"Enviable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be much the same as the record of another. After family prayers and breakfast I suffer my customary persecution at the hands of the cook. That is to say, I am obliged, being the housekeeper, to order what we have to eat. Oh, how I hate inventing dinners! and how I admire the enviable slowness of mind and laziness of body which have saved Eunice from undertaking the worries of housekeeping in her turn! She can go and work in her garden, while I am racking my invention to discover variety in ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... the state of manufacturing Scotland duly occurred. Besides manufacturing distress, they had to encounter a series of bad harvests. Never was a body of statesmen placed in a more embarrassing and less enviable position. There was a prevalent, though unfounded, conviction that they were maintained in power by a combination of ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... enviable person here, for although excellent carriages are to be had, some of the most interesting excursions must be ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the halls Of Cadmus and Amphion. No man's life As of one tenor would I praise or blame, For Fortune with a constant ebb and rise Casts down and raises high and low alike, And none can read a mortal's horoscope. Take Creon; he, methought, if any man, Was enviable. He had saved this land Of Cadmus from our enemies and attained A monarch's powers and ruled the state supreme, While a right noble issue crowned his bliss. Now all is gone and wasted, for a life Without life's joys I count a living ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... them with astonishment; and, agreeably to the Oriental creed of two independent and contending principles of good and of evil, regarded these select and supernaturally endowed beings anon as a source of the most enviable blessings, and anon as objects of unmingled apprehension and terror, before whom their understandings became prostrate, and every thing that was most appalling and dreadful was most easily believed. In this state superstition unavoidably grew ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... in silence gazing from side to side, and into each mind, even that of the rebellious Jack himself, there crept the same thought. This was indeed a goodly heritage, whose owner would be an enviable person! The possibility of possessing it as a home was worth a far greater sacrifice than anything which had been demanded ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... universally used expression of the religious feeling of mankind. More worshipers unite in singing his hymns, Unitarian though he be, than those of any other man, living or dead. It is a great distinction, and in meriting it he holds enviable rank as one of the world's ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... on the two women between whom his path had lain: how highly he had aimed, and how low he had fallen! How enviable would have been his fate had he consistently kept to either! for each had been peerless in her way. How despicable was his position having greedily grasped at both! And now the one was dying, and the other degraded like himself. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... one reason is because death laid hold of him in the middle of his career. While all the world was still gazing expectantly upon him, he vanished from the earth and left no hope deceived. His was the enviable fate of a Raphael, Schiller and Korner. As the German ('tis Schumann's utterance) thinks of Beethoven when he speaks the word symphony, so the name of Mozart in his mind is associated with the conception of things youthful, bright and sunny. Schumann was fully conscious ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... have daubed thy wall with untempered mortar, that it may fall; who see visions of peace where there is no peace; who have strengthened the hands of the wicked, and made the heart of the righteous sad. Oh, do this, and fear not the result, for either shall thy end be a majestic and an enviable one; or God shall perpetuate thy reign upon the ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... observe, after forty years' experience in theatrical tactics, that it would not be difficult, through a judicious distribution of determined forcers in various parts of a theatre, with Herculean hands and stentorian voices, to achieve that enviable distinction." Possibly the reader, bearing in mind certain great successes and double and treble encores of our own time, may confirm, from his own experience, Mr. Parke's opinions ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the fact were really notorious there could be no difficulty in proving it. Such notoriety as Mr. Byron enjoyed was due, as appeared from the evidence of Lord Worthington and others, to his approaching marriage to a lady of distinction. Was it credible that a highly connected gentleman in this enviable position would engage in a prize-fight, risking disgrace and personal disfigurement, for a sum of money that could be no object to him, or for a glory that would appear to all his friends as little ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... opulent and important province of Utrecht from the Union. Kanter had been heard openly to avow that after all the Netherlands had flourished under the benign sway of the House of Burgundy, and that the time would soon come for returning to that enviable condition. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Less enviable than the poorest slave, Lord Castlewood sank upon his hard stiff chair, and straightened his long narrow hands upon his knees, and set his thin lips in straight blue lines. Each hand was as rigid as the ivory handle of an umbrella or walking-stick, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... live there?" said Rachel. "What an enviable position, to have the control of means of doing good that always falls to the women of a ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... neither talent, virtue, nor patriotism could, at one time, secure those who possessed such enviable qualities. Lavoisier, Malsherbes, Condorcet, &c. were here successively immured, previously to being sent to the guillotine. Here too the unfortunate Marie-Antoinette lived in a comfortless manner, from the 2nd of July, 1793, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... painter, delighted with his subject, enamoured of the beauties he had created, had, as it were, thrice thrown himself at the feet of each goddess. The three pictures were an offering and homage to each. None could determine which was best. The subject was the Judgment of Paris—it was an enviable opportunity for a happy purchaser "to throw the golden apple." We do not pretend to give, with any exactness, the eloquent wording of this address; nor can we describe the perfect grace with which it was delivered. Every one in the room ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... in one of the polite sections of New York City, up among the East Sixties, and at the insistence of my sister and aunt, who lived with me, our home was near enough the great boulevard to be designated by that enviable phrase, "Just off Fifth Avenue." We were on the north side of the street, and, nearer to the Avenue, on the south side, was the home of ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... she did not covet such a father as Mr. Dinsmore; he was much too strict and severe, she thought, with all his petting and caressing, and she would far rather have her own papa. Still Grandma Elsie's lot, when a little girl, seemed to her an enviable one, so beautiful and so rich, and with a nice old mammy always ready to wait on and do everything for her; and she (Lulu) was sure she wouldn't have minded much when such a father as Mr. Dinsmore was vexed with her; he wouldn't have found it so easy to manage her; ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... seems to discover the existence of a hitherto unknown and unimportant sex; when an inner voice urges him to take his place in the ranks and keep step with the mighty army of his generation, Raymond was doomed to walk alone, a wistful outcast, regarding his enviable companions from afar. ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... the charge of the household affairs of such an institution, with the uncertain assistance to be found in such a place, may be better imagined than told. Under her satisfactory management the Vicksburg Home acquired an enviable reputation, and was the favorite stopping-place on the river. The great difficulty in conducting a Soldiers' Home in time of war, as every one knows who has been connected with one, is to keep it neat and clean, to ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... ancient French colonists, began now to assume importance, and its capability of supporting a numerous population along the Great River and the lakes became evident. Those excellent men, who, preferring to sacrifice life and fortune rather than forego the enviable distinction of being British subjects, saw that this vast field afforded a sure and certain mode of safety and of honourable retreat, and accordingly, in 1783, ten thousand (10,000) were enumerated in that portion of Canada, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... a younger generation—the descendants of your early friends and companions in arms, a different but not less interesting privilege belongs. We are allowed the enviable distinction of meeting in his riper years, one, whom our fathers loved in their youth. We welcome you to our country, to our homes, to our hearts. We have read the history of your achievements, your honors, and your sufferings! They are ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... consisted in his talent, and, above all, in his cunning; to Bizco, courage and strength constituted the sole enviable qualities; the greatest merit of all was to be a real brute, as he ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... Oh, enviable Briareus! with thy hands And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied In such proportion!—But my Muse withstands The giant thought of being a Titan's bride, Or travelling in Patagonian lands; So let us back to Lilliput, and guide Our hero through the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the years since he has been in the Belt, run up an enviable record, both as an insurance investigator and as a police detective, although his connection with the Planetoid Police is, necessarily, an unofficial one. Probably not since Sherlock Holmes has there been such mutual respect ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... as it has saddened thousands before him, that the fight which he fought, and the death which, perhaps, was in front of him, were so mean. Ophelia dies; Juliet dies, and we fancy that their fate, although terrible, is more enviable than that of a pauper who drops undramatically on London stones. He came to his lodging at the close of the third day, wet, tired, hungry, and with a headache. There was nobody to suggest anything to him or offer him anything. He went to bed, and a thousand images, uncontrolled, rushed backwards ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... familiar with wretchedness to heed it, and to take everything as it came. Yet a certain frank light-heartedness was not lacking in their faces; and on a closer view, their monotonous life, the lot of so many a poor creature, well-nigh seemed an enviable one. Trouble had set its unmistakable mark on them, but petty cares had left no ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... rode slowly towards the royal gallery. Having now raised his visor, his features were fully revealed to view, and perhaps were never seen to such advantage as at this proud and happy moment. His emotions were indeed enviable—but one thing was wanting to complete his satisfaction—the presence of her, before whom, of all others, he was most eager to distinguish himself. What mattered it that scarves and kerchiefs were waved to him by some of the fairest dames in the ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... of feeling. Let us be quite frank. There are few things you feel more strongly than that you do not want your daughter in the house. When she was a child you told me that you detested the prospect of having her on your hands. She is being disposed of in the most easily explained and enviable manner." ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... last in the race when, by every law of justice, I should have been first. In Paris as in London my "greedy column," as my friends called it with the straightforwardness peculiar to friends, had to be written every week for the Pall Mall and mine was the enviable position of finding my copy in eating good dinners no less than in going to the Salons. If any one had an irreproachable excuse for extravagant living, it ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... any cause of offence, Jack, why don't you pitch into him?" suggested a half-drunken fellow who bore the enviable reputation of being a most ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... had been rudely shaken, if not entirely wrecked, by Stephen's visit. Up to that time, Lady Barbara—who had been nearly three weeks with Martha—had not only delighted in her work, but had shown an enviable pride in keeping pace with her employer's engagements, often working rather late into the night to ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "Enviable Louisa! Would that I had been born with that blessed faculty of never noticing! It stands a woman in better stead than beauty or brains. I used to notice Peter's mistakes. When he said 'I seen,' it jarred on me in my salad days. I tried, oh, so tactfully, to reform him in that respect. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... paradoxical the statement may seem to those who are in the habit of regarding all forms of slavery from the sentimental point of view, it is unquestionable that the condition of serfs under such a proprietor as I have supposed was more enviable than that of the majority of English agricultural labourers. Each family had a house of its own, with a cabbage-garden, one or more horses, one or two cows, several sheep, poultry, agricultural implements, a share of the Communal land, and everything else necessary for carrying on ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... long faithful to him. Mademoiselle was jealous of it, and that often controlled him. I have heard Madame de Fontenelles ( a very enviable woman, of much intelligence, very truthful, and of singular virtue), I have heard her say, that being at Eu with Mademoiselle, M. de Lauzun came there and could not desist from running after the girls; Mademoiselle knew it, was angry, scratched him, and drove him from ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... other books, he fairly revels in stirring incident, lively and faithful conception of character, and the powerful but delightful description of natural scenery which have already given his work an enviable and lasting place in ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... of Huron a man of unquestionable claim to remembrance was born. George Kennan, whose enviable privilege it was to let the light in upon the misery of Siberian exile and to awaken the abhorrence of the world for Russian tyranny, was a native of Norwalk, where he grew up a telegraph operator. He worked at night and went ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... curiosity and wonder even to ourselves. We are no more those hackneyed common-places that we appear in the world; an inn restores us to the level of nature, and quits scores with society! I have certainly spent some enviable hours at inns—sometimes when I have been left entirely to myself, and have tried to solve some metaphysical problem, as once at Witham Common, where I found out the proof that likeness is not a case of the association of ideas—at other times, when ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Christianity was introduced in the fifth century, St. Patrick being the chief apostle of the new faith. In the sixth century Ireland sent forth missionaries from her monasteries to convert Great Britain and the nations of Northern Europe. From the eighth to the twelfth century Irish scholars held an enviable reputation. In fact, Ireland was the center of learning at one time. The arts, too, were cultivated by her people; and the round towers, still pointed out to travelers, are believed to be the remains of the architecture ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... he can, allows himself to be loaded with hay; and those who are to be the draught horses trail him thus loaded by the tail, taking care not to overset him. The task of thus serving as the vehicle being evidently the least enviable part of the business, is taken by every one of the ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... Electors are again aspirants for this enviable Throne. We have seen the beautiful Electress zealously soliciting Friedrich for help in that project; Friedrich, in a dexterously graceful manner, altogether declining. Hereditary Saxons are not to be the expedient this time, it would seem; a grandiose Czarina has decided ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... empires had attained enviable prosperity and development in 1914, when the War burst, the three great western democracies, Great Britain, France and Italy, had likewise ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... and enviable those families—the father, mother, and fair daughters, now setting off gaily with their huge boxes—who to-morrow would be beside the ever-delightful Rhine, posting on to Cologne and Coblentz. What a welcome ring in those names! Stale, hackneyed as it is, ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... life in Manila then was not an enviable one, though the Christians were slightly more secure. The Chinese quarter was at first inside the city, but before long it became a considerable district of several streets along Arroceros near the ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... and without much demur consented to refund the fruit of his knavery, to the amount of two thousand louis. The strangest thing connected with this scandal is, that M. F——, who is an advocate by profession, has always enjoyed an enviable reputation for integrity; and, unfortunately, this prank cannot be attributed to a momentary fit of madness, for the fact that he had provided himself with these cards in advance proves the act to have been premeditated. One of the persons present was especially displeased. This was the ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... his radically artificial life he disclosed a welcome tenderness, a touch of the divine, none the less so for being common duty, shown in the few brief letters to his son's widow and to "our boys." This, and his enviable gift of being able to view the downs as well as the ups of life in the consoling humorous light, must modify the sterner judgment so easily passed upon his characteristic inculcation, if not ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... restored and pilgrims flocked to it anew. The virgin Orberosia worked greater and greater miracles. She cured divers hurtful maladies, particularly club-foot, dropsy, paralysis, and St. Guy's disease. The monks who kept the tomb were enjoying an enviable opulence, when the saint, appearing to King Draco the Great, ordered him to recognise her as the heavenly patron of the kingdom and to transfer her precious remains ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... above them mentally, morally, physically,—from whichever angle one viewed him. Moreover, blood will tell, and was he not of the fine old Morton stock? Whatever the Carlton forbears might be, young Farwell's ancestry was not an enviable one. Yes, Willie had settled Delight's future to his entire satisfaction and for nights had been sleeping peacefully, confident that with such a husband as Robert Morton her happiness and good ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... abruptness of the summons, these two great dignitaries arrived at the imperial gate in no enviable state of mind; but when the sultan had informed them of the tumult then raging in the capital, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... and some other families, always camped together in the mountains during this season, and they were off when school closed, in an enviable state of ecstasy and anticipation. Cherry had planned to join them, but an experimental week-end was enough. The camp was in the cool woods, truly, but it was disorderly, swarming with children, the tents were small and hot, the whole settlement laughed and rioted and ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... don't think the position of a married woman discovered kissing a man other than her husband is enviable; do you?' ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... correspondingly enriched the pot of the bank keeper, instead of being out of sorts over it, simply drew the inference that the keeping of the bank was a business that produced sure gain, and the old major with the high white neckcloth and the diamond pin was an extremely enviable man and, above all, one very worthy of emulation. In such a career one got something out of life. My father expressed such opinions, too, when he came home and sat down late to dinner. This he did once in the presence of a recently married sister of my mother, who was visiting in our ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... pressure of a school position, and all the worry and annoyance that are experienced in such a career—all these he had suffered as many others have. He had reached the age of thirty without having enjoyed a single favor at the hands of fate; yet in him were planted the germs of an enviable happiness, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... It is no enviable position to occupy, that of antagonism to so large a proportion of the scientific world and, too, upon subjects of strictly scientific import. That he does thus find himself placed in such relations at the present time, has ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... gave up all their time during the stay in Hobart to the care of those important animals. A feeling of relief spread over the whole ship's company as the last dog passed over the side, for travelling with a deck cargo of dogs is not the most enviable thing from a sailor's point of view. Especially is this the case in a sailing-vessel where room is limited, and consequently dogs and ropes are ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... countenance Saltash enlightened him. "As strike-leader, agitator, and so on. You have achieved an enviable reputation by your ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... a voracious appetite for enjoyment and an expert capacity in entertaining, Etty Desborough was perfectly happy either alone with her family or alone with her books and could endure, with enviable patience, cold ugly country-seats and fashionable people. I said of her when I first knew her that she ought to have lived in the days of the great King's mistresses. I would have gone to her if ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... mind in preference to repose, which was hateful. To such excess did it arrive as I grew up, that difficulty and danger, even pain and remorse, were preferable to that calm sunshine of the breast which others consider so enviable. I could exist but by strong sensations: remove them, and I felt as does the habitual drunkard in the morning, until his nerves have been again stimulated by a repetition of his draughts. My pursuits were of the same tendency: constant variety and change of scene ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Mortlake—the hero of a hundred strikes—set up in print on a poster, was unmistakably superior to Tom Mortlake setting up other men's names at a case. Still, the work was not all beer and skittles, and Mrs. Drabdump felt that Tom's latest job was not enviable. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... passage the most impressive in my life. If I even slumbered for a moment, as at intervals I did sometimes, though never sitting down, but standing or pacing about throughout the night, and if in this way I attained a momentary respite from self-consciousness, no sooner had I reached this enviable state of oblivion, than some internal sting of irritation as rapidly dispersed the whole fickle fabric of sleep; and as if the momentary trance—this fugitive beguilement of my wo—had been conceded by a demon's subtle malice only ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... theme of universal admiration, the ardor of his ambitious policy had been extreme, and his knowledge of mankind profound; but he should have followed up the objects of his high aspirations by a straighter road. His glory would have been truly enviable had he devoted his efforts to the happiness of his subjects, instead of harassing their minds by dissensions, and mowing down their lives by ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... another ground on which I had weakly anticipated a different result;—but those who occupy official situations, rendered remarkable by the illustrious names of their predecessors, are placed in no enviable station; and, if their own acquirements are confessedly insufficient to keep up the high authority of their office, they must submit to the mortifications of their false position. I am sure, therefore, that the President and officers of the Royal Society must have sympathized MOST DEEPLY with ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... enviable thou, and unaccused— Thou who wast art and part in all I dared! And now, let be! make this no care of thine, For Zeus is past persuasion—urge him not! Look to thyself, ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... be 29 degrees above zero. No doubt, deeper down, the temperature was still warmer. We have heard it said, that when men chance to fall into the water in cold regions, in the depth of winter, it feels at first rather warm and agreeable! On scrambling out again, however, their condition is not enviable; for in a few minutes the keen frost causes their garments to become ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... peace and neutrality for the whole twentieth century, Sweden has achieved an enviable standard of living under a mixed system of high-tech capitalism and extensive welfare benefits. It has a modern distribution system, excellent internal and external communications, and a skilled labor force. Timber, ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Bolko was a mild yet enthusiastic youth, glowing with deep, ripe feeling, and needy of human love. He had little joy in the acquisition of what, in other circumstances, might have been considered his enviable fortune. He thought only of the miserable destiny that sentenced him to celibacy or death. His immediate predecessor, riding across a heath to take a last farewell of his bride, had been struck dead by lightning, and the maiden herself had been hurled from life at the edge ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... with the people who'd evacuated the cities. The high population of remote places was a protection for Soames and Fran. He worried, though, about Gail, her situation, and that of the three other children, was far from enviable. In the present increasing confusion and tension they were hardly likely to have any ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... the truth. And the truth is this," he continued, with raised voice, while at the same time his cheeks became suddenly scarlet and his eyes flashed with the fire of inspiration—"the truth is this: the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine is the prettiest, sweetest woman in the whole world; happy and enviable is the man whose fortunate destiny will permit him to take her home as his bride, blessed above all men he on whom this noble, fascinating, and amiable girl bestows her love, whom she allows to enjoy the treasures of her mind and heart. Your highness said ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... you think me the most ungrateful woman in the world. I know only too well that to many women my position has always appeared enviable. Poor things, if they only knew! Of course, my husband is a good man. In all ways I do him perfect justice. He is everything that is kind and generous—only, alas, he is not the lover of my dreams. My children are nice handsome ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... Legislature met, he prepared an elaborate military bill, the adoption of which would have placed the State in an enviable attitude of defence. The stupid jealousy of colonels and majors who had won bloodless glory, on both sides, in the Mormon War, and the malignant prejudice instigated by the covert treason that lurked in Southern Illinois, succeeded in staving off the passage of the bill, until it was lost ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... highest purpose of humanity, it was certainly fulfilled by Isaac Watts. His logical and other treatises have served to brace the intellects, methodise the studies, and concentrate the activities of thousands—we had nearly said of millions of minds. This has given him an enviable distinction, but he shone still more in that other province he so felicitously chose and so successfully occupied—that of the hearts of the young. One of his detractors called him 'Mother Watts.' He might have taken up this epithet, and bound it as a crown ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... so quiet it is, so solemnly and nobly cheerful, so verdant, so sweetly shadowed, and so presided over by the stately minster, and surrounded by ancient and comely habitations of Christian men. The most enchanting place, the most enviable as a residence in all this world, seemed to me that of the Bishop's secretary, standing in the rear of the cathedral, and bordering on the churchyard; so that you pass through hallowed precincts in order to come at it, and find it a Paradise, the holier and sweeter for the dead ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... enviable career before him," said the lawyer at the end of a long pause, "and this brings me, by the way, to the question I wish to as—had your desire to see me any connection with the ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... horsemen in front and six behind; in the middle walked a prim lady wearing a long train held up by two pages, and on the train, as if it were a couch, reclined a lovely girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies travel about. She was dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable part of her was her neck, which was blue in colour and of a velvet texture, and of course showed off her diamond necklace as no white throat could have glorified it. The high-born fairies obtain this admired effect by pricking their skin, which lets the blue blood ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... The revelation is not a pretty one. Bitterness, discontent, pessimism, cynicism, boredom, regret, despair—these are the feelings that dominate every page. To a superficial observer Madame du Deffand's lot must have seemed peculiarly enviable; she was well off, she enjoyed the highest consideration, she possessed intellectual talents of the rarest kind which she had every opportunity of displaying, and she was surrounded by a multitude of friends. What more could anyone desire? ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... eating and sleeping make up much of life. Then the hearts of the great are corroded by cares and solicitudes which never visit the humble. Still, I do not deny that their condition is not far less enviable than ours. The slave who may be lashed, and tormented, and killed at his master's pleasure, drinks from a cup of which we never so much as taste. But over the whole of life, and throughout every condition of it, there are scattered evils and sorrows which pierce ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... Hamburg. Its geographical situation, on a great river navigable by large vessels to the city, thirty leagues from the mouth of the Elbe; the complete independence it enjoyed; its municipal regulations and paternal government, were a few amongst the many causes which had raised Hamburg to its enviable height of prosperity. What, in fact, was the population of these remnants of the grand Hanseatic League of the Middle Ages? The population of Hamburg when I was there amounted to 90,000, and that of its small ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... and our great-aunts went forth armed for the pursuit and capture of our great-uncles, the dress was drawn up so as to mould the contour of both breasts, and in the nook between, a cairngorm brooch maintained it. Here, too, surely in a very enviable position, trembled the nosegay of primroses. She wore on her shoulders—or rather, on her back and not her shoulders, which it scarcely passed—a French coat of sarsenet, tied in front with Margate braces, and of the same colour with her violet shoes. About her face clustered ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her apprehensions—for the blow which severed her from her friends was too stunning to be felt immediately in all its rigour—she stood as one almost transported with admiration and surprise. Yet her situation was far from being either enviable or pleasant, though in the midst of a treasure-house of wealth that would have made an emperor the richest of his race. No solution that she could invent would at all solve the problem—no key of interpretation ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... know any position on earth more enviable than yours, Mr Gresham," said she, quite soberly and earnestly; "how ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... instance, be one of the ferocious wild-cats for which the island had been famous long before Wesley Coombs ever dreamed of settling there, Max felt that he would hardly find himself in an enviable position; since the gloom under the trees must prevent him from seeing how to ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... bringing these on shore, seated themselves upon some of the boxes and casks with which the wharf was lumbered, and, opening the bundles, produced therefrom their dinners, which they proceeded to discuss with quite an enviable appetite. ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... would like to secure the best man in Mr. Hamerton," and Mr. Craik wrote about it: "You would be an ornament to the University, and might do useful and important work there. For many reasons the Scotch professorships are enviable, for this particularly—that the session is a short one, and would require short residence. It will be pleasant for all of us, your friends, if you go to Edinburgh, for it will compel you to come to England and ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... least to be pitied will be our friend Lewis. He will go out after having obtained a brilliant triumph on his own ground, and he will enjoy the good fortune, rare to public men, of quitting power greater than he was when he took it, and with the enviable reputation of owing his greatness, not merely to his talents, but also to the respect and the confidence ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... read the sentence, that the elder of Esmond's two kinswomen pardoned the younger her beauty, when that had lost somewhat of its freshness, perhaps; and forgot most her grievances against the other, when the subject of them was no longer prosperous and enviable; or we may say more benevolently (but the sum comes to the same figures, worked either way,) that Isabella repented of her unkindness towards Rachel, when Rachel was unhappy; and, bestirring herself in behalf of the poor widow and her children, gave them shelter and friendship. ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... while a drop of the blood throbs in my veins, and I, who am jealous of my honor, have carefully pondered the matter, and maturely decided that he who entrusts his happiness to Salome Owen will be indeed an enviable man, and pardonably proud of his prize. Once I bartered myself away at the altar, and gave my name and hand for wealth, for aristocratic antecedents, for fashionable status, and five years of purgatorial misery was the richly merited ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... were a millionaire and I a grovelling pauper. I shall have Lavernac and two thousand a-year when my uncle, Sir Theophilus Parker, dies." Hardy rolled out the title with a certain proprietary unction; his cousin had no share in this enviable relationship. "I give the old bird five years at the very worst, and it's a moral impossibility that he should leave me in the lurch. But I don't count on that. My own property has kept me idle all my life; but I've sold it at last, ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... Tulsa, Okla., reports an enviable situation. He says: "My nut trees are growing on a farm where more than 30 years of cultivation have failed to kill the native pecan sprouts. They come up year after year from the top roots. Since acquiring the place in 1936, I have allowed ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... thrust themselves into your peaceful and contented society! May that Providence which has hitherto protected you, still continue to pour down those blessings upon you, of which you appear to be so truly sensible, and for which you are justly thankful! May it throw round the shores of your enviable little Eden, 'cherubim and a flaming sword,' to guard its approaches from those who would endanger your peace; and above all, shield you from those, who would perplex and confuse your unsophisticated minds, by mysterious doctrines which they do not themselves comprehend! Remain steadfast to the faith, ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... got his early modesty from his father, who was of a very sweet disposition, and some instances of this modesty are given. They are all things that Elspeth did, but Tommy is now represented as the person who had done them. "On the other hand, his strong will, singleness of purpose, and enviable capacity for knowing what he wanted to be at were a heritage from his practical and sagacious mother." "I think he was a little proud of his strength of will," writes the R.A. who painted his portrait (now in America), "for I remember his anxiety that it should be suggested in the picture." ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... dodgery and trickery of legal luminaries, and the total extinction of rent profits is delivered with an easy grace, and with the colour and effervescence of sparkling Burgundy. To be deprived of nine-tenths of your income seems remarkably good fun; to be ruined, an enviable kind of thing. Lady de Burgho commenced her reign with one fixed principle, from which nothing has ever induced her to deviate. Under no conceivable circumstances would she allow eviction. No agent could induce her to sign a writ. "I could not sleep if I had turned out an Irish ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... enviable enough: I have a pleasant room, with a fig-tree growing before my window, beneath which Captain B——n and myself breakfast daily, well shaded from sun and dust; not a musquito disputes possession with us; and the dinner-table at the "Pottery" is well served enough, and graced by ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... he was gazetted, so, when the Empress announced that 'Gentleman-Cadet Robert Hanna Wick' was posted as Second Lieutenant to the Tyneside Tail Twisters at Krab Bokhar, he became an officer and a gentleman, which is an enviable thing; and there was joy in the house of Wick where Mamma Wick and all the little Wicks fell upon their knees and offered incense to Bobby by virtue ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... the cui bono remains. The professors make money by it; and Miss Cook can make at most, only a little mild and scarcely enviable notoriety. A satirical old friend of mine, when I told him the above facts, chuckled, and said, 'That's quite enough for a girl of sixteen; and anything that's do-able, a girl of those years will do.' It was no use talking to him ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... of the immigrants in the interior of the country, was that of those who remained in the cities much more enviable? On this point we are enabled to judge, at least as regards New York. In a letter written by Bishop Dubois, and published in vol. viii. of the "Annals of the Propagation of the Faith," we meet with ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... of her terrible stupor with the distaste to take up the thread of life which sometimes comes after a night of forgetfulness in sleep. This stupor, which might have destroyed her, and the fever which had shaken her, seemed to her sweet and enviable now compared to this punishment: To live! ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... hadn't heard me, which was the best thing she could do; and we sat some time without further speech. Mrs. Ambient had evidently the enviable English quality of being able to be mute without unrest. But at last she spoke—she asked me if there seemed many people in town. I gave her what satisfaction I could on this point, and we talked a little of London and of some of its characteristics at that time of the year. At ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... followed, and for several days lived in reserve among the scattered farms and houses north of Estaires, over the ruins of which Crosthwaite, an officer of mature service, who had just joined the Battalion, was appointed Town Major. His task was not entirely enviable. Houses, roofless or otherwise, had to be subdivided into safe, doubtful, or certain to 'go up.' I cannot help regarding this Flanders retreat as a subject supremely dull. The constant suspicion of mines and booby-traps rendered doubly sordid the polluted ruins which formed the landmarks ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... a letter to the author of Our Village, says: 'You are distinguished in the world as the "gentlewoman" among authoresses, as you are for your rank merely in literature. I have often thought you very enviable for the universality of that opinion about you. You share it with Sir Philip Sidney, who was in his day the gentleman among authors. I look with great interest for your new tragedy. I think your mind is essentially ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... and their general location is near 'Ain 'Aroos. So, after some squabbling and arrangement, they agreed to share our supper with us in peace. Had the case been otherwise, our position was not an enviable one; for we were shut in between their hills and the sea, they were more numerous than our Arabs, and they had entire command of our spring of water. Our camels, too, were all unloaded, and the ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... of late that I found out my real name. I'll tell you all about it some time, and then you'll understand better. As to anybody feeling remorse about my life, that's all nonsense. I consider my life rather an enviable one thus far." ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... physical exertion of his own: he would lead us captive by the superior grandeur of his qualities, once fairly manifested; and he aims at dominion, chiefly as it will enable him to manifest these. 'It is not the arena that he values, but what lies in that arena:' the sovereignty is enviable, not for its adventitious splendour, not because it is the object of coarse and universal wonder; but as it offers, in the collected force of a nation, something which the loftiest mortal may find scope for all his powers in guiding. "Spread out the thunder," ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... reply the agents desired the landlords to make, but it did not conduce to making their own existences any the more secure or enviable. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... and friends had beheld her in this enviable state a number of times, and had pronounced her—in ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... not more strenuously engaged, he soon began to regard Sonia with a softening eye. And as Sonia herself was growing up to womanhood, or, in Mr. WATSON'S elegant phrase, "muliebrity claimed her definitely"—well, he is an enviable reader for whom the last page will hold any ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... with ridicule from the first chapter to the last, though for what particular fault Drake could not discover, unless it were for that of being a husband at all; so that the interloper in robbing him of his wife was related to have secured not merely the succes d'estime which accompanies such enviable feats, but the unqualified gratitude of all married women and ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... Thou enviable being! No storms, no clouds in thy blue sky foreseeing, Play on, play on, My elfin John! Toss the light ball—bestride the stick— (I knew so many cakes ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... were the badge of his calling. The gentleman wore powdered queue and ruffled shirt; the workman, coarse buckskin breeches, ponderous shoes with brass buckles, and usually a leather apron, well greased to keep it pliable. Just before the Revolution the lot of the common laborer was not an enviable one. His house was rude and barren of comforts; his fare was coarse and without variety. His wage was two shillings a day, and prison—usually an indescribably filthy hole awaited him the moment he ran into debt. The artisan fared somewhat better. He had spent, as a rule, seven years ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... evening meeting, and after that missed none of these privileges. In due course she was asked to address it, and then her position became enviable from all points of view, for people who did not draw up their chairs and admire her inspirations sat at a distance and admired her clothes. Very soon, at her special request, she was allowed to resign her original ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the British race into a great British Empire. Had not Indians also a common nationhood which, despite all racial and religious differences, could be traced back across centuries of internal strife and foreign domination to a period, remote indeed but none the less enviable, when they had been their own masters? Had not the British themselves removed one of the greatest barriers to India's national unity—the multiplicity of her vernaculars—by giving English to the Western-educated classes as a common language, without which, indeed, Indian Nationalism ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... skill in tennis. But this day a new and eager longing was eating at his heart; a strange, dull pang seemed to seize upon it as he noted in a flash that the seat that was to have been his was occupied by an officer many years his senior, a man he knew only by sight and an enviable reputation, a man whose soldierly, clear-cut face never turned an instant, for his eyes were fixed upon a lovely picture on the opposite seat—Amy Lawrence bending eagerly forward and gazing with her beautiful eyes alight with sympathy, interest ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... any other part of civilized Europe. His views have, moreover, been to a great extent adopted in the numerous works that have since been produced by British travellers who, after a rapid drive over the main routes of Norway, have described in terms equally glowing the happy and enviable condition of the Bonde or yeoman ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... not to relinquish my steed, but to hold on by the bridle. My men, who, of course, kept at a safe distance, stood aghast with their mouths open, and for a few seconds my position was certainly not an enviable one. Fortunately, however, the dogs took off the attention of the elephants; and just as they were upon me, I managed to spring into the saddle, where I was safe. As I turned my back to mount, the elephants were so very near that I really expected to feel one of their trunks lay hold of me. ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... that were not true, disconcerted him. He, however, in a milder manner and voice than usual, told us that we were going to England to be exchanged, while there were some in another ship going to England to be hanged. Beside this enviable difference in our situation, compared with those traitorous Irishmen, who had been fighting against their king and country, we were very fortunate in being the first selected to go, as we should of course, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... saw this, felt himself in no very enviable position. The villains into whose hands he had fallen might revenge the death of their companions by murdering him, but he maintained as indifferent a manner as he could assume, while he watched the countenances of those surrounding him. He had the satisfaction of observing that instead of thinking ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... or, I should rather say, surprise. This never left him. To the last everything that presented itself to his gaze, though he had seen it a hundred times, seemed to fill him with fresh surprise. Nothing ever became familiar. What an enviable cast of mind! It must make the ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... His childish vanity is nobly discounted by his childlike simplicity in facing big issues. The blue and gold which he wore so magnificently can never to us be the mere trappings of rank: they carry on them the shadows of battle smoke, and the rust of enviable wounds. Let us take his memory then gladly, and with true homage, rejoicing that its record of happiness appears as stainless as its history of honour, and well satisfied to find one picture in ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... doctor had by this time admitted his doubts—some long blue hills on the sky-line ought to be farther to the west, according to his remembrance. As no one else had any ideas on the subject, the doctor's position was not enviable. We changed our course, and travelled many weary miles through the chaparral, which was high enough to stop our vision, and stiff enough to bar our way, keeping us to narrow roads. At last the bisecting cattle ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... conducted him to the banquet, and presented him to his friends. After the repast, Osmyn related all the vicissitudes of his fortune, his long suffering, his rapid glory, the jealousy and perfidy of his enemies, "But thou," added he, "my dear Zambri, by what good fortune do I find you in such an enviable situation? What! this beautiful house, this crowd of slaves, these sumptuous ornaments!—to what dost thou ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... Lydiard. "What a wonderful existence yours must be," he resumed. "The everlasting question with your needy fellow-creatures, 'Where am I to get money?' is a question that has never passed your lips. Enviable woman!" He paused once more—surprised and puzzled this time. "What is the matter, my dear aunt? You seem to ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... of the Patriot, the local Whig paper, devoted two columns to the speech of this young Democratic upstart; and for weeks thereafter the editor flayed him on all possible occasions. The result was such an enviable notoriety for the young attorney among Whigs and such fame among Democrats, that he received collection demands to the amount of thousands of dollars from persons whom he had never seen or known. In after ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... scene. But it was the peculiar lot of Theodosia to experience during the first twenty-one years of her life nothing but prosperity and happiness, and during the remainder of her existence nothing but misfortune and sorrow. Never had her father's position seemed so strong and enviable as during his tenure of the office of Vice-President; but never had it been in reality so hollow and precarious. Holding property valued at two hundred thousand dollars, he was so deeply in debt that nothing but the sacrifice of his landed estate could save him from bankruptcy. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... the signs on the marts of commerce and on the shops; Goldstein (gold stone), Edelstein (precious stone), Blumenthal (flower-vale), Rosenthal (rose-vale), Veilchenduft (violent odour), Singvogel (song-bird), Rosenzweig (rose branch), and all the amazing list of beautiful and enviable names which Prussia and Austria glorified you with so long ago. It is another instance of Europe's coarse and cruel persecution of your race; not that it was coarse and cruel to outfit it with pretty and poetical names ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... full blooded habit but also from long canoe voyages. He was a placid man—placid yet at times suddenly choleric, and he regarded St. Marys and his own particular plot of land with an undying and tranquil affection. Dibbott's position was, in a sense, enviable, for he stood as administrator between the government and the local Indian tribes, in whose eyes he ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... huge boulder, with the French flag on one side and the Spanish on the other. As we reined in the horses opposite to it for a moment, no one could dispute that we were indeed "'twixt France and Spain." But we did not stay to enjoy this enviable position long; and passing on, endeavoured to realise that we were no longer in France by fixing our eyes on the Pyrenees Orientales; we could also see the Poujastou (6332 ft.) on our left, the Couradilles (6513 ft.), the Mont Segu, ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... must admit, a sort of recognition accorded to intellectual achievement, which some American scientific men have found reason to envy. In America, of course, just as in Great Britain, there exists that very enviable distinction, the honorary degree of a university; but in America it is tainted by the freedom with which bogus universities can be organized, and by the unchallenged assumptions of quacks. In Great Britain the honorary ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... much, dearest," he said with a laugh. "Though I see your position clearly—and it is not an enviable one." ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... of immense estates in the city, rendered its owner a man of no small consequence in the vicinity. But, more than this, Colonel Dumont was beloved and respected for his many good qualities of mind and heart. In the late war with England he had served in the army, and as an officer had won an enviable distinction by his courage and his talents. Coming unexpectedly into the possession of this estate by the death of an uncle, he retired, at the close of the war, from a profession to which a genuine patriotism alone ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... an eternal farewell to, doubtless, by far the dearest,—happiest period of our existence, the dawn of life's day—that enviable time when "we have no lessons;" when the colt presses, with his unshod foot, the fresh and verdant meadow, while he wonders at the team toiling under a noontide sun, over the parched and arid fallow in ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... The fighting is all well enough but, after all, that takes up but a very small portion of one's time; and marching and, I may say, living generally in this hot, sweltering climate, with its six months of rain, is not enviable work. However, I have gone through one regular campaign, and that as severe a one as British troops have ever performed; and above all, old man, I have met you, and we have come to be great friends, and I have learned what one fellow will do ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... to be spending my time under such enviable circumstances requires some explanation, especially when I state that the exceedingly pretty woman was not ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... has made an enviable reputation for itself wherever and whenever the boats and men have been engaged, ranked third at the beginning of the war. While not of the heaviest type, the boats were of the most improved models, and maintained on a basis that justified the belief that they would ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... as a boy, kept his father's sheep, and, being forced by heavy snow to leave them in the fold, went with his parents to the church, and there heard the Gospel which blesses those who mourn and weep, and calls those miserable who laugh, and those enviable who have a pure heart. And when he asked a bystander what he would gain who did each of these things, the man propounded to him the solitary life, and pointed out to him the ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... was indisputably his leader in the courts, and for whose forensic abilities it is known, that he entertains, and has often expressed, the highest admiration. The position of the two men was singular, and to the ex-attorney not very enviable. Scarlett was in high practice before Brougham was even called to the bar. He kept a head of him in their profession throughout; and twice he had filled the first places at the bar, when the respective attainments of these eminent persons were such, that if Brougham had been placed ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... task, nor enviable the lot Of him who thus would plant, on shores unknown, And in a wild and never-trodden spot, A new-born city's first foundation stone. A sturdy courage and a fearless heart Belong to him who plays so bold ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... the papers which Levy had secured for him. The one which related to Mrs. Buckner and the prospector he laid aside at once as too contemptible to be considered, but the other interested him. Gorham was setting himself above other men who held enviable positions in the business and social world. If this affidavit was true—and Covington saw no reason to doubt its authenticity—this demigod might hesitate to emphasize his superiority. With the legality of his marriage questioned, his Czarship might be weakened; and this, as Covington ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... for the brush and palette, and then making merry with various musical instruments, the banjo, the guitar, the violin, until finally he appeared as bass drummer in a brass band. "In a few weeks," he said, "I had beat myself into the more enviable position of snare drummer. Then I wanted to travel with a circus, and dangle my legs before admiring thousands over the back seat of a Golden Chariot. In a dearth of comic songs for the banjo and guitar, I had written two or three myself, and the idea took possession ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... injury or offence to others. To the last he retained his freshness of intellectual outlook, his insatiable yet discreet curiosity. Taking it as a whole, should his life be judged a singularly futile or singularly enviable one? Nothing feminine, save on strictly platonic lines, was recorded to have entered it at any period. Did that argue remarkable wisdom or defective courage, or some abnormal element in a composition otherwise deliciously mundane ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... speaking, and there was a pause for a minute or two in the conversation, when Mary Percival said, "What, then, my dear uncle, do you consider as the most enviable position in life?" ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... to be regular ranchers!" he declared, and in less than a week Nort and Dick felt that they were, indeed, on their way to this enviable goal. ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... tale, dear Hugh, without any association of its incidents with the old respectable chronicles of the Historians is what I should wish you could always do. That is the happy manner with Romance; that is the enviable aptness of the child. But when (by the favour of God) you grow older and more reflective, seeking perhaps for more in these pages than they meant to give, you may wonder that the streets, the lanes, the tenements herein set forth so much ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... of the least enviable authors who ever lived. He had fame and fortune and friends. But he had not the constitution to enjoy his fortune, and in friendship he had not the gift of fidelity. He secretly published his correspondence with Swift and then set up a pretence that Swift had been the culprit. ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... "Royal Transportation Officer." As a matter of fact, the "R" does not stand for "royal," but for "railway," and the "T" is "transport," nothing so grandiose as "transportation." Now an R.T.O.'s job, though it may be a safe one, is not enviable. He is forced to combine the qualities of booking-clerk, station-master, goods-agent, information clerk, and day and night watchman all into one. In consequence of this it is necessary for the traveller's speech and attitude to be strictly soothing and complimentary. ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... that Phyllis had another man in her eye,—the phrase was Lady Earlscourt's and it served very well to express her meaning,—she had made some careful inquiries on the subject of the girl's male visitors, and she had, of course, found out that no other man occupied that enviable position; no social oculist would be required to remove the element which, in Lady Earlscourt's estimation, caused ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... sufficient to make me more particular in the future. A large company was assembled in the parlour, which was heavy with clouds of tobacco-smoke, and brightly lighted up by a roaring fire of coal. Hard by the chimney stood a vacant chair in what I thought an enviable situation, whether for warmth or the pleasure of society; and I was about to take it when the nearest of the company ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Dr. Bird when he set out to make a favorable impression, and even a world's champion is apt to be flattered by the attention of one of the greatest scientists of his day, especially when that scientist has made an enviable reputation as an athlete in his college days and can talk the jargon of the champion's particular sport. Henry Ladd promptly capitulated to the charm of the doctor and allowed himself to be led away to supper at Bird's club. The supper passed off pleasantly, and when the doctor requested an ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... good colour. Under cultivation it is in no way particular; it will endure anything but being deprived of light; from its dwarf, stout, and shrubby character, it would form a useful and a handsome edging to the larger walks; and by growing it so extensively an enviable supply of flowers for cutting would be ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... old school chum, Lawrence Colby, who had since become a colonel in the state militia, had opened a military academy, which he called Colby Hall. The place was gaining an enviable reputation as a first-class institution of learning, being modeled after Putnam Hall, which, in its day, had been run somewhat on ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... Preceptress had arrived, the citizens of whatever city we had stopped in hastened to extend to her every courtesy and favor possible for them to bestow. She was the daughter of the woman who held the highest and most enviable position in the Nation. A position that only great intellect could secure ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... in the community was to be inferred. How so striking, so influence-wielding a man did not get or take a still more leading position than he had was due, perhaps, to some indolence of nature, to a rare and enviable contentment, or to a mixture of both. He took what fell in his way—magistracies, bank directorships, or what else, and lived unambitiously on his moderate but sufficient means, always in the front social position, and, of course, in universal respect. And how, again, so quiet a spirit adventured ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... one suggested to the angry O'Neil that one of the Anglo-Irish families whom he was reviling as strangers had been four hundred years settled in Ireland, the Milesian replied, "I hate the churls as if they had come but yesterday." Mr. Macaulay seems largely endowed with this (as with a more enviable) species of memory, and he hates, for example, King Charles I as if he had been murdered only yesterday. Let us not be understood as wishing to abridge an historian's full liberty of censure—but he should not be a satirist, still less a libeller. We do not say nor think that Mr. Macaulay's ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Hex-a-poda and Myri-a-poda as the most of us know our alphabet. . . . The humble home of the learned man has become a Mecca, toward which both great and small of the scientific world are bending eager steps. . . . The career of Marvin reads like a romance, and he has fought his way to his present enviable position by sheer grit, and ability, having had to combat with all the narrow criticism and misconceptions usual in the case of a progressive thinker in a small town. Indeed, it is said that even now his native village fails to recognize the honor ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... aside for a moment from the many duties, the interesting cares and soul-stirring pleasures of your enviable situation, and read a few lines from a stranger? They come to you, not from the cold and sterile regions of the North, nor from the luxuriant yet untamed wilds of the West, but from the bright and sunny land where ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... want of suitors," said courteous Mr. Engelman. "A most majestic person. Witty and accomplished. Possessed of an enviable little fortune, ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... sent to Mr. Jenkinson. Upon the whole, these circumstances, with the pleasure of shooting and boating on the river, added to the glorious view it yields, and which is enough at any time to cheer the mind, render this neighbourhood one of the most enviable situations to live in that I have seen in Ireland. The face of the country gives every circumstance of beauty. From Killodeernan Hill, behind the new house building by Mr. Holmes, the whole is seen to great advantage. The spreading part of the Shannon, ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... arrested before the grave,—at least stilled and impeded. You will smile incredulously, perhaps (for I see you do not know who I am), when I tell you that I might once have been a monarch, and that obscurity seemed to me more enviable than empire; I resigned the occasion: the tide of fortune rolled onward, and left me safe but solitary and forsaken upon the dry land. If you wonder at my choice, you will wonder still more when I tell you that I have never ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... beautiful lakes and along the pleasant rivers of that broad wilderness lying between the majestic St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain. You have, in seasons of relaxation from the labors of a profession in which you have achieved such enviable distinction, indulged in the sports pertaining to that wild region. You have listened to the glad music of the woods when the morning was young, and to the solemn night voices of the forest when darkness enshrouded the earth. You are, therefore, familiar with the ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... lord. I have no intentions with regard to Miss Gibson. She may be a very worthy young lady—I have no doubt she is. Lady Harriet seems determined to push me into such a position that I cannot but acknowledge myself to be—it is not enviable—not pleasant to own—but I am, in fact, a jilted man; jilted by Miss Kirkpatrick, after a tolerably long engagement. My interviews with Miss Gibson were not of the most agreeable kind—as you may conclude when I tell you she was, I believe, the instigator—certainly, she was the agent in ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... way the husband was kind, and attentive to business. But he had fallen a victim to playing cards for money. When that passion would seize him he would leave his business, his hired help, his home and wife and little one, and would lose himself for days at a time seeking to satisfy that passion. An enviable husband, father, citizen, and neighbor but for that evil; but how wretchedly that ruined all! Dr. Holland, of Springfield, Massachusetts, says: "I have all my days had a card-playing community open to my observation, and yet I am unable to believe that that which is the universal resort ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... "A very enviable situation," remarked Sparkle, "However," continued Tom, "he has done some good in the world, and may live to do more. He became a partner in the great agency house in the City, of Basset, Farquhar, and Co.; besides which, he purchased the late Mr. Whitbread's ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the possession of a donkey by present, or buying, you will attain to enviable heights in the business or social world, and if single, ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... knew that Julia and I would have led a tranquil, matter-of-fact, pleasant enough life together, but for the unlucky fate that had carried me across to Sark to fall in love with Olivia. There was something enviable in the tranquil prosperity I had forfeited. Guernsey was the dearest spot on earth to me, yet I was practically banished from it. Julia was, beyond all doubt, the woman I loved most, next to Olivia, but she was lost ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... hour, but his stakes were high and he played every shot. His calm, impassioned countenance bore the unmistakable stamp of the professional gambler, and, serene as a quiet mill-pond, he bore his losses or pocketed his winnings with the enviable sang froid which results from a long and intimate acquaintance with ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton |
