"Badness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made it unforgettable. Then, too, she was going visiting, and she had never been visiting before. Also, she was leaving Mrs. Hobbs and, for a time at least, that lady could not remind her of her queerness and badness. More than all, she was going on a journey, a real journey, like a grown-up or a person in a story, and her family—David and the dolls—were journeying with her. What the journey might mean to her, or to what ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... answered Vickers, stoutly, and with an appealing glance at his brother solicitor. "Mr. Petherton will tell you that we lawyers have a curious gift of intuition. With all Chatfield's badness, I do really believe that the old fellow does not know whether the man we'll call the Squire is Marston Greyle or not! He's doubtful—he's puzzled—but ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... America, and an English one which was declared on all hands a mere imitation of Hussey's. Neither the original nor the copy, however, appear to have operated to the satisfaction of the assembly, perhaps owing to the badness of the weather and its effects on the draggled, unripe grain. With McCormick's a very different result was obtained. This machine is so well known in our Wheat-growing districts that I need only remark that it is the same lately ridiculed by one of the great London journals as "a cross between ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... the elder Bentham, and the younger Bentham was to some extent his collaborator in a pamphlet[223] which defended the conduct of ministers to the American colonies. Bentham observes that he was prejudiced against the Americans by the badness of their arguments, and thought from the first, as he continued to think, that the Declaration of Independence was a hodge-podge of confusion and absurdity, in which the thing to be proved is all along taken for granted.[224] Two other friendships were formed by Bentham ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... "That what is here said has not the least regard to the penmanship, that is, to the fairness or badness of the handwriting," and proceeds throughout a whole page, with a panegyric on a fine handwriting! The stupidity of dulness seems to have at ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... goats, as in Gray's wretched clench: "Beneath the good how far, yet far above the great." In feet, however 'good' and 'great' are descriptive terms, sometimes applicable to the same object, sometimes to different: but 'great' is the wider term and applicable to goodness itself and also to badness; whereas by making 'great' connote goodness it becomes the narrower term. And as we have seen (Sec. 3), such epithets may be applicable to objects on account of different qualities: good is not predicated on the same ground of a ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... for four days with no exercise to speak of, the children's badness is breaking out in red spots, like the measles. Betsy and I have thought of every form of active and innocent occupation that could be carried on in such a congested quarter as this: blind man's buff and pillow fights and hide-and-go-seek, gymnastics in ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... steady, respectable Englishmen, with an eye to the main chance. It is true that there is nothing more difficult than to make a villain tell his own story naturally; in a way, that is, so as to show at once the badness of the motive and the excuse by which the actor reconciles it to his own mind. De Foe is entirely deficient in this capacity of appreciating a character different from his own. His actors are merely so many repetitions of himself placed under different ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... simple old Laxart sat up there and droned out the most tedious and empty tale one ever heard, and neither he nor Papa D'Arc ever gave a thought to the badness of the etiquette of it, or ever suspected that that foolish tale was anything but dignified and valuable history. There was not an atom of value in it; and whilst they thought it distressing and pathetic, it was in fact not pathetic at all, ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... the signs of every possible disease when reading a book on medicine. I took pleasure both in the cunning designs, the glowing sentiments, the tumultuous events, and the character-drawing of these works. A good man was of the goodness, a bad man of the badness, possible only to the imagination of early youth. Likewise I found great pleasure in the fact that it was all written in French, and that I could lay to heart the fine words which the fine heroes spoke, and recall them for use some day when engaged in some noble deed. What quantities of French ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... I hope to live in a beautiful world, where a man may speak to a pretty girl on the street. Badness is its own punishment, ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... Such repetition acting upon natural aptitudes or propensities gradually fixes them in one or other of two opposite directions, giving them a bias towards good or evil. Hence the several acts which determine goodness or badness of character must be done in a certain way, and thus the formation of good character requires discipline and direction from without. Not that the agent himself contributes nothing to the formation of his character, but that at first he needs guidance. The point is not ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... was the highest test. The child, fresh from the hand of God, before it is appreciably hurt by parents or surroundings, is drawn to the pure and good. They are repelled by selfishness and badness. They draw out the best. They are drawn only by the true and beautiful and good. That is, in the early years, before the warping of a selfish, sinful atmosphere has hurt them. This is an infallible test. This ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... his sermons that he preached pamphlets: they have scarce a Christian characteristic; they might be preached from the steps of a synagogue, or the floor of a mosque, or the box of a coffee-house almost. There is little or no cant—he is too great and too proud for that; and, in so far as the badness of his sermons goes, he is honest. But having put that cassock on, it poisoned him: he was strangled in his bands. He goes through life, tearing, like a man possessed with a devil. Like Abudah in the Arabian story, he is always looking out for the Fury, and knows that the night ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... long after this that Hawes committed a robbery on Finchley Common, upon one Richard Hall, from whom he took about four shillings in money; and to make up the badness of the booty, he took from him his horse, in order to be the better equipped to go in quest of another which might make up the deficiency. For this robbery, being shortly after detected and apprehended, he was convicted ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... it made him furious. He did not see that it was his own fault; that it was the badness in him which made the Prince shrink. He thought it was the doing of some one else. He grew to hate the Hermit and John and the animals, of whom his son and daughter were so fond. In his heart he cared little for any one. He had never loved the Princess Clare, and the Prince was ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... people complain of the coldness an' hardness of the world; by 'the world,' always meanin' the folks that live in it, I suppose. To my way of thinkin' there's a deal more kindness in the world than there is selfishness an' badness, an' the people on that steamer proved me right in one case anyway. They made up a purse among 'em an' give a share to each of us that had been picked out of the sea, as you might say. So, when we landed, we each had a little money to start in with. I soon found work in a mill, ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... the physical misery and suffering that are its consequences. This is, I say, a taking of the indication for the thing indicated. An act is bad in itself and by itself, as being a violation of the rational nature of the doer (c. vi., s. i.), and being bad, it breeds bad consequences. But the badness of the act is moral; the badness of the consequences, physical. There is an evident intrinsic irrationality, and thereby moral evil, in such sins as intemperance, peevishness, and vanity. But let us take an instance of an act, apparently harmless in itself, and evil solely because ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... virtuous, and wise, the Laodiceanism of the ordinary man might be regarded as a deplorable shortcoming; but, as a matter of fact, no more frightful misfortune could threaten us than a general spread of fanaticism. What people call goodness has to be kept in check just as carefully as what they call badness; for the human constitution will not stand very much of either without serious psychological mischief, ending in insanity or crime. The fact that the insanity may be privileged, as Savonarola's was up to the point of wrecking the social life of Florence, does not alter the case. We always ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... mixture is, no doubt, partly to get rid of that excess of fixed air which is apt to make undiluted champagne a rather uncomfortable material for a draught; but the custom is mainly the result of sad experience of the unwisdom of doing otherwise, owing (it must be admitted) to the badness of the so-called champagne only too commonly dispensed at ball suppers. How the man who wouldn't dream of giving his guests a glass of inferior wine at his dinner-table comes to think nothing of poisoning them with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... long vacant upon Account of the badness of the Tobacco, which gives Room for Dissenters, especially Quakers, as in Nansemond County; but this might be remedied, either by making the Payments of equal Value in the other Commodities produced there, or else by a standing ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... the sleepy sunlight, I ..."; after that there were important differences. Under these conditions they liked everything, but especially everything silly. "Next to authentic goodness in a book," they said—"next to authentic goodness in a book (and that, alas! we never find) we desire a rich badness." Thus it happened that their praise (as indicating the presence of a rich badness) was not universally sought after, and authors became a little disquieted when they found the eye of the Hammock School fixed upon them with ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... lost to a major. I had hardly time to make myself comfortable in my new abode, when I was staked and lost again. In short, your highness, in that campaign I was the property of between forty and fifty Russian officers, and what with the fatigue of marching, the badness of provisions, and my constant unsettled state of mind and body, I lost much of my good looks—so much, indeed, that I found out that instead of being taken as a stake of one thousand sequins, I was not valued at more than two hundred. I can assure your highness that it ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of these their productions. But the encouragement with which these lucubrations are read may seem most strange and more difficult to be accounted for. And here I cannot agree with my bookseller that their eminent badness recommends them. The true reason is, I believe, the same which I once heard an economist assign for the content and satisfaction with which his family drank water-cider—viz., because they could procure no better liquor. Indeed, I make no doubt but that the understanding as well as the palate, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... after him, with all the speed they could muster, making sure from the badness of the road that he must stick fast ere long, and so be at their mercy. And this was Jeremy's chiefest fear, for the ground being soft and thoroughly rotten, after so much frost and snow, the poor horse had terrible ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... favors, intended not to receive him, till a thought immediately suggested itself to me how I might convert him to my advantage, I pretended to recollect him; and, blaming the shortness of my memory and badness of my eyes, I sprung forward and ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... morality it would be almost impossible to define the position of the proletariate, tillers of the soil, and artisans, at this epoch. These classes vary in their goodness and their badness, in their drawbacks and advantages, from age to age far less than those who mold the character of marked historical periods by culture. They enjoy indeed a greater or a smaller immunity from pressing miseries. They are innocent ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... late in making their appearance, having been delayed by various accidents and by the badness of the roads. At length they entered the hamlet. When Waverley joined the clan Mac-Ivor, arm in arm with their Chieftain, all the resentment they had entertained against him seemed blown off at once. Evan Dhu received him with a grin of congratulation; and even Callum, who was running about ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the rising of young reputations that dim theirs? or do great orators smile when some 'boy' takes the public ear more than they do? Poor Saul had to drink the bitter cup, which all who love the sweet draught of popular applause have sooner or later to taste; and we need not think him a monster of badness because ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... between qualities whose balance may be much influenced by education. We must therefore leave morals as far as possible out of the discussion, not entangling ourselves with the almost hopeless difficulties they raise as to whether a character as a whole is good or bad. Moreover, the goodness or badness of character is not absolute, but relative to the current form of civilisation. A fable will best explain what is meant. Let the scene be the Zoological Gardens in the quiet hours of the night, and suppose ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... residence—from the King to my servants. They talk about American lynchings. Even the Spectator, in an early editorial about you, said that we should now see what stuff there is in the new President by watching whether you would stop lynchings. They forever quote Bryce on the badness of our municipal government. They pretend to think that the impeachment of governors is common and ought to be commoner. One delicious M.P. asked me: "Now, since the Governor of New York is impeached, who becomes ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... father, and would find herself praying for him, careless of what she had been taught. She could not blind herself to what she knew. He had not been a bad man, as men count badness, but could she in common sense think him a glorified saint, shining in white robes? The polite, kind old man! her own father!—could she, on the other hand, believe him in flames forever? If so, what a religion was that which required her to believe it, and at the ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... quite enough for a banker to hold 'greenbacks,' though the value of these changes as the Government chooses to enlarge or contract the issue. But a practical New York banker has no need to think of the goodness or badness of this system at all; he need only keep enough 'greenbacks' to pay all probable demands, and then he is fairly safe from ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... they lived. It was theirs, and no one had any right to take it from them. But strangers were coming in, and King George was going to take their hunting-grounds away and give them to others. And who were these newcomers? They were people who had been driven out of their own country for their badness. They had fought against the great white chief, George Washington, who had been so good to the Indians, and had sent them many presents during the war. These strangers had been defeated, and thousands of them had already arrived in ships, ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... was not this good man's forte; he soon grew weary of reflection; and on reaching a place where they were obliged to proceed more slowly on account of the badness of the road, he deemed it a favorable opportunity to resume the conversation. "You are silent, comrade," he ventured to remark, "and one might swear that ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... originality in plot, skill in character depiction, and the effective presentation of events [which characterized 'The Maternity of Harriot Wicken'].... In the story we see so artistic a description of the play of character, the various phases of human goodness and badness are so well drawn out, that the book deserves high praise.... The description of the life of Folly Corner, and the men and women seen there, is not surpassed by any work of any contemporary novelist. The book is ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... I shall wait for you. If you do not come, that is your affair, not mine. I love you. I love you with every bit of selfishness that is in my soul, every bit of goodness that is in my heart, and every bit of badness that is in my blood. I am proud to tell you that I am selfish in this one respect, if no longer in any other. I would give up everything else in the world to have you. That is how selfish I am. I want ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... "this is the main Confederate army advancing to attack ours, but the badness of the roads operates against the offense. We shall reach General Thomas with the word that they are coming long ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... "He aggravated me by his insolence." To aggravate is to augment the disagreeableness of something already disagreeable, or the badness of something bad. But a person cannot be aggravated, even if disagreeable or bad. Women are singularly prone to misuse of ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... forgiving freely for Christ's sake our sins, impels us to forgive from the heart those that have trespassed against us. The power is all from above; yet, though we by our goodness do not set the beneficent machinery in motion, we may by our badness cause it all to stand still. It is not our forgiveness accorded to an evil-doer that procures forgiveness to ourselves from God; the opposite is the truth: yet our refusal of forgiveness to a brother prevents the flow of pardon down from God to our guilty hearts. Such is the structure of the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... to difficulties hereabout during his Sussex journey. His sprightly and heightened account is in one of the letters: "The roads grew bad beyond all badness, the night dark beyond all darkness, our guide frightened beyond all frightfulness. However, without being at all killed, we got up, or down—I forget which, it was so dark,—a famous precipice called Silver Hill, and about ten at night arrived at a wretched village called ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... late suppers; and so reporting myself a man of irregular habits and bad hours, whose movements could not in the least be depended upon, I had to decline the hospitality which would fain have adopted me as its guest, notwithstanding the badness of the character that, in common honesty, I had to certify as my own. Next morning I breakfasted at the manse, and was introduced by Mr. Learmonth to two gentlemen of the place, who had been kindly invited ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the ambition of serving with truth so great a nation as that which fate had made his own. Nature, I think, had so fashioned George Vavasor, that he might have been a good, and perhaps a great man; whereas Mr Bott had been born small. Vavasor had educated himself to badness with his eyes open. He had known what was wrong, and had done it, having taught himself to think that bad things were best. But poor Mr Bott had meant to do well, and thought that he had done very well indeed. He was a tuft-hunter and a toady, but he did not know ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to chapter end.] are fresh and flower-crowned—springes to catch woodcocks, you know. Then, to be the object of universal detestation, to be distinguished only less for the badness of one's character than for that of one's speeches, to be pointed at by every finger as the famous champion of all-round villany—this seems to me no inconsiderable attainment. And now you have my advice; take it with the blessing of the ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... argument,'" quotes Monck Mason from the tract issued in 1724 entitled, "A Defence of the Conduct of the People of Ireland, in their unanimous refusal of Mr. Wood's Copper Money," "'can be drawn from the badness of our former coinages but this, that because we have formerly been cheated by our coiners, we ought to suffer Mr. Wood to cheat us over again? Whereas, one reason for our so vigorously opposing Mr. Wood's coinage, is, because we have always been imposed upon in our copper money, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... to those monstrous wens from the throat which have been observed of the Vallaisans and the inhabitants of other mountainous districts in Europe. It has been usual to attribute this affection to the badness, thawed state, mineral quality, or other peculiarity of the waters; many skilful men having applied themselves to the investigation of the subject. My experience enables me to pronounce without hesitation that the disorder, for such it is though it appears ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... at the badness of the roads from London, coming as I had from Rome, where paved ways go out in every direction. We came out by Bishopsgate, by the Ware road, and arrived at Waltham Cross a little before sunset, riding through heavy dust that had hardly been laid at all by the recent ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... cowardly, and a burning indignation at everything brutal or tyrannical, faithless or dishonourable in conduct and character, while making the broadest distinction between mala in se and mere mala prohibita—between acts giving evidence of intrinsic badness in feeling and character, and those which are only violations of conventions either good or bad, violations which, whether in themselves right or wrong, are capable of being committed by persons in every other respect lovable ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... was accustomed to, and often rather amused by his cousin's honest worldliness and outspoken skepticisms—that candid confession of badness which always inclines a kindly heart to believe the very best of ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... sickness when in the presence of the august Emperor, and being in consequence suspected of treachery, shall, to prove the truth of his denials, be submitted to the tests of boiling tar, red-hot swords, and of being dropped from a great height on to the Sacred Stone of Goodness and Badness, in each of which he shall fail to convince his judges or to establish his innocence, to ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... Alexina they all looked appalling, abandoned, the last cry in "badness." She was not afraid. The street was too brilliant and the great juggernauts of trolley cars lumbered by every few moments. Moreover, she could make herself look as cold and remote as the stars above the fog, and she had drawn herself up to her full five feet seven, thrown her shoulders back, ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... Charlotte, taking Mikey's offer with her usual literal directness. "When he's whipped, nobody but Auntie Charlotte can do it. Are you going to do it now, Auntie Charlotte? We don't want the devil to get him for badness." And as she spoke she took the boy's hand and held it tightly as if willing to defend him from the flesh, the devil and ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... but as a friendly and amicable donation. They never admitted, nor did the Nabob ever contend, that he had any right at all to take this money from them. At that time it was not Mr. Hastings's opinion that the badness of the system would justify any violence as a consequence of it; and when the advancement of the money was agreed to between the parties, as a family and amicable compact, he was as ready as anybody to propose and sanction a regular treaty between the parties, that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Sir, Good morrow to you, I have not as yet lost ought, but yet you give a right ghess of me, for I am, as you say, concerned in my heart, but 'tis because of the badness of the times. And Sir, you, as all our Neighbours know, are a very observing man, pray therefore what do ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... Henry of Navarre) how to subordinate creed to policy when urgent need is upon him. In a word, he must realise and face his own position, and the facts of mankind and of the world. If not veracious to his conscience, he must be veracious to facts. He must not be bad for badness' sake, but seeing things as they are, must deal as he can to protect and preserve the trust committed to his care. Fortune is still a fickle jade, but at least the half our will is free, and if we are bold we ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Birmingham Liverpool Watering-places; Cheltenham; Brighton; Buxton; Tunbridge Wells Bath London The City Fashionable Part of the Capital Lighting of London Police of London Whitefriars; The Court The Coffee Houses Difficulty of Travelling Badness of the Roads Stage Coaches Highwaymen Inns Post Office Newspapers News-letters The Observator Scarcity of Books in Country Places; Female Education Literary Attainments of Gentlemen Influence of French Literature ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... natural order of things, O good Brahmana, is seen everywhere in this world. What is thy opinion as to the virtuousness or otherwise of this state of things? There is much that can be said of the goodness or badness of our actions. But whoever is addicted to his own proper occupation surely ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... steed, and on the road; but the Providence that watches over and protects the innocent was with him, and it happened, most fortunately, that just before he reached the point at which his enemy stood in watch, the badness of the road had compelled those who travelled it to diverge aside for a few paces into a little by-path, which, at a little distance beyond, and when the bad places had been rounded, brought the traveller again into the proper path. Into this by-path, the horse of Colleton took ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... you dirt. You pass that over. You could have fired him, but you let him stay and keep his job. That's goodness. And badness is resultin' from it, straight. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... manner of marking the assay is thus:—The assay master puts a small quantity of the silver upon trial in the fire, and then, taking it out again, he, with his exact scales that will turn with the weight of the hundredth part of a grain, computes and reports the goodness or badness of the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the badness of human beings," said Sir Richmond; "seeing how they have come about and what they are; but I have been surprised time after time by fine things.... Often in people I disliked or thought little of.... I can understand that I find you ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... great deal to say, as we have all seen, about the badness of much of the clothing furnished to the Federal troops. There is no need to denounce the conduct of faithless contractors in such a case; and the glorious zeal of the women, and of all who can help to make up clothing for the army, shows that the volunteers at least will be well clad, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... which is most useful to themselves, and to account those things the best of all which have the most beneficial effect on mankind. Further, they were bound to form abstract notions for the explanation of the nature of things, such as goodness, badness, order, confusion, warmth, cold, beauty, deformity, and so on; and from the belief that they are free agents arose the further notions of praise and ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... godly, who would not foul their hands with the wicked ways of the world, have been always laughed at, neglected, oppressed, persecuted. The world," they say, "is very bad, and we cannot live in it without giving way a little to its badness, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... beauty, to make them more perfectly beautiful, so, to vent his infinite horror of evil, he seized on all the worst images of crime or torture that he could find, and recast them so as to reach the quintessence of distilled badness. His pictures of war, famine, lust, and cruelty are, or seem, forced, although perhaps, as in the Cenci, he might urge that he had historical warrant for his descriptions, far better historical warrant, no doubt, than the beauty and happiness actually to be found ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... editor that he was much the better man. The better man was naturally the man who had pledged himself to support a charming wife. We were neither of us good, as the event proved, but he had a finer sort of badness. The Blackport Beacon had two London correspondents—one a supposed haunter of political circles, the other a votary of questions sketchily classified as literary. They were both expected to be lively, and what was ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... good, and not fit to eat, is haram (prohibited)." I immediately said "Amen" to this, for generally the Moors maintain that pork and other things of the kind prohibited, are not good because they are prohibited, and not on account of any intrinsic badness in the things themselves. They, of course, asked me what sort of places were England and London. It's little use to answer such questions; they cannot realize the idea or forms of an European city, even in imagination. Describing the riches of London, one observed ill-naturedly, "Oh, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... was extremely silly. It was extremely silly to take pains to represent that he was morally much worse than he really was. The greatest blockheads I know are distinguished by the same characteristic. Oh, empty-headed Noodle! who have more than once dropped hints in my presence as to the awful badness of your life, and the unhappy insight which your life has given you into the moral rottenness of society, don't do it again. I always thought you a contemptible fool: but next time I mean to tell ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou returnest. For with what art thou discontented? With the badness of men? Recall to thy mind this conclusion, that rational animals exist for one another, and that to endure is a part of justice, and that men do wrong involuntarily; and consider how many already, after mutual enmity, suspicion, hatred, and fighting, have been stretched dead, reduced ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... climb the ladders to a level where the air was better, but they might as well have urged me to lift up the rock. I could do nothing but sit down and lean fainting against the rocks. This arose entirely from the badness of the air. After a time I felt a trifle better, and then I climbed one short ladder, and sat down very faint again. When I recovered, two men tied a rope round me, and went up the ladder before me, supporting a part of my weight, and in this way I ascended ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... risk of capture was great and the profit from a successful venture correspondingly large. But the prejudice, he continued, was really not well-founded. Slavery, of course, was a very bad thing; but there were degrees of badness in it, and since it could not be broken up there was much to be said in favor of any course that would make it less cruel. The blacks who were the slaves of other blacks, or of Portuguese,—and it was only these that the traders bought—were exposed to such barbarous treatment that it was a charity ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... but there is much difference between me and this Dante. He fled from country because he had one bad tongue which he shook at his betters. I fly because benefice gone, and head going; not on account of the badness of my tongue.' ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... you by John Hart, giving you account of the badness of the Pine Lumber back of St. Anns, I sent 3 hands up Nashwalk to try the timber in that place, and find the timber to be small near the waterside. Upon Davidson's understanding I was determined to try that place, he immediately ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... trial, a discovery is made of the badness of our condition, should we not be alarmed to look about us, and to labour by all means for an outgate? Considering, (1.) How doleful and lamentable this condition is. (2.) How sad and dreadful the consequences of it are. (3.) How happy a thing it is to be delivered from this miserable and sinful ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... was, of course, struck off the rolls. I never heard anything of him for years, and then one day, some time ago, he turned up here and begged me to give him a job. I did—and I'll do him the credit to say that he earned his money. But—in the end, his natural badness broke out. One afternoon—I'm careless about some things—I left some money lying in this drawer—about forty pounds in notes and gold—and next morning Parrawhite never came to business. We've never seen or heard of ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... spiritual attitude toward positive badness, social and individual wrongdoing, cruelty and oppression, is far more difficult of solution than the problem of our attitude toward worth really existent but concealed. The thorny question, how we are to deal with wicked persons, whether we are to observe the spiritual attitude toward ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... property. The habitable and comfortable house was a species of pigsty, built out of the rough branches of trees, without doors, windows, or roof. There was I to dwell, and that in a season when the thermometer was ranging between ninety-five and a hundred degrees. The very badness of things, however, stimulated us to exertion; we set to work, and in two days had built a couple of very decent huts, the only inconvenience of which was, that when it rained hard, we were obliged to take refuge under a neighbouring cotton-tree. Fortunately, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... that to be a pirate's just the thing for me, seein' as how it's both profitable an' healthy. Passin' over details, let me tell you that I became a pirate. I ran away to sea, an' by dint of perseverance, as the Sunday-school books useter say, in my badness I soon became the centre of a evil lot; an' when I says to 'em, 'Boys, I wants to be a pirate chief,' they hollers back, loud like, 'Jim, we're with you,' an' they was. For years I was the terror ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... being that had the approval of old Riley Brooke. It was curious—that turning of his tongue from the slander of men to the praise of God. And of the goodness of the Almighty he was quite as sure as of the badness of men. Assurance of his own salvation had come to him one day when he was shearing sheep, and when, as he related often, finding himself on his knees to shear, he remained to pray. Sundays and every Wednesday evening ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... himself, and their victories resulted in transferring the commercial as well as the naval supremacy of Holland to this country. In spite of the cruel blows inflicted on the well-being of the country, alike by the extravagance of the Court, the badness of the Government, the Great Plague, and the destruction of London by fire, an extraordinary extension of our trade occurred during the reign of Charles II. Such a period, therefore, although its brilliancy was ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... country with a native chief this afternoon, for the purpose of procuring palm-oil. He returned, however, the next evening, very much fatigued and disappointed; for he not only found the journey very harassing, in consequence of the badness of the paths, but discovered that his mercantile project was fruitless, owing to the poverty of the natives. Indeed, the people of Fernando Po are less abundantly supplied with provisions than the nations of Africa in general; their principal dependance being on yams, which are, of course, liable ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... inhabitants of the Maine to stay and inhabit there." Perhaps, the insecurity of being on the "Governor's Land" was one reason that these "free men" could, and wanted to, leave. The reasons offered, however, were "the barreness of the ground whereon they plant," "the badness of their utterly decayed houses" and "their small strength & ability to hold & defend ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch
... live for ever, you are silly; for you would have the things which are not in your power to be in your power, and the things which belong to others to be yours. So if you would have your slave to be free from faults, you are a fool; for you would have badness not to be badness, but something else. But if you wish not to fail in your desires, you are able to do that. Practise then this which you are able to do. He is the master of every man who has the power ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... use to think about badness or goodness now," said Willy, flinging another handful of grass into the road. "What'll I do? ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... never dream of Elinor? Are we so utterly separated that even in visions I may not behold her face? What have I done, that God refuses me all joy? I don't know of being so bad. But I suppose this not knowing is the very badness itself. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... than a year elapsed after their marriage before Parker began to complain of the badness of the times, and to sit thoughtful and sometimes gloomy during the evenings he spent at home. This grieved Rachel very much, and caused her to exercise the greatest possible prudence and economy in order that the household expenses might be as little burdensome as possible to ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... Royal and Noble Authors, has mottoed his book with the Cardinal's address to Ariosto, "Dove diavolo, Messer Ludovico, avete pigliato tante coglionerie?"[271] Walter Scott says you could hardly pick out, on any principle of selection—except badness itself, he means of course—the same number of plebeian authors whose works are so bad. But his implied satire on aristocratic writing forgets two points. First, during a large period of our history, when persons of rank condescended to write, they veiled themselves ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... And the Lord said to me, What art thou seeing, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad very bad, which for their(487) badness cannot be eaten. 4. And the Word of the Lord came unto me, [5] saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... of God"? The infinite goodness of God to whom? To the animal whose special finger enables him to catch the insect? Then what about the insect? Where does he come in? Does not the long finger of the animal show the infinite badness of God ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... affairs. In "The Love Affairs of Mary Queen of Scots," published in 1903, Major Hume gives a convincing and logical reason for Mary's political failure, inasmuch as it did not spring from her goodness or badness as a woman, but from a certain weakness of character. This epitome has been prepared by Major ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... new chance of condemnation, When 'twas once in grace and happy. This is surely true. If, likewise, It had been in hell, 'tis adverse To strict justice, since it were not Just that that which by its badness Once had earned such punishment, Should again be given the chances Of regaining grace. It must, I presume, be taken as granted That God's justice and His mercy Cannot possibly be parted. Where, I ask ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... gave a fresh impulse to their mirth and enjoyment. His manners were highly agreeable, and his spirits buoyant almost to levity. Notwithstanding the badness of his character in the opinion of the sober, steady, and respectable inhabitants of the parish, yet he was a favorite with the desolate and thoughtless, and with many who had not an opportunity of seeing him except in his most favorable ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... remarkable hill called BROOKS'S BLUFF: following the strait to the northward, they passed the remains of many Esquimaux habitations; and, though their short journey had been unsatisfactory on account of the badness of the weather, there was still sufficient to cause the most lively interest, and give strong hopes of the existence of some passage to the northeast of the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... unspeakable, The deep abysses of her evilment. Hist! Tell 't wi' bated breath! One day she let A rosy tongue-tip from red lips peep forth! Can viciousness cap that? Horrid's the word. Yet there she is. There is that Little Girl, Her goodness and her badness, side by side, Like bacon, streak o' fat and streak o' lean. Ah, Fatalist, ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... entirely sincere in their detestation of meanness and wickedness, but very tepid in their appreciation of goodness. To hate is, unfortunately, more congenial with ordinary characters than to love; and it is more facile to look down on badness than to look up ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... plantation. Other people, and unfortunately by far the greater number of those who get married must be classed among the "other people," will inevitably go through a quarter or half an hour of greater or less badness as the case may be. Taking numbers into account, I should think more mental suffering had been undergone in the streets leading from St George's, Hanover Square, than in the condemned cells of Newgate. There ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... and who seemed at present more particularly distressed from having emptied his snuff-box, began to be very importunate with us to return home. It was some time before the old corporal consented, alleging, that we were at a great distance from the harbour, and that, on account of the badness of the way, the night would probably overtake us before we reached the end of our journey. At length, however, he yielded to Ivaskin's entreaties, and conducted us along the side of a number of small lakes, with which the flat part of this country seems much to abound. These lakes are ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... know, that from the Badness of the Pegs, arise several Inconveniences; The first I have named, viz. the Loss of Labour. The 2d. is, the Loss of Time; for I have known some so extreme long in Tuning their Lutes and Viols, by reason only of Bad Pegs, that They have wearied out their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body; and if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children, as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food, the physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself, because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I do not call it, but only an experience, because ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... mind; a Christian is enlightened, hardened, sharpened, as to evil; he sees it where others do not.—MOZLEY, Essays, i. 308. All satirists, of course, work in the direction of Christian doctrine, by the support they give to the doctrine of original sin, making a sort of meanness and badness a law of society.—MOZLEY, Letters, 333. Les critiques, meme malveillants, sont plus pres de la verite derniere que les admirateurs.—NISARE, Lit. fr., Conclusion. Les hommes superieurs doivent necessairement passer pour mechants. Ou les autres ne voient ni un defaut, ni un ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... a very good-natured man I have that degree of badness of disposition in me that I always endeavour to take advantage of him; therefore I am going to mention some desiderata, which if you can supply I shall be very grateful, but if not no answer will ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... degree, as in the Renaissance, which seems to constitute a social paroxysm. The sex passion rises to a frenzy to which everything else is sacrificed. The notion that mores grow either better or worse by virtue of some inherent tendency is to be rejected. Goodness or badness of the mores is always relative only. Their purpose is to serve needs, and their quality is to be defined by the degree to which they do it. We have noticed that there is in them a strain towards consistency, due to the fact that they are more ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... before you can get your purchase on him. That something may be something good or something bad. A bad reaction is better than no reaction at all; for, if bad, you can couple it with consequences which awake him to its badness. But imagine a child so lifeless as to react in no way to the teacher's first appeals, and how can you possibly take the first step ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... because the little upper class takes away from 'em and eats up all they toil and slave to make. Oh, it ain't the upper class's fault. They do it because they're ignorant more'n because they're bad, just as what goes on down here is ignorance more'n badness. But they do it, all the same. And they're ignorant and need to be told. Supposin' you saw a big girl out yonder in the street beatin' her baby sister. What would you do? Would you go and hold out little pieces of candy to the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... all. What shall be done with him is a question of expediency to be settled in view of the interests of society—that is, of the non-criminals. The French writers of the school of '48 used to represent the badness of the bad men as the fault of "society." As the object of this statement was to show that the badness of the bad men was not the fault of the bad men, and as society contains only good men and bad men, it followed that the badness ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... constantly borrowing small sums from their friends, which they never restore. If you should ever be thrown into the society of such, your right course will be to take care to have no money in your pocket. People are disagreeable who are given to talking of the badness of their servants, the undutifulness of their children, the smokiness of their chimneys, and the deficiency of their digestive organs. And though, with a true and close friend, it is a great relief, and a special tie, to have spoken out your heart about your burdens and sorrows, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... think. And then at last it occurred to me that perhaps it was wrong in me to hang back. There might be a real change beginning even in such a man as Levi Sharples. The Lord had been merciful to me, and why not to him? There hadn't been much to choose between us in badness in bygone days; and should I be right in repelling the poor man if I could be in any way the means of bringing him into the narrow way? Well, you know the rest. We met the next night; and, mercifully for me, Jim Barnes, as I find from him, overheard the appointment to meet at Cricketty Hall; and ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... in the wrong, at least, as I told you before, you are no proper judge in the controversy, whether they are or not. At any rate this conduct of yours must proceed either from a weakness of the head, or a badness of the heart. A weakness in the head, that your understanding still continues blinded with all those prejudices, in their full strength, which you imbibed in the years of your childhood, from the old women in the nursery. A ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... Glasgow thinks it is shameful to be naked; yet even the Bible declares that the ideal condition is to be naked and unashamed; and Glasgow, being in Scotland, naturally gives the lead to England. We have no art. We have only the Royal Academy, which is remarkable merely for the badness of its cuisine, and the coiffure of its well-meaning President. Our artists, as they call themselves, are like Mr. Grant Allen: they say that all their failures are 'pot-boilers.' They love that word. It covers so many sins of commission. They set down their incompetence as an assumption, which makes ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... of his domestics, tells me, that his tenants hate him: and that he never had a servant who spoke well of him. Vilely suspicious of their wronging him (probably from the badness of his own heart) he ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... when we consider his almost unexampled attention to truth, his inflexible integrity, his constant piety, who will dare to 'cast a stone at him[1217]?' Besides, let it never be forgotten, that he cannot be charged with any offence indicating badness of heart, any thing dishonest, base, or malignant; but that, on the contrary, he was charitable in an extraordinary degree: so that even in one of his own rigid judgements of himself, (Easter-eve, 1781,) while he says, 'I have corrected no external ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... sir, I have never trusted any one in my life," answered the silversmith promptly. "I don't for a moment suppose that Luke Tulliver would be honest if I gave him an opportunity to cheat me. As to the badness of his countenance, that is so much the better. I like to deal with an obvious rogue. The really dangerous subject is your honest fool, who goes on straight enough till he has lulled one into a false security, and then turns thief all at once at the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... employed to signify the seat of the dream-consciousness or of what is now called the subconscious or subliminal self, but never of the ordinary waking consciousness which is the seat of knowledge and ignorance, goodness and badness.[2] On the other hand, that use of the word is quite common in the fourth century, and it may be inferred that this change was due to Socrates. More than once Aristophanes ridicules him for holding some strange view of the 'soul', and these jests ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... rather to deserve a flogging than a refutation, is true; and therefore it is that his performance is, in the highest degree, interesting and valuable to a judicious reader. It is good by reason of its exceeding badness. It is the most extraordinary instance that exists of the art of making much show with little substance. There is no difficulty, says the steward of Moliere's miser, in giving a fine dinner with plenty of money: the really great cook is he who can ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... them to stay would be considered as being very rude. Notwithstanding they had made up their minds to go, yet I could see that they were not offended at the homely way (as my father called it) in which I enforced my suit. I enlarged upon the darkness of the evening, the badness of the roads, and a thousand other obstacles which I presented to their view; but when I found that all was in vain; I seized an occasion to withdraw, while they were at tea, and taking off one of the wheels of the chaise I conveyed it ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... informed. But it is certain that the general opinion was pronounced against Bacon in a manner not to be misunderstood. Soon after his marriage he put forth a defence of his conduct, in the form of a Letter to the Earl of Devon. This tract seems to us to prove only the exceeding badness of a cause for which such talents could ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... lodgings for them than the miserable barracks they now occupy, yet, as they might spend the whole of the day, from morning till late at night, in these public rooms, and have no occasion to return to their homes till bed-time, they would not experience much inconvenience from the badness of the ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... loved me, my father loved me, bad as I am! And for his sake I wish—I wish I could be good. So folks, his folks, or—or anybody could stand it to live with me! But I can't. I've tried. I've tried ever so hard, yet the goodness gets down below and the badness stays on top, and then ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... the great Whig leaders had strengthened their party, and raised their character, by extending a liberal and judicious patronage to good writers. He was mortified, and not without reason, by the exceeding badness of the poems which appeared in honor of the battle of Blenheim. One of those poems has been rescued from oblivion by the exquisite ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... light in this question I will premit these considerations, 1. When we measure the goodness or the badness of a human action, we must not only measure it by the object and the end, but by all the circumstances which accompany it. Fed. Morellus,(1185) upon those words of Seneca, Refert quid, cui, quando, quare, ubi, &c., saith, ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... true; but there is much difference between me and this Dante. He fled from country because he had one bad tongue which he shook at his betters. I fly because benefice gone, and head going; not on account of the badness of my tongue." ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... very unlike the solemn and dogmatic ferocity of the German. We do not expect or desire that other peoples shall resemble us. The world is wide; and the world-drama is enriched by multiplicity and diversity of character. We like bad men, if there is salt and spirit in their badness. We even admire a brute, if he is a whole-hearted brute. I have often thought that if the Germans had been true to their principles and their programme—if, after proclaiming that they meant to win by sheer strength and that they recognized ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... should she object to Leopold's knowing, or at least being told as well as herself, that he need fear no punishment in the next world, whatever he might have to encounter in this; that there was no frightful God who hated wrong-doing to be terrified at; that even the badness of his own action need not distress him, for he and it would pass away as the blood he had shed had already vanished from the earth? Ought it not to encourage the poor fellow?—But to what? To live on and endure his misery, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... directly against them. I had more sense than to contest with him, since there is no possibility of convincing an enthusiast. A man should never pretend to inform a lover of his mistress's faults, no more than one who is at law, of the badness of his cause; nor attempt to win over a fanatic by strength of reasoning. Accordingly I ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... Angelica proceeded with her disjointed narrative; "but I thought I would turn it to account. I was, as you used to say, devoured by curiosity, and my mind is always tentative. I wanted to hear how men talk to each other. I didn't believe in goodness in a man, and I wanted to see badness from the man's point of view. I expected to find you corrupt in some particular, to see your hoofs and your horns sooner or later, and I tried to make you show them: but that of course you never did, and I soon realized my mistake. I had ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Mavunga came to our quarters and began to talk sense. Knowing that my time was limited, he enlarged upon the badness of the road and the too evident end of the travelling season, when the great rains would altogether prevent fast travel. Banza Ninga, the next stage, was distant two or three marches, and neither shelter nor provisions were to be found on the way. Here a canoe would carry us for a day (12 miles) ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... course to adopt is to start out without a dollar, and to beat one's way across the continent, so as to be thoroughly entitled to recognition on the prairie. Many a young man who has commenced the pilgrimage towards glorified badness, has had the fever knocked out of him before advancing 100 miles, but others have succeeded in getting through, and have arrived in Texas, Wyoming or Montana, as the case may have been, thoroughly convinced of their own ability to hold their own in ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... think you know what my opinions are, Mr. Locke. Did you not hear me just now praising the monasteries, because they were socialist and democratic? But why is the badness of the clergy any reason for pulling down the Church? That is another of the confused irrationalities into which you all allow yourselves to fall. What do you mean by crying shame on a man for being a bad clergyman, if a good clergyman is not a good thing? ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... he agreed. But his following question of the accepted badness of mistresses and streetwalkers he wisely kept to himself. Were they darker than the shadow cast by the inelastic institution of matrimony? At one time prostitutes were greatly honored; but that had passed, he was convinced, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... A.M.—reflecting upon the beauty of the theatre, the neatness of the scenery, the general ability of the actors, the capabilities of the play, (after Mr. DALY shall have cut it down to a reasonable length,) the pluck of the young manager, and the unredeemed badness of the orchestra, as it is conducted by Mr. STOEPEL. Tell me, gentle DALY, tell; why in the name of all that is intelligent, do you let STOEPEL transform each entr' acte at your theatre into a prolonged purgatory, by the villainous way in which he plays the most execrable music, for the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... another. If intrigue and shameless deceit gained it in one case, murder succeeded in another. Relationship or connection by marriage with the last possessor helped but rarely. This frequent and irregular change, and the personal badness of most sovereigns, caused endless confusion to the realm. This is the staple of the thousand years in which the election of the emperor Leo I., in 457, stands at the head. On the death of Marcian, following that of Pulcheria, in whose person ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... engage most attention, are relations of original source, rather than those of actual consistency in theory and actual fitness in practice. The devotees of the current method are more concerned with the pedigree and genealogical connections of a custom or an idea than with its own proper goodness or badness, its strength or ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the approach of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not escaped the condemnation of scholars. Whose have? The true mode of critical approach to copies of Latin verse is by the question—How bad are they? Croker took the opinion of the Marquess Wellesley as to the degree of badness of Johnson's Latin Exercises. Lord Wellesley, as became so distinguished an Etonian, felt the solemnity of the occasion, and, after bargaining for secrecy, gave it as his opinion that they were all very bad, but that some perhaps were worse ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... act Jupiter comes to Philemon's hut, accompanied by Vulkan to seek refuge from a storm, which the god himself has caused. He has come to earth to verify Mercury's tale of the people's badness, and finding the news only too true, besides being uncourteously received by the people around, he is glad to meet with a kindly ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... would practise it; that for an end unquestionably good men would not grudge a little trouble and a little money, though they might stumble at laborious pains and generous sacrifices. He could not believe in any resolute badness. "I cannot quite say," he wrote in his young manhood, "that I think there is no sin or misery. This I can say: I do not remember one single malicious act done to myself. In fact, it is rather awkward when I have to say the Lord's Prayer. I have nobody's trespasses to forgive." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man, dear," he replied; "and has the kind of badness I most despise." But he did not tell her that he was the man who was responsible for the Indians being driven out of their home. He thought it better for Rea not ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson
... disgusting dishes sent up to look like a dinner, and to be charged for, are a daily increasing horror and amazement to me. They succeed in getting everything bad; no exertion, no invention, could produce such badness, I believe, anywhere else. The hills are covered for leagues with olive trees, and the oil's bad; there are no such lovely cattle elsewhere in the world, and the butter's bad; half the country people are shepherds, but there's no mutton; half the old women walk about with a pig tied ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... feather-bed, placed upon some soft articles of furniture in the waggon which held their household goods. This story is too circumstantial to be without foundation, nor is there any reason to doubt the badness of a country lane; but the particular family-flitting referred to must ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... Riggs appeared to have nothing else to do but shadow her, she had been slow in developing her intention of organizing and teaching a school for the children of Pine. Riggs had become rather a doubtful celebrity in the settlements. Yet his bold, apparent badness had made its impression. From all reports he spent his time gambling, drinking, and bragging. It was no longer news in Pine what his intentions were toward Helen Rayner. Twice he had ridden up to the ranch-house, upon ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... throwing a blanket over the head of a horse in a burning stable, and so getting it out by coaxing, and forcing, and hiding the danger, is not to be thought of here. Sin is never smoothed over by God, nor its results, their badness and their certainty. ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... tremendous downpour burst upon us, and in the twinkling of an eye our path was a rushing mountain torrent. Dry under my tarpaulin I could enjoy the scene, splendid masses of blue-black clouds shot with vivid flashes of lightning that served only to show the badness of the way and the emptiness of the country. I will say for Ivan, the tarantass driver, that he knew his business and kept the horses on their feet and in the road better than ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... Father, with us be, Let us not fall to badness; Make us from all sinning free, And help us die in gladness. 'Gainst the devil well us ware, And keep our faith from failing, Our hope in thee from quailing. Our hearts upon thee staying, Make us wholly trust thy care! Us, with good Christians sharing, Save from the devil snaring, ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... neatly in leather; they weave a few coarse barracans, and make iron-work in a solid, though clumsy manner. One or two work in gold and silver with much skill, considering the badness of their tools, and every man is capable of acting as a carpenter or mason; the wood being that of the date tree, and the houses being built of mud, very little elegance or skill is necessary. Much deference is paid to the artists in leather or metals, who are ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... of these works; but to real greatness, which is the union of a good heart with a good head, it is almost diametrically opposite, as it generally proceeds from the depravity of both, and almost certainly from the badness of the latter. Indeed, a little observation will shew us that fools are the most addicted to this vice; and a little reflexion will teach us that it is incompatible with true understanding. Accordingly we see that, while the wisest of men have constantly lamented the imbecility and ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... lived and stopped at home Squire Brown, J.P. for the county of Berks, in a village near the foot of the White Horse range. And here he dealt out justice and mercy in a rough way, and begat sons and daughters, and hunted the fox, and grumbled at the badness of the roads and the times. And his wife dealt out stockings, and calico shirts, and smock frocks, and comforting drinks to the old folks with the "rheumatiz," and good counsel to all; and kept ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... is nothing odd or new to tell you, but that here is a most untimely strange sort of an influenza which every creature catches. You must not mind the badness of my scrawl: and let me hear from you. Does Lafayette join your consultation dinners with Franklin, as some of our Roupell intelligence sets forth? I take it for granted the French Ministers will think it a point of spirit to seem ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... know what came of it. War came of it; devastating and prolonged war came of it, Mr. Gould. However, here we possess the advantage of having only one South American Government hanging around for plunder out of the deal. It is an advantage; but then there are degrees of badness, and that Government is ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... blushes bright, Or in eyelids dropping down, Like a violet from the light; Badness ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... day took them to Rugby, whither they travelled across country by Wallingford and Oxford. The second day took them to Lichfield. Lord Maulevrier was out of health and feeble, and grumbled a good deal about the fatigue of the journey, the badness of the weather, which was dull and cold, east winds all day, and a light frost morning and night. As they progressed northward the sky looked grayer, the air became more biting. His lordship insisted upon the stages being shortened. He lay in bed at his ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... great addition to the fruits they already have. Upon our first arrival we sowed of all sorts of English garden seeds and grain, but not a single thing came up except mustard sallad; but this I know was not owing either to the Soil or Climate, but to the badness of the seeds, which were spoil'd by the length ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... camels. And the result? The capture of Jerusalem and turning of the Turkish left flank; a loss of prestige and a military disaster from which they never recovered. We had taken part in most difficult and arduous fighting in most difficult and arduous country; difficult because of the badness of the maps, which made it almost impossible to locate one's position or maintain touch, and arduous as only those who know that rocky precipitous country can realise. For artillery it was practically impossible, and though they did wonders in ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... choosing must be his own. He must select the beginning that seems best adapted to his story. As an inspiration to reporters who are trying to write human interest stories, a few beginnings clipped from daily papers are given here. Some are good and some are bad; the goodness or badness in each case depends upon individual taste. They can hardly be classified in more than a general way for originality is opposed to all ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... from Mr Trant, who acted as interpreter, the following explanation of Sullivan's previous statements—'He imagined that I and your commissioner were coming from government to enquire into the state of the potato crop, and he therefore exaggerated the badness of its condition and his own poverty, as much as possible.' He now wished to say, 'That he was not nearly so badly off as he had stated; that he had plenty of potatoes and milk—that he had a bed-tick which was in the loft ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... doctrines of Callicles are not attributed to him. The moderation with which he is described is remarkable, if he be the accuser of Socrates, as is apparently indicated by his parting words. Perhaps Plato may have been desirous of showing that the accusation of Socrates was not to be attributed to badness or malevolence, but rather to a tendency in men's minds. Or he may have been regardless of the historical truth of the characters of his dialogue, as in the case of Meno and Critias. Like Chaerephon (Apol.) the real ...
— Meno • Plato
... tell you how I find the Mexican servants. Hitherto I had avoided the ungrateful theme, from very weariness of it. The badness of the servants, is an unfailing source of complaint even amongst Mexicans; much more so amongst foreigners, especially on their first arrival. We hear of their addiction to stealing, their laziness, drunkenness, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... to see how coolly the others took it, but I supposed that they were used to losing fish from the badness of their tackle, and besides, there was evidently a big one on Mr Ebony's line to ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn |
