"Mere" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... twin, toy torpedo boats—mere streaks of red and black upon the water, with Italy's flag at the taffrail. But the little ships were no toys and Assunta hated them, for the strange craft told of the ceaseless battle waged by authority against the mountain smugglers and reminded the widow ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... scream of exploding shells as they rent the air around. He crossed the Alma close behind Lord Raglan, cantering after him to the summit of a conspicuous hillock in the heart of the enemy's position, whence the mere sight of plumed English officers scared the Russian generals, and, followed soon by guns and troops, governed the issue of the fight. The general's manner was "the manner of a man enlivened by the progress ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... able-bodied men were transferred from the service of the rebels in corn-fields to the Union service in battle-fields—how Mr. Lincoln and the Union party were vilified for that wise and necessary measure! But worse, infinitely worse, than mere opposition to war measures, were their efforts to impair the confidence of the people, to diminish the moral power of the government, to give hope and earnestness to the enemies of the Union, by showing that ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... the dwellings apparently of market- gardeners and fishermen, and by a ruinous church of the eleventh century. It is impossible to imagine a more penetrating case of unheeded collapse. Torcello was the mother-city of Venice, and she lies there now, a mere mouldering vestige, like a group of weather-bleached parental bones left impiously unburied. I stopped my gondola at the mouth of the shallow inlet and walked along the grass beside a hedge to the low-browed, crumbling cathedral. The charm ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... in their own strength. Those feelings, always as fruitless as they are fond, are in Venice not only incapable of protecting, but even of discerning, the objects to which they ought to have been attached. The Venice of modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of decay, a stage dream which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into dust. No prisoner, whose name is worth remembering, or whose sorrow deserved sympathy, ever crossed that "Bridge of Sighs," which is the centre of the Byronic ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... as are scientifically expressed by calling them marked varieties, or else doubtful species; while others, differing a little more, are confidently termed distinct, but nearly-related species. Now, is not all this a question of degree, of mere gradation of difference? And is it at all likely that these several gradations came to be established in two totally different ways—some of them (though naturalists can't agree which) through natural ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... the light down to a mere point of yellow fire, and in the sudden gloom all were plunged into silence. "Now, whatever you do, gentlemen, don't startle the psychic after she ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... The mere joy of living flooded my blood with happiness in those days. I vow it made me a better man to breathe the same air as she, to hear the lilt of her merry laugh and the low music of her sweet voice. Not a curve ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... abuses and perversions Luther seeks to liberate the sacraments, and restore them in their purity to Christians. Nevertheless, he takes care to insist on the fact that it is not the mere external ceremony, the act of the priest in administering, and the visible partaking of the receiver, that make the latter a sharer in the promised grace and blessedness. This, he says, depends upon a hearty faith ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... observations at Morristown and to report the results to himself. Washington at once perceived the embarrassments to which such a plan might lead; and accordingly, on the 24th of February, 1777, he wrote to the governor, gently explaining why he could not receive Mr. Walker as a mere ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... follow. I wasn't going to let a mere ordinary flood wash out the memory of that Crown Derby dessert service, and I intimated to the Bishop that his large bedroom, with a writing table in it, and his small bath-room, with a sufficiency of cold-water jars in it, was his share of the premises, ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... you," he remarked on leaving, "on having the best equipped hospital ship it has been my fortune to see. There are many in the service, as you know, but the boats are often mere tubs and the fittings of the simplest description. The wounded who come under your care will indeed be fortunate. It is wonderful to realize that you have come all the way from America, and at so great an expense, to help the victims ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... pause before Carford, expecting an answer to his hot questions. He saw offence in the mere fact that Carford was ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... Bruce? Would he ever find her? That philosophy which she had inherited from her father, that quiet acceptance of the inevitable, was the one thing which carried her through her trials sanely. An ordinary woman would have died from mere exhaustion. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... sonnet form. The additional lines are in themselves fairly good poetry but they have no place in what purports to be translation. The translator signs himself simply "r." Whoever he was, he had poetic feeling and power of expression. No mere poetaster could have given lines so exquisite in their imagery, so full of music, and so happy in their phrasing. This fact in itself makes it a poor translation, for it is rather a paraphrase with a quality ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... red-haired man, with a snapping-turtle mouth, but not a vicious-looking man for all that, briefly replied, "All right," and these two determined enemies clinked their glasses with the unconcern of mere ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... whereon grace, wit, and wealth had lavished their choicest charms; but the carefully watched and well-regulated valvular machine he was pleased to designate his heart, had never as yet experienced a warmer sensation than that of mere critical admiration for classic contours, symmetrical figures, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... I could help you," declared Harley with sincerity, "but in the circumstances any suggestion of mine would be mere impertinence." He held out his hand to ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... go to him till you compose yourself. It is all-important that you should speak to him, when you see him, in your natural voice, and you must prepare yourself for a shock. He is at present a mere wreck, so changed that you will ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... see"—and again the Inquisitor looked over his glasses—"you know the man, have been to his lodging, have conversed with him, and are the best judge what he is! I have had naught to do with him. By the way," he turned to Fabri, "he is at Mere Royaume's, is he not? Is there not a Spaniard of the ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... but mere dust and ashes I might speak unto the Lord, for the Lord's hand made me of this dust, and the Lord's hand shall re-collect these ashes; the Lord's hand was the wheel upon which this vessel of clay was framed, and the Lord's hand is the urn in ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... with emotion. Under our father's roof she lacked none of the comforts of life. We knew that her children vied with each other to please her, and we wondered why it was that she seemed to be sad and unhappy. We were then mere children and knew nothing of the human heart, grim experience had not taught us its sorrowful lessons, and we knew not that a remembrance has often the bitterness of gall, and that tears alone ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies
... amusement to citizens, but what a horror to plebes. Those torturous twistings and twirlings, stretching every nerve, straining every sinew, almost twisting the joints out of place and making life one long agonizing effort. Was there ever a "plebe," or recruit, who did not hate, did not shudder at the mere mention of squad drill? I did. Others did. I remember distinctly my first experience of it. I formed an opinion, a morbid dislike of it then, and have not changed it. The benefit, however, of "squad drill" can not be overestimated. ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... streets.[10] Scarce one of the famous cities succeeded in retaining its republican form. Milan became a duchy. Florence fell under the sway of the Medici. In Venice a few rich families seized all authority, and while the fame and territory of the republic were extended, its dogeship became a mere figurehead. All real power was lodged in the dread and secret council of three.[11] Genoa was defeated and crushed in a great naval contest with her rival, Venice.[12] Everywhere tyrannies stood out triumphant. The first modern age of representative government was a failure. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the contest, and it is very probable his friends would have united in the support of Lowndes, but he being out of the way, they united upon Jackson. When Jackson was first spoken of as a candidate, most men of intelligence viewed it as a mere joke, but very soon the admiration for his military fame was apparent in the delight manifested by the masses, when he was brought prominently forward. That thirst for military glory, and the equally ardent thirst to do homage ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... also great and meritorious. His chief merit, a rare one amongst the powerful of the earth, especially when there is a question of reforms and of liberty, was that he understood and entertained the requirements and wishes of his day; he was a mere young prince of the blood when the states of 1484 were sitting at Tours; but he did not forget them when he was king, and, far from repudiating their patriotic and modest work in the cause of reform and progress, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... two years, Beth continued to look on at life, with eyes wide open, deeply interested. Her mind at this time, acting without conscious effort, was a mere photographic apparatus for the registration of impressions on the brain. Every incident stored and docketed itself somewhere in her consciousness for future use, and it was upon this hoard that she drew ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... 'which ceases to be with the accomplishment of its end.' This rule or principle, which implies intelligence and will, must be in the mind of the Author, who operates in accordance with it, and not in the mere matter whose changes it controls. Yet our author strangely says, 'all the objects of nature are the products, not of spirit, but of law, which is itself the product of the one great Creative Spirit whereby all ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... first came to Welbeck, now twenty-seven years ago," said the Duke, "I was a mere boy, very ignorant of the ways of the world, and more ignorant still, if it were possible, of business habits and of the management of a great estate. I shudder to think what might have been my fate, and the sad fate of those dependent upon me, if Mr. Turner and others, who guided my footsteps, ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... One mere boy in his company was wont to enter a fray with a leg perched flippantly about the horn of his saddle, a cigarette hanging from his lips, which emitted smoke and original slogans of clever invention. Buckley would have given a year's pay to attain ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... power, and he died a natural death in the archonship of Philoneos, three and thirty years from the time at which he first established himself as tyrant, during nineteen of which he was in possession of power; the rest he spent in exile. It is evident from this that the story is mere gossip which states that Pisistratus was the youthful favourite of Solon and commanded in the war against Megara for the recovery of Salamis. It will not harmonize with their respective ages, as any one may see who will ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... safer means of transit from one point to another, but a gift so free and spontaneous that work becomes leisure and movement rest. They are not so much going somewhere, from this perch to that, as they are abandoning themselves to the mere pleasure of riding upon ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... Fish congregate in vast numbers at the junction of rivers of different temperatures, and are there more easily captured than in other situations, a fact that ought to be borne in mind, whether for the mere object of sport or the more practical purpose of fisheries ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... and desired nothing more than to be free from all obligations to one she would fain forget, and be again to her uncle what she was before she ever saw this man. I thought, fool that I was, it was a mere engagement she was alluding to, and took the insanest hope from these words; and when, in a moment later I heard her uncle reply, in his sternest tone, that she had irreparably forfeited her claims to his regard ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... I suppose that as you had no brothers or sisters they taught you to pray for your cousin, didn't they? Oh, I know all about it. It is my unfortunate sex that is to blame; while I was a mere tom-boy it was different. No one can serve two masters, can they? You have chosen to serve a machine that won't go, and I daresay that you are wise. Yes, I think that it is the better part—until you find someone that will make it go—and then you ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... Fred Ripley, son of Lawyer Ripley, one of the wealthy men of the town. Fred was never over polite to those whom he considered as his "inferiors." Besides, young Ripley was now in his freshman year at the Gridley High School. As such, he naturally looked down on mere Grammar School boys, none of whom, perhaps, would ever reach the dignity ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... Ireland, and many more, namely, gross simony, greedy covetousness, incontinence, careless sloth, and generally all disordered life in the common clergyman. And, besides all these, they have their particular enormities; for all Irish ministers that now enjoy church livings are in a manner mere laymen, saving that they have taken holy orders, but otherwise they go and live like laymen, follow all kinds of husbandry, and other worldly affairs as other Irishmen do. They neither read the Scriptures, nor preach to the people, nor administer the ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... conjecture it, To his tried virtue, for miraculous help— How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way! The other imputations must be lies: But take one, though I loathe to give it thee, In mere respect for any good man's fame. (And after all, our patient Lazarus Is stark mad; should we count on what he says? Perhaps not: though in writing to a leech 'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.) This man so cured regards the curer, then, As—God forgive me! who but ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... have given Lal a drink of water and he has started to eat, which is good news. Some of the mules seem snow-blind, and they are now all wearing their blinkers. I have just heard that Gran swung the thermometer at four this morning and found it -29 deg.. Nelson's face is a sight—his nose a mere swollen lump, frost-bitten cheeks, and his goggles have frosted him where the rims touched his ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Americans was primarily the result of the Civil Rights Acts. But the fact and example of integration in the armed forces was an important cause of change in the communities near military bases. Defense officials, prodding in the matter of integrated schooling for dependent children, found the mere existence of successfully integrated on-base schooling a useful tool in achieving similar schooling off-base. The experience of having served in the integrated armed forces, shared by so many young Americans, also exercised an immeasurable influence on the changes of the 1960's. ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... features of the place tenanted. At death, or metamorphosis, these creatures, enjoying the ultimate life—immortality—and cognizant of all secrets but the one, act all things and pass everywhere by mere volition:—indwelling, not the stars, which to us seem the sole palpabilities, and for the accommodation of which we blindly deem space created—but that SPACE itself—that infinity of which the truly substantive vastness swallows up the star-shadows—blotting ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... behind the curtain; but before it. While we hold ourselves so proudly to the world, what must those foreigners think of us who visit our theatre. From a place of rational recreation, and improvement, it has become a mere bear-garden. The play is interrupted, and all enjoyment, save that of riot and brawling, killed in various ways. The very boxes themselves are no sanctuary from ruffianish incivility; while the ears are stunned, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... it all again," I said, half aloud, and then blushed at my folly. What could I, who was hardly more than a mere boy, do? Nothing, it seemed, and yet ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... my love, my love, hasn't it dawned on you yet what you are to me? Here's the whole earth in a conspiracy to give you a chill, or run over you, or drench you to the skin, or cheat you out of your money, or let you die of overwork and underfeeding, and I haven't the mere right to look after you. Why, I don't even know if you have sense enough to put on warm things when ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... were exhibiting their real or pretended miseries, forming a strange though common contrast betwixt the vanities and the sorrows of human existence. All these floated along with the immense tide of population whom mere curiosity had drawn together; and where the mechanic, in his leathern apron, elbowed the dink and dainty dame, his city mistress; where clowns, with hobnailed shoes, were treading on the kibes of substantial burghers and gentlemen of worship; and where Joan of the dairy, with robust pace, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... signal for a disastrous change. Case after case came up, bottle after bottle was burst and bled mere water. Deeper yet, and they came upon a layer where there was scarcely so much as the intention to deceive; where the cases were no longer branded, the bottles no longer wired or papered, where the fraud was manifest and stared them ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... confederacy in various important intrigues. Being secretly sent to Spain to solicit help for the League after the disasters of Ivry and Arques, he found Philip II. so sincerely imbued with the notion that France was a mere province of Spain, and so entirely bent upon securing the heritage of the Infanta to that large property, as to convince him that the maintenance of the Roman religion was with that monarch only ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sort, and it seemed to me this part, the central one of the play, would come out brilliantly in your hands.... In choosing an actor for the part you must remember that Varya, a serious and religious girl, is in love with Lopahin; she wouldn't be in love with a mere money-grubber.... ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... exceeds in value the mere homage to ancient lineage. With these noble qualities, the race of Drummond combined the courage to defend their rights, and the magnanimity to protect the feeble. This last characteristic is beautifully described ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... it on for me, thank you! If not, thank you for putting it on! I'm not asking, either. I should think you would wear it if you were alone for the mere pleasure ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... work of which I have been treating is a mere by-product or consequence of its main idea. Experience has shown, that it is of little use to talk about his soul to a man with an empty stomach. First, he must be fed and cleansed and given some other habitation than the street. Also the Army has learned that Christ still walks the earth in ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... one of the oldest of the settlers. "They've got too good a start of us, and it will be foolishness for a mere handful of whites to ride right into the Indian country. They'll lay a trap and massacre ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... is very young—a mere child, you understand me, unformed, gauche, what you call shy. You will make excuse for ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... note the Perp. pointed arch and vaulted roof. This was originally the entrance to the Abbey court, the "Magna Porta" of the old monastic days. There was a former structure on or near the same spot; this was blown down and the present building dates from the rule of Thomas de la Mere, thirtieth abbot (1349-96). Used as a jail some centuries ago, it has long been known as St. Alban's Grammar School; the battlemented house S.W. of the archway is the residence of the head master. The claims of this school to be the oldest in England cannot be adequately discussed ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... of the world; so that the offers of salvation are sincerely made to all men, and all who repent and believe in Him will be justified and saved." That exposition of the doctrine entirely accords with my view. It was by mere accident I saw this manual; it may be presumed that many other congregations have taken ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... the periscope bobbing, sir!" was the statement that changed the entire atmosphere of the battleship from that of mere curiosity and ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... mean that, Mac,—not the mere mechanical warp and woof of it, to hang beggars and sots with,—but the more potent essence, the inner cosmic power of it, to rouse the soul into grand expansive consciousness, and then to suspend it far above the carks and cares of this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... well. Any young man who has just spent many days communing with grand old Nature should feel it beneath his dignity to whisper to mere mortals. Master Hazelton, you are moving uneasily in your seat. Be calm; you will not have to cook your own dinner to-day. Miss Bentley, it is hardly fair to smile so knowingly. For aught of evidence ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... closed the door behind me, and found that I had light enough to make my way about without difficulty. The room was furnished in hotel fashion, and at one wall of it stood a ghostly piano, its form revealed by mere hints of polish on its surface here and there. On the opposite side was an escritoire with writing implements, and a few scattered sheets of paper. In the centre of the room was a table, and two or three disordered ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... of Mr. Adams, that I have ever done him justice myself, and defended him when assailed by others, with the single exception as to his political opinions. But with a man possessing so many other estimable qualities, why should we be dissocialized by mere differences of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, or any thing else. His opinions are as honestly formed as my own. Our different views of the same subject are the result of a difference in our organization and experience. I never ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... only the physical display of the spiritual truth, the other rejects the spiritual truth because of its physical display. Those who worship the future break taboos because they recognize that the mere physical manifestation of the truths is not their entire essence, but they reject the spiritual truth as well. When taboos are broken, there is nothing gained, but everything lost, for the physical traditions at least lead to the knowledge of the spiritual laws to those who seek such wisdom. ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... musical makeshifts; indeed, I felt that a good many things would be explained to myself only by a good performance. Since then my last hope has vanished again, and a terrible bitterness has come over me, so that I can no longer have any faith in mere chance. You, my rarest friend, do everything in your power to rouse me again in one way or other, and to sustain my freshness and love of work, but I know that all you say is only for this particular purpose. So I have at last decided to help myself. I have determined ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... on the causes of their withdrawal after centuries of occupation, absolute certainty is impossible, and we have no means of going much beyond mere conjecture. We may suppose as most probable that an influx of barbarians destroyed their border settlements, interrupted their mining operations, and caused them to retire gradually toward the Gulf. Fragments of their communities may have become incorporated with the barbarous tribes. This ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... like nothing better, sir," answered James. "But—I speak again for my brother as well as for myself—we cannot accept payment for performing a mere act of duty; your advice and assistance may be of the greatest value to us, and of that we will gladly avail ourselves. The young man who helped us to stop the horses must, of course, speak ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... case—of which we have given a mere sketch—was decided by Samuel Goldfinch, Esq., in favor of the lady, a separation was decreed, and alimony fixed at six thousand dollars a year, that being only a wife's fair proportion of Mr. Slapman's income. Mrs. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... help—save in the sense that ladies were dying to come to him and that he saved the lives of several—established a salon; but I might have guessed that there was a method in his madness, a law in his success. He hadn't hit it off by a mere fluke. There was an art in it all, and how was the art so hidden? Who indeed if it came to that was the occult artist? Launching this inquiry the other day I had already got hold of the tail of my reply. I was helped by the very wonder of ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... unreal measures. Never in his life; not even in his wildest literary ecstasies, had he felt so assured of the beauty, of the bountifulness, of his coming years—so filled with a swelling thankfulness for the mere physical fact of birth. He was twenty-five, he believed passionately in his own powers, and he was, he told himself with emphasis, in love for the first and only time. In the confused tangle of his fancy he saw Laura like some great white flower, growing out of reach, yet not entirely beyond ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... decorations were the sign manual of such quattrocento painters as Gozzoli and Pinturicchio; and to these men he, for whom these works of art were created, assigned the painting and adornment of the Vatican. We will come to him directly. It was for Michelangelo to make the creations of these artists mere colored bubbles and froth, when seen against the immensity and intellectual grandeur of his future masterpieces in the Sistine. But that was afterwards. We are concerned with the Pope for whom these chairs and this bed were made. Yes, a Pope, my friends—no ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... Louis himself. "Put up your swords," said he; "this crowd is excited rather than wicked." And he addressed those who had forced their way into the room with words of condescending conciliation. They replied with threats and imprecations; and sought to force their way onward, pressing back by their mere numbers and weight the small group of loyal champions who by this time had gathered in front ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... moment, deeply affronted by the mere suggestion. Then, remembering her total ignorance of all such matters, he smiled at her. "My dear Mary, do you think—leaving my rectitude aside—that I'd have referred you to Rodney Aldrich if I'd felt that there was anything questionable ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... riches are comparative. Let me inform you that these Brewsters, of whom this child sprung, claim as high places in the synagogue as any of your Lennoxes and Risleys, and, what is more, they believe themselves there. They have seen the tops of their neighbors' heads as often as you or I. The mere fact of familiarity with shoe-knives and leather, and hand-skill instead of brain-skill, makes no difference with such inherent confidence of importance as theirs. The Louds, on the other side—the handsome aunt is a Loud—are rather below caste, but they make up ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... be spoken, the irrevocable knot tied which bound her to another man. Her troth was already plighted, her confession made to Pater Bonifacius—in a few hours from now she would be Bela's wife, and if Andor did come back now, she must be as nothing to him, he as a mere ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... letter! As we look at the slim characters on the yellow page, fondly kept and put aside, we can almost fancy him alive who wrote and who read it—and yet, lo! they are as if they never had been; their portraits faint images in frames of tarnished gold. Were they real once, or are they mere phantasms? Did they live and die once? Did they love each other as true brothers, and loyal gentlemen? Can we hear their voices in the past? Sure I know Harry's, and yonder he sits in the warm summer evening, and reads ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a wife she would make, but I have put the thought from me, seeing that she is heiress to broad lands and I a Scottish soldier of fortune, whose lands, though wide enough for me to live in comfort at home, are yet but a mere farm in comparison with your broad estates. I have even told myself that as she grew up I must no longer make long stays in your castle, for it would be dishonourable indeed did I reward your kindness and hospitality ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... doubtless those of an average society belle, eager to drain the cup of pleasure to the dregs. I lived to dance, and cared little with whom I danced, provided he danced well. The mere physical satisfaction of waltzing, coupled with the glamor of a universal ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... was so dense that, as the lads gazed down, they had but a mere glimpse of a shadowy animal, as it seemed to be running across the lawn, and directly after there was a faint, soft rustling in ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... "thou art a mere periwig-makerHad I asked Ochiltree the question, he would have had a legend ready ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... that under the influence of the storm ran thigh-deep have now dwindled to mere rivulets, and the narrow, miry trail through the melting snow has become dry and smooth enough to ride wherever the grade permits. The hills are verdant with the green young life of early spring, and are clothed in one of nature's prettiest costumes—a costume ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Scripture. Hands were laid upon both with brutal violence; they were dragged into the street; and there with blows of clubs and repeated stabs done to death. It was 4 p.m. when Tilly departed, at 4.30 all was over, but the infuriated rabble were not content with mere murder. The bodies were shamefully mis-handled and were finally hung up by the feet to a lamppost, round which to a late hour in the evening a crowd shouted, sang and danced. It is impossible to conceive a fate more horrible or less ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... fallen back on the medieval devil; not because he is more mystical, but because he is more material. The face of Raemaekers' Satan, with its lifted jowl and bared teeth, has less of the half-truth of cynicism than of mere ignominious greed. The armies are spread out for him as a banquet; and the war which he praises, and which was really spread for him in Flanders, is not a Crusade ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... and the problem of distribution. The foregoing figures make a most satisfactory showing, and appear to indicate that mere economic problems are rapidly being solved by the growth of national wealth. But unfortunately these figures have little significance in connection with such an inquiry, if indeed they are ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... Francis—and so forth—one might multiply the instances indefinitely. All Froude's works are full of them, they are part and parcel of his method—but their number is to no purport. One example may stand for all, and their special value to our purpose is not that they are mere assertions, but that they are assertions which Froude must have known to ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... mock-heroic style of the document his serious design may be questioned,—he writes, "If I do a mad action, it is conformable to every action of my life, which all savored of insanity." His "sudden fits of weeping, for which no reason could be assigned," when a mere child, were but the preludes to those gloomy forebodings which haunted him when a boy. His mother had said, "she was often apprehensive of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... It is mere summer lightning that flashes harmlessly and without striking any one of the conspirators, terrifies all. Sixty of them at least for a fortnight had not dared sleep in their beds. Marat's way was to denounce traitors by their name, to point the finger of accusation at conspirators. ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... eels, and a great variety of others; above all, in sturgeon; which are frequently caught by accident in the shad-nets, and either boiled for their oil, or suffered to rot on the, shores, being very seldom sent to market: when this is the case, they are sold for a mere trifle, chiefly to emigrants. The Americans have conceived a violent antipathy to this fish. I recollect no instance of seeing it at their tables. They have every externals appearance of the european sturgeon, but in other respects must be very different, ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... to the mere, The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees, Gold world by world the silent stars appear, And like a blossom blown before the breeze A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky, Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... of industry by the power of combination has just begun. But the mere beginning has imposed unwarrantable taxes on the fuel, light, and food of the masses. It has built up vast fortunes for the combining classes, drawn from the slender means of millions. It has added an immense stimulant to the process, already too active, of making the rich ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... tongues, by imperceptible degrees, became recruited with various words (some of them wonderfully expressive), many of which have long been stumbling-stocks to the philologist, who, whilst stigmatising them as words of mere vulgar invention, or of unknown origin, has been far from dreaming that by a little more research he might have traced them to the Sclavonic, Persian, or Romaic, or perhaps to the mysterious object of his veneration, the Sanscrit, the sacred tongue of the palm-covered ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... as he put it, he had left the people "all singing away like devils." But I found he quite agreed with me in thinking that there was a visible nucleus of something like military organisation in the mob of that day, which was overborne and, as it were, smothered by the mere mob element before it came to ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... precautions. Confident in his mastery over the minds of men, he set out unguarded, on the 18th of February, at break of day. The party consisted of the chieftain and his trembling secretary, a negro servant on horseback, two postilions,—one of them a mere lad,—and a couple of couriers who were travelling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... begun To spur their living engines on. For as whipped tops and bandy'd balls, The learned hold are animals: So horses they affirm to be Mere engines made by geometry, And were invented first from engines As Indian Britons were from Penguins." —Hudibras, Canto ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... hours before had arrived tidings of the surrender of Cornwallis and his army; and it had consequently been necessary to rewrite the royal speech. Every man in the kingdom, except the King, was now convinced that it was mere madness to think of conquering the United States. In the debate on the report of the address, Pitt spoke with even more energy and brilliancy than on any former occasion. He was warmly applauded by his allies; but it was remarked that no person on his own ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... doctrines passed after his death had but strengthened the Lutherans in their conviction that in every point Luther's teaching was indeed nothing but the pure Word of God itself. It had increased the consciousness that, in believing and teaching as they did, they were not following mere human authorities, such as Luther and the Lutheran Confessions, but the Holy Scriptures, by which alone their consciences were bound. Articles VII and VIII of the Formula of Concord, too, reassert Luther's doctrines on the Lord's Supper and the person of Christ ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... airs. It would be difficult to find better dressed soldiers than those here: every private might easily be mistaken for a lieutenant, or at least a non-commissioned officer; but unluckily, their bearing, size, and colour, are greatly out of keeping with the splendour of their uniform—a mere boy of fourteen standing next to a full-grown, well-made man, a white coming after ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... had struggled with the wild tribes on the north, and from that time down to the execution of the last adherents of the Stuarts in 1759 the town was hardly at any time in a state of quietude. As described by an observant writer, "every man became a soldier and every house that was not a mere peasant's hut was a fortress." A local poet of the Seventeenth Century summed it up in a terse if not elegant couplet as his ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... who likes may be a marquis, and whosoever arrives from the corner of some province, with money to spend and a name ending with Ac or Ille, may say, "a man such as I, a man of my quality," and may show sovereign contempt for a mere merchant. The merchant so often hears his occupation spoken of with disdain that he is fool enough to blush for it. Yet I cannot tell which is the more valuable to the State—a well-powdered lordling, who knows precisely at what hour the king rises, and at ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... if they would have to use a can-opener to get you out, and it did not appear to me as though the sides were bullet-proof. But trust the Admiralty to know what they are doing! Pages could be filled with the mere cataloguing of the various kinds of ships used by the navy in this war, and I am told that these river "tanks" were the prime factor in the ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... not a "student," fails to greet them with the greatest respect, and to treat them as specimens of some other and higher race. The majority of the members of our so-called higher professions—district attorneys, judges, doctors, professors, Government officials, artists, etc.,—are mere journeymen at their trades, who feel no need of further culture, but are happy to stand by the crib. Only the industrious man discovers later, but only then, how much trash he has learned, often was not taught the very thing that he needed most, and has to begin to learn ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... world was again mine. To me, at last my mind seemed to have found itself, for the gigantic web of false beliefs in which it had been all but hopelessly enmeshed I now immediately recognized as a snare of delusions. That the Gordian knot of mental torture should be cut and swept away by the mere glance of a willing eye is like a miracle. Not a few patients, however, suffering from certain forms of mental disorder, regain a high degree of insight into their mental condition in what might be termed ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... will be fully discussed in Part II: but the difficulties, which it introduces, seem to me too formidable to be even alluded to in Part I, which I am trying to make, as far as possible, easily intelligible to mere beginners. ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll
... that it was well past noon, Paul awoke. He glanced at Henry, who nodded. The nod meant that all was well. By and by Mr. Pennypacker, also, awoke and then Henry in his turn went to sleep so easily and readily that it seemed a mere matter of will. The schoolmaster glanced at him and whispered ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the Preface to his first vol. Such as it was, it became the great text-book on which Roger of Wendover founded his own labours when he incorporated it into the chronicle which he left behind him. Roger of Wendover did good work, and laboriously epitomized, supplemented and improved, but he was a mere literary monk after all; a student, a bookworm, simple, conscientious, and truthful; a trustworthy reporter, 'a picker-up of learning's crumbs,' a monkish historiographer, in short; but by no means a historian ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... right,—even though the whole respectable world of his day disapproved of him, and even though this same world attested in the most emphatic manner that he was doing what was dangerous and wicked,—a man with spiritual sight so keen that it was far above and beyond any mere intellectual power,—a sight compared to which, what is commonly known as intellectual keenness is, indeed, as darkness unto light; a man with a loving consideration for others so true and tender that its life ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... conscious that my eyes were leering—leering in one fixed direction: and instantly, the mere fact that I had a sense of direction proved to me that I must, in truth, have heard something! I strove—I managed—to raise myself: and as I stood upright, feebly swaying there, not the terrors of death ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... celebrated volume of sermons, pointed out a passage almost word for word identical with what the pastor had said in his sermon on the previous Sunday—a curious instance of parallel inspiration. Unkind people afterwards spread the gloss that the elder had accused the minister of plagiarism. Mere fiction, no doubt. After a thing has happened people can generally find twenty causes. The excommunication, however, was real enough, and ten times more effectual because the sentence was pronounced not by the pastor ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... whole tendency was individualistic, and his inner respect for mere authority apart from knowledge and judgment was doubtless small. But here we must remember what he said once of the political sphere—that neither liberty nor authority is conceivable except in an ordered society, and that they are both relative to conditions remote alike from anarchy and ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Hubmaier taught: "Here it is apparent that the bread is not the body of Christ, but only a reminder of it. Likewise the wine is not the blood of Christ, but also a mere memorial that He has shed and given His blood to wash all believers from their sins." "In the Lord's Supper the body and blood of Christ are received spiritually and by faith only." In the Supper of Christ "bread is bread and wine is wine and not Christ. For He has ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... sighs and groans, yet not for mischief sore Endured in wounded arm or foot which bled; But for mere shame, and never such before Or after, dyed his cheek so deep a red, And if he rued his fall, it grieved him more His dame should lift him from his courser dead. He speechless had remained, I ween, if she Had not his prisoned tongue ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... saving money. They are permitted, during five or six hours of the day, to work for themselves; so that in the course of a few years they may with ease save the sum requisite for purchasing their independence. But in general they spend their earnings in mere idle enjoyments, and care but little about obtaining their freedom. As slaves they are provided with lodging, food, and clothing, and they are nursed in sickness; but as soon as they become free, they must supply ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... a mistake to suppose that Solon transferred the judicial power of the archons to a popular dicastery. These magistrates still continued self-acting judges, deciding and condemning without appeal—not mere presidents of an assembled jury, as they afterward came to be during the next century. For the general exercise of such power they were accountable after their year of office. Such accountability was the security against abuse—a very insufficient security, yet not wholly inoperative. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... close intercourse between the habitues of the coffee house, before it lost anything of its generous social traditions and whilst the issue of the struggle for political liberty was as yet uncertain, was to lead to something more than a mere jumbling or huddling together of opposites. The diverse elements gradually united in the bonds of common sympathy, or were forcibly combined by persecution from without until there resulted a social, political and moral force of ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... which forms a part of the Roman canon law, Pope Innocent III. declares that the Roman pontiff is "the vicegerent upon earth, not of a mere man, but of very God;" and in a gloss on the passage it is explained that this is because he is the vicegerent of Christ, who is "very God and very man." (See Decretal. D. Gregor. Pap. IX. lib. 1. de translat. Episc. tit. 7. c. 3. Corp. Jur. Canon. ed. Paris, 1612; tom. II. ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... thereby the hearts of the children of God may be comforted and their faith strengthened, and if but those who do not know God, and who may read or hear of his dealings with us, should be led thereby to see that faith in God is more than a mere notion, and that there is indeed reality in Christianity. In the course of this day there came in still ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... it does not seem to have occurred to any member of the august assembly which is making the inquiry, that the Uitlanders are mere squatters in the Transvaal, and that if they don't like the ways of the country they are visiting, there is nothing to prevent them from packing up their traps, and going back ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... cried, "she baffles me; for a hint I let drop in a mere careless badinage of your gallanting reputation ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... but made no comment. Knight never asked her to join him in the den, but alluded to it as an untidy place, a mere work room which he kept littered with papers; and only the new butler, Charrington, was allowed to ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... mockingly with her. Fauns and nymphs tripped thus to wild music in the enchanted long ago when the world was young. Hers was the lightest, the most fantastic of irresponsible shadows. It was not the mere reflection of her body, but a prefigurement of her buoyant spirit, that had escaped from her control and tauntingly eluded capture. Her mind had never known a morbid moment; she had never feared the dark, without or within. And this was her private affair—a joke between her and the moon and the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... friend of none but flourishing heads; whereas Julia, finding my name under a cloud at Riversley, spoke of me, I was led to imagine by Captain Bulsted, as a ballad hero, a gloriful fellow, a darling whose deeds were all pardonable—a mere puff of smoke in the splendour of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... shadow a little beyond the shore-line, a mere space of air and flakes. Ice swirled by its way to the sea, for the tide was going out. He peered; he began to hear all sorts of fine snow-muffled sounds; and suddenly, away out on the river, something was going on—boats whistling and signaling, chatting ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... hopeful amateur has many a counterpart in this day and generation, and in this same city of Gotham. In the case of OLE BULL, however, there has been no call for affected admiration. He has compelled not only admiration but enthusiasm; not indeed by mere artistical 'execution,' although in this he is acknowledged to be preeminent, but by the creations of genius, which 'take the full heart captive.' Let the distant reader imagine an audience of three thousand persons awaiting in breathless expectance the entrance ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... unfortunate as to discover it. Mr. Wilson is a man who, to use Carlyle's favorite expression, has "swallowed all formulas." The principles that have generally been held to govern the use of language appear to him mere arbitrary rules, invented by the "sevenfold censorship" and the Spanish Inquisition, for the purpose of preventing the free communication of ideas. All such trammels he rejects; and, accordingly, we have to thank him, so far as mere style ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... just a mere pretence. I wonder you are not ashamed to play on his honourable feelings, when you know everything is changed, and that it is absolutely ridiculous and derogatory for a peer of the realm to stoop to a mere ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hardened disagreeably. It was an outrageous thing that an Irishman, a mere civilian, who apparently had no right to wear a uniform of any kind, should poke fun at the Imperial navy. He wished very much to make some reply which would crush Gorman and leave him writhing like a worm. Unfortunately it is very difficult ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... caterpillars into cocoons of dress, expecting constantly the wondrous hour when they shall emerge from their self-woven prison in the garb of the angelic butterfly, having entered into the chrysalis state as mere human grubs. But though they both toil and spin at their garments, and vie with Solomon in his glory to outshine the lily of the field, the humanity of the grub shows no signs of developing either in character or appearance in the direction of ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... fate of the misguided heir of Scotland from that which was publicly given out in the town of Falkland. His ambitious uncle had determined on his death, as the means of removing the first and most formidable barrier betwixt his own family and the throne. James, the younger son of the King, was a mere boy, who might at more leisure be easily set aside. Ramorny's views of aggrandisement, and the resentment which he had latterly entertained against his masters made him a willing agent in young Rothsay's destruction. Dwining's love of gold, and his native malignity of disposition, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... in height and decidedly dark of complexion. The swagger of his entrance branded him as an adventurer. The ghastly pallor of his face, which was almost colorless, branded him as a man who has found something more than mere adventure. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... author has more reasons than it is worth while to repeat. If there is any one thing that is attracting the general attention of the American people, it is the art of music. It is a good sign. It shows we are getting beyond the mere tree-felling and prairie-clearing stages of our existence, and coming to something better. This true "Tale of a Violin" has to do with music. It is the story of a real musical life; not wholly American, and therefore instructive. ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... has published during the past year are notable artistic achievements in widely different moods. If tragedy prevails, it is purified by a fine spiritual idealism, which takes symbols and makes of them something more human than a mere allegory. If an American publisher were courageous enough to start publishing a series of volumes of short stories by contemporary American writers, he could not do better than to begin with a selection ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... strange. The impressions of sense were tyrannously strong, so that there was hardly room for reflection or imagination; there was the huge chestnut covered with white spires, that sent out so heavy a fragrance in the spring that it was at last cut down; but the felling of the tree was a mere delightful excitement, not a thing to be grieved over. The country was very wild all round, with tracts of heath and sand. The melodious buzzing of nightjars in hot mid-summer evenings, as they swept softly along the ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... been accustomed to spend his time, astounded him, and since the crisis of the morning he had been in a kind of torpor which took from him all power of recovery. He drifted to the end of the day, no longer thinking of anything, sleeping as he stood, and when the evening came he fell on his bed a mere inert mass. ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... the windows, as if even the subdued daylight were disagreeable to her. She had altered sadly for the worse in her personal appearance, since the memorable day when Doctor Wybrow had seen her in his consulting-room. Her beauty was gone—her face had fallen away to mere skin and bone; the contrast between her ghastly complexion and her steely glittering black eyes was more startling than ever. Robed in dismal black, relieved only by the brilliant whiteness of her widow's ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... intellect of man is stronger than that of the Jinni; the Ifrit, however, enters the jar because he has been adjured by the Most Great Name and not from mere stupidity. The seal-ring of Solomon according to the Rabbis contained a chased stone which told him everything he wanted ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Asiatic, not American ideas. Interior basins, with their own systems of lakes and rivers, and often sterile, are common enough in Asia; people still in the elementary state of families, living in deserts, with no other occupation than the mere animal search for food, may still be seen in that ancient quarter of the globe; but in America such things are new and strange, unknown and unsuspected, and discredited when related. But I flatter myself that what is discovered, though not enough to satisfy curiosity, is sufficient to excite ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... since the time when they fought for and attained their national unity, have exclusively devoted themselves to works of peace and culture, suddenly have been transformed into an adventurous, booty-hungry horde which from mere lust challenged a tremendously superior force to do battle? Should they suddenly have sacrificed to their so-called militarism all their other efforts in commerce, industry, art, and science, in order to risk their very existence for the love ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... addresses the eye by means of chosen proportions; it may present any number of facts as exactly as may be, but if it offend the eye it is a mere misapplication of industry, or the illustration of a scientific treatise out of place; and those that choose ribbons well are better artists than the man that made it. Or again it may overflow with poetical thought and suggestion, or have the stuff to make a first-rate story in it; but, if ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... into her cheeks because she was not used to so many eyes upon her, but she did not blush for her bare feet, nor for her dress that had slipped low over her shoulder, nor for the fact that she had run her swiftest five times around the Maypole, all for the love of a golden guinea, and for mere youth and pure-minded ignorance, and the springtime ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... sweet bird, but I like the lark better. The nightingale is more artistic, but his song is melancholy, he is so sentimental! The lark has a mere twitter like my own song, I like the lark better. How beautiful is this summer night; How glorious is the moon; how fragrant are the roses in the garden! It is a most auspicious night, and ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... balustrades upon the top, which seems to you a very wonderful adaptation to the wants of boys who wish to fly kites, or to play upon the roof. You notice with special favor one very low roof, which you might climb upon by a mere plank, and you think the boys whose father lives in that house are very ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... advancing their camps as far down as Pine creek. The Miamis were loud in their remonstrances against this trespassing, and denounced the Potawatomi as squatters, "never having had any lands of their own, and being mere intruders upon the prior estate of others," but the Potawatomi were not dispossessed and were afterwards parties to all treaties with the United States government for the sale and disposal of said ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... importance, and it is the duty of this Government to protect them against all improper and vexatious interruption. However desirous the United States may be for the suppression of the slave trade, they can not consent to interpolations into the maritime code at the mere will and pleasure of other governments. We deny the right of any such interpolation to any one or all the nations of the earth without our consent. We claim to have a voice in all amendments or alterations of that ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... quickly, we very likely are not taking it in at all. I say all this to you—you who by this time understand so much—and doubtless have failed to understand so much, also. I am not afraid of you any longer. You are not angry that a mere boy should say such words to you, are you? Of course not! You know how to forget and to forgive. You are laughing, Ivan Petrovitch? You think I am a champion of other classes of people—that I am ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... deceptions necessitated by persecution, and the marquis, when he sought his services on this occasion, had found him in one of those excavated caverns which are known, even to the present day, by the name of "the priest's hiding-place." The mere sight of that pale and suffering face was enough to give this worldly room ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... environment in the search for raw materials that are adapted to this purpose. In many localities tough grasses, willows, rushes, or other pliable materials are present, and even though the child finds little that is adapted to the purpose, the mere search for materials enables him to appreciate the value of the commercially prepared ones and aids him in picturing these materials in their raw state. The pleasant days of autumn should be used for collecting such supplies as are available at that time. These may be prepared ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... those Spaniards, who more greedily thirst after the blood of the English, for the many overthrows and dishonours they have received at our hands; whose weakness we have discovered to the world, and whose forces, at home, abroad, in Europe, in the Indies, by sea and by land, even with mere handfuls of men and ships on our sides, we have overthrown and dishonoured? Let not therefore any Englishman, of what religion soever, have other opinion of these Spaniards or their abettors, but that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... colored people had taken possession of one of the large white churches of the day, located on Logon street, between Ashley and Church streets. Claude relates that all this was when Jacksonville was a mere village, with cow and hog pens in what was considered as downtown. The principal streets were: Pine (now Main), Market and Forsyth. The leading stores were Wilson's and Clark's. These stores handled groceries, dry goods ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... family Bible does not lie; but she'd never forgive me if she knew I told you that. So let it pass that she's twenty-six. She certainly is not more than three years your senior, a mere nothing, if you wish to make her Mrs. Holbrook;" and Guy's dark eyes scanned curiously the doctor's face, as if seeking there for the secret of his proud young stepmother's anxiety to visit plain Mrs. Conner that afternoon. But the doctor only laughed ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... not a rustic, for my mother, who was my principal instructor until I was about fourteen years of age, was a woman of refinement and culture. My mother and I lived at her father's house—a beautiful country home; but even while a mere child I became aware that there was some kind of an unpleasant secret in our family. My grandfather would never allow my father's name mentioned, and he had little love for me as his child; but my earliest recollections of ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour |
