hasn't developed. She seems to live a part of her time in another world than ours." She broke off again, laughing ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... it's very important. Then, sometimes, they pay attention and answer us, but usually they act as if we were babies gurgling in cunning little cribs. And the rude way they interrupt us often and go on talking about their own affairs—well, I will not say more, for dear mamma has taught me not to criticise my elders, and I never do. But I watch them pretty closely, just the same, and when I see them doing something that is not right my brain works so hard it keeps me awake nights. If it's anything very dreadful, like Peggy's going and getting engaged, I point out the error, the way they're ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... detachment, picked up a canteen of whiskey which had been thrown aside in their flight. As it was the only liquid to which we had access on that hot August day, we each took a turn, and soon undertook to criticise our gunner's bad shooting, telling him among other things that if he would aim lower he would ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... the partial application of the penal laws, and his refusal led to his temporary disgrace. Lauder was not even a reformer. He was a man of conservative temperament, and while his love of justice and good government led him to criticise in his private journals the glaring defects of administration, and especially the administration of justice, there is no evidence that he had even considered how a remedy was to be found. There was indeed no constitutional means of redress, and all revolutionary methods, from the stubborn ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... bubble over with delight in herself and her apartment. "Now, isn't it about perfect?" she urged, and I had to own that it was indeed very convenient and very charming; and in the rapture of the moment she invited me to criticise it. ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong, mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people whose simple annals I am relating—my position is merely that of a reporter—: but personally I think highly of Bream's sturdy common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... however, there were but few to criticise, as the office of critic was one fraught with far too much danger to be alluring. In maintaining their authority the leaders stopped at nothing, and the heads of the recalcitrant were apt to part with amazing suddenness from their bodies if they ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... returned to criticise the table and arrange the name-cards. And, this accomplished, she ran upstairs again to her own room, where ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... prejudice in academic circles against which Froude had to contend. To him of all men it was inapplicable, for no historian studied original documents with greater zest. That he did not know his period nobody could pretend. He knew it so much better than his critics that few of them could even criticise him intelligently. That he was not thoroughly acquainted with the periods preceding his own may be more plausibly argued. There must of course be some limit. The siege of Troy can be told without mention of Leda's egg. But if Froude had given a little more time to Henry VII., and all that ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... takes the three observations and compares them. If the first or second officer is out in his reckoning, the captain tells him so, but he does not show his own. For at times, no doubt, he is wrong too. So, gentlemen, I criticise your observations, but I do not show ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... had long since ceased to worry about that. The young minister's place in his people's regard was now assured, the attendance was increasing, and the Regular church was now on a firmer footing, financially and socially, than it had been in years. Even Mrs. Rogers and Lavinia Pepper had ceased to criticise, except as pertained to unimportant incidentals, and were now among the loudest of the praise chanters. And as Captain Zeb Mayo said: "When Didama and Laviny stops fault-findin', the millennium's so nigh port a feller ought to be overhaulin' his ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... much," he confessed, "and much that he says is disloyal to our government and calculated to do much harm, especially if widely circulated. This is no time to criticise the men who are working hard to win the war; we should render them faithful support. The task before us is difficult and it will require a united country to defeat our enemies. I must talk ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... resulted so disastrously to obtain a lesser one, and he had condemned her. He knew that women always used circuitous ways toward their results, just as men used sledge-hammer ones. Why should a man criticise a woman's method any more than a woman criticise a man's? Wilbur, blushing like a girl with pride and delight, listened to his wife and fairly lashed himself. He was wholly unworthy of such ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... she said disgustedly. "I ought to be kicked. Why do you let me talk so much? It's awful cheek of me to dare to criticise you. I'll never do it again. He may be an angel for all I know. Esther, if you don't stop crying I shall cry too, and then there'll be a ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... bell-tower it can only be said that it is a pity necessity seemed to compel the erection of such an abortion. The old padres seldom, if ever, failed in their architectural taste. However one may criticise their lesser work, such as the decorations, he is compelled to admire their large work; they were right, powerful, and dignified in their straightforward simplicity. And it is pathetic that in ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... is the brave and experienced young officer who would have done all this?" said a cold sarcastic voice, which Syd recognised directly. "No: stop. Don't tell me, but tell him that it is a great mistake for young gentlemen in the midshipmen's berth to criticise the actions of their superior officers, who may be entirely wrong, but whether or no, their critics are ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... present, he demonstrated very clearly, in his expressions of indignation at the Portuguese attitude towards England, that he reserved this right of criticism strictly to himself. At the inn where he stayed, he thoroughly discomfited a Portuguese officer who dared to criticise the English Government for its attitude in connection with the Spanish civil war. When refused entrance to the fort, where he had gone in order to satisfy his curiosity, Borrow exclaims, "This is one of the beneficial results of protecting a nation, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... thing in public speaking is to get on good terms with your audience, and I claim that the best way to do this is to show them the human side of yourself. Some of your hearers are agin you; they have come out to criticise you. You disarm them at once by treating yourself as a joke. Of course you must suit your tactics to your audience. The tie remark will put me on good terms with a rural audience, but it would fail in a lecture to ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... it is more imposing on paper. There is something more impressive in it; I shall be better able to criticise myself and improve my style. Besides, I shall perhaps obtain actual relief from writing. Today, for instance, I am particularly oppressed by one memory of a distant past. It came back vividly to my mind a few days ago, and has remained haunting me like an annoying tune that one cannot get rid ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... been a predecessor of Mr. Downing in the country, some five-and-twenty year since, to criticise Wyllys-Roof, the home of our friend Elinor, his good taste would no doubt have suggested many improvements, not only in the house itself, but also in the grounds which surrounded it. The building had been erected long before ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Johnson sometimes ventured to criticise Garrick's acting, but here Garrick could take his full revenge. The purblind Johnson was not, we may imagine, much of a critic in such matters. Garrick reports him to have said of an actor at Lichfield, "There is a courtly vivacity about the fellow;" when, in fact, said Garrick, "he was the most ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... multitude of facts; they must tell the story in their own way. They are the Dickens and Walter Scott of art. It is iteration and reiteration. My cardinal must not only have red stockings, says Vibert, but they must be silk; every detail must be elaborated. Very well, what of it? you say. What do you criticise, the drawing? No. The color? No. The composition? No. Does the painter express himself? Perfectly. What then? Just this. He expresses himself too perfectly. At first I am delighted. The story is so well told—the well-fed prelates; ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... she was flattered. Of all flattery praise is the coarsest and least efficacious. When you would flatter a man, talk to him about himself, and criticise him, pulling him to pieces by comparison of some small present fault with his past conduct;—and the rule holds the same with a woman. To tell her that she looks well is feeble work; but complain to her wofully that there is something wanting ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... hand in the other, and his lips moved in prayer of humble thanksgiving. What! Robert Hardy! Is this that proud man who only the day before was so lifted up with selfishness that he could coldly criticise his own minister for saying that people ought to be more Christlike? Are you standing here in this poor man's house which two days ago you would not have deigned to enter, and beseeching him as your brother in the great family of God ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... made so great a noise in Europe, with so much that is admirable I find but little to criticise, except three things, which mar its beauty and make it both dangerous and false, in which the unsoundness of Rousseau's mind and character—the strange paradoxes of his life in mixing up good with evil—are brought out, and that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... part." And she goes on to say that even the best professional actors might have learnt from him in some parts. The audience was not a pleasant one to face. It was the First Consul's habit to invite forty persons to dinner, and a hundred and fifty for the evening, and consequently to hear, criticise, and banter us without mercy" (Memoirs of Duchesse ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of the "religious" life. It has seemed expedient, because supplementary, then, to put next to it his work on Our Daily Life, which was meant for those who are "in the world"; and which may give pause to some who might otherwise criticise the first hastily, perhaps condemning it as unpractical, or even objectionable in a world where, after all, men must eat and drink and live, and where some, therefore must provide the necessary means. Most intensely practical is this second ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... difference between the sin and sinner. 2. We criticise not the dress but address of the speaker. 3. A noun and pronoun are alike in office. 4. Distinguish carefully between an adjective and adverb. 5. The lion, as well as tiger, belongs to the cat tribe. 6. Neither the North Pole nor South Pole has yet been reached. 7. The ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... affects to criticise Germany for not having "entrusted the security of her western frontier to the public opinion of Western Europe and to America and fought Russia, if attacked, with her rear not otherwise defended," Mr. Shaw burkes the fact that Germany's object ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... is charged with the inspiration of that wonderful art, so true, so tender, that made its last act a miracle. I saw old men sob, and young men bow their heads to hide the emotion which they could not check. I saw that audience which had come to criticise, tremble and break into tumultuous weeping. Beside me, a greyheaded man was crying as any child. Yet why do I go on? No one who saw Clarissa Lambert can ever forget—no one who saw her not ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... confessed incrustation. It is the purest example in Italy of the great school of architecture in which the ruling principle is the incrustation of brick with more precious materials; and it is necessary before we proceed to criticise any one of its arrangements, that the reader should carefully consider the principles which are likely to have influenced, or might legitimately influence, the architects of such a school, as distinguished from those whose designs are to ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... too lenient with them. We won't stand them any longer." I told him that as the Times had said that he was too violent, I had no doubt the Queen would say so also, to which he replied: "Probably, and if she does I shall most likely ... deny her right to criticise my speeches, although she may, if she likes, dismiss me, in which case I will lead an agitation against the Lords in the country." I answered: "Yes, but you cannot go alone in such a case, and therefore should not appear to contemplate doing so." He replied: "I am not going, but ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... believe in his sincerity. "You will get no more from me," he said, "than you would get from any cobbler or greengrocer, for you have only come because it happened to be convenient, and you will only criticise my style, not really wishing to learn principles" "Well, but," answered the orator, "if I attend to that sort of thing, I shall be a mere pauper like you, with no plate, or equipage, or land." "I don't want such things," replied Epictetus; "and, besides, you are poorer than I am, ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... justified by these tests but that it is not by these tests that they are judged even to-day, by the professors of the chief religions of the world. It is the temper and not the conclusions of the religious bodies that I would criticise. These sexual questions are guarded by a holy irascibility, and the most violent efforts are made—with a sense of complete righteousness—to prohibit their discussion. That fury about sexual things is only to be explained on the hypothesis that the Christian God remains a sex God ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... especially when some miles from a market-town, to make adequate preparation for an unexpected guest at dinner; but even this is a very inferior difficulty to that experienced by those who have to order the repast in conformity with certain rigid notions of a guest who will criticise the smallest deviation from the most humble standard, and actually rebuke the slightest pretension to delicacy of food or elegance ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... province to criticise the Nicene Creed, which is virtually the old Apostles' Creed, with the addition of the Trinity, as defined by Athanasius. The subject is too complicated and metaphysical. It is allied with questions concerning which men have always differed and ever will differ. Although ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... and a violet blue In one bouquet! I fancy that will do. And now I crave your patience and a boon, Which is to listen, while I read my rhyme, A floating fancy of the summer time. 'Tis neither witty, wonderful, nor wise, So listen kindly—but don't criticise My maiden effort ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... dwells amid those agencies which underlie the visible phenomena of Induction and Conduction; and he tries by the strong light of his imagination to see the very molecules of his dielectrics. It would, however, be easy to criticise these researches, easy to show the looseness, and sometimes the inaccuracy, of the phraseology employed; but this critical spirit will get little good out of Faraday. Rather let those who ponder his works seek ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... wish I could say, always on the poet's side; but his ferocious hates and bigotries too often tempt us to hate the bigot, and always compel us to take part with the fellow-creatures whom he outrages. At least, such is their effect on myself. Nor will he or his worshippers suffer us to criticise his faults with mere reference to the age in which he lived. I should have been glad to do so; but the claims made for him, even by himself, will not allow it. We are called upon to look on him as a divine, a prophet, an oracle in ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... off, where there are palms and coral reefs, and the people don't believe in wrapping themselves up much.) And so she's given the dance at a great many War Fund matinees. That little Mrs. Jimmy Sharpe, daring to criticise it, said there was too much Ollyoola and not enough dance; but everybody who counts simply raves about it. And then, when some manager person offered Sybil big terms to do it at the "Incandescent," he was "officially informed" that, if the Ollyoola Love Dance went into the bill the "Incandescent" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... was not her place to criticise her cousins' behavior, so she did the best she could to pour oil ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... the Academy exhibition had come round again, and Mr. Hamerton had to go and criticise it as usual; but after reaching Amiens, he felt so poorly that he resolved to send his resignation to the "Saturday Review," and to return home as quickly as he could. Here is his ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... baulked. Nor is it undesirable that the privacy of headquarters should be respected. The vanity of a little brief authority has before now tempted subordinate officers to hint at weaknesses on the part of their superiors. Ignorance of war and of the situation has induced them to criticise and to condemn; and idle words, greedily listened to, and quickly exaggerated, may easily destroy the confidence of the soldiery in the abilities ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... went on to express his willingness "to accept it or any other safeguard that the wit of man could devise, consistent with the ordinary principles of representative government, which is necessary to show the minority in Ireland that their fears are groundless." He then proceeded strongly to criticise the power of the Lord Lieutenant under Clause 3—a power not confined to a mere exercise of veto such as is possessed by a colonial governor, but something much more than this—"a power on the part of the Lord Lieutenant to interfere with and ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... over again, the moment she got home. He might ask her mother—he might ask the people next door. If Madame Carre didn't think she could work, she might have heard, could she have listened at the door, something that would show her. But she didn't think her even good enough to criticise—since that wasn't criticism, telling her her head was good. Of course her head was good—she needn't travel up to the quartiers excentriques to find that out. It was her mother, the way she talked, who ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... the Greek. He even wrote to India for mushroom seed one day, and he hasn't a single mule that wasn't sired by a wild ass. Do you see all those cushions? Not a single one but what is stuffed with either purple or scarlet wool! He hasn't anything to worry about! Look out how you criticise those other fellow-freedmen-friends of his, they're all well heeled. See the fellow reclining at the bottom of the end couch? He's worth his 800,000 any day, and he rose from nothing. Only a short while ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Dick, Jack, or Tom, and nickname their own mother; when they are allowed to drown the voice of the most honored guest at the table with their little bald chatter, so that even the cross-questioning genius of a Socrates would find itself at a discount; when they are allowed to criticise and contradict their elders in a way that would have appalled our grandmothers; when they are suffered to make remarks which are anything but reverent on sacred things—have I not some reason to fear ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... Brandenburg princes, and Frederick William can not deny that he has the family failing. Yes, he has dismissed me; but then, you know, it was perfectly natural, for he loves the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, and I ventured to criticise her." ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... elude the college authorities. Those disposed to do evil represent only a very small proportion of the great body of students, but these give occasion for some supercilious and conceited correspondent of the public press severely to criticise the college government, and to give gross caricatures and exaggerated statements of the mischief done by this small percentage of students, and then include the entire academic body in the same general censure. It is generally believed by those qualified to know ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... seductive; and it is known that the girls, far from being untractable to the cura, consider themselves lucky to attract his attention, and their mother, father, and relatives share that sentiment with them. What virtue and stoicism does not the friar need to possess! Let those who criticise them on this point imagine themselves to be living in a village without relatives or friends, or any other fellow-countrymen, at least with whom they can converse; and then let them be candid. Don Inigo Azaola told ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... judgment of her uncle. He had been very kind to her ever since she had come to Aylingford as a little child, and if his manner towards her had changed recently she hardly noticed it. Under the circumstances she would not easily be ready to criticise. But in the case of the guests the change was not only very marked, but increasingly so, particularly with the women. Whereas the men, chivalrous in spite of themselves, perhaps, showed her a certain amount of deference, the women seemed to resent her. It was so soon apparent ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... with an obstinacy that is incomprehensible to us, who are always ready to try experiments. Americans complain bitterly of the same freezing experiences in France and Germany, and, in turn, foreigners all criticise our overheated houses and places ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... of conscience to criticise the pastor, he was autocrat of Longmeadow. One who preceded Pastor Storrs had it told about him that two of his deacons wanted him to appoint Ruling Elders. He appointed them; and asked them what they thought the duties were. They ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... he had been drunk, but because he had taken advantage of the young girl's position to abuse her fiance in his stupid jealousy, knowing nothing of their mutual relations and obligations and next to nothing of the man himself. And what right had he to criticise him in that hasty and unguarded manner? Who had asked for his opinion? Was it thinkable that such a creature as Avdotya Romanovna would be marrying an unworthy man for money? So there must be something in him. The lodgings? But after all how could he know the character ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to take occasion by the hand to win concessions from the King in the interests of liberty, he knew how to use his opportunity for strengthening his own prerogatives. He brought forward a measure which the Parliament passed, constituting it a capital offence to criticise the King's conduct or government, and making it unlawful for his subjects to enter into any association for political ends without the consent ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... Great Britain a better army for national and Imperial defence, is apparently immaterial to the Socialists, for they criticise it merely from the point of view of intending rioters and revolutionaries. They complain: "The position of the Volunteers now is this, that they are not under military law, and cannot be called out as soldiers to shoot down workmen ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... information of the world.[66] Into these reasons we will hereafter inquire, for our faith in Holy Scripture does not rest on their canons. We are not now asking what they thought, but what they did; and we find that they did criticise certain books, reported to be written by the apostles of Jesus Christ some three hundred years before, approve some, and reject others as spurious, and publish a list of those they thought genuine. Infidels admit this, and on the strength of it long ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... movements were almost impossible. As a fact they rarely ever took place, and it is not to be wondered at that the best officers of every grade in the armies operating in Virginia found much throughout the campaign, from beginning to end, to criticise and complain of. Nor is it to be thought strange that many of their best movements were successful rather because of good luck than of good management, or failed rather because of their defective execution, than by the enemy's ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... me everything," said Mildred, coldly. This woman's attitude was unbearable. It would seem that she even dared to criticise her, Mildred Wayland, for her treatment of Boyd. She pretended to a truer friendship, a more intimate knowledge of him. But no—it wasn't pretense. It was too natural, too unconscious, for that; and therein lay ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... of the surprise which these presents gave to the King and the whole Court, some of those who composed it, and who, according to the customs of that place, endeavoured to criticise upon it, and who wished to contradict those who applauded it, or to show the justness of their own remarks, demanded where was the ninth slave. Dakianos, who expected the question, pointed to himself. The King, pleased ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... who writes this biography of a bubble never wrote a biography before in all his life. This is his first printed work. Perhaps some old person will criticise it severely. ...
— The Nursery, February 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... industrialism, would give more digestible food for artistic enjoyment than the early Italians or the Ashikaga masters, whom they pretend to admire. The name of the artist is more important to them than the quality of the work. As a Chinese critic complained many centuries ago, "People criticise a picture by their ear." It is this lack of genuine appreciation that is responsible for the pseudo-classic horrors that to-day greet ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... of Fontenelle bore this stamp of discreet moderation. When Abbe St. Pierre was excluded from the French Academy under Louis XV. for having dared to criticise the government of Louis XIV., one single ball in the urn protested against the unjust pressure exercised by Cardinal Fleury upon the society. They all asked one another who the rebel was; each defended himself against ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... first literary effort. If I know myself, it will also be my last. Under these circumstances, I beg that such of my young fellow-citizens as may happen to come upon this narrative (and I am not ambitions to have the number large) will kindly forbear to criticise it; for it will not bear criticism. Such of the facts and incidents of our voyage as I have thought would be of interest I have tried to write out. Strictly nautical terms and phrases I have sought to avoid: first, because I believed ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Ilium. She was really looking the other way, exhibiting to the spectator all that remained of the face that launched the thousand ships of which half a dozen were shown riding at anchor behind her back. I did not venture to criticise, because the corporal knew all about it, having seen the Story of Hector done by the marionettes. Filomena was embroidering this most beautifully; I should say that the needle-working of it was as much above all praise as the design ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... whose duty it is to set the atmosphere into motion. That no one has ever seen the bird doing the work, or that the task is too great for any conceivable bird, is to the simple, uncultivated man no objection to this view. It is long, indeed, before education brings men to the point where they can criticise their first explanations ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... applies to them a salve of the patent kind, buys his Mule a new Panel, and makes him do the work. That is what I understand by a political revolution.... And are the Ottoman people free to-day? Who in all Syria and Arabia dare openly criticise the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... reading!' or I look over a great vessel like this and say, 'How clumsily built!' but what if I were doomed to write a similar book, to plan a great steamer—just think of the results! I would never criticise again." ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... would halt for a while, either because of a check to one of the pageants in front, or in order that some of its members might refresh themselves with drink which was brought to them. Then the crowd, ceasing from its cheers, would make jokes, and criticise whatever person or thing they chanced to be near. Greatly did they criticise Miriam in this fashion, or at the least she thought so, who must listen to it all. Most of them, she found, knew her by her name of Pearl-Maiden, and pointed out to each other the necklace about ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... character, and he probably cultivated, with new diligence, his blossoms of poetry, which, however, were in some danger of a blast; for, submitting his productions to some who thought themselves qualified to criticise, he heard of nothing but faults; but, finding other judges more favourable, he did not suffer ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... 'unconsidered trifles,' they never once direct their eyes or lift their hands to seize on any but the most gorgeous, tarnished, threadbare, patchwork set of phrases, the left-off finery of poetic extravagance, transmitted down through successive generations of barren pretenders. If they criticise actors and actresses, a huddled phantasmagoria of feathers, spangles, floods of light, and oceans of sound float before their morbid sense, which they paint in the style of Ancient Pistol. Not a glimpse can you get of the merits or defects of the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... mind to criticise that promise, but checked her lips. He was a child, and she would do no ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... great thought with which he starts, that of the final judgment, in which each man shall give account of himself. What has that to do with the question in hand? This, that it ought to keep us from premature and censorious judging. We have something more pressing to do than to criticise each other. Ourselves are enough to keep our hands full, without taking a lift of our fellows' conduct. And this, further, that, in view of the final judgment, we should hold a preliminary investigation on our own principles of action, and 'decide' to adopt ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... not to criticise, but she lost no opportunity for asking if she were to carry out this, that, or some other order of Mrs. Stewart's, until poor Neil lost his ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... that, if your dear shining eyes could see, they would see, NOW, a woman who is, trustfully and unquestioningly, all your own. If she is doubtful of her face and figure, she says quite simply: 'They pleased HIM; and they are just HIS. I have no further right to criticise them. If he wants them, they are not mine, but his.' Darling, I cannot tell you now, how I have arrived at this assurance. But I have had proofs beyond words ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... vices of the successive administrations of Lerma, Uzeda, and Olivarez; to point out the actual state of the drama in Spain under the reign of Philip IV., who, indolent as he was, possessed the taste of a true Spaniard for dramatic representation; to criticise the absurd system pursued by the physicians, abuses of subordinate officers of justice, the follies of false pretenders to philosophy, the disorders and corruptions which swarm in every department of a despotic and inefficient government, the multitude of sharpers ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... His works (his Leadenhall street works) were certainly not read; popular they could not be, for they were not read by anybody; but then, to balance that, they were not reviewed. His folios were of that order, which (in Cowper's words) "not even critics criticise." Is that nothing? Is it no happiness to escape the hands of scoundrel reviewers? Many of us escape being read; the worshipful reviewer does not find time to read a line of us; but we do not for that reason ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... John Galsworthy—there would be found one truth about them so obvious that it has been remarked by dozens of reviewers. It is that they are concerned with the same social problems as those which fall under the science of sociology; that they advocate, criticise, or imply reforms scarcely less directly than do those for whom social reform ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... would have recognized Packard and sustained him with the full power of the general government. My intense feeling, caused by the atrocities in Louisiana, may have unduly influenced me. But General Grant did not think this was his duty. I do not criticise his action, but only state the facts, He would only maintain the peace. He would not recognize Packard as governor, but I know, what is now an open secret, the strong bent of his mind, and at one time his decision was to withdraw the troops, to recognize ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... of men of whom it is no exaggeration to say that they were ignorant of every principle of every branch of political science. So long as our domestic administration was confined merely to the raising of a revenue, they levied taxes with gross facility from the industry of a country too busy to criticise or complain. But when the excitement and distraction of war had ceased, and they were forced to survey the social elements that surrounded them, they seemed, for the first time, to have become conscious of their own incapacity. These men, indeed, were ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... 'Who do you think will let you out?' 'Who is going to help you more than the rest?' My whole body was racked with pain; I could not move from the floor, on which I lay. I had to put up with the stares of the curious, and the mockeries and remarks on me of whoever chose to criticise. Among them was the lame man whom I had seen thrust in by the two officers who had taken me from the gate. He was the first to jibe. 'But for him they would never have seen me,' he said. 'I should have been well by this time in the fresh air.' 'It is ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... the truth of Nero's words. "That is true, Caesar, and therefore I do not presume to criticise or even to have an opinion upon acts of state policy. These are matters utterly beyond me. I know nothing of the history of the families of Rome. I know not who may, with or without reason, deem that they have cause of complaint against you, or who may be hostile to you either from private grievances ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... right of every Scot—secured to him by the Treaty of Union and confirmed by the Disruption—to criticise his minister with much freedom, but this privilege is exercised with a delicate charity. When it is not possible for a conscientious hearer to approve a sermon, he is not compelled to condemnation. "There wes naething wrang ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... with a mocking smile. You are mistaken if you fancy you can harm any of my moods. Won't you stay and criticise my picture for me?" ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... also," continued Appleplex, catching up the thread, "Edith is the least detached of all persons, since to be detached is to be detached from one's self, to stand by and criticise coldly one's own passions and vicissitudes. But in Edith the critic is coaching ...
— Eeldrop and Appleplex • T.S. Eliot
... Anne Bradstreet's youth, and a sense that she could hardly criticise a judgment which had required the united forces of every church in the Colony to pronounce, that made her ignore one of the most stormy experiences of those early days, the trial and banishment of Anne Hutchinson. Her silence ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... am going to criticise some one and let the criticism fall where it belongs. There has been a great injustice done the commercial fruit grower, or those trying to grow fruit commercially, by advising, urging, or anything else you choose to call it, the farmer or small homekeeper to buy more fruit trees and plants than ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... yourself. If you have to do this, take your record and write as he tells you, when he tells you. If the orders are at all intricate it is your only way of being absolutely sure you have everything correct. It is a protection to you also, if the family are inclined to criticise. ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... There is a kind of literary exercise, calling itself criticism, which takes a picture or a book as its point of departure and proceeds to create a work of art in its own right, attaching itself only in name to the work which it purports to criticise. "Who cares," exclaims a clever maker of epigrams, "whether Mr. Ruskin's views on Turner are sound or not? What does it matter? That mighty and majestic prose of his, so fervid and so fiery-coloured in its noble eloquence, so ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... postpone the Duma, then the peril will be upon thine own head!" I heard Rasputin shout. "Why allow these revolutionary deputies to criticise thy policy and undermine thy popularity with the nation? It is folly! Such policy is suicidal, and if thou wilt persist I shall withdraw and return to my home, well knowing that to-morrow the day of Russia's ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... culture? What circumstances in his life enhance his praise? Did he make any mistake? Does Browning think so? How does Browning defend him? What imagery in the poem seems especially effective? Are you reminded of anything in "Rabbi Ben Ezra"? Criticise the rhymes and metre. ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... was a king, Frederick declares, "without ostentation and without deceit," and who won by his conduct the confidence of Europe. This latter part of the description is a little too polite. Kings do not criticise each other too keenly in works that are meant for publication. But the words form, on the whole, an epitaph for George which might be inscribed on his tomb without greater straining of the truth than ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Democrat. Further, to emphasise its independence and dislike of the President, the convention nominated Greene C. Bronson for governor as the representative of Pierce's proscriptive policy for opinion's sake. But there was no disposition to criticise Pierce's pro-slavery policy. It favoured the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, proclaiming the doctrine of non-intervention by Congress and the right of the territories to make their own local laws, including regulations ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of Cicero, Quintilian, and Horace, they not only disdain the sober rules which their ancient brethren have wisely laid down, and hold in contempt the voice of the public,[84] but, forgetting the subject which they have undertaken to criticise, they push the author out of his seat, quietly sit in it themselves, and fancy they entertain you by the gravity of their deportment, and their rash usurpation of the royal monosyllable 'Nos.'[85] This solemn pronoun, or rather 'plural style,'[86] my dear Philemon, is ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... inducement to work; it certainly prevents criminals from shirking their labor, and soon converts a lazy tramp into a rustling coal miner. There is one thing, however, that is connected with this system of punishment that I will criticise. The officer under whose immediate control the prisoner is placed fixes the period of his confinement in the dungeon. It gives the officer a good opportunity to abuse a prisoner he may dislike. These subordinate officers are not all angels. Some of them are lacking in sympathy. They ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... the Italian girl's that "went everywhere," broke every rule at first. It was amusing enough (the old huntsman remembers)—but for the grief that followed after. For she did not submit easily. Having broken the rules, she would find fault with them! She would advise and criticise, and "being a fool," instruct the wise, and deal out praise or blame like a child. But "the wise" only smiled. It was as if a little mechanical toy should be contrived to make the motion of striking, and brilliantly make it. Thus, as a mechanical toy, was the only way to treat ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... spreading silver head-dresses, which give them somewhat of a conceited air. They strut about as if they were nursing the little kings and queens of the future. Around these Gardens is the fashionable drive, which is thronged on Sundays, when the people assemble to criticise the elite ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... pavilions which are to disappear after an existence of six months. Economical reasons are always worthy of respect, and the modesty of the Municipal Council on this occasion ought to be praised. But what one has a right to criticise is the unhappy idea which placed these pavilions in such a manner as to completely obstruct the view of the exterior porticos of the palaces and industrial sections when one stands before the central dome in the centre of the garden. ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... he would succeed in his work for souls, he should use in it all the natural energy that God had given him, and he acted up to his belief I once heard a good old priest, who said his beads well and made a desert around his pulpit by miserable preaching, criticise Father Hecker, who, he imagined, put too much reliance in man, and not enough in God. Father Hecker's piety, his assiduity in prayer, his personal habits of self-denial, repel the aspersion that he failed in reliance ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... provided a desk?—Ah! I knew 'twould be yo' verdic'. But how great trouble I have with that subjec'! Me, I think yes; but the parents,"—he looked tenderly over among them,—"they contend no. Now, sir, here are three copy-books. Inspect; criticise. No, commence rather, if you please, with the copy-book of Madelaine; then p'oceed to the copy-book of Claude, and finally conclude at the copy-book of Sidonie; thus rising by degrees: good, more ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... plebeians, and the sacred law settled on the Roman Runnymede after the first secession to the Sacred Mount. After a few months the ten men produced ten laws, which were written out and set up in public places for the people to read and criticise. Suggestions for alterations might be made, and if the ten men approved them, they made them a part of their report, after which all was submitted to the senate and the curi, and finally approved. The whole code of laws was ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... If we would criticise the documents for Indian mythology in a scientific manner, it is now necessary that we should try to discover, as far as possible, the social and religious condition of the people among whom the Vedas took shape. Were ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... 1862 with the outbreak of the struggle over the Prussian constitution. In a series of vigorous addresses (April, 1862, to February, 1863) he first criticised, then condemned, the Progressive party for its—as it seemed to him—pusillanimous policy. But Lassalle was not content merely to criticise and condemn. His restless energy found no adequate expression short of the creation of a new party of his own. His repudiation of the Progressives, however, was not dictated by differences over tactics alone. He rejected the fundamental principles of the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... number, and had been picked from the best—a hard-bitten, tough band of veterans, weather beaten, scarred in numerous fights or by the backwoods scourge of small-pox, compact, muscular, fearless, loyal, cynically aloof from those not of their cult, out-spoken and free to criticise—in short, men to do great things under the strong leader, and to mutiny at the end of three days under the weak. They piled off the train at Sawyer's, stamped their feet on the board platform of the ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... luminous of what happens to us that, once employed, it never gets forgotten. It applies with equal felicity to things and persons, to the objective and to the ejective realm. However a Berkeley, a Mill, or a Cornelius may CRITICISE it, it WORKS; and in practical life we never think of 'going back' upon it, or reading our incoming experiences in any other terms. We may, indeed, speculatively imagine a state of 'pure' experience before the hypothesis of permanent objects behind its flux had been framed; and we can play with ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... Faith, not by Sacraments. Its Method is Private Judgment, not Church Authority. But private judgment generates authority; authority, first legitimate, that of knowledge, grows into the illegitimate authority of prescription, calling itself Orthodoxy. Then Private Judgment comes forth again to criticise and reform. It thus becomes the duty of each individual to judge the Church; and out of innumerable individual judgments the insight of the Church is kept living and progressive. We contribute one such private judgment; not, we trust, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... welcome, the infirmities of age were forgotten there. For over half a century he had held himself in readiness to attend the bedside of all who might call upon him to speak cheering, hopeful words to the dying. But now our little community has become educated and they are able to criticise. As we look around the church we are lost in wonder as to what has come to the people. The older ones are sadder and a spirit of unrest seems to have seized upon the middle aged, while the very children have lost something of ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... agonising frame. Our angel-guardian is as incessantly by our side, as if our eyes were opened to behold his effulgent radiance. Satan strikes the same blows at our souls, whether he shows himself to our sight or not. The relics of Saints, which we carefully look at or criticise, may be at any moment the vehicles of the same miraculous powers as the handkerchiefs from the body of St. Paul. Who would say to a blind man, "Forget the tangible realities of this life, because you cannot see them"? Who would not rather say, "Bear constantly ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... and better than was needed in Arthur's day and realm. As a rule, the grammar was leaky and the construction more or less lame; but I did not much mind these things. They are common defects of my own, and one mustn't criticise other people on grounds where he can't ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Cooper, pausing a little, after the custom of the country, to gossip with him as they passed. According to another custom of the country, Thompson, Willoughby and I began to criticise them. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... we turn to the higher Vertebrata, the results of recent investigations, however we may sift and criticise them, seem to me to leave a clear balance in favour of the doctrine of the evolution of living forms one from another. Nevertheless, in discussing this question, it is very necessary to discriminate carefully between the different kinds of evidence ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... lovingly in his. "My life has scarcely been a Garden of Eden before the Fall. And I don't suppose my future, even should I escape the laws of man, is likely to be most creditable. Your past is your own—I have no right nor wish to criticise. Henceforth we are united in a common cause. Our hand is turned against one whose power in this part of the country is almost absolute. When we have wrested his property from him, to the uttermost farthing, we will ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... inconceivable prejudices against the connubial state. If it be permitted to a member of the Established Church to cavil at any sentence written by Saint Paul,—and I think that liberty may be permitted to a simple layman, since eminent members of the clergy criticise the whole Bible as freely as if it were the history of Queen Elizabeth by Mr. Froude,—I should demur at the doctrine that it is better to marry than to burn: I myself should prefer burning. With these sentiments ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wins—who will dare to criticise the wisdom of his policy fifty years from to-day? If we lose, who will give us credit for our high ideals of Civil Law in times of war? You have the chance to-day to win. Leap into the saddle and command the obedience of every man, woman and child in the South! Your ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... it they want us?" she said. "Next Tuesday night? Well, we could go, I suppose, but I don't believe we shall. Mrs. Lake said something about coming around that evening to help me read my paper and criticise it." ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... square platform, called the fijerena, in an angle of the wall, or at the gate, with steps leading up to it. Here the family sits, when the work of the day is over, to watch—and, doubtless, to criticise—the passers-by; also to do the polite according to Malagasy ideas, for it must be told that these people are very courteous. Even the poorest have a natural dignity and ease of ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... the most elegant scholars which America has produced, and, until recently, held the professorship of modern languages at the neighbouring university of Cambridge. It would be out of place here to criticise his poetry. Although it is very unequal and occasionally fantastic, and though in one of his greatest poems the English language appears to dance in chains in the hexameter, many of his shorter pieces well upwards from the heart, in a manner which is likely to ensure durable fame ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... shining eyes could see, they would see, NOW, a woman who is, trustfully and unquestioningly, all your own. If she is doubtful of her face and figure, she says quite simply: 'They pleased HIM; and they are just HIS. I have no further right to criticise them. If he wants them, they are not mine, but his.' Darling, I cannot tell you now, how I have arrived at this assurance. But I have had proofs beyond words of your ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... beg your pardon, sir," says the man, a trifle thickly. "I came back to W—— last night, and heard of the awful things, as has happened here. Now, I always liked Burrill, in spite of his weakness, for I ain't the man to criticise such failin's. I've been down among the factory people, and I've heard them talk; and, thinks I to myself, there's some things as Mr. Lamotte ought to know. You've always paid me my wages, sir; ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... exceedingly, but to enjoy this sort of thing sustainedly one should not have an English constitution. We are a phlegmatic set, to whom such zests should be dealt out homoeopathically: else do we soon begin to criticise and take exceptions. Now it so happens that we had entered upon the experience of this delectability with every good disposition towards it, but a still better disposition towards the getting beyond it if we could, that we might see something ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... describe it briefly, and criticise it with the same freedom which I used towards the Madonna of the same sculptor, in the collection of the Marquis de Sommariva at Paris.[142] At the time of my viewing it, a little after ten o'clock, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... like that one, O art critics!" we hear him saying. "Well, here is another before you have adjusted your pince-nez, and I will brush it away before you have emitted your first Ah! I do not criticise. I paint—I paint for the love of it. I paint with the pigments of the firmament and the imagination of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... over. The troops march back to the arsenal. The rifles are collected, and the warriors disperse to their homes. Many hurry to the market-place to make purchases, to hear the latest rumour, or to watch the executions—for there are usually executions. Others stroll to the Suk-er-Rekik and criticise the points of the slave girls as the dealers offer them for sale. But the Khalifa has returned to his house, and his council have been summoned. The room is small, and the ruler sits cross-legged upon ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Few gentlemen of wealth have had the same opportunity, and few less would have the courage to take the first bold step in this matter. It cannot, however, by horticulturists, be looked upon as an experiment, however much those inexperienced in such matters may be disposed to criticise. ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward
... things she found herself called upon to sanction and conserve. She could not immediately reform it—she must produce first her doctrine of 'true forms,' her scientific definitions and precepts based on them, and her doctrine of constructions. She could not openly condemn it; but she could criticise and reject it by means of that method which is 'sometimes necessary in the sciences,' and to which 'those who would let in new light upon the human mind must have recourse.' She could seize the grand hieroglyphic of the heroic past, and make it 'point with its finger' that which ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... claptrap," he cried, looking sternly at her, "then you will find you are mistaken. You will find I am not such a weak idiot as you suppose. Give up! because some demagogue from a Dissenting Committee takes upon him to criticise my conduct. If you think I have so little self-respect, so little stamina," he said, fiercely, "you will find you have ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... did ROBERT HUGH write a clever and hauntingly horrible story round it, and now here is ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER discoursing at large upon the same theme in Where No Fear Was (SMITH, ELDER). It is a book that you will hardly expect me to criticise. One either likes those gentle monologues of Mr. BENSON or is impatient under them—and in any case the comments of a third party would be superfluous. Personally, I should call this one of the most charming of those many hortatory volumes that have come ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... does the professor whose duty it is to criticise and approbate the pieces for this exhibition wish they were better! ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... to mention any names. It is always a mistake to mention names. One cannot guard against it too carefully. But having done what she did ten years ago dear Adela Sellingworth should really—but it is not for me to criticise her. Only there is nothing people—women—are more sensitive about than the question of age. No one likes to be laid on the shelf. Adela Sellingworth has chosen to—well—one might feel such a very drastic step to be quite uncalled for—quite ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... really as often, or more often," said Ethel. "If any of us criticise anything the girls have done, if there is a change in any arrangement, if she thinks herself neglected—I can't tell you what little matters suffice; she will catch me, and argue with me, till— oh, till we are both half dead, and yet ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... interrupting him)—It seems to me, sir, that we are the sole judges in this matter. I can well understand why men of the world do not like men of letters! But it is easier to criticise ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... food—considering the cost of provisions and the charge she made for her table—was very good. Only it had become a habit for certain of the boarders, led by the jester, Crackit, to criticise ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... this the proprieties require that you merely pay compliments to the guest of the occasion, and I am merely here to pay compliments to the guest of the occasion, not to criticise him in any way, and I can say ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and Frederick William can not deny that he has the family failing. Yes, he has dismissed me; but then, you know, it was perfectly natural, for he loves the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, and I ventured to criticise her." ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... brilliant jests, until at last we retire one by one from the conversation and watch him with savage, weary eyes over our pipes. He invariably beats me at chess, invariably. People talk about him and ask my opinion of him, and if I venture to criticise him they begin to look as though they thought I was jealous. Grossly favourable notices of his books and his pictures crop up in the most unlikely places; indeed I have almost given up newspapers on account of him. ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... her crimes. She must do so no more. Her newspapers were saying nasty things about Austria; they must do so no longer. That is the German spirit; you had it in Zabern. ["Hear, hear!" and applause.] How dare you criticise a Prussian official? [laughter,] and if you laugh, it is a capital offense—the Colonel in Zabern threatened to shoot if it was repeated. In the same way the Servian newspapers must not criticise ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... rash for us, in our profound ignorance, to criticise the workings of a boundless Wisdom? He who takes only a few steps along the pathway of Knowledge, or enters, however slightly, into the secret of the works of God, obtains the proof that Providence leaves no part of the Cosmos, no being anywhere, ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... Apollo. [1] These, of a truth, are by far the finest things in Rome. He told the King that when his Majesty had once set eyes upon those marvellous works, he would then, and not till then, be able to criticise the arts of design, since everything which he had seen by us moderns was far removed from the perfection of the ancients. The King accepted his proposal, and gave him the introductions he required. ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... in 1627, Rous reports a discussion concerning the Rochelle Expedition which exactly counterparts our experience to-day. He was at Brandon with two gentlemen named Paine and Howlet, when the former began to criticise the management of the expedition, disputing the possibility of its success and then "fell in general to speak distrustfully of the voyage, and then of our war with France, which he would make our King the cause of"; and so went on to topics of old popular discontent, ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... translating bible stories and poetical imagery into pictures, than for their mechanical execution. To such as understand anything about paintings, it will seem very absurd, of course, that I should presume to criticise the paintings of these great masters, but they must admit that a hundred of those who roam the world and come to see the works of the masters, are ignorant of painting and sculpture, as I am, to half a dozen that ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... of the Oxford Galleries. I ought to add some notice of Hogarth to this lecture in the Appendix; but fear I shall have no time: besides, though I have profound respect for Hogarth, as, in literature, I have for Fielding, I can't criticise them, because I ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... by this fortunate circumstance crystallised and rendered immune from the necessity for self-search and spiritual struggle incidental to his neighbours. Since he was a man neither below nor above the average, it did not occur to him to criticise or place himself in opposition to a system which had gone on so long and was about to do him so much good. Like all average men, he was a believer in authority, and none the less because authority placed a large portion of itself in his hands. It would, indeed, have been unwarrantable to expect ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... let me say something to you about Lady C—— L——'s criticism of my performance. In the first place, nothing is easier than to criticise by comparison, and hardly anything much more difficult than to form a correct judgment of any work of art (be it what it may) upon the foundation of abstract principles and fundamental rules of taste and criticism; for this sort of analysis is really a study. Comparison is the criticism ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the constitution might have emerged from his head completely armed, like the Minerva of Jupiter, or the legislation of the ancients, were it not that in our days every one sought to be engaged in the task, or to criticise it. Yet, with the exception of some modifications, his plans were generally adopted, and he had in the committees more disciples ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... like me. I shall only ask you to find time to again look through the speech which I made to my townsfolk at the dedication of the public library. I remember that you have already criticised a few points therein, but merely in a general way, and I now beg that you will not only criticise it as a whole, but will ply your pencil on particular passages as well, in your severest manner. For even after a thorough revision it will still be open to us to publish or suppress it as we think ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... latitude and longitude, for that is a system of which the Latins have learned nothing. He himself, whilst still somewhat burdened by the authoritative dicta of "saints and sages" of past times, ventures at least to criticise some of the latter, such as Pliny and Ptolemy, and declares his intention to have recourse to the information of those who have travelled most extensively over the Earth's surface. And judging from the good use he ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... church ceremony, Flora said to me, "Oh, Aleister" (we were already engaged secretly), "papa is going to ask you next winter to stay at Hootawa. Before I forget, I want to warn you never to criticise the pictures. They are mostly of the Dutch and English School, and I dare say you will find a great many of the names wrong; but, you know, papa is irritable, and it would offend him if you said that the 'Terborch' was really by Pieter de Hooghe. You can easily avoid ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... repeated impatiently, "with Dornton Hall and twenty thousand a year! Independent, with every duty marked out for me! Independent, with every one to criticise my smallest actions—every one who would never have given a thought to the orphan who was contented and made her own friends on a hundred a year! Of course you, who are a stranger, don't understand; yet I thought that ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... baby, and appeared to feel no anxiety whatever about it. It was also left a matter of uncertainty whether Ben Bolt and his Esquimau bride returned to live happily during the remainder of their lives in England, or took up their permanent abode with Blunderbore. But it is not our province to criticise; we merely chronicle events ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... marshals them with unerring precision. In her special gift for organisation she seems almost unequalled. Her picnics are models for all future and past picnics; her combinations of feelings, of conversation, of gentlemen and ladies, are so natural and lifelike that reading to criticise is impossible to some of us—the scene carries us away, and we forget to look for the art by which it is recorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events group themselves so vividly and naturally in her mind that, in describing imaginary scenes, we seem not only to read them, but to ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... of the Union, and the slave-power was repeatedly and earnestly invited to lay down its traitorous arms, be forgiven, and keep its slaves. With Mr. Lincoln, as President, it was the Union, first, last, and all the time. And he but echoed the prevailing opinions of his time. I do not question or criticise his personal attitude; but what he himself called his "view of official duty" was to execute the will of the people, and that was not to abolish slavery, ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... aim of this work, though novel and to some extent is daring, it is chaste, practical and to the point, and will be a boon and a blessing to thousands who consult its pages. The world is full of ignorance, and the ignorant will always criticise, because they live to suffer ills, for they know no better. New light is fast falling upon the dark corners, and the eyes of ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... it was not her place to criticise her cousins' behavior, so she did the best she could to pour oil on the ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... must consider the silly way that he's been reared. I don't like his taking upon himself to criticise what we choose to do; but no doubt Goldsworthy IS a pretty big pill to swallow—to a chap like him, always so faddy about breeding and manners, and that ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... successive administrations of Lerma, Uzeda, and Olivarez; to point out the actual state of the drama in Spain under the reign of Philip IV., who, indolent as he was, possessed the taste of a true Spaniard for dramatic representation; to criticise the absurd system pursued by the physicians, abuses of subordinate officers of justice, the follies of false pretenders to philosophy, the disorders and corruptions which swarm in every department of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... and attempted to read and forget her annoyances in losing herself in the story, but that, too, failed. Her trials were countless. Not sufficient were to be found in the house, but that interfering Mrs. Meadows must criticise her singing. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... have served as a figure of sinful discontent, but that is because it is the habit of moralists to ignore material circumstances,—if indeed one may speak of a recent meal as a circumstance,—with Mr. Polly circum. Drink, indeed, our teachers will criticise nowadays both as regards quantity and quality, but neither church nor state nor school will raise a warning finger between a man and his hunger and his wife's catering. So on nearly every day in his life Mr. Polly fell into a violent rage and hatred against the outer ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... is infinitely more manly: one seems to hear a deep, decisive voice replying to tones far less sweet and serious. M. De Banville revenged himself nobly in later verses addressed to Gautier, verses which criticise the genius of that workman better, we think, than anything else that has been written of him in ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... science, whose duty it seems to be to peer into the mysteries of the universe, and to tell what he sees or what he guesses, is accused of an indifference to the effect which his utterances may have upon the less enlightened who hear him speak; many criticise the lawyer for a devotion to the interests of his client which is at times in doubtful harmony with the interests of justice in the larger sense; in the business world commercial integrity is exalted, and lapses from the ethical code which do not assail this ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... children of the day, treat him quite otherwise than their parents did. They criticise him openly and frankly. Their parents no longer understand how to inspire blind, terrified obedience. Little boarding-school girls discuss Uncle Reuben and wonder if he is anything but a myth. A six-year-old child proposes that he should prove by experiment that it is impossible ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... give lessons on political economy; blacksmiths suffered their fires to go out, while they stirred up the fires of faction; and even tailors, though said to be the ninth parts of humanity, neglected their own measures to criticise the measures of government. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... soul have been faithful; never an alien pleasure Lured me away from the light lit in your luminous eyes, But we have altered the World as pitiful man has leisure To criticise, balance, take ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... ultimate goal of it all was to lift the politics-ridden waterway out of politics altogether. Before he gave his final revision to the printers, he submitted a proof to the Boss, who returned it with the comment that his intellect was of an order quite too everyday to criticise a project obviously framed for the millennium. From the man reputed to own the Legislature, whose committees, certainly, were cut and dried in his office weeks before it met, this sarcasm was gloomily prophetic; but since his Tuscarora speech, Shelby had personally ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... Socialism describe, analyse, and criticise the Socialist doctrines only in the abstract as a rule. However, Socialism is not only an elaborate economic doctrine, it is at the same time a complete system of practical politics. Hence it does not suffice to study the doctrines of Socialism ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... be yo' verdic'. But how great trouble I have with that subjec'! Me, I think yes; but the parents,"—he looked tenderly over among them,—"they contend no. Now, sir, here are three copy-books. Inspect; criticise. No, commence rather, if you please, with the copy-book of Madelaine; then p'oceed to the copy-book of Claude, and finally conclude at the copy-book of Sidonie; thus rising by degrees: good, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... loud hurrah and blow themselves to drinks; When 'bout a hundred neutral lives are snuffed out like a torch, An' "hyphens" read the news an' smoke, a-settin' on the porch— Well, it's then the native's kind o' apt to see a little red, An' it's hardly fair to criticise the burning things he sed. For since the eagle's not a bird that thrives within a cage, One kind o' hears with sympathy his ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... had to show this to Mr. Norman, and get him to criticise my writing as he offered to do, I couldn't put in such things; so perhaps it's as well I shall have to worry ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... no higher hope for this important society than that it may continue in ever increasing strength to promote, criticise, and welcome from every quarter of the world whatever will improve the microscope in itself and in any of its applications, from the most simple to the most complex and important in which its employment ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... whom I have related this adventure criticise it by the method of questions and of cross-examination proving that it could not have happened precisely where it did; showing that I left the vale so late in the afternoon that I could not have found this man and his mount at the hour I say I did, and making all manner of comments ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... the right of every Scot—secured to him by the Treaty of Union and confirmed by the Disruption—to criticise his minister with much freedom, but this privilege is exercised with a delicate charity. When it is not possible for a conscientious hearer to approve a sermon, he is not compelled to condemnation. "There wes naething wrang wi' ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... to Bruno and Vanini. How completely an ordinary mind is paralyzed by that early preparation in metaphysics is seen in the most vivid way and on its most ridiculous side, where such a one undertakes to criticise the doctrines of an alien creed. The efforts of the ordinary man are generally found to be directed to a careful exhibition of the incongruity of its dogmas with those of his own belief: he is at great pains to show ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... had at first looked at each other mockingly. They were hardly at all alike. He was quicksilver, she was still water. But it was not long before quicksilver tried to appear more at rest, and sleeping water awoke. Georges would criticise Aurora's clothes, and her Italian taste—a slight want of feeling for modulation and a certain preference for crude colors. Aurora used to delight in teasing Georges, and imitating his rather hurried and precious way of speaking. And while they laughed at each other, they ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... publication of the Official Papers, on reviewing the whole facts of the case, in a debate upon it in parliament, declared "that he found much to criticise in almost all the parties concerned, except Mr. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... home, suddenly halted the line in which he was walking, and proceeded to harangue the troops in defence of his own reputation. Apparently no one interfered to prevent this remarkable piece of military self-justification; the soldiers were evidently accustomed openly to criticise the conduct of their commanders, while the latter responded in any manner they saw fit. As soon as the address was over, and the lines once more straightened out, the march was renewed in the original order; and immediately afterwards the scouts brought news ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... of these other accounts, among which there is a considerable group of uniform character (1Kings xx. xxii. 2Kings iii. vi. 24-xii. 20. ix. 1-x. 27) favourably distinguished from the rest, we are placed in a position to criticise the history of Elijah, and to reach a result which is very instructive for the history of the tradition, namely that the influence of the mighty prophet on his age has after all been appraised much too highly. His reputation could not be what ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... must finish this poem as best he can, and I shall be glad to consider and criticise what he does, though I may say at once that there will be no prize. It ought to go on for another eight verses or so, though that is not essential in these days, for if it simply won't go on it can just stop in the middle. Only then it must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... I am within a week of my 82d birthday, and am writing while my heart is beating one hundred and sixty times per minute, you must not criticise me too sharply. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... help smiling, and Dick was not long before he joined in the laugh against himself. He had felt uncomfortable enough when he started, in an almost similar dress, with Surajah, although there was then no one to criticise his appearance. But now, in the presence of his mother and aunt, he felt ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... The officers are in their uniforms—a costume for equestrian exercise not quite shipshape as they would phrase it. On horseback in a naval uniform! It would not do riding thus on an English road; there the veriest country lout would criticise it. But different in California, where all ride, gentle or simple, in dresses of every conceivable cut and fashion, with no fear of being ridiculed therefor. None need attach to the dress worn by Edward Crozier. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... who ignorantly criticise the doctrines of Buddhism.—The proverb alludes to a celebrated fable in the Avadanas, about a number of blind men who tried to decide the form of an elephant by feeling the animal. One, feeling the leg, declared the elephant to be like a tree; another, feeling the trunk only, declared the elephant ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... so certain to be brought to book for his offences as the erring or unsuccessful monarch. It must be difficult for a great classicist to be at the same time a believer in the divine right of kings; and it was a new idea for the mediaeval Scot accustomed to reverence the name, but to criticise in the sharpest practical way the acts of his sovereign. And we may imagine that the old scholar, who could not but hear from his window the shouts of the warfare between the Queen's party and the King's, would have a grim satisfaction as he sat high above them, protected ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... The bricklayer does not criticise the clergyman for limiting his YEAR'S output to forty sermons. He does not say to him, "You are ABLE to preach fifty-two sermons a year. If you preach only forty, you are dishonest and rob ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... when the island was sadly in want of money; the natural surface of the firm soil would have been preferred by all vehicles except during rain, when they would have adopted the metalled parallel way. It is easy to criticise after the event, and there can be no doubt that upon our first occupation of the island a much greater traffic was expected, and the road between the two capitals was arranged accordingly. We halted for the night at the new stone ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... sometimes been accused of not reading the works which they affected to criticise. On the present occasion we shall anticipate the author's complaint, and honestly confess that we have not read his work. Not that we have been wanting in our duty—far from it—indeed, we have made efforts almost as superhuman as the story itself appears to be, to get through it; but with ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... "I do not criticise," continued their president, magnanimously, "nor do I complain of any one. Each in this world has his or her mission, and the most ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... drums through ports and towns; the wily Indian joins the invader; his army is famine-smitten and thinned with fever, and drill in rags, while Congress meets in secret halls but to impede his plans and criticise; and while he holds the scales and looks toward the end, and makes retreat best serve the cause, what rivals rise! See brilliant Gates appear! Does he not know this rivalry and hear the plaudits that surround the name of Saratoga? I've shared my thoughts with Washington, ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... permission and authority so to do, in which case he cannot do so too much—the verdict delivered upon my absent secretary was not by any means unfavourable, though, of course, there was much to criticise. ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... young man who took life seriously. If it were possible to imagine that he could criticise unfavourably anything said or done by his chief, it would be perhaps when the chief condescended to trifle about himself and his position. So Hamilton did not like the mild jest about the School Board. Indeed, his mind was not at ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... taken one evening to the play, but, unfortunately, what was called a naval drama was acted. Here both he and the midshipman were well qualified to criticise. He certainly was ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... away inside. Then the cargo started! Lady Augusta happy as a princess, with her newly-met brother and her unruly children, and not caring in the least for the gaze of the people who stood in the street, or came rushing to their windows and doors to criticise the load. ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... an imputation upon half the white race in this country" and I challenge this "friend and well-wisher" to give proof of the truth of her charge. Miss Willard protests against lynching in one paragraph and then, in the next, deliberately misrepresents my position in order that she may criticise a movement, whose only purpose is to protect our oppressed race from vindictive slander ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... Who can read his history of Chidiock Titchbourne unmoved? or can refuse to sympathise with his account of the painful difficulties of the English Monarchs with their loyal subjects of the old faith? If in a parliamentary country he has dared to criticise the conduct of Parliaments, it was only because an impartial judgment had taught him, as he himself expresses it, that "Parliaments have their ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Noel's book has an emotional rather than an intellectual interest. It is simply a record of the moods of a man of letters, and its criticisms merely reveal the critic without illuminating what he would criticise for us. The best that we can say of it is that it is a Sentimental Journey through Literature, the worst that any one could say of it is that it has all the merits ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... of putting the matter; and, in the circumstances, was not disposed to criticise John's method. But ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... of him turn upon this point in his character; and though they may not be strictly true, they illustrate the stern virtues for which he was celebrated among the Corsicans, and show what kind of men this harsh and gloomy nation loved to celebrate as heroes. This is not the place either to criticise these legends or to recount them at full length. The most famous and the most characteristic may, however, be briefly told. On one occasion, after a victory over the Genoese, he sent a message that the captives in his hands should be released ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... your printed letter, which you might like to keep. It has amused me, especially the part in which you criticise yourself. To appreciate the letter fully I ought to have read the bishop's letter, which seems to have ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... Rome. I went home well pleased at having compelled the giant of intellect to listen to reason, as I then thought foolishly enough; but there was a rankling feeling left in my heart against him which made me, ten years later, criticise ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... not long differ with me. This is my first literary effort. If I know myself, it will also be my last. Under these circumstances, I beg that such of my young fellow-citizens as may happen to come upon this narrative (and I am not ambitions to have the number large) will kindly forbear to criticise it; for it will not bear criticism. Such of the facts and incidents of our voyage as I have thought would be of interest I have tried to write out. Strictly nautical terms and phrases I have sought to avoid: first, because I believed them of no great interest to the general reader; second, because, ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... work from your pen who will just possess quantum enough of mathematical knowledge to be able to read the first chapter without being able to follow you into its application, and as these, moreover, are the very people who will think themselves privileged to criticise and use their privilege with the least discretion, I cannot recommend too much clearness, fulness, and order in the expose of the principles. Were I you, I would devote to this first part at least double the space you have ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... saloons of gaiety, or the establishment of a fashionable tailor, so that when Ethelyn, at twelve, went down to Boston, she found her tall, slender, light-haired cousin of sixteen a perfect dandy, with a capability and a disposition to criticise and laugh at whatever there was of gaucherie in her country manners and country dress. In some things the two were of mutual benefit to each other. Ethelyn, who could conquer any lesson however difficult, helped thick-headed, indolent Frank in his studies, translating his hard ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... Then she returned to criticise the table and arrange the name-cards. And, this accomplished, she ran upstairs again to her own room, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... was generally gay and ready to converse at table, but he made it a rule never to criticise or discuss living persons himself, or allow others to do ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... make that AEneid appear in English with as much lustre as I could, though my author has not given the finishing strokes either to it or to the eleventh, as I perhaps could prove in both if I durst presume to criticise my master. ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... were in so bad a condition that the hyperbolical Sergeant Johnson calls them "half-starved, scorbutic skeletons." That worthy soldier, commonly a model of dutiful respect to those above him, this time so far forgets himself as to criticise his general for the "mad, enthusiastic zeal" by which he nearly lost the fruits of Wolfe's victory. In fact, the fate of Quebec trembled in the balance. "We were too few and weak to stand an assault," continues Johnson, "and we were almost in as deep a distress as we could be." At ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... is that we admit the claim, and have become so accustomed to regard it as being perfectly legitimate that we forget how enormous it is. He takes an attitude here which in any other man would be repulsive, but in Him is supremely natural. We criticise other people, we outgrow their teachings, we see where their doctrines have deviated from truth by excess or defect, or disproportion; but when He says 'I have declared Thy name,' we feel that He says nothing more than the simple facts of His life ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... sculpture to criticise it intelligently," Staggchase remarked, somewhat oracularly, "and the only safe thing left is to ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... certain subdued pride. She expatiated in reply on my lord's honour and greatness; his useful services in this world of sorrow and wrong, and the place in which he stood, far above where babes and innocents could hope to see or criticise. But she had builded too well - Archie had his answers pat: Were not babes and innocents the type of the kingdom of heaven? Were not honour and greatness the badges of the world? And at any rate, how about the mob that had once seethed about ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wise enough not to criticise, but she lost no opportunity for asking if she were to carry out this, that, or some other order of Mrs. Stewart's, until poor Neil lost his temper ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... the air. A newspaper is seized by the police in Trafalgar Square without a word of accusation or explanation. The Home Secretary says that in his opinion the police are very nice people, and there is an end of the matter. A Member of Parliament attempts to criticise a peerage. The Speaker says he must not criticise a peerage, and ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... are quite through with your billingsgate,' she finally said, 'you will take yourself off my steps before you are ejected. You! to presume to criticise me! You, that are so low in the scale of being, you can no more understand my feelings and motives than a jellyfish can comprehend a star! Go back and tell Miss Mary,' she went on majestically, as she gained confidence and breath, 'that it is her duty and business to find ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... would not be flippant when he is gravely told that the Greeks had no art-critics? I can understand it being said that the constructive genius of the Greeks lost itself in criticism, but not that the race to whom we owe the critical spirit did not criticise. You will not ask me to give you a survey of Greek art criticism from Plato to Plotinus. The night is too lovely for that, and the moon, if she heard us, would put more ashes on her face than are there already. But think merely of one perfect little work of aesthetic ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... touchy, ready to take offence, ill-tempered, suspicious, severe, exacting, easily offended; it keeps alive in our hearts a certain malignity, a secret joy at the mortifications which befall our neighbour; it nourishes our readiness to criticise, our dislike at certain persons, our ill-feeling, our bitterness, and a thousand other things prejudicial ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... narrative, then, is merely descriptive of the events which took place in the period between October 1860 and April 1861, purely resume in character and wholly based upon the disclosures of the Official Records. The author allows himself to criticise men and acts rather freely, and at times captiously; and has evidently intended his book to be a defence of his brother, the hero of Sumter, against certain charges which were once made against him. The old hero needs no defender, even if we suppose that he ever merited criticism. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... dictionary, and some of the rhymes may seem a little coarse and vulgar; but they have lived so long in their present form that it seems almost a pity to change them. Encourage the older children to find the errors and to criticise and correct as much as they wish. Probably they will not like the rhymes in their new form and correct dress any better ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... help thinking of this subject during the rest of my ride to Riverport, and I could not get rid of a certain undefined dread of consequences in the future. I criticise Ham and his father in the light of my own after experience rather than from any settled opinions which I had at the time; and I don't wish it to be understood that I was any better myself than I ought to be. I had no very distinct aspirations ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... thought. On the other hand, some alien strain had crept into Mr. Grierson, and he had not accepted the family traditions in their entirety; in fact, both his own relatives and those of his wife had found much to criticise in his ideas. Had he been able to shake himself free of the family, he would have liked nothing better than to possess a ranch in America or a sheep station in New South Wales. All his life, he longed, in secret, for open air, and freedom, and the society of men ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... course; and neither view is open to criticism. All either man is justified in saying is that he, personally, wouldn't get much fun out of doing it the other way. As a matter of fact, human nature generally goes beyond its justifications and is prone to criticise. The Englishman waxes a trifle caustic on the subject of "pigging it"; and the American indulges in more than a bit of sarcasm on the subject of "being led about Africa like a dog ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... of spectres might be multiplied to infinity; but if we undertook to criticise them, there is hardly one of them very certain, or proof against a serious and profound examination. Here follows one, which I relate on purpose because it has some singular features, and its falsehood has at ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... relations with human weakness and vanity; as, for instance, the arts of music and dress. But, resist as one may, a man can not fight against his susceptibilities. And those who can feel the effect of any art are very many more than those who can practice it or criticise it. It does not matter that my Bohemian friend's musical abilities are slender. No man in the great Boston Jubilee got more out of Johann Strauss, in his "Kunstleben," that inimitable expression of inspired vagabondage, ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... might have chosen from a medicine chest sweet-smelling drops or sugar-coated pills of varying hue and form—the result would doubtless he as satisfactory in one case as in the other. Since she had not demanded it as an inalienable right he gave her an opportunity to criticise and select, which she accepted by no means unwillingly. As a rule, the designs were, in her opinion, too elaborate and obtrusive. There were too many mouldings, there was too much carving, and too evident a purpose to provide a finish that should challenge ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... Socialist. There is no need to labour a distinction which arises from the nature and the activities of the two forces. British Liberalism is both a mental habit and a method of politics. Through both these characteristics it is bound to criticise a State so long as in any degree it rests on the principles of "Penguin Island"—"respect for the rich and contempt for the poor," and to modify or repeal the rights of property where they clearly conflict with human rights. But its idealism and its practical responsibilities ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... "You can't criticise him to me, Mr. Dubois! I won't listen. If I have been fool enough to misunderstand his kindness ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... with a sense of profound regard for the game and its players, and heartfelt gratitude to numerous friends—some of whom, alas! are no more—for advice and assistance. If my readers consider it worthy of one who has devoted a quarter of a century in attaining that experience necessary to criticise the players of the dead past and those of the living present with fidelity, I will have gained something to be remembered, and be amply repaid for what I have done to assist the spread of the Association game in Scotland. Many of my sketches, under different names, have already appeared in various ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... she exhibited three marvellous powers: she could read by the touch alone: if she pressed her hand against the whole surface of a written or printed page, she acquired a perfect knowledge of its contents, not of the substance only, but of the words, and would criticise the type or the handwriting. A line of a folded note pressed against the back of her neck, she read equally well: she called this sense-feeling. Contact was necessary for it. Her sense of smell was at the same time singularly acute; when out riding one day, she said, "There is a violet," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... as it were, to think things over and digest my past experiences. Then it was that the truth of a very ancient adage struck upon my mind, namely, that money is power. Had I sufficient money I could laugh at unjust critics for example; indeed they or their papers would scarcely dare to criticise me for fear lest it should be in my power to do them a bad turn. Again I could follow my own ideas in life and perhaps work good in the world, and live in such surroundings as commended themselves to me. It was as clear as daylight, but—how to make ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... little presumptuous of me to criticise one of the operations of a great captain, but I cannot refrain from commenting that the sending of Mortier to the left bank was a move which had not been sufficiently considered, and was an error which could have had very serious consequences. The ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... not here to criticise Lady Markland," said her mother; and then she burst into an unpremeditated invitation, to break the spell. "You will bring Mr. Cavendish to dine with us one evening?" she said. "He and you will excuse the dulness of ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... of the master is up to a certain point always a matter of growth. The technical career of the second-rate man is always a matter of degeneration or at best of repetition. The former brings with it its own salient and special form of enlightenment based upon the intellectual power to criticise his own experience and the moral power to act on his own acquired insight. To this extent he becomes more of a man by the very process of becoming more of ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... her to return it. Oh, that he should see her here, singing before all these people! For the first time a terrible sense of shame overpowers her; a longing to escape the eyes that from all parts of the hall appear to stare at her and criticise her voice—herself! ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... ingenuous criticism is dated the 4th of August. His requesting two young women to study and criticise a book which he has heard strongly condemned as immoral,—his own obvious familiarity with what he has not read but does not scruple to censure,— his transparently jealous anticipation of its author's ability,—all this forms a picture so characteristic alike ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... your nose, your Royal nose, Your large Imperial nose get out of joint; Forbear to criticise my perfect prose— Painting on vellum ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... companion, were it only to have some one to criticise the hounds with, so the evening before the appointed day, as the Yorkshireman was sitting in his old corner at the far end of the Piazza Coffee-room in Covent Garden, having just finished his second marrowbone and glass of white brandy, George—the only waiter in the room ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... and the most resolute; a thing not seeming so natural to herself was that she was also happier than she had ever been since her marriage. As the fight grew hotter, Quisante grew greater in her eyes; he had less time to make postures, she less leisure to criticise; if he forgot himself in what he was doing, she could come near to forgetting the side of him she disliked in an admiration of the qualities that attracted her. His praises were in men's mouths beyond Henstead; letters of congratulation ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... it is, in Germany, a crime to criticise or ridicule any proposition uttered by the sacred ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... to deceive any other girl's inconsiderate mother whom you may find comfortably seated in a good position for criticism, and to make her suppose that you are an old rider, keep silence. Do not criticise your horse or his equipments, do not profess inability to mount, but when you master says "Now!" step forward and stand facing in the same direction of your horse, placing your right hand on the upper pommel of the two on the left of ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... hint things went along better in the engine room. When Hal Hastings came in to inspect he found nothing to criticise. ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... a great difference to the people here if you interest yourself in them," he rejoined. "I tried to explain to Mr. Tredegar that I had no wish to criticise the business management of the mills—even if there had been any excuse for my doing so—but that I was sure the condition of the operatives could be very much improved, without permanent harm to the business, by any one who felt a personal sympathy for them; and in the ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... last—struck us as being like some town of England, or of Scotland. That was only a first impression, however, and a superficial likeness. We soon began to find out the differences, for New London was our night stop, and we had hours before dark to criticise and admire. It hadn't been a long run, as runs go, from New York, and at New Haven we heard motor fiends at luncheon near us in the hotel talk of "pushing on to Boston." Just such a fiend would Caspian be if he could, ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... latter only a small amount contained objectionable preservatives. The authors, after an extended investigation, reported favorably upon their composition and sanitary value, saying they found "so little to criticise and so much to commend in these necessary products." In this bulletin they do not classify ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... Preaching, we see that his hearers are of just the kind that the preacher's message is intended for,—the weary and heavy-laden whom he called to himself. There are a few dignitaries in the gathering, it is true, standing pompously by in the hope of finding something to criticise. But Jesus pays no attention to them as he looks down into the faces of the listeners who most need his words. His pulpit is a square coping-stone in a courtyard, and the people gather about him in a circle in the positions most convenient ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... individuals; that they look down with a compassionate and self-conscious smile upon the egoistic implicit faith of congregations who still pray for good harvest-weather, and see in the damage done by a hailstorm a divine affliction; that they criticise it as a sad token of ecclesiastical darkness, when even church-authorities order such prayers in case of wide-spread calamities; that they fall into a passion over the {347} narrowness and the dulling influence ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... very warm affection between Longfellow and Lowell. Mrs. Lowell says of it, "I have never seen such a beautiful friendship between men of such distinct personalities, though closely linked together by mutual tastes and affections. They criticise and praise each other's performances with frankness not to be surpassed, and seem to have attained that happy height of faith where no misunderstanding, no jealousy, no reserve exists." Often in his diary Longfellow speaks of "walking to see Lowell," ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... attempting to be ambidextrous, I try to ward off attacks. My critics, however, will criticise me as they please. It will be sufficient for me, my Lord, to be assured of having satisfied you, by my letters, if they are good; or by my obedience, if they ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... that it is not by these tests that they are judged even to-day, by the professors of the chief religions of the world. It is the temper and not the conclusions of the religious bodies that I would criticise. These sexual questions are guarded by a holy irascibility, and the most violent efforts are made—with a sense of complete righteousness—to prohibit their discussion. That fury about sexual things is only to be explained on the hypothesis that the ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... that none of them were bad, and some had remarkable merit. They went off slowly, but for handsome figures; and their places were progressively supplied with the work of local artists. These last it was one of my first duties to review and criticise. Some of them were villainous, yet all were saleable. I said so; and the next moment saw myself, the figure of a miserable renegade, bearing arms in the wrong camp. I was to look at pictures thenceforward, not with the eye of the artist, but the dealer; and I saw the stream widen that divided ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prosperity, and security is missed by those who prefer prejudice to the lessons which reality teaches. The most infamous case of all to the unbending partisan is that of a man who has so far outlived the prejudices of party as to be able to criticise one side ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... too much to say that it is the loveliest tomb in the world, and the finest specimen of Mohammedan architecture in existence. If I dared to criticise what would appear to be faultless, I should humbly suggest that the four corner minarets are not worthy of the centre building, reminding one rather ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... the last anticipation, but this is not the place to criticise Smith's scheme. It was only requisite to recall for a moment the ideas which, according to the Duke of Buccleugh's statement to Hume, Smith was at this time so zealously working for in the important circles in which he then ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... and bold enthusiasm, which to his imagination arrayed all things, and all words, in a light that seemed to him at the time to be poetry—though sometimes it was but "false glitter." Admitting, then, that sometimes the style of the "Seasons" is somewhat too florid, we must not criticise single and separate passages, without holding in mind the character of the poet's genius and his inspirations. He luxuriates—he revels—he wantons—at once with an imaginative and a sensuous delight in nature. Besides, he ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... I must be prepared to face the reproach which attaches to those who criticise a gift, if I venture to observe that I do not think that the Bishop of Manchester need have been so much alarmed, as he evidently has been, by the objections which have often been raised to prayer, on the ground ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... the evening. "I feel as if I were not in a great city at all, because there are not the evidences of a large and wealthy population that we have everywhere in New York." Archie spoke of New York as if he had lived there always, and found much to criticise in Chicago. But toward evening he went up to Lincoln Park and the beautiful North Shore, and he felt that there was nothing more beautiful in New York than this magnificent park, and this handsome Lake Shore Drive, with its great houses whose lawns reached down almost to the lake itself. On the ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... this book of my Parallel Lives, in giving an account of Demosthenes and Cicero, my comparison of their natural dispositions and their characters will be formed upon their actions and their lives as statesmen, and I shall not pretend to criticise their orations one against the other, to show which of the two was the more charming or the more powerful speaker. For there, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... concessions from the King in the interests of liberty, he knew how to use his opportunity for strengthening his own prerogatives. He brought forward a measure which the Parliament passed, constituting it a capital offence to criticise the King's conduct or government, and making it unlawful for his subjects to enter into any association for political ends without the consent of ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... replied by asserting that when Sully should have succeeded in inducing the Queen to change her humour and to exert herself to please him, instead of persisting in closeting herself with her foreign followers, and permitting them to criticise his conduct and to aggravate his defects, he would forthwith relinquish his liaison with the Marquise. Such an answer, however, did not check the zeal of his anxious adviser; who, fearful lest this last schism should prove more important than those ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... announced six years earlier, that, "as touching the chief points of religion, I neither will give place to man or angel . . . teaching the contrair to that which ye have heard," a controversialist who thought it worth while to criticise the Confession must have deemed himself at least an archangel. Two years later, written criticism was offered, as we shall see, with a demand for a written reply. The critic escaped arrest by ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... introduction later on of a cotillon with the usual dreary and mechanical calls filled one with additional forebodings. We almost heard "the first low wash of waves where soon shall flow a human sea." But aside from such newfangled features, there was nothing to criticise. The fiddling was good, and the dancing was good, showing the usual expertness, in which performance the women stooped their shoulders gracefully, and bent their brows modestly upon the floor, whilst the men vied with each other in the admirable and complicated variety ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... judgment, and chaffed by an audience of students and amateurs, ceases at a certain age to be altogether pleasant; on the other hand to examine, to sit on the throne with all the majesty of a judge, to have only to criticise and not to produce, to intervene only when the victim stumbles, and to let him know that he has made a slip, to hold the student for the whole year under the salutary terror of an approaching examination, to remind him that he may need help and must by no means ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... attitude, as she stood leaning against the stone balustrade, were not likely to escape an eye that was wont to light on every point of feminine perfection, as a poacher's does on a sitting hare. But he never got so far as her face then; and hardly had time to criticise her figure; for at that moment a brisk gust of the mistral swept round the corner, and revealed a foot and ankle so marvelously exquisite, that they attracted his eyes, as long as he dared to fix them without risking a stare; and ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
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