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More "Superfluous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... October, 1688), and I soon found this to be the immediate source of Southerne's tragedy, a totally different novel from The Nun; or, The Perjur'd Beauty, and one, moreover, which has never till now been included in any edition of Mrs. Behn's works or, indeed, reprinted in any form. It were superfluous to compare novel and tragedy detail by detail. Many striking, many minor points are the same in each. In several instances the nomenclature has been preserved. The chief divergence is, of course, the main catastrophe. Mrs. Behn's execution could ill have ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... report had taken a full hour, but it had not satisfied the public prosecutor, for, when it had been read through and the president turned to him, saying, "I suppose it is superfluous to read the report of the examination of the internal organs?" he answered in a severe tone, without looking at the president, "I shall ask to have ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... the fact remains that, in order to spare the Emperor and themselves, they had not the courage to be harsh with him and tell him the truth to his face. These are not reproaches, but reminiscences which should not be superfluous at a time when the Emperor is to be made the scapegoat of the whole world. Certainly, the Emperor, being such as he is, the experiment would not have passed off without there being opposition to encounter and overcome. The first among his subjects to attempt the ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... One might think it were entirely superfluous to prove this, if a late author [William Wollaston, THE RELIGION OF NATURE DELINEATED (London 1722)], who has had the good fortune to obtain some reputation, had not seriously affirmed, that such a falshood is ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... the case, there is plenty for the "superfluous women" to do, in taking care of these helpless men and their families. I see that more clearly every day, and am very glad and grateful that my profession will make me a useful, happy, and ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... former expression is precluded in the latter merely by the addition of the explanatory clause, "each State acting in its sovereign and independent character"—an explanation which, at the time of the formation of the Constitution of the United States, would have been deemed entirely superfluous. ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerk it, with a grim, grinding motion on the floor, as if the table were a perverse voluntary agent, intent on thwarting and vexing him; I plainly perceive that for Nippers, brandy and water were altogether superfluous. ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... the fact, that it was as little a favourite with others as myself, and that, whatever the plausible might say, there was nothing on earth for which they would not be more obliged to me than a donation of my superfluous time. But now let me give a sketch of my story. A single fact is worth a hundred reflections. The first consciousness that I remember, was that of having a superabundance of time; and my first ingenuity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... that the developing social conscience places under the ban receipt of private income from land and other natural resources, and that a powerful movement aiming at the confiscation of such resources is under way. It is superfluous to point out that the vast interests threatened would offer a desperate resistance. The warfare against an incomparably lesser interest, the liquor trade, has taxed all the resources of the modern democratic state—on the whole the most absolute political organization ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... by the sword of a common enemy. The male sex was exterminated by the sword; ten thousand youths were led into captivity; the weight of the precious spoil exceeded the strength and number of the beasts of burden; the superfluous remainder was burnt; and, after a licentious possession of ten days, the Romans marched away from the naked and bleeding city. In their Syrian inroads they commanded the husbandmen to cultivate their ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... purpose than in the adult animal. Its influence is seen in the fact pointed out by St. Hilaire that such redundant parts are nearly always connected with the corresponding portions in the normal fetus. Thus superfluous legs or digits are attached to the normal ones, double heads or tails are connected to a common neck or rump, and double bodies are attached to each other by corresponding points, navel to navel, breast to breast, back to back. All this suggests ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... authorship of the bad jokes he took pains to circulate.[81] The proceedings of the Legislature he regarded with real alarm whenever their object was to alter what the public voice pronounced capable of amendment, or prune what was judged superfluous. The vote of the House of Commons on the 1st of March, for discontinuing the services of one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and that given on the 2nd of May for getting rid of one of the Postmasters-General, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... thin and put your Paste into a saucer, dish, or bowl for a Mould, and let them stand therein till they be very dry, then gild them on the edges with the white of and Egg laid round about the edge with a pencil, and press the Gold down with some Cotton, and when it is dry brush off the superfluous loose Gold with the foot of an Hare, and if you would have your Paste exceeding smooth, as for Cards or the like, then roul your Paste upon a slicked paper with a very smooth Rouling-pin; if you would colour any of it, you must take the searced powder of any Herbs or Flowers, ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... Perhaps it is not superfluous to observe that Scott has not shown his accustomed judgment and knowledge of the seventeenth century in his remark about the Howards and the tobacconists. The separation between classes, as such, was indeed sharp; but it was probably ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... me!—run hither—hither!—A murder—a murder before your very fane! Help, or the murderer escapes!' As he spoke, he placed his foot on the breast of Glaucus: an idle and superfluous precaution; for the potion operating with the fall, the Greek lay there motionless and insensible, save that now and then his lips gave vent to ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... be a waste of time to say that one ought not to be overworked, were it not that some persons always seem to imply that any intellectual work is overwork. It would seem equally superfluous to say that for intellectual health there ought not to be any surplus energy, for the latter statement seems as axiomatic ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... have derived from wine a liquor which neither resembles it in nature, colour, or effect?.... This eau de vin is called by some eau de vie, and justly so, since it prolongs life.... It prolongs health, dissipates superfluous matters, revives the spirits, and preserves youth. Alone, or added to some other proper remedy, it cures colic, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... known that further comment seems superfluous. Suffice it to say that the entire press of the country has unanimously spoken of them in terms of high praise, dwelling not only on their delicious humor, their literary workmanship, their genuine pathos, and their ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... good a condition as could be wished, and the people seemed to be as prudent and as industrious as any I had ever seen: But, as the descriptions already published of this place are so exact as to render my observations superfluous, I shall content myself with a very short description, referring the curious reader to the large accounts that have been published by Dutch, French, and English writers, but especially ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... from all the four quarters of the globe. Burdensome invalids whose tardiness in dying was a perpetual grief to their friends; wealthy testators whose legatees were desirous to come by their own; superfluous children of penitent parents and dependent parents of frugal children; wives of husbands ambitious to remarry and husbands of wives without standing in the courts of divorce—these and all conceivable classes of the surplus population ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... obtain the direction of Heaven in the choice of the missioners, and on its conclusion, the selection commenced. The will of God had been so clearly marked in regard of the Mother of the Incarnation, that much deliberation would, in her case, have been superfluous. The Mother Superior must have felt that in acceding to the request of Madame de la Peltrie by granting her this rich treasure, she was but concurring in a Divine appointment, which she was not at liberty to oppose. The sanction of human authority was now formally. attached to the Venerable Mother's ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... their appearance, coming up by the heavy teams that they would take with them into the woods; and each day brought a fresh contingent, until by the time Mr. Stewart had mentioned the farm fairly swarmed with them, and it became necessary for this human hive to imitate the bees and send off its superfluous inhabitants without delay. ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... written about these countries, that it is almost superfluous to describe either the lazo or the bolas. The lazo consists of a very strong, but thin, well-plaited rope, made of raw hide. One end is attached to the broad surcingle, which fastens together the complicated gear ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the views we have mentioned, we must ascribe life to a gas, that is, to an aeriform body."—Liebig: "Organic Chemistry," Mayfair's translation, p.363.—It is perhaps not less superfluous to add that Liebig does not support the views "according to which life must be ascribed to a gas," than it would be to state, had Dugald Stewart been quoted as writing, "According to the views we have mentioned the ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... singer, until the vocal world has been convinced of the error of the mechanical idea. When that has been accomplished this work will have served its purpose. All of the controversial materials, together with much of the theoretical subject matter, will then be superfluous. A concise practical treatise can then be offered, containing all that the vocal teacher and the student of singing need to know about the training ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... suppressed the name of the school out of deference to the wishes of the Head Master, and though our own judgment was against the concealment as a wholly superfluous piece of mystification, we continue to respect ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... be superfluous, and, perhaps, a sickening task, to detail at length the mode and manner in which Vargrave coiled his snares round the unfortunate girl whom his destiny had marked out for his prey. He was right in foreseeing ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the tools to work them with; the philosophy of the rubber-worker goes no farther. A shirt, trousers, and a hat are all the dress that fashion requires, and often the worker even finds the shirt superfluous. He wears a pair of overalls, and carries slung over his shoulder his rifle and the little hatchet for tapping the trees, besides a small rubber bag in which he keeps a supply of farinha and jerked beef, should he be prevented from reaching his hut ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... beloved, trusted, and deplored by all except the heartless and the base. No greater homage was ever paid in Parliament to any deceased member. How was this attained? By rank? He was the son of an Edinburgh merchant. By wealth? Neither he nor any of his relatives ever had a superfluous sixpence. By office? He held but one; and that for only a few years, of no influence, and with very little pay. By talents? His were not splendid, and he had no genius. Cautious and slow, his only ambition ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... quite superfluous for our present purpose to give more instances. The fact of [118] the compound nature of so-called species of cultivated plants seems to be beyond all doubt, and its practical importance ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... the passage of the Sound, have exacted, for more than a century, the undisputed right of levying contributions on all vessels trading to and from the Baltic, in proportion to the value of the cargoes: an imposition so sanctioned by time, that they considered any augmentation to the works as superfluous; and, relying on the co-operation of the Swedes, had fortunately neglected to render the approach more difficult, by forming ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... structure although utility was the first consideration, there in an elegant solidity of design which makes it pleasing and impressive in the highest degree. The rapid stream is as little obstructed as the circumstances admitted, and there does not appear to be in the bridge an atom of superfluous material. London Bridge is, I suppose, the most crowded thoroughfare in the world. Twenty-five thousand vehicles cross it daily, as well as countless multitudes of foot-passengers. So great is the throng, that there is a project now on foot ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... be near, and was content with what they accorded him as a poor student and careful teacher. They lived in the quietest way; for the heir of the house, by a former marriage, was a bad subject, and kept them drained of more than the superfluous money about the place. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... is excessively painful." "The weather is excessively cold." Anything that is painful at all is excessively so. Even a slight degree or small amount of what is disagreeable or injurious is excessive—that is to say, redundant, superfluous, ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... laces and silks have been known to wind them around their bodies, as being less ostentatious than carrying them in a trunk. Edison thought his resistance-boxes an equally superfluous display, and therefore ingeniously wound some copper resistance wire around one of the legs of the motor field magnet, where it was out of the way, served as a useful extra field coil in starting up the motor, and dismissed most of the boxes back to the laboratory—a few being ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... pontificate disappeared. The accession of a sovereign who was himself invested by hereditary right with the functions and title of high priest of Amon henceforth rendered the existence of such an office superfluous at Thebes: it would almost have meant an imperium in imperio. The administration of religious, and perhaps also of political, affairs was, therefore, handed over to the deputy prophet, and this change ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... done, and the right time to do it, so that, when any one bounced round with the sudden intention of telling her to do anything, Old Peg was found to have done it already, or to be in the act of doing it. It is almost superfluous to say that she patched and mended the household garments, washed the most of things washable, sewed the sewable, darned the sock, and, generally, did-up the whole McKay family. When not engaged in definite or specific work, she had a chronic sock-knitting which helped to fill up and round off ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... draughtsman which his parents, who were Quakers of a devout and sufficiently uncompromising order, discouraged in no uncertain terms. The exercise of his own gift being thus restrained, Thomas MacDowell passed it on to his younger son—a somewhat superfluous endowment, in view of the fact that the latter was to demonstrate so ample a gift for an ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... quoted a calendar, extracted out of several ancient Roman Catholic prayer books, written on vellum, before printing was invented, in which were inserted the unfortunate days of each month, which it would be superfluous to cite here.[142] ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... at it as a bit of genteel comedy; and slipped out his note-book under the table. Pomander cursed her ready wit, which had disappointed him of his catastrophe. Vane wrote on a slip of paper: "Pity and respect the innocent!" and passed it to Mrs. Woffington. He could not have done a more superfluous or injudicious thing. ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... my plan to analyse this deplorable failure of the Churches as moral agencies. The explanation would be complex, and is now superfluous. The clergy were, like the majority of their fellows, obsessed by the military system and unable to realise the possibility of a change. In part they were deluded by the catch-words of superficial literature. They had an idea that we were asking England to lower its armament while the rest ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... Street, of Biel, in East Lothian, has recently made some successful attempts at acclimatizing, or giving to exotic plants greater powers of withstanding cold than they had when first introduced. By planting in situations well drained from superfluous moisture, under circumstances where rapid growth was rendered impracticable, and in a garden admirably adapted to the object from its position, he has succeeded in naturalizing, in latitude 56 deg. N. plants which have not yet been ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... geological agencies which has given the earth's surface its grandest characteristics. I mean the elevation of mountain ranges through the contraction of the globe as a whole. By the action of gravity the former larger surface crushes down, as it were, the contracting interior; and the superfluous matter, which belonged to a bigger globe, arranges itself by tangential displacement, and accommodates itself to the altered or decreased size of the globe. Hence our mountain ranges, which though apparently enormous when seen near at hand are ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... common exclamation among all the people west of Nsama. By advice of a guide whom we picked up at Kifurwa, we sent four fathoms of calico to apprise Casembe of our coming: the Arabs usually send ten fathoms; in our case it was a very superfluous notice, for Casembe is said to have been telegraphed to by runners at every stage of our ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... Rolf requires least are made up of the highest numbers, whereas those to which he has constant recourse have their equivalents among the lower numbers. The letters q, v, x, Rolf never uses, as though he wished to prove to me that they are entirely useless and superfluous. Rolf can recognize any money that is shown him and counts the flowers in a bunch according to their colours and varieties. He can also differentiate the high and the deep tones on any instrument, and he is even ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... laid down, as it is general, ought to be carried into practise by all Christians, each applying it to his own use according as may be necessary. This I say, in order that those who do not see themselves in apparent danger may not think it superfluous as regards them. They are not at this hour in the hands of tyrants, but how do they know what God means to do with them hereafter? We ought therefore to be so forearmed that if some persecution which we did not expect arrives, we may not be taken unawares. ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... numbering nearly half as many lines as The Canterbury Tales contain, without reckoning the two in prose — the conception of the poem is yet so closely and harmoniously worked out, that all the parts are perfectly balanced, and from first to last scarcely a single line is superfluous or misplaced. The finish and beauty of the poem as a work of art, are not more conspicuous than the knowledge of human nature displayed in the portraits of the principal characters. The result is, that the poem is more modern, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... given him perfect feet that can spring him over fifty miles a day without pain; a stomach whose chemistry can extract ample nourishment from food on which no European could live; and a constitution that scorns heat, cold, and damp alike, because still unimpaired by unhealthy clothing, by superfluous comforts, by the habit of seeking warmth from grates and stoves, and by the ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... used to feel as though we were both characters in some novel in the old-fashioned style called "The Ill-fated," "The Abandoned," or something of the sort. Both of us: she—the ill-fated, the abandoned; and I—the faithful, devoted friend, the dreamer, and, if you like it, a superfluous man, a failure capable of nothing but coughing and dreaming, and ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... now, and, gaily talking, led Leonore toward the lofty iron door. The path led up between fragrant meadows and heavily laden apple trees, and when they reached their destination, they found it quite superfluous to ring the bell. Mr. Trius had long ago observed them and stood immovably behind the door. Hoping that he would open it, the children waited expectantly, ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... 1866. Of these four examples of the picturesque and taking art of Longfellow, I need say no more than that all are printed in their integrity, with the exception of the first. This I leave the lighter by a moral and an application, both of which, superfluous or not, are remote from the general purpose of this book: a confession in which I may include the following number, Mr. Whittier's Barbara Frietchie ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... top. Along the wall, near the windows, was a couch; a heavy, wheezing, fat-armed couch decked out in white ruffled cushions. I suppose the mere statement that, in Chicago, Illinois, Martha Foote kept these cushions always crisply white, would make any further characterization superfluous. The couch made you think of a plump grandmother of bygone days, a beruffled white fichu across her ample, comfortable bosom. Then there was the writing desk; a substantial structure that bore no relation ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... sometimes in a state to reject the infection of malady, and at others, thirsty to imbibe it. These reflections made our legislators pause, before they could decide on the laws to be put in force. The evil was so wide-spreading, so violent and immedicable, that no care, no prevention could be judged superfluous, which even added a chance ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... is at least equal in amount.—The only thing indeed that renders a contrary plan of procedure even tolerable to a child, is the wise provision of Nature, by which she induces him to throw off, with some degree of ease, the superfluous matter; but had the reception and retention of the whole by each child been demanded by the teacher, the very attempt to do so on the part of the pupil, would not only have been irritating and burdensome, but it would have been extremely hurtful to ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... Sullivan are promoted by the Honorable Congress to the rank of Major-Generals; and the Colonels Reed, Nixon, Parsons, Clinton, Sinclair, and McDougall to be Brigadier-Generals. We have removed all our superfluous clothing, and whatever is not necessary for present use, to Rye, whither General Putnam's lady has retired. Miss Putnam is yet in town, and the chaise is in readiness for her and Polly to remove ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... Were it not quite superfluous, we would urgently recommend the study of Pompeii to the students of life in general and to those of Antiquity in particular. Those who would know something about the ancient table cannot do ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... the roses together, and the ends of the stems to the adjoining wreath; then remove the paper, and lay the bordering upon the edge of the scarf or veil, which should be of Brussels net. Sew the edge of the upper scallops of the rose to the net very firmly, and cut away the superfluous net. ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown
... soil is not sufficient to guarantee more than ten millions against misery and hunger. Remember that China is reduced to the expedient of throwing its children into the water, according to the accounts of travelers. Now this production of two children is really the whole of marriage. The superfluous pleasures of marriage are not only profligate, but involve an immense loss to the man, as I will now demonstrate. Compare then with this poverty of result, and shortness of duration, the daily and ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... last desperate step, and say that infallibility and inspiration are inherent in the heads of the church down to the present day, through the laying on of hands, so that infallibility, majority and inspiration make all our convictions, all resignation, all devout intuitions, superfluous. And yet, notwithstanding all these connecting links, the first question returns in all its simplicity: How can B know that A is inspired, if B is not equally, or even more, inspired than A? For it is of more consequence to know that A was ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... the trouble to go through the several chapters devoted to sexual selection will be able to judge how far the conclusions at which I have arrived are supported by sufficient evidence. If he accepts these conclusions he may, I think, safely extend them to mankind; but it would be superfluous here to repeat what I have so lately said on the manner in which sexual selection apparently has acted on man, both on the male and female side, causing the two sexes of man to differ in body and mind, and the several races to differ from each other ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... desperate a case," said Mr Gosport, "the trouble would be rather superfluous. However, don't repine that one of the cavaliers stays with us by way of guard, lest your friend the spy should take us by surprize while our ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... not have crushed out the melodic and rhythmic basis of dance music and this had fitted itself to the utterance of instruments. We are therefore justified in believing that if the accompaniment of the first chorus in the "Orfeo" was superfluous and vague that of the final ballata must have been clearer in character and better suited to the nature of the scene. The dance following the ballata must have been effective. The instruments were most probably lutes, ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... toward us, out of a French dress-maker's. It was one of the places I had decided against, when I had passed it a few minutes before. It seemed one of the few business houses where a French linguist would be superfluous. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... their parts. This knowledge prompted him to learn more, especially to find out something about the improved engines of Boulton & Watt, of which rumors had reached the enginemen of the north. To do this he must learn to read, an art which he seems to have considered superfluous until he was eighteen. Never did student work harder than Geordie Stephenson at his new task, amazing his teachers and his mates by his progress at "the three R's." He was now brakesman of a hoisting ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... a pace marvellously different from that at which we came. We were very light weights, and Master Neddy was an overfed, underworked gentleman, with the acutest discrimination as to his drivers. Jack's voice was quite enough; the stick was superfluous. When we came to the top of the steep hill leading down to the village, Jack asked me, "Shall we go ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... mysteries of nature, how she could have brought two such different temperaments out of the same parentage. Edward was practical and positive; he knew what he wanted in the world, and he knew how to get it; he was never troubled with doubts, nor with self-questioning, nor with any other superfluous emotions; he could not understand people who allowed that sort of waste in their mental processes. He could not understand people who ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... writes me concerning affairs of government (a copy of which I send you with this), that this is expedient. Accordingly, the force there should be reduced to only two posts, doing away with the expense of rations for the others—although, in his opinion, all that is being done is superfluous. After considering the said clause of the letter, you will inform me of what occurs to you in this matter, and what ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... admiration. He learned not to redecorate Holt Hangars, though he warmed it; to leave his guests alone; to refrain from superfluous introductions; to abandon manners of which he had great store, and to hold fast by manner which can after labour be acquired. He learned to let other people, hired for the purpose, attend to the duties for which they were paid. He learned—this he got from a ditcher on the estate—that ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... mentions, as an instance of his sincere humility, that he never employs a single word, or produces a quotation for ostentation, never falling into digressions foreign to his purpose; we may almost say, that a superfluous word scarce ever escapes him. (Phot. Cod. 203, p. 526. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... rightly said to be a time to try us, or to find out what we are; and is there no good in this? Is it not this that rightly rectifies our judgment about ourselves, that makes us to know ourselves, that tends to cut off those superfluous sprigs of pride and self-concitedness, wherewith we are subject to be overcome? Is not such a day the day that bends us, humbles us, and that makes us bow before God for our faults committed in our prosperity? And yet doth it yield no good unto us? We could ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... those Epistles were read by the friends to whom they were addressed it is superfluous to show. He had, in fact, painted them almost as fully as himself; and who might not have been proud to find a place in such a gallery? The tastes and habits of six of those men, in whose intercourse Scott ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... sports in deference to higher notions of clerical duty (his wife's, as people said), the old man's feeling prompted him to severity on poachers. Frank Fordyce, while by far the most earnest, hardworking clergyman in the neighbourhood, worked off his superfluous energy on scientific farming, making the glebe and the hereditary estate as much the model farm as Hillside was the model parish. He had lately set up a threshing-machine worked by horses, which was as much admired by the intelligent as it ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... suggestion contained in the last-mentioned report and in the letter of the General in Chief relative to the establishment of an asylum for the relief of disabled and destitute soldiers. This subject appeals so strongly to your sympathies that it would be superfluous in me to say anything more than barely to express my cordial ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... do, suh! How you do! A superfluous Christmas to you, suh! I'm sorry you didn't git heah 'fore de war. Livin' nowadays ain't more'n shucks from de corn of what it used to be. Is dey all heah ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... rather superfluous in view of the fact that the majority of the women in the Transvaal were already provided with arms. There was hardly a Boer homestead which was not provided with enough rifles for all the members of the family, and there were but few women ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... become a large tree; you do not preach to the art-pupil that it is his duty to become a Holbein. You plant your acorn in favorable soil, where it can have light and air, and be sheltered from the wind; you remove the superfluous branches, you train the strength into the leading shoots. The acorn will then become as fine a tree as it has vital force to become. The difference between men and other things is only in the largeness and variety of man's capacities; and in this special capacity, that ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... scientifically—amounting, in fact, to a scientific demonstration,—is nevertheless wholly worthless if regarded logically. Although it is as true as is the fundamental basis of all science and of all experience that, if there is a God, His existence, considered as a cause of the universe, is superfluous, it may nevertheless be true that, if there had never been a God, the universe could ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... about to strangle him with his owne haire (which[18] he wrapped about his throte and necke) the impression whereof sanke so deepelie into his mind, that when he awaked out of his slepe, he streightwaies caused so much of his haire to be cut as might seeme superfluous. A great number of other in the realme followed his commendable example, but the remorse of conscience herein that thus caused them to cut their haire, continued not long, for they fell to the like abuse againe, so as within a twelue moneths space ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (3 of 12) - Henrie I. • Raphael Holinshed
... workingman need children, and hence their conjugal relations have a justification. But we, when we have a few children, have no need of any more. They make a superfluous confusion of expenses and joint heirs, and are an embarrassment. Consequently we have no excuses for our existence as wretches, but we are so deeply degraded that we do not see the necessity of a justification. The majority of people in contemporary society give themselves up to ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... unmistakably a man from Far Out; tall, wiry-framed, and very dark, and so spare and lean of figure that he did not seem to have an ounce of superfluous flesh anywhere. His face was as hard and impassive as a Red Indian's, and looked almost black by contrast with his white shirt-front. So did his hands. He had thin straight hair, high cheek-bones, and a drooping black moustache. But the eyes were the ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... 'We are human, and we need also the testimony of Poetry; and the priceless value of poetry for us lies in this, that it does not echo the Gospel like a parrot. If it did, it would be servile, superfluous. It is ministerial and useful because it approaches truth by another path. It does not say ditto to Mr. Burke—it corroborates. And it corroborates precisely because it does not say ditto, but employs a natural process of its own which it employed before ever Christianity ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... desire my assistance on this occasion, though he and I were never cater-cousins; and I gave him to understand that I would make application to my friend Mr. Wilkes, who, perhaps, by his interest with Dr. Hay and Mr. Elliot, might be able to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It would be superfluous to say more on the subject, which I leave to your own consideration; but I cannot let slip this opportunity of declaring that I am, with the most inviolable esteem and attachment, dear Sir, your affectionate, obliged, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... concluded that it was a dangerous thing to keep so much valuable treasure on board his vessel which might at any time be overhauled by the authorities, and he therefore landed at Gardiner's Island on the Long Island coast, and obtained permission from the proprietor to bury some of his superfluous stores upon his estate. This was a straightforward transaction. Mr. Gardiner knew all about the burial of the treasure, and when it was afterwards proved that Kidd was really a pirate the hidden booty was all given up ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... 68: "Very well. I'll wear a white linen dress, with a black belt, and my black hat," announced the girl.{original had superfluous closing quotation mark} ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... for the laws would be sufficiently inculcated by the voice of an enlightened reason. But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage to have the prejudices of the community on its side. The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision ...
— The Federalist Papers
... system the scotching or killing of which, though not in fact then contemplated by the North to any extent contrary to existing laws, would have been a benefit to mankind and an atonement to human conscience. It may perhaps seem superfluous or impertinent to have given so many words to the statement of opinions so simple and obvious. But the English Liberal adherents of the Northern States were continually twitted with their assumed inconsistency in censuring the insurrection of the South, while they approved of (for instance) ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... HALL. Ahem! The frisky KITTON, having several tales to play with (probably some relation to the Cat-'o-nine-tails, eh?), has done his work well; and the same may be said for Others. The work can be recommended as a book of pictorial reference for Dickensian students, but otherwise it is—ahem—superfluous. If this kind of trading on the name of DICKENS continues, we shall probably become HUGHES'd to seeing such announcements as, "Shortly to appear,—The Collected Bills of the Butcher and Baker of Charles Dickens; Upper Storeys of Houses in whose Neighbourhood Charles ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... further detail the | writers. He is very | so that it is facts in the book. The | strict and detailed. We| unnecessary to take conscientious and | had to know all the | notes. He talks well capable student finds | fifteen qualities of | and makes things clear. him superfluous; the | Macaulay's style. "No, | We are given assignments indifferent student | we did not read | in S——'s "Elements of remains unmoved by his | Macaulay this term: we | Economics," on which we phlegmatic | study from a history of| are questioned by presentation; ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... position for several years. When the war broke out he was appointed major-general of volunteers, but his service in the army was not marked. After the war was over he was re-elected to Congress, but seemed to have lost his power and influence. In later years his memory was impaired and he "lagged superfluous on the stage." He died ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... order this to be done, and concerning the work which he wishes to be thus accomplished he should give his order in writing. As regards the cattle he should order them to be sold by auction, and in the same way should sell the oil, if the price of oil has risen; likewise the superfluous wine and corn of the estate. He should also order to be sold worn-out bulls, blemished cattle, blemished sheep, wool, hides, any plow that is old, old tools, old slaves, slaves who are diseased, or anything else which is useless, for the owner of a farm must be a seller ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... increased men began to exchange "the relatively superfluous for the relatively necessary," and trade in the form of barter became a permanent custom. This led to the use of money and a more extended system of exchange, and man entered the commercial era. This gave him a wider intercourse with ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... belong the precious indulgences granted (but only for money) both to the living and the dead, by which the miserable [sacrilegious and accursed] Judas, or Pope, has sold the merit of Christ, together with the superfluous merits of all saints and of the entire Church, etc. All these things [and every single one of them] are not to be borne, and are not only without the Word of God, without necessity, not commanded, but are against the chief article. For ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther
... commercial country like ours, extending its ramifications to every branch of natural and artificial produce, it is almost superfluous to remark that a vast capital is sunk annually in the mere transport of marketable commodities: and which is not only a loss to the seller as being an unproductive outlay, but entails a heavy increase of expense to the buyer also upon every article of daily consumption. Any means, therefore, that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... mean? About not thinking that because our skin is white, we're better than anyone else? To tell the truth, it seemed a bit superfluous to me. I suppose race prejudice and race pride still do exist, but not in a group like this. Why, we're practically ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... one thing, to collect it quite another. Some of the poorer ratepayers protested with tears in their eyes that they could not pay. Superfluous rates (really not necessary ones) were perpetually being inflicted upon them, they urged, and were bringing them, together with a succession of recent bad seasons, to the verge of ruin. They carried their remonstrances ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... Clarke looked round and nodded; Jimmy stared, unable to smile because his mouth and lower jaw were working, and he had no superfluous force to spare for polite efforts; and Jenkins uttered a gruff, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... I hope, then, if they don't knock the life they will knock the conceit and the superfluous flesh out of him: ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... expense of it. It has been said that no people in the world enjoy paying taxes like Americans, provided they are only indirect, sugar coated, and with some plausible pretense. It would seem, however, that even American dairymen could see that the maintenance of superfluous creameries, superfluous teams for hauling cream and milk, superfluous men for manufacturing and handling the product is an extra expense of which they will surely bear their full share; if not at once, they will do so before the ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Weeding.} After you haue ledde forth your Manure, and Summer-stird your Land, you shall then about the beginning of Iulie looke into your Corne-field, and if you perceiue any Thistles, or any other superfluous weedes to annoy your Corne, you shall then (as is before said) either cut, or plucke them vp ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... of water these fertile lands are expected to flourish and bear abundant crops; and since they completely enclose the polar area they are necessarily served first. The great emissaries for carrying off the surplus of their aqueous riches, would then appear to be superfluous constructions, nor is it likely that the share in those riches due to the canals and oases, intricately dividing up the wide, dry, continental plains, can ...
— Is Mars Habitable? • Alfred Russel Wallace
... "Go back to your superior and inform him that I say you are superfluous on this assignment. No longer are commissars automatically to be guarded. Only under special circumstances. If ... well, if our people dislike individual commissars sufficiently to wish to assassinate them, ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... is very simple, Mr. Cleek. I suppose you know that my uncle, Sir Horace Wyvern, married again last spring? The new Lady Wyvern soon let me know that I was a superfluous person in the household. I left it, of course. Sir Horace would have pensioned me off if I had let him. I couldn't bring myself to eat the bread of charity, however, and when a former schoolmate offered me a post as her companion, I gratefully accepted ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... peculiarity in the speech at Garland City. Personal pronouns, as a rule, were omitted; there was no time for a superfluous word. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... improvement consists, I am told, of the voluminous nature of the reports upon all subjects, which are heaped together until they become so hopelessly bulky, that nobody can be prevailed upon to wade through them. In England, at all public meetings, a great deal of time and breath are wasted in superfluous harangues; but these can only effect the remote mischief threatened by Mr. Babbage, and produce earthquakes and other convulsions in distant lands, in distant centuries; whereas the foolscap is a present and a weighty ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... doubt confused, no problems vexed. Thy father's faith for thee proved bright and sweet. Thou foundst no rite superfluous, no text Obscure; the path was straight before thy feet. Till thy baptismal day, thou, unperplexed By foreign dogma, didst our prayers repeat, Honor the God of Israel, fast and feast, Even as thy people's wont, from ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... once adopted, and the assembly broke up; proceeding forthwith to destroy, or distribute among one another, every man's superfluous baggage—and then to take their morning meal previous to ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... deny to Jeremiah nothing of all this passage, not even the prose by which the metre is interrupted. We have seen how natural it was for the rhapsodists of his race to pass from verse to prose and again from prose to verse. Nor are the repetitions superfluous, not even that four-fold into the hand of in the prose section, for at each recurrence of the phrase we feel the grip of their captor closing more fast upon the doomed king and people. Nor are we required ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... extraordinary devoutness of the artists, but because they still needed an outward assurance that what they did was not the petty triviality it seemed. There must always remain the sense of an ulterior, undeveloped meaning; when that is laid bare, Art has become superfluous, and makes haste to withdraw into obscure regions. For it is only as language that the picture or the statue avails anything, and this circumstantiality of expression is tolerable only so long as it is the only expression. Beauty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... then I am willing to make it for the public good. And the most direct and unadorned statement of facts will, I think, carry its own conviction and make everything like "preaching" or denunciation superfluous. ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... it. This is not, however, a sine qua non. The paper is sensitized by brushing or by floating. To sensitize by floating, it should be left but for a few seconds on the solution and removed by dragging it on a glass rod in order to remove the superfluous liquid. Only the surface of the paper should be impregnated, otherwise the whites would be more or less tinted and the image imbedded ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois
... the c-file because on the edge of the board, in the a-file, he has less mobility; less squares are accessible to him. In order to place him in the d-file it would be necessary to move the d-Pawn, and as this would also give an opening to the Queen's Bishop the move of the Queen's Knight's Pawn is superfluous. ...
— Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership • Edward Lasker
... they fell in with the mouth of a large river, and the captain-major ordered a boat to be lowered, and the pilot to sound the entrance of the river; and he said it was superfluous, because if there was a shoal it would be burst through. Then they took in the sails, excepting the great one with which they entered the river, which was very large; and they went up it, the boat going before and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... certain finish or thoroughness about them which is more like the careful realism of the former than the slovenly naturalism of the latter. The coarse commonplaces of the sermon on prostitution by which Bellafront is so readily and surprisingly reclaimed into respectability give sufficient and superfluous proof that Dekker had nothing of the severe and fiery inspiration which makes a great satirist or a great preacher; but when we pass again into a sweeter air than that of the boudoir or the pulpit, it is the unmistakable note of Dekker's most fervent ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... superfluous. M. Daburon was never disturbed by a call at eight o'clock in the morning. He was already at work. He received the old amateur detective with his usual kindness, and even joked with him a little about his excitement ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... body text, -bend in figure caption] Le Nouueau Testament de nostre Sauflueur Iesu Christ [spelling unchanged] Joannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, 1480-1516, [1480—1516] the "Britannia" of Camden ... which was likewise employed [text unchanged: superfluous "which"] the first edition the unabridged "Chronicle of the Cid," [text unchanged: ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... a child drinking from the hollow of his hand. He felt greatly affronted at the sight. "What!" exclaimed Diogenes, "do children know better than I do with what things a man ought to be contented?" Upon which he took his jug out of his bag, and instantly broke it, as a superfluous movable. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... its maternal logic. For the new-born, dainty bread-and-honey; for the adolescent, dry bread. In cases where the provisions are all of a kind, these delicate precautions are superfluous. The victuals of the Anthophorae and the Chalicodomae consist of flowing honey, the same throughout. The egg is then laid at full length on the surface, without any particular arrangement, thus compelling the new-born grub to take its first mouthfuls ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... only we, His adoring disciples, who have crowned Him with glory and honour, and given Him a name that is above every name? To those of us who have been familiar with the New Testament ever since we could read, the question may appear so simple as to be almost superfluous. Half-a-dozen texts leap to our lips in a moment by way of answer. Did He not claim to be the Messiah in whom Old Testament history and prophecy found their fulfilment and consummation? Did He not call Himself the Son of God, saying, "The Father hath given ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... very high. Then a paper is laid at the nearest end of the plate, over which the glass is slided till it lies upon the plate, having driven much of the quicksilver before it. It is then, I think, pressed upon cloths, and then set sloping to drop the superfluous mercury; the slope is daily heightened ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... own propensities, upon the administration of the finances of the state. If the first of the three exclusively possess the legislative power, it is probable that it will not be sparing of the public funds, because the taxes which are levied on a large fortune only tend to diminish the sum of superfluous enjoyment, and are, in point of fact, but little felt. If the second class has the power of making the laws, it will certainly not be lavish of taxes, because nothing is so onerous as a large impost which is levied upon a small income. The government ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... the above statements is so obvious that it may be regarded as superfluous to make them. As, however, their clear apprehension is essential to understanding the conditions of successful manuring, no apology need be made for ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... Disgrace was superfluous. The fact was, that Maxence, returning to work after an absence of five days, had ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... had said Of Pope, that "he could only rank with ingenious men," and that his works are superabundant with superfluous and unmeaning verbiage - his translations even replete with tautology, a fault which is to refinement as midnight is to noonday; and, what is truly surprising, that the fourth book of the Dunciad, his last publication, is more full ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... soft, easy tread of the python, or the Pathan, or some animal with a "pth" in it. Probably I mean the panther. He bore himself confidently, and his mouth was a trap from which no superfluous word escaped. He was the strong, ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... is the thing. As long as a desert-island book contains certain ingredients, I do not mind if other superfluous matter creeps in. Our demands—we of the elect who adore desert-islands—are simple. The castaways must build themselves a hut with the aid of a bag of nails saved from the wreck; they must catch turtles by turning ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... essences, of speaking to the psaltery, of dramatic art; and all the time he has practiced poetry, the interest of the time resulting in now the greater emphasis on one quality in the poetry, and now on another quality. It would be superfluous to do more than point out most of these qualities, but a word on his use of symbols may help to a fuller understanding of his poetry. I am very sure that I read wrong meanings from many of these symbols, as one who has not the password must. They require definite knowledge of magical tradition, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... trial all of them were calm, but very serious and thoughtful. Their contempt for the judges was so intense that none of them wished to emphasize his daring by even a superfluous smile or by a feigned expression of cheerfulness. Each was simply as calm as was necessary to hedge in his soul, from curious, evil and inimical eyes, the ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... Water, with its bright and beautiful expanse, its cincture of green banks, soft and smooth as velvet, its screen of noble woods, its Chinese fishing-temple, its frigates, its ruins, its cascade, cave, and Druidical temple, its obelisk and bridges, with numberless beauties besides, which it would be superfluous to describe here. This artificial mere covers pretty nearly the same surface of ground as that occupied by the ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... off the superfluous fat from the chops, and place them in a casserole with a medium sized onion, sliced and separated into rings. Cover each layer of chops with the onion rings, then add a pint of boiling water. Cover and cook for one hour ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... not seem superfluous in this place expressly to emphasise, that what has been said on the diagnostic importance of the megaloblasts only holds for the blood of adults. For the conditions of the blood in children, which vary in many respects from that of adults see "Die ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... language somewhat difficult to render into English; it is well known that the Muhamedans are predestinarians, and that they believe in the existence of spirits, devils, &c.; their idea of the plague is, that it is a good or blessing sent from God to clear the world of a superfluous population—that no medicine or precaution can cure or prevent it; that every one who is to be a victim to it is (mktube) recorded in the Book of Fate; that there are certain Genii who preside over the fate of men, and who sometimes discover themselves in various forms, having often ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... one- class rural elementary school was made the standard. Everything beyond reading, writing, a little arithmetic, and religious instruction in strict accordance with the creeds of the Church, was considered as superfluous, and was to be allowed only by special permit. The elimination of illiteracy, the creation of obedient citizens, and the nationalizing of new elements became the ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... possibly before,—he learned that the Americans had retired further, to the Chippewa. The motive for this backward step was to draw necessary supplies across the river, from the magazines at Fort Schlosser, and to leave there all superfluous baggage, prior to a rush upon Burlington Heights, which Brown had now substituted as the point of attack, in consequence of his disappointment about the siege guns.[317] It had been his intention to rest over the 25th, in order to start forward fresh on the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... in great style, Mr. Stirling," he told Peter. "You know the ropes as well as far older men. You got just the right evidence out of your witnesses, and not a bit of superfluous rubbish. That's the mistake most young men make. They bury their testimony in unessential details, I tell you, those two children were worth all the rest put together. Did you send them to the country on purpose to get ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... had a solar year, and had made an extraordinary advance in computing the true time. Their year consisted of eighteen months, of twenty days each, a perfectly arbitrary system. This division would give but three hundred and sixty days to the year. The remaining five were called empty or superfluous days, and were added to the last month of the eighteen. A tropical year is, however, about six hours longer than three hundred and sixty-five days, and by throwing away six hours annually, there would be an entire ...
— Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... thing throughout the day with a jerk and a toss.—Dancing, unless it be done quietly and gracefully, without the fatal results of a shining face, and red neck and arms, it is far better to forbear altogether, it being a very superfluous quality in a gentlewoman; whereas to please by all honest means is her proper calling and occupation. A high degree of positive grace is very rare, especially in northern climates, where the form is degraded and spoiled by ligatures ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... overflow from 'The Affliction of Margaret', and was excluded as superfluous there, but preserved in the faint hope that it may turn to account by restoring a shy lover to some forsaken damsel. My poetry has been complained of as deficient in interests of this sort,—a charge which the piece beginning, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... said that when the Saracens captured Alexandria, their victorious general sent to the khalif to know his pleasure respecting the library. The answer was in the spirit of the age. "If the books be confirmatory of the Koran, they are superfluous; if contradictory, they are pernicious. Let them be burnt." At this moment, to all human appearance, the Mohammedan autocrat was on the point of joining in the evil policy of the Byzantine sovereign. But fortunately it was but the impulse of a moment, rectified forthwith, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the Bore; on the contrary, it prevents it from hardening and accumulating, as long experience has shown. Sometimes it is convenient for the Spongers to dip the Sponge alongside, and they soon acquire the habit. Superfluous moisture is easily gotten rid of by twirling ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... which replied to this question was such an eloquent denial that all words were superfluous. His sweet, knowing smile betrayed the secret of his duplicity; he was understood and forgiven. There was at this moment no longer any doubt, fear, or struggle between them. They did not feel the necessity ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... Vienna, had therefore every reason to thank the Western Powers for insisting on the evacuation of this district. When France and England were burning to take up arms, it would have been a piece of superfluous brutality towards the Czar for Austria to attach to its own demand for the evacuation of the Principalities the threat of war. But this evacuation Austria was determined to enforce. It refused, as did Prussia, to give to the Czar the assurance ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... going to ask if she could do anything for him, but she decided the question was superfluous. He had the air of a friend, not a patient, of an intimate dropping in for an informal call. It came to her that she must amend her opinion that Dr. Sartorius was quite without social ties. She was about to return to her work when the young man's roving eyes ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... daimyo[u] were moving into yashiki under the compulsory residence edict. The kyakubun were still met at the outskirts of the city, but the many different palaces for their entertainment became superfluous. The main part of the Yoshida Goten was pulled down, and its magnificent timbers and decoration went to the equipment of the prior's hall of the Kugyo[u]ji of Iinuma. This great temple, situate one ri (2-1/2 miles) to the north of Midzukaido-machi, in the plain at the base ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... quite silent and useless, is dropping off, and will soon disappear. Having long since resigned the place it held in the greater part of these words, as joye, ruine, and more recently in some others, it must finally quit the remainder where it is still found a superfluous letter, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... that they had more of this paper than was necessary for transacting their business at home; and as they could not send it abroad, they would immediately demand payment for it from the banks. When this superfluous paper was converted into gold and silver, they could easily find a use for it, by sending it abroad; but they could find none while it remained in the shape of paper. There would immediately, therefore, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... have a personal ring, reminiscent perhaps of such months of "sweet Retirement" in Dorsetshire. Thus one of the characters in the Journey from this World to the next recalls the change, from a life of "restless Anxieties," to a "little pleasant Country House, where there was nothing grand or superfluous, but everything neat and agreeable"; and how, after a little time, "I began to share the Tranquillity that visibly appeared in everything round me. I set myself to do Works of Fancy and to raise ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... removed a little from the flame; but if the heat be not too high, it is readily oxidized in the flame, or near its cone. If the current of air is blown too freely or violently into the flame, more air is forced there than is sufficient to consume the gases. This superfluous air only acts ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... lacquey who had been standing behind the future ambassador wiped the latter's nose; and well it was that he did so, since otherwise an inelegant and superfluous drop would have been added to the soup. After that the conversation turned upon the joys of a quiet life—though occasionally it was interrupted by remarks from the hostess on the subject of acting and actors. Meanwhile the tutor kept his eyes fixed upon the speakers' faces; and whenever ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... on! It shakes! I'm sure it shakes! Oh, Rex, kick! kick for your life!" It was a superfluous entreaty. The strength of ten men seemed to be concentrated in the lad for the next ten minutes, as he fought the iron grating, changing from one position to another, as signs of increasing weakness appeared in different parts of the framework. Norah gasped out encouragement in the background, ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... saith God to Moses, "saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach; a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, or a man that is broken-footed, or broken-handed, or crook-backt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; no man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... said he, "and studied mien, and superfluous show of deference—of such things Tso-k'iu Ming was ashamed, I too am ashamed of such things. Also of hiding resentment felt towards an opponent and treating him as a friend—of this kind of thing he was ashamed, ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... treating of the Natural History of a district so well known, and often described as the southern portion of La Plata, which has a temperate climate, and where nature is neither exuberant nor grand, a personal narrative would have seemed superfluous. ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... of the 'Tribune' are devoted to a perfectly serious discussion of the metaphysics of 'Spirits.' On page 73 he pleasantly remarks, 'Now we shall understand that all said hitherto is superfluous,' and he will not reproach the reader who regards seers not as citizens of two worlds (Plotinus), but as ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... the hunter and the artist is rarer still. It demands not only the close familiarity, the loving observation, and the sympathy, but also the faculty of creation—the eye which selects what is constructive and beautiful, and passes over what is superfluous and inharmonious, and the hand skilful to carry out what the imagination conceives. In the man whose work I am about to consider, these qualities are developed in a remarkable degree, though it was not until he was a man grown, ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... kindly came to her aid. "And you thought my superfluous time and wisdom might be transferred to you, thus making a more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... says Billaud-Varennes,[2120] "that the people to which one desires to restore their freedom should in some way be created anew, since old prejudices must be destroyed, old habits changed, depraved affections improved, superfluous wants restricted, and inveterate ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the pathetic little gold mesh bag, and as he made her promise not to borrow, she did not treat her friends to tea or ices at any of the fashionable rendezvous for a month. Then her native French thrift came to her aid and she sold a superfluous gold purse, a wedding present, to an envious friend ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... application of patience, knowledge, and goodwill. And goodwill implies here the readiness to submit the particular issue to the arbitration of the general good. The international question has been so fully canvassed in these days that it would be superfluous to discuss it here. The moral is obvious, and abundant cases throughout the world illustrate the truth that well-organized nationalities contain in themselves nothing contrary to the ideal of international peace.[3] Nor is the ...
— Progress and History • Various
... explanation here suggested, those metaphysical conversations between Cleonice, Alcman, and Pausanias, which occupy the opening chapters of Book II., might be deemed superfluous. But, in fact, they are essential to the preparation of the catastrophe; and that catastrophe, if reached, would undoubtedly have revealed to any reflective reader their important connection with the narrative which they now appear to ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... It is superfluous in these days to point out that no great historical movement is caused by the personality, however potent, of a single individual. The men who take the helm at crises are those who but express in themselves ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... 1688), and I soon found this to be the immediate source of Southerne's tragedy, a totally different novel from The Nun; or, The Perjur'd Beauty, and one, moreover, which has never till now been included in any edition of Mrs. Behn's works or, indeed, reprinted in any form. It were superfluous to compare novel and tragedy detail by detail. Many striking, many minor points are the same in each. In several instances the nomenclature has been preserved. The chief divergence is, of course, the main catastrophe. Mrs. Behn's execution could ill have been ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... mischievous Fairies who annoyed the miller much with their nightly pranks were ground to pieces by the mill wheel becoming unfastened, and that their blood remains there to this day, as a warning to all others among the "good people" who might wish to vent their superfluous ...
— Legend of Moulin Huet • Lizzie A. Freeth
... prisoner to the Rippleton jail had gone, Mrs. Weston put on her bonnet, and hastened over to Captain Sedley's house. She was sure of finding assistance there. She was so confident of Tony's innocence, that the thought of proving it for the satisfaction of the public seemed superfluous. ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... happiness in this life, the first being a good digestion, and the other nine,—money; so at least it is said by our modern philosophers. Yet the author of "A Gentle Life" speaks more truly in saying that the Divine creation includes thousands of superfluous joys which are totally unnecessary to the bare support ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Tuesday, I think it was, we met at the Ayrton's dinner party—yes, it was Tuesday. There was some fuss, or attempted fuss, about his adventures in New Guinea, and a question was being asked about the matter in the House of Commons. Mr. Ayrton got rid of some of his superfluous cleverness in putting a counter question—you know ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... erudite Arabian, is the fortunate conclusion of the tale. The Prince, it is superfluous to mention, forgot none of those who served him in this great exploit; and to this day his authority and influence help them forward in their public career, while his condescending friendship adds a charm to their private life. ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... see how high in his favor it stood. In addition, he told me that he was instructed to ask his most Christian Majesty to write to the illustrious cardinal to advise your Excellency to agree. As your Excellency's devoted servant I mention this, although it is superfluous; for if this marriage is to take place, you will arrange it in such a way that "much promising and little fulfillment" will not cause you to regret it. I informed your Excellency in an earlier letter how his most Christian Majesty had told me that his wishes in this affair were the same as your ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... those passages of antient history which make the most lasting impression on the imagination of the regular-bred scholar, and described the picturesque circumstances of the transactions with a minuteness of detail that would have been superfluous ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... between the time of the purchase and the time of ultimate redemption. And this is true to some extent,—and it would show an admirable economy, if the Treasury had had no other use for its money. A government, like an individual, having a large balance of superfluous cash on hand, can do no better with it than to pay off its debts; but to do this, when there was every prospect of a Mormon war to raise the expenditure, little prospect of retrenchment in any branch of service, and a daily diminishing revenue at all points,—it was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... chamber, that gentleman a lord, and that lord a prince, the groom, the gentleman, and the lord are as much servants one as the other. The circumstantial difference of the one getting only his bread and wages, the second a plentiful, and the third a superfluous estate, is no more intrinsical to this matter than the difference between a plain, a rich and gaudy livery. I do not say that he who sells his whole time and his own will for one hundred thousand is not a wiser ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... little alert figure, and her dress, a small plain black velvet bonnet, a tight black velvet "jacket," as she called it, and a brown silk dress, with narrow yellow stripes (chosen chiefly in joke, because it was the colour of a bee), not a bit of superfluous shawl, boa, or ribbon about her, but all close and compact, fit for the diversion which she was eager to enjoy. The only girl among so many boys, she had learnt to share in many of their sports, and one of the prime favourites was skating, a diversion ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... group, for we did not hold council in the outer office, nor with one superfluous member, and began to find or ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... fish" that is taken for sport with hook and line. I can no more explain the common prejudice against the catfish and eel than I can tell why an experienced angler should drag a gang of thirteen hooks through the water—ten of them being wane than superfluous. Frank Forester gives five hooks as the number for a trolling gang. We mostly use hooks too small and do not look after points and barbs closely enough. A pair of No. 1 O'Shaughnessy, or 1 1/2 Sproat, ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... it sees such men, it casts itself into their hearts; and so a man or woman is in bitterness for nothing: for the things of life, or for sustenance, or for a vain word, if any should chance to fall in; or by reason of any friend, or for a debt, or for any other superfluous things of the ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... will baptize you? and if perchance you have still some doubts as to the religion which I show you, where are there better teachers and wiser men in this faith than there are here, to immediately tell you what you want to know or may ask? On which account my opinion is that this voyage is superfluous: the prelates whom you would see there are such as you can see here, and besides they are much better, as they are near to the chief Shepherd; and therefore this fatigue you will, by my counsel, save for another time,—for some indulgence in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... an employe of the Ministry, and was obliged to work seven hours a day, one or two hours of which were devoted to going wearily through a bundle of probably superfluous papers and documents. The rest of the time was given to other occupations as varied as they were intellectual; such as yawning, filing his nails, talking about his chiefs, groaning over the slowness of promotion, cooking a potato or a sausage in the stove for his luncheon, reading ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... is the surest and clearest account of second-sighted men that I can now find, and I have set it down fully, as if I were transiently telling it, in your own presence, being curious for nothing but the verity, so far as I could. What you find improper or superfluous you can best compendise ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... are now inflicted upon us, and seem to be increasing, by the said religious sect, we deem it expedient and of the highest importance to form ourselves into a company for the better and easier accomplishment of our purpose—a purpose, which we deem it almost superfluous to say, is justified as well by the law of nature, as by the law of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... batting, the proper management of the feet is everything, and requires more practice than either you or your friend have apparently been able to devote to it, I have much pleasure in coming to the rescue. In dealing with members of the medical profession it is never wise to beat about the bush; superfluous subtlety merely irritates them. I have therefore endeavoured to make the poem just the artless outpouring of the innocent passion of such a girl as I imagine your friend Mary Smith to ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... to Mexico and Peru, to measure the earth Sentiment is more prompt, and inspires me with fear She always says the right thing in the right place She drives quick and will certainly be overturned on the road Suppression of all superfluous religious institutions Sworn that she had thought of nothing but you all her life Thank Heaven, I am out of harness The King remained as if paralysed and stupefied These expounders—or confounders—of codes To be accused was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... read his story, Maupassant being the last. When he had finished Boule de Suif, with a spontaneous impulse, with an emotion they never forgot, filled with enthusiasm at this revelation, they all rose and, without superfluous words, acclaimed him ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Roman pontiffs affected a character of neutrality and moderation: [4] they condemned the innovation, but they acquiesced in the sentiment, of their Transalpine brethren: they seemed desirous of casting a veil of silence and charity over the superfluous research; and in the correspondence of Charlemagne and Leo the Third, the pope assumes the liberality of a statesman, and the prince descends to the passions and prejudices of a priest. [5] But the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... barbarians. What we could do for the security of our boat was very little indeed. Several wide rents were discovered near both ends, and these we contrived to patch up with pieces of woollen jacket. With the help of the superfluous paddles, of which there were a great many, we erected a kind of framework about the bow, so as to break the force of any seas which might threaten to fill us in that quarter. We also set up two paddle-blades for masts, placing them opposite each other, one ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... who went abroad at this time, intending to live a long while on the continent, being, as he often said, quite superfluous in Russia, visits his sick friend at Schneider's ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... as are all the other grants in the Constitution, being completely absorbed in the transcendent power granted in the latter part; but if the clause be construed in the sense contended for, then every part has an important meaning and effect; not a line, a word, in it is superfluous. A power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises subjects to the call of Congress every branch of the public revenue, internal and external, and the addition to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare gives the right of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... is a plant sufficiently common in this island, and as we have but one species, and that so generally known, I should have thought it superfluous either to figure or describe it; had I not more than once seen the leaves of Mullein[1] gathered for those of Foxglove. On the continent of Europe too, other species are found, and I have been informed that our species is very rare in some parts of Germany, existing only by means ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... raising their voices as if their interlocutor were deaf, interrupting him as if he had no right to speak, and poking him in the ribs and otherwise, as if he could only be convinced by sensations of bodily pain. The regulations observed in my family were therefore by no means superfluous; and would to Heaven they were universally adopted as the law ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... take this purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched Makes thee the happier: heavens, deal so still! Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man, That slaves your ordinance, that will not see Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly; So distribution should undo excess, And each man ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... colouring or furniture should mar it; they should be filled with gentle relief, not uniformity of colour; and there should be as many waving lines, instead of angles, as possible. They should contain all things necessary to their several characters, but nothing very superfluous; and their whole arrangement should indicate, and be subservient to, the idea that prompted it. Above all, they should have in them some thing, or things, to soothe the thoughts, stimulate the fancy, and suggest something higher than the ordinary uses which they serve. Human beings, even ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... and retiring as they ascend along the slope of the acclivity, up which they are carried as high as the soil extends.[1] Each terrace is furnished with a low ledge in front, behind which the requisite depth of water is retained during the germination of the seed, and what is superfluous is permitted to trickle down to the one below it. In order to carry on this peculiar cultivation the streams are led along the level of the hills, often from a distance of many miles, with a skill and perseverance for which the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... its restoration. This task, though distressing enough sometimes, would have been less so had not my mother and he disliked one another extremely, and teased me often with perverse opposition, petty contentions, and mutual complaints. Her superfluous attention to such accounts of the foreign politics as are transmitted to us by the daily prints, and her willingness to talk on subjects he could not endure, began the aversion; and when, by the peculiarity ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Mutton dressed as lamb. Long in the tooth and superfluous hair. A raw onion the last thing at night would benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your eyes are as vapid as the glasseyes of your stuffed fox. They have the dimensions of your other features, that's all. I'm not ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... residence, said "Let us go then," at the same time taking his cloak, sword, and three pistols, opening uselessly two or three drawers to see if he could not find stray coin. When well assured this search was superfluous, he followed d'Artagnan, wondering to himself how this young Guardsman should know so well who the lady was to whom he had given hospitality, and that he should know better than himself what had become ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have lived. True, the original construction of this quarter was bad, little good could have been made out of it; but, have the landowners, has the municipality done anything to improve it when rebuilding? On the contrary, wherever a nook or corner was free, a house has been run up; where a superfluous passage remained, it has been built up; the value of land rose with the blossoming out of manufacture, and the more it rose, the more madly was the work of building up carried on, without reference to the health or comfort of the inhabitants, with sole reference to the highest ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... one of the three had once thought of removing their superfluous clothing before jumping into the ocean. But Elwood was a fine swimmer, and he struggled bravely, although at a great disadvantage, until his outstretched hand was seized by the Irishman, and he then caught hold of the settee ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... over is of a piece. He dressed his person as his periods; neat, trim, nothing superfluous, nothing deficient. In some of his works his style is only surpassed by the unimprovable sentences of Hobbes of Malmsbury, the paragon of perspicuity. The mental habits of Hobbes and Franklin in several points, especially in one ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... not been accustomed to such fare or such treatment. But he gets along tolerably, complains some, and has not much superfluous flesh. There has been much sickness among the men— measles, etc.—and the weather has been unfavourable. I hope their attacks are nearly over, and that they will come out with the sun. Our party ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... best and best-known work of Spanish or Portuguese illuminators was executed in the sixteenth century, and is manifestly a reflection with peculiar mannerisms of either Flemish or Italian illumination of the same period, it may seem almost superfluous to devote a separate chapter to the subject. Yet there is a goodly list of both Spanish and Portuguese artists who practised the art ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... dress was simplicity itself. There was not a superfluous ruffle or ribbon. Its sole design was not to attract attention to itself, but to reveal the superb charms of the woman who wore it, with every breath she breathed, every ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... object, which De Quincey seldom does. He is not affected by that desire to preach on certain pet subjects which affects the admirable critical faculty of Carlyle. He never blusters and splashes at random like Wilson. And he never indulges in the mannered and rather superfluous graces which marred, to some tastes, the work of his successor in critical authority, if there has been any such, the author of ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... you want?" said Seth, clearing his boot-sole from some superfluous soil upon the share ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... piece of artistic work, poetic and wonderfully dramatic to read, and, we should imagine, far more dramatic in the acting. Maeterlinck has never done anything so true or effective as this short prose drama of Mr. Yeats's. There is not a superfluous word in the play and no word that does not tell. It must be dangerous to represent it in Ireland, for it is an Irish Marseillaise.... In 'The Hour Glass' a noble and poetic idea is carried out effectively, while 'A Pot of Broth' ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... but not towards us Americans. Towards us you are little and insignificant and superfluous. Your eyes, though of wondrous efficacy in their way, blink in our atmosphere like those of an owl in broad sunlight; and if you come flying here, it is the privilege of the smallest birds—of which you are quite at liberty to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... I have written I suppose it would be superfluous to affirm with oaths my irrefragable belief in Mrs. Lollipop's innocence; it would be superfluous to deprecate the many-winged slanders that wound this milk-white hind. If, however, by swearing, any of your readers think ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... other hand, how superfluous was that invitation of Lomenie's: the invitation to thinkers! Thinkers and unthinkers, by the million, are spontaneously at their post, doing what is in them. Clubs labour: Societe Publicole; Breton Club; Enraged ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... reality incompatible with an organized oligarchic constitution. As provision was now made for a sufficient regular recruiting of its ranks by the election of the quaestors, the censorial revisions became superfluous; and by their abeyance the essential principle at the bottom of every oligarchy, the irremoveable character and life-tenure of the members of the ruling order who obtained seat and vote, was ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... solution, forcing it down with a spatula or knife. Swishing it around or moving it up and down several times helps to fill the pores with rubber. Drag it from the solution by pulling it sharply over the rolled edge of the pail, using the spatula on the upper side of the strip to scrape off superfluous rubber. A little practice soon enables one to judge the amount of rubber needed on the tape. There should not be so much that it drips off. Hang the tape on the rack so that the ends are attached to the ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... already adduced from the word of God, of the unreasonableness of the objection to the admission of the passions into Religion, all farther arguments may appear superfluous to any one who is disposed to bow to scriptural authority. Yet the point is of so much importance, and it is to be feared, so little regarded, that it may not be amiss to continue the discussion. The best results of our understanding will be ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... with its great powers of development, this factor can operate to far greater purpose than in the adult animal. Its influence is seen in the fact pointed out by St. Hilaire that such redundant parts are nearly always connected with the corresponding portions in the normal fetus. Thus superfluous legs or digits are attached to the normal ones, double heads or tails are connected to a common neck or rump, and double bodies are attached to each other by corresponding points, navel to navel, breast to ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... intrusion, and left the old gentleman, still motionless, looking vacantly at the wall. The old Duke saw no Mount Ararat rising from the troubled waters; all that made life worth living for him had passed away, and he lagged superfluous on the stage; a supernumerary with a pasteboard coronet; laughed at and ranted about in the pantomime at which the world had ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... spread the blankets out on the wild rose bushes to sun while he cleaned the floor. Billy's way of cleaning the floor was characteristic of the man, and calculated to be effectual in the main without descending to petty details. All superfluous objects that were small enough, he merely pushed as far as possible under the bunk. Boxes and benches he piled on top; then he brought buckets of water and sloshed it upon the worst places, sweeping and spreading it with a broom. When the water grew quite black, he ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... have originally had. Poets are apt to make similar mistakes, frittering away the first glow of thought and language, in revision. Has not Tennyson thus injured "The ride of the six hundred?" and did not Campbell himself half spoil "Hohenlinden," by taming its phraseology down into a supposed superfluous accuracy? For ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... you in hope—because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... wanted. There will be dancers, painters, sculptors, musicians, cooks, barbers, tire-women, nurses, artists; swineherds and neatherds too for the animals, and physicians to cure the disorders of which luxury is the source. To feed all these superfluous mouths we shall need a part of our neighbour's land, and they will want a part of ours. And this is the origin of war, which may be traced to the same causes as other political evils. Our city will now require the slight addition ...
— The Republic • Plato
... the fall of the dictatorial government and of the Jacobin party. The increasing victories of the republic to which they had very greatly contributed by their vigorous measures, and by their enthusiasm, rendered their power superfluous. The committee of public safety, by crushing with its strong and formidable hand the interior of France, had developed resources, organized armies, found generals and guided them to victories which ultimately secured the triumph of the revolution in the face of Europe. A prosperous position ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... "scapegoat of the Revolution." [30] It appears probable, then, that he shared the Jacobinical belief that the Terror was a necessary though painful stage in the purification of the body politic. His admiration of the rigour of Lycurgus, and his dislike of all superfluous luxury, alike favour this supposition; and as he always had the courage of his convictions, it is impossible to conceive him clinging to the skirts of the terrorists merely from a mean hope of prospective favours. That is the alternative explanation ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... face, which seemed to be tolerating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the heat used in cookery, which are naturally either noxious or difficult of digestion; as potatoes, kidney-beans, onions, cabbages. The cassava when made into bread, is perhaps rendered mild by the heat it undergoes, more than by expressing its superfluous juice. The roots of white bryony and of arum, I am informed lose much ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... alone would not be enough to make one understand a boy's soul, and moreover psychology for a teacher who had not yet mastered the technical methods of instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic would be a luxury as superfluous as the higher mathematics. He readily agreed with me, and began describing how hard and responsible was the task of a teacher, how hard it was to eradicate in the boy the habitual tendency to evil and superstition, to make him think honestly and independently, ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... wind, flatulence, phlegm, and choler? What, indeed, but stopped perspiration, superfluous nourishment, inconcocted chyle, of high food and strong liquors, fermented and putrifying? And when these are shut up and corked, with still more and more solid, strong, hot, and styptic meats and drinks, is the corruption and putrefaction thereby lessened? Will it not then, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... the barber-surgeon to shave his superfluous beard and trim his hair; and while that individual was preparing his lather and sharpening his razor in the most approved style of the craft, Wagner asked in a seemingly careless tone, "What news have you, good master, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... reached Mr. Muller from one who had been enabled in a like spirit to increase the amount over all previous gifts by the sale of some jewelry which had been put away in accordance with 1 Peter iii. 3. How much superfluous ornament, worn by disciples, might be blessedly sacrificed for the Lord's sake! The one ornament which is in His sight of great price would shine with far more lustre if it were ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... still more remarkable circumstance. On one occasion several other tom-tits wanted to rob this deserted nest, and they actually came up to the constable and put something in his claw, after which he looked the other way while they were rifling the nest. They had bribed him! Comment is superfluous. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... is foundering," he said to Hector; "let us begin by throwing all that is superfluous into the sea. Let us keep nothing of the past; that is dead; we will bury it, and nothing shall recall it. When your situation is ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... satisfied their curiosity, they next proceeded to business. The men occupied themselves in procuring supplies for their onward journey; either buying them with money or giving in exchange superfluous articles ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... were a Simon; of the Antipodes Our night not borrows the superfluous day. Yet woe to him that from his burden flees! Crushed in the fall of what he ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... rule Elizabeth did. She had reached a stage of intimacy with her bees which rendered a veil a superfluous precaution, but until to-day she had never abandoned it. Her view of the matter was that, though the inhabitants of the hives were familiar and friendly with her by this time and recognized that she came among them without hostile ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... that the extreme and frequent vomitings that I am subject to purge me: and, on the other hand, my distastes for this and that, and the strange fasts I am forced to keep, digest my peccant humours, and nature, with those stones, voids whatever there is in me superfluous and hurtful. Let them never tell me that it is a medicine too dear bought: for what avail so many stinking draughts, so many caustics, incisions, sweats, setons, diets, and so many other methods of cure, which often, by reason we are not able to undergo their violence and importunity, bring ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... asylums, in workhouses, or at large in a neglected state, be provided by the appropriation of spare workhouse buildings, a sufficiency of which is to be found in each province, thus also meeting the very general complaint of guardians being compelled to maintain superfluous workhouse accommodation; and that all expenditure upon the building or enlargement of ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... geometrical: when every candid reader knows that Mr. Malthus laid no stress on this unlucky attempt to give numerical precision to things which do not admit of it, and every person capable of reasoning must see that it is wholly superfluous to his argument. Others have attached immense importance to a correction which more recent political economists have made in the mere language of the earlier followers of Mr. Malthus. Several writers had said that it is the tendency of population to ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... rash man, wishing who knows for what?—possibly a peerage, possibly to be relieved of superfluous cash and so no longer have to pay super-tax, possibly for the mere joy of pulling ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... though the general constructive effect is perhaps inferior to 'The Bard,' we see the same evidence of careful preconsideration, while the course of the poem is particularly distinguished by the beauty of the transitions. Of the form of the 'Elegy' it is superfluous to speak; a poem so dignified and yet so tender, appeals immediately, and will continue to appeal, to the heart of every Englishman, so long as the care of public liberty and love of the soil maintain their hold in this country. In this poem, as indeed in all that Gray ever wrote, we find it his ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... my thoughts does not matter, since the events that followed make them superfluous to the story. I will merely record, therefore, that towards dawn a great horror took hold of me. I did not know of what I was afraid, but I was much afraid of something. Nothing was passing in either Heda's or our room, of that I made sure by personal examination. ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... fell ill of a palsy. So he made a list of his possessions and examined his expenses, that he might reject whatever had become superfluous. He had in his employ a girl about twenty years old called Fan Su, whose postures delighted him when she sang or danced. But above all she excelled in singing the "Willow-Branch," so that many called her by the name of ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... in a number of ways within the letter of the law.[4] Many persons maintain that they do more harm than good even to the borrower, whom they are designed to protect. In a developed credit economy, where a regular money-market exists, they are superfluous, to say the least, as most loans are made below the legal rate. Such laws, however, have a partial justification. In a small loan market they to some extent protect the weak borrower at the moment of distress ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... at this time by the more robust spirits, for the reduction of superfluous energy which the ordinary figure-dances were not powerful enough to exhaust. As everybody knows, or does not know, the five reelers stood in the form of a cross, the reel being performed by each line of three alternately, the persons who successively came to the middle ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... been so often described by voyagers, who, from Cook downwards, have made it the first stage in their circumnavigation of the globe, as to render superfluous more than a few passing allusions. When near enough to distinguish the minor features of the island, the terraced slopes of the mountainsides converted into vineyards and gardens studded with the huts of the peasantry, presented a pleasing aspect to visitors, whom a week's sailing had brought ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... spectral white columns, and recognized them as my own legs. In the same instant, also, I realized what that hard clump against my spine was, because when he took his hand away the clump was gone. He had been standing back there with some eight or nine inches of superfluous waistband ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... sailors than were necessary, and some of them useless, in the trading ships from Filipinas to Nueva Espana. We order that this be avoided and remedied. For each piece of artillery, only one artilleryman, and no more, shall be taken and superfluous pay shall not be given. [Felipe III—Valladolid, December ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... examined their Sharps, and made ready to follow Jones. He slipped into the thorny brake and, flat on his stomach, wormed his way like a snake far into the thickly interlaced web of branches. Rude and Adams crawled after him. Words were superfluous. Quiet, breathless, with beating hearts, the hunters pressed close to the dry grass. A long, low, steady rumble filled the air, and increased in volume till it became a roar. Moments, endless moments, passed. The roar filled out like a flood ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... Dickens's known views and tastes would permit him to accept, and after more than one title of honour had been declined, Her Majesty desired that he would, at least, accept a place in her Privy Council.'" As nothing is too absurd[299] for belief, it will not be superfluous to say that Dickens knew of no such desire on her Majesty's part; and though all the probabilities are on the side of his unwillingness to accept any title or place of honour, certainly none was offered ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... heavy, and we often had to put on our harness and help the dogs over a ridge or through a deep drift. We had not yet become hardened, and consequently experienced much difficulty from blistered feet and chafing; but as we got rid of our superfluous flesh these petty troubles became less annoying, and we did not so easily ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... person, above all others, need gold. You can well understand, my brother, that a student as I am has no superfluous gold, even to pay his tailor's bills, much less to buy black rams. Captain Kleist, in whose house the assembly meets to-night, has already offered up far more valuable things than a score of black rams; he has sacrificed his health, his rest, and his ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... becomes evident that the letters Rolf requires least are made up of the highest numbers, whereas those to which he has constant recourse have their equivalents among the lower numbers. The letters q, v, x, Rolf never uses, as though he wished to prove to me that they are entirely useless and superfluous. Rolf can recognize any money that is shown him and counts the flowers in a bunch according to their colours and varieties. He can also differentiate the high and the deep tones on any instrument, and he is even capable of telling ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... come!" Pao-yue went on again to cry. But Ch'in Chung's spirit had already departed from his body, leaving behind only a faint breath of superfluous air in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the prosecution is amply expressed by these facts, but a few words from my pen at that time may not be altogether superfluous. In an article entitled "Crucify Him!" in the Freethinker of ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... in his life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that, he pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clew without which he couldn't find the way up stairs, and led us to the black hole of the establishment, fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous article, considering the hole's proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet, and somebody's pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us into another room with a dinner-table for thirty, and in the grate a scorched leaf of a copy-book under a bushel of coal-dust. Having looked ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... distinct vertues to Mineral Tinctures, extolling the Tincture of Gold against such and such Diseases; the Tincture of Antimony, or of its Glass, against others; and the Tincture of Emerauld against others; 'tis plain, that in Tinctures drawn from Vegetables, if the superfluous spirit of Wine be distill'd off, it leaves at the bottom that thicker substance which Chymists use to call the Extract of the Vegetable. And that these Extracts are endow'd with very differing Qualities according to the Nature of the Particular Bodies ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... CORPUS-CHRISTI idolatries were forborne the Margraf and his company this time;—the Kaiser himself, however, walking, nearly roasted in the sun, in heavy purple-velvet cloak, with a big wax-candle, very superfluous, guttering and blubbering in the right hand of him, along the streets of Augsburg. Kur-Brandenburg, Kur-Mainz, high cousins of George, were at this Diet of Augsburg; Kur-Brandenburg (Elector Joachim I., Cicero's son, of whom we have spoken, and shall speak again) ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... he waited, listening. Then he stole forward, until the points of his whiskers brushed lightly against the door. Instantly there was a movement on the far side—a four-footed movement. Caution against such cunning seemed superfluous. He boldly forced his nose between door and flooring and sniffed; but only for a second, for his nose had gone farther than he meant; the bottom of the woodwork had been gnawed through until it was a bare half-inch ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... incidentally revealed in passages quoted from Darwin's letters. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the well-known theories of Protective Resemblance, Warning Colours, and Mimicry both Batesian and Mullerian. It would have been superfluous to explain these on the present occasion; for a far more detailed account than could have been attempted in these pages has recently appeared. (Poulton, "Essays on Evolution" Oxford, 1908, pages 293-382.) ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... or two friends, all of whom were in the secret of this affair, as he, at once told me, to put me at my ease. We soon therefore entered upon business, but it would be superfluous to relate here all that passed in this little assembly. What we resolved on was very well executed, as will be seen. I arranged with Le Blanc, who was one of the conclave, that the instant the arrest had taken place, he should send to Meudon, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Towns full of People; nay, the more shall every particular industrious Person thrive in such a Place; tho indeed Drones and Idlers will not find their Account, who wou'd fain support their own and their Families superfluous Expences at their Neighbour's Cost; who make one or two Day's Labour provide for four Days Extravagancies. And this is the common Calamity of most of our Corporation Towns, whose Inhabitants do all they can to discourage ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... that of Gibraltar. Here the errors were apparent to every eye. A more thorough examination would have been superfluous, as it was impossible to doubt any longer. If the "Alaska" had not been shipwrecked on the Island of Sein, this fate would surely have awaited her before she could ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... Works. It happened at a time when I was interested—and I had been two years previously occupied—in an attempt to convert cast-iron into steel, without fusion, by a process of cementation, which had for its object the dispersion or absorption of the superfluous carbon contained in the cast-iron,—an object which at that time appeared to me of so great importance, that, with the consent of a friend, I erected an assay and cementing Furnace at the distance of about two miles from ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... thou have any doubts concerning the faith which I have propounded to thee, where are there greater doctors and men more learned in the matter than are here or better able to resolve thee of that which thou wilt know or ask? Wherefore, to my thinking, this thy going is superfluous. Bethink thee that the prelates there are even such as those thou mayst have seen here, and indeed so much the better as they are nearer unto the Chief Pastor. Wherefore, an thou wilt be counselled by me, thou wilt ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and pleasuring very many other, carying forth the naturall commodities of this land, abounding here aboue our necessity vses (and due store reserued) and likewise againe furnishing the same with all necessary and not superfluous forreine commodities, fet from farre or foreign countreys. This was in deed (as before is recorded) a kingly prouidence. Reipub. Regnique vtilitati consulens, &c. besides with great vtilitie and profite publique foreseene ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... be said that knowledge of this description is superfluous to the unprofessional reader; for society groans under the load of suffering inflicted by causes susceptible of removal, but left in operation in consequence of our unacquaintance with our own structure, and of the relation ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... society—was the enemy and was to continue the enemy. His message, He foresaw, would be scorned and rejected by the majority; and those who preached it were to expect persecution. This warning is repeated so often in the Gospels that it would be superfluous to give quotations. He made it quite plain that the big battalions are never likely to be gathered before the narrow gate. He declared that only false prophets are well spoken of by the majority. When we consider the revolutionary character of the Christian idealism, its indifference to nearly all ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... chief characteristic was that he was a practical and direct person. He would do what he had to do in exactly that businesslike manner. The inquiries I have been making have been as to the whereabouts of places in which a superfluous relative might ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to her aunt. The change of circumstances which the arrival of the message had produced, made concealment superfluous. Mrs. Gallilee opened the telegram, keeping her suspicions in reserve. It had been sent from Rome by the old foreign woman, named "Teresa," and ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... of doctrine,' said Peter; 'we believe all the church believes, though we are not so fond of vain and superfluous ceremonies, snow-white neckcloths and surplices, as the church is. We likewise think that there is no harm in a sermon by the road-side, or in holding free discourse with a beggar beneath a hedge, or a tinker,' he added, smiling; 'it was those superfluous ceremonies, those surplices ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... in an elegant solidity of design which makes it pleasing and impressive in the highest degree. The rapid stream is as little obstructed as the circumstances admitted, and there does not appear to be in the bridge an atom of superfluous material. London Bridge is, I suppose, the most crowded thoroughfare in the world. Twenty-five thousand vehicles cross it daily, as well as countless multitudes of foot-passengers. So great is the throng, ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... and a discrepancy. The greatest scenes of the Iliad and the Odyssey have little to do with myth. Where the characters are most vividly realised there is no room for the lighter kinds of fable; the epic "machines" are superfluous. Where all the character of Achilles is displayed in the interview with Priam, all his generosity, all his passion and unreason, the imagination refuses to be led away by anything else from looking on and listening. The presence ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... Premisses, since the Conclusion is really part of the second Premiss, so that the first Premiss is superfluous. This may be shown, ...
— The Game of Logic • Lewis Carroll
... a retired maltster of comfortable means, ventru, and short in stature, cleared his throat, blew off his superfluous breath, and proceeded to give the instance before alluded to of such possibility, first apologizing for his heroine's lack of a title, it never having been his good fortune to know many of the nobility. To his style of narrative the following ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... without our astonishing gift for illusion. At the age of twelve or so, having given up dolls and broken our steam engines, France, but much more probably Italy, and India almost for a certainty, draws the superfluous imagination. One's aunts have been to Rome; and every one has an uncle who was last heard of—poor man—in Rangoon. He will never come back any more. But it is the governesses who start the Greek myth. Look at that for a head (they say)—nose, you see, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... supper, had no need of gold; and that he thought it more honorable to conquer those who possessed the gold, than to possess the gold itself. Cato, after reflecting upon these things, used to return, and reviewing his own farm, his servants, and housekeeping, increase his labor, and retrench all superfluous expenses. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... worked by Satan. Hence a miracle is utterly useless, for the credibility of a teacher rests on the morality that he teaches, and if this is good, it is accepted without a miracle to attest its goodness, so that the attesting miracle is superfluous. If it is bad, it is rejected in spite of a miracle to attest its authority, so that the attesting miracle is deceptive. The only use of a miracle might be to attest a revelation of otherwise unknowable facts, which had nothing ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... or three hours; he was out of breath, and it was impossible to do much running in his heavy riding-boots. The other man, on the contrary, appeared perfectly fresh; he wore light shoes, and had not a superfluous ounce of flesh to carry. He was all bone and sinew; the saddle resting upon his head was hardly an impediment to him. Lynde, however, was not going to be vanquished without a struggle; though he recognized the futility of pursuit, he pushed on doggedly. A certain tenacious quality in the young ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... attention. At first it appeared a hopeless task to arouse any interest among these peasants in subjects not bearing on their abject lives. To talk with boys of the ideal, when their poor bodies were in need of food and raiment, seemed superfluous; but in time the charm worked, as it always will. The beautiful appealed to their simple natures, elevating and refining them, and opening before their eager eyes perspectives of undreamed-of interest. The self-imposed task became a delight as his pupils’ ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... original stamen, or miniature. For if there should be a superfluity of the first nutritive particles laid up in the egg for the first living filament; it is easy to conceive, that a duplicature of some parts may be formed. And that such superfluous nourishment sometimes exists, is evinced by the double yolks in some eggs, which I suppose were thus formed previous to their impregnation by the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Californian peaches; Or if egregious LYNCH could but abstain From "ruining along the illimitable inane" At Question-time, and try to render PLATO'S Republic into Erse, or grow potatoes; Or if our novelists wrote cheerful books, Instead of joining those superfluous cooks Who spoil our daily journalistic broth By lashing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... Debby would have put her arms about his neck, and said it with all her heart; but she had a presentiment that she should cry, if her love found vent; and here forty pairs of eyes were on them, and salt water seemed superfluous. Besides, Debby had not breathed the air of coquetry so long without a touch of the infection; and the love of power, that lies dormant in the meekest woman's breast, suddenly awoke and ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... courage invigorated. Gabriel went ahead on foot, with his rifle, in the hope that he should at least get near enough to wound the animal, while Roche and I made every preparation for the chase. Disencumbering our horses of every pound of superfluous weight, we started for the sport, rendered doubly exciting by the memory of ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... the future policies of this State throughout the night. To-morrow come to me again, and if your poetry is good and short, I will pay you surprisingly. But see to it that you are not long-winded. If there are superfluous words, I will pay you ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... the large majority of mankind belong to the latter class." Mr. Le Gallienne, of course, belongs to the former. He is a member of Nature's (or God's) aristocracy. It is for them that he writes, although on his own supposition the task is superfluous. The common herd of materialists are warned against wasting their time in reading him—which also is somewhat superfluous. The fault of materialists—or rather their misfortune, for they are born that way—is that they are such sticklers for facts, and have "no ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... found at such a place." Threepence laid out at a coffee-house would enable him to pass some hours a day in good company; dinner might be had for sixpence, a bread-and-milk breakfast for a penny, and supper was superfluous. On clean shirt day you might go abroad and pay visits. This leaves a surplus of nearly one pound from ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... centre, and thicker towards the edges, and just large enough to cover the bottom, sides, and edges of a soup-plate. Butter the soup-plate very well, and lay the paste in it, making it neat and even round the broad edge of the plate. With a sharp knife, trim off the superfluous dough, and notch the edges. Put in the mixture with a spoon, and bake the pudding about half an hour, in a moderate oven. It should be baked of a very light brown. If the oven is too hot, the paste will not have time to rise well. If too cold, it will be clammy. When the pudding is ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... also to admit the virtues of easy intelligibility and of persuasiveness. Greek largely owed its admirable fitness for speech to the natural richness and prolongation of its euphonious words, which allowed the speaker to attain the legitimate utterance of his thought without pauses or superfluous repetition. French, again, while by no means inapt for concentration, as the pensee writers show, most easily lends itself to effects that are meant for speech, as in Bossuet, or that recall speech, as in Mme ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... reader who has merely an elementary knowledge of Greek annals, such information, for instance, as may be gained through a good secondary school history of ancient times. This naturally has led to comments and descriptions which more advanced students may find superfluous. ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... formerly granted. They shall be apprenticed; the boys till they come to 21 years of age, the girls till like age or till they be married," etc. A letter of Sir Edwin Sandys (dated January 28, 1620) to Sir Robert Naunton shows that "The city of London have appointed one hundred children from the superfluous multitude to be transported to Virginia, there to be bound apprentices upon very beneficial conditions." In view of the facts that these More children—and perhaps others—were "apprenticed" or "bound" to the Pilgrims (Carver, Winslow, Brewster, etc.), and that ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... and still. The night had been cold, the morning air was so fresh and light it almost lifted one from the ground—it seemed almost superfluous to tread at all. ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... nor will they ever be pronounced apart so long as language shall celebrate the triumphs Of science in her sublimest walks. On the great discovery of Neptune, which may be said to have surpassed, by intelligible and legitimate means, the wildest pretensions of clairvoyance, it Would now be quite superfluous for me to dilate. That glorious event and the steps which led to it, and the various lights in which it has been placed, are already familiar to every one having the least tincture of science. I will only add that as there is not, nor henceforth ever can be, the slightest rivalry ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... I can be confident you will not betray me," said Pratinas, who in fact considered precautions that were necessary to take among so blundering and thick-witted people as the Latins, almost superfluous. He muttered to himself, "I wouldn't dare to do this in Alexandria,—prate of a murder,—" and then ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... have appeared before him during our narrative; but in case our good opinion of his sagacity has been exaggerated, and in order to satisfy such as are addicted to the laudable practice of SKIPPING (with whom we have at times a strong fellow-feeling), the following particulars may not be superfluous. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... met with the bocan, but he soon came to closer quarters, and haunted the house in a most annoying fashion. He injured the members of the household, and destroyed all the food, being especially given to dirtying the butter (a thing quite superfluous, according to Captain Burt's description of Highland butter). On one occasion a certain Ronald of Aberardair was a guest in Donald's house, and Donald's wife said, "Though I put butter on the table for you tonight, it will just be dirtied". "I will go with you to the butter-keg," said Ronald, "with ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I have no objections. Says it is to call it by, when I want it to come. I said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its respect; and indeed it is a large, good word and will bear repetition. It says it is not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is all one to me; what she ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she had liked Owen better for the innumerable superfluities, all of which were necessary to his happiness, the breakdown of any one of which made him the most miserable man alive. She remembered how she had secretly imitated him, and how she had gathered about her a mass of superfluous necessities. But they had never become necessities to her, they had always galled her. It was in a spirit of perversity she had imitated him. She had always felt it to be wrong to eat peaches at five francs a piece, and had always been aware of an inward resentment against the extravagance ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... and churchwardens sold sacred vessels and appropriated the money for parochial purposes rather than they should be seized by the king. Commissioners were sent to visit all the cathedral and parish churches and seize the superfluous ornaments for the king's use. Tithes, lands, farms, buildings belonging to the church all went the same way, until the hand of the iconoclast was stayed, as there was little left to steal or to be destroyed. The next era of iconoclastic zeal was that of the Civil War and the ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... that is put into it. The waste of time is one of the oldest of commonplaces, but it is one of those which are never really stale. How much of the precious 'stuff of life' is wasted by want of punctuality; by want of method involving superfluous and repeated effort; by want of measure prolonging things that are pleasurable or profitable in moderation to the point of weariness, satiety, and extravagance; by want of selection dwelling too much on ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... of "ev'n Jove," or the far better "great Jove" of Mr. Collier's Corrected Folio,—affirming that "the quantity and accent proper to 'thou' make any addition to the line superfluous." We should like to hear Mr. White read the verse as he prints it. The result would be something of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... you not; but where our treasure is great, we are tormented by imaginary fears, and we guard it by a thousand superfluous cares, What I have said has implied the existence of doubts and apprehensions, but in sober truth they were forced into existence. My nature from the first has been full of trust in you; but this very promptness to confide, my ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... tall and stalwart, deep chested and robust in appearance, with not a superfluous ounce of flesh on his body, hardened by the rigors of long months of camp-life. His head was large and shapely, well poised and carried high on a full neck that sprang from the great breadth of ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... and surprising energy—intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious blacksmith—and he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, years ago, wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous combativeness upon—a sort of Young Love among the thorns—when the Court of Chancery came in his way and accommodated him with the exact thing he wanted. There they were, matched, ever afterwards! ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... by their whole Court—body guards on horse and foot, ushers, pages, falconers, grooms, kennel-varlets, and huntsmen. Omitting the mere baggage service, their train counted two thousand horses. To mention this incident would be superfluous, had not so acute an observer as Machiavelli marked it out as a turning-point in Florentine history. Now, for the first time, the democratic commonwealth saw its streets filled with a mob of courtiers. Masques, balls, and tournaments succeeded each other with magnificent variety; and all the arts ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... leaf was to have the title-page upon it, and so there were to be no pictures pasted to it. She would, therefore, lay this down upon the tin, and then, with one of her large paint brushes, dipped in the water, she would wet it all over, patting it afterwards with a towel, to take up all the superfluous water. Then she would take up the tin, and put the title-leaf down upon the cover, and put the tin over it to keep it down smooth. The next leaf would be for pictures, and, after pasting pictures upon it, on both sides, she would lay it down upon the tin, and with her brush she would wet all ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott
... those withering airs that will sometimes breed desolation over a whole region of fertility. It has enervated their strength, multiplied their diseases, and superinduced upon their original barbarity the low vices of artificial life. It has given them a thousand superfluous wants, whilst it has diminished their means of mere existence. It has driven before it the animals of the chase, who fly from the sound of the ax and the smoke of the settlement, and seek refuge in the depths of remoter ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... criminals do not realise the immorality of their actions. In French criminal jargon conscience is called "la muette," the thief "l'ami," and "travailler" and "servir" signify to steal. A Milanese thief once remarked to my father: "I don't steal. I only relieve the rich of their superfluous wealth." Lacenaire, speaking of his accomplice Avril, remarked, "I realised at once that we should be able to work together." A thief asked by Ferri what he did when he found the purse stolen by him contained no money, replied, "I call them rogues." The notions of right and wrong appear ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... why Germany for forty years has kept the peace is because a war would have been both fatal and futile, injurious and superfluous. It would have been injurious, for it would have arrested the growing trade and the expanding industries of the empire. And, above all, it would have been superfluous, for in time of peace Germany reaped all the advantages which a successful ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... Wilson are so well known to the American people that it would be superfluous for me to attempt to describe either elaborately. I have spoken of each ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... a long time past, the Fox-holders have been trying to force their superfluous goblins upon him. Shadows glide about the gate of his dwelling on moonless nights, muttering: 'Kaere! kyo kara kokoye: kuruda!' [Be off now! from now hereafter it is here that ye must dwell: go!] Then are the upper shoji violently pushed apart; and the voice ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
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