"Mere" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the approach of a mere player would have given little concern. But Phoebe Wise, better knowing his unrivalled rank, was seized with a violent attack of diffidence, and in an instant she dodged behind the stone seat and sat in hiding with a ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... 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
... are besides these characters in our faces certain mystical figures in our hands, which I dare not call mere dashes, strokes a la volee or at random, because delineated by a pencil that never works in vain, and hereof I take more particular notice because I carry that in mine own hand which I could never read ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... displayed all the best qualities of a grand, noble, pure, and thoroughly musical style. His intonation was perfect, his tone large and pure, and boldness, vigour, deep and tender feeling characterised his performances. In fact he was no mere virtuoso but a true artist. His musical nature shows itself in his compositions, which are thoroughly suited to the nature of the violin, and have a noble, dignified character and considerable charm of melody, though they show only moderate ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... to prove it. Mere denials won't help you in the face of such evidence as we have that you were ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... start.... The complete lack of psychological cleanliness in the priest—revealed by a glance at him—is a phenomenon resulting from decadence,—one may observe in hysterical women and in rachitic children how regularly the falsification of instincts, delight in lying for the mere sake of lying, and incapacity for looking straight and walking straight are symptoms of decadence. "Faith" means the will to avoid knowing what is true. The pietist, the priest of either sex, is a fraud ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... was a Winfield who had married Abigail Weatherby, she dismissed the matter as mere coincidence, and determined, at all costs, to shield Miss Ainslie. The vision of that gracious lady came to her, bringing with it a certain uplift of soul. Instantly, she was placed far above the petty concerns of earth, like one who walks upon the ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... seen it a dozen times in the foregoing pages. Only when the nations cease to be diseased in themselves will they cease fighting with each other. And the disease of the modern nations is the disease of disunity—not, as I have already said, the mere existence of variety of occupation and habit, for that is perfectly natural and healthy, but the disease by which one class preys upon another and upon the nation—the disease of parasitism and selfish domination. The ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... Generation to Generation, which grey Hairs and tyrannical Custom continue to support; I hope your Spectatorial Authority will give a seasonable Check to the Spread of the Infection; I mean old Mens overbearing the strongest Sense of their Juniors by the mere Force of Seniority; so that for a young Man in the Bloom of Life and Vigour of Age to give a reasonable Contradiction to his Elders, is esteemed an unpardonable Insolence, and regarded as a reversing the Decrees of Nature. I am a young Man, I confess, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... gentlemen," said Sampson, as he now approached the discomfited officers. "Not much hurt, I hope," pointing with his own maimed and bleeding hand to the leg of Middlemore, which that officer, seated on the sand, was preparing to bind with a silk handkerchief. "Ah, a mere flesh wound. I see. Henry, Henry Grantham, my poor dear boy, what still alive after the desperate clutching of that fellow at your throat? But now that we have routed the enemy— must be off—drenched to the skin. No liquor on the stomach to keep out the cold. and if I once get an ague fit, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... him just leaving for his work, and told him, in a few words, what had happened. He was not so surprised as I thought he would be, for he was an old man, and knew more of all that was taking place in the country, than was possible for me, a mere boy." ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... William having a son and a daughter. "So that now we are major, minor, and minimus. I bless the Lord mine are pretty well,—Johnny lively; Tommy a lovely, large child; and my grandson, Springett, a mere Saracen; his sister, a beauty." Of his second marriage there were six children, four of whom—John, Thomas, Margaret, and Richard—became proprietors of Pennsylvania. Thomas had two sons, John and Granville; Richard had two, John and ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... gout; if my book can produce a laugh against itself or the author, it will be of some service. If it can set you to sleep, the benefit will be yet greater; and as some facetious personage observed half a century ago, that 'poetry is a mere drug,' I offer you mine as a humble assistant to the 'eau medicinale.' I trust you will forgive this and all my other buffooneries, and believe me to be, with ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... probably saved my life—an European officer, wounded and alone, might have tempted the avarice of some of the numerous and savage followers of an Indian army. In the cooler and calmer hours of reflection since, I have often thought that this appearance was a mere phantom, an illusion—the offspring of weakness: I saw it but for a moment, and too imperfectly to be assured of reality; and whatever I believed at the time seems now to have been a painting on the mind rather than an object of vision; but how that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... claws, we see by the event to what purpose they are, she so swiftly working herself under ground, and making her way so fast in the earth as they that behold it cannot but admire it. Her legs therefore are short, that she need dig no more than will serve the mere thickness of her body; and her fore feet are broad that she may scoop away much earth at a time; and little or no tail she has, because she courses it not on the ground, like the rat and mouse, of whose kindred ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... justice and public utility, and that every man has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And Jefferson did not flinch, as did many of his associates, from giving that right a full and general application to blacks as well as whites. Nor was he a mere doctrinaire. As he revolted from the abstract injustice of slavery, so its concrete abuses as he saw them, filled him with horror. He wrote: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." He described what ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... you may trust me, Austin, to consider more than mere happiness. I will do my best to make her such a woman as her dear mother was ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of the conflict Hannibal was not quite twenty-seven years of age. While yet a mere child, so the story went, his father had led him to the altar, and bade him swear by the Carthaginian gods eternal enmity to Rome. He followed his father to Spain and there learned all the duties of a soldier. As a master of the art of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... gracious in the midst of hostility, and his good dispositions would not allow him to act disgracefull in any concern, yet duty to God seemed a poet's flight to him. Educated in the forms of religion, without knowing its spirit, he despised them; and believing the Deity too wise to be affected by mere virtuous shows of any kind, his ignorance of the sublime benevolence, which disdains not to provide food even for the "sparrow ere it falls," made him think the Creator of all too great to care about the actions of men; hence, being without ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... These were mere trifles, but they went a long way with the recipients. Tom Mercer declared that the blade of the knife I gave him was the best bit of steel he ever saw. It wasn't: for, unless the edge was constantly renewed, there never was such a ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... that his friends could use their own judgment. His reply was what I have stated—better have the Republicans pass it and let it then go before the people. I thought it unworthy of him to subordinate such an issue, fraught with deplorable consequences, to mere party politics. It required the casting vote of the Speaker to carry the measure. One word from Mr. Bryan would have saved the country from the disaster. I could not be cordial to him for years afterwards. He had seemed to me a man who ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... him about France, "You believe, then; that the police agents foresee everything and know everything? They invent more than they discover. Mine, I believe, was better than that they have got now, and yet it was often only by mere chance, the imprudence of the parties implicated, or the treachery of some of them, that something was discovered after a week or fortnight's exertion." Napoleon, in directing this officer to transmit letters to him under the cover of a commercial correspondence, to quiet his ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... any one, who would not be deceived, by these "barren generalities" examine a little more closely, and he will find, that not to Christianity in particular, but at best to Religion in general, perhaps to mere Morality, their homage is intended to be paid. With Christianity, as distinct from these, they are little acquainted; their views of it have been so cursory and superficial, that far from discerning its characteristic essence, they have little more than perceived those exterior circumstances ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... first and foremost, a "good European"; he conceived of Europe as a body politic, bound in honour to regulate its own members. Isolation appeared to him a mere abandonment of the duty of civilized powers to maintain order in the civilized world. Corporate action was to be encouraged, because, in most cases, the mere threat of it would suffice either as between States to prevent wars of aggression, or as between ruler and ruled ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... neither rifle to shoot nor stone to pelt him with, I was looking eagerly after some missile for his benefit, when the report of a gun came from the camp, and the ball threw up the sand just beyond him; at this he gave a slight jump, and stretched away so swiftly that he soon dwindled into a mere speck on ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... rendered her immune to anything in the way of pain or trouble concerning others. Edgar Caswall was far too haughty a person, and too stern of nature, to concern himself about poor or helpless people, much less the lower order of mere animals. Mr. Watford, Mr. Salton, and Sir Nathaniel were all concerned in the issue, partly from kindness of heart—for none of them could see suffering, even of wild birds, unmoved—and partly on account of their property, ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... to the numbers and excellence of his siege engines, and to his own personal prestige. But Archimedes and his machines cared nothing for this, though he did not speak of any of these engines as being constructed by serious labour, but as the mere holiday sports of a geometrician. He would not indeed have constructed them but at the earnest request of King Hiero, who entreated him to leave the abstract for the concrete, and to bring his ideas within the comprehension of the people by ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... of getting off, actually relaxed his pace for the purpose of yielding himself a prisoner, when turning round he saw the savage stop also, and commence loading his gun. This inspired Bush with fear for the consequences, and renewing his flight he made his escape. Edward Tanner, a mere youth, was soon taken prisoner, and as he was being carried to their towns, met between twenty and thirty savages, headed by Timothy Dorman, proceeding to attack Buchannon fort. Learning from him that the inhabitants were moving ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... the pink of condition, Jack was telling himself as lie worked at something up in his den that morning. He had been chiefly concerned about Big Bob; but this last little interview with the fullback gave him renewed confidence. The mere fact that his father had at last mustered up enough interest in boys' sports to promise to attend the game at Marshall that afternoon had in itself inspired Bob to determine to do his family credit, if it came to him to ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... through eternity as well as time. Even the man of wealth who lives on the interest of his possessions is not necessarily a drone in the human hive. He may, by wise and careful use of his wealth, greatly increase the world's riches. By the mere management of it he may fill up his days with useful and happy employment, and by devoting it and himself to God he may so influence the world for good that men shall bless him while he lives and mourn him profoundly when he dies. But ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... dropping it down to despair—or, at any rate, down to dulness—when the skies are leaden. Also, in more extreme cases, the mental conditions will act on the physical, if not actually, at least with so good a show of reality as to appear genuine. If you are thoroughly unhappy—no mere, light, passing depression, mind you—it matters not at all how brilliant the sunshine may be, it is nothing but grey fog for all you see of it. If, on the other hand, you are in the seventh heaven of joy, ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... the stone replied with assurance, "why are you so excessively dull? The dynasties recorded in the rustic histories, which have been written from age to age, have, I am fain to think, invariably assumed, under false pretences, the mere nomenclature of the Han and T'ang dynasties. They differ from the events inscribed on my block, which do not borrow this customary practice, but, being based on my own experiences and natural feelings, present, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... vestige that might lead to the discovery of their retreat. This was on the 23d of January 1790. The island was then divided into nine equal portions amongst them a suitable spot of neutral ground being reserved for a village. The poor Otaheitans now found themselves reduced to the condition of mere slaves; but they patiently submitted, and everything went on peacefully for two years. About that time Williams, one of the seamen, having the misfortune to lose his wife, forcibly took the wife of one of the Otaheitans, ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... glad to remove the idea that science is the mere amassing of facts. It is true that scientific results grow out of facts, but not till they have been fertilized by thought The facts must be collected, but their mere accumulation will never advance the sum ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... I pursued, and I discovered at last that the Englishman, who had doubtless gained his information from the people of the country, was right; and that the shining appearance, which I had taken for water, was a mere deception. ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Philadelphia and watch Clinton closely from the heights of Morristown, while he threatened the position of the enemy in New York from West Point. In all the American Commander had no more than four thousand men, many of whom were raw recruits, mere boys, whose services had been procured for nine months for fifteen hundred dollars each. Georgia and the Carolinas were entirely reduced and it was only a question of time before the junction of the two armies ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... to see Joan Meredyth," said Ellice quietly. She and Helen did not like one another; they were both frank in their dislike. Helen looked down on Ellice as a person of no importance, who was entirely unwanted, a mere nuisance, someone ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... was separated from his questioner by a crowd of students pushing their way forward. It seemed as if these new arrivals had not come to the theatre for mere amusement. They glanced threateningly around them, as if seeking a concealed enemy. In passing Lupinus they greeted him with a few low-spoken words, or a warm pressure of ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... with the Duke of Buckingham himself as foreman; and, to the end that the country might be quite satisfied with the judge, and have ample security beforehand for his moderation and impartiality, it would be desirable, perhaps, to make such a slight change in the working of the law (a mere nothing to a Conservative Government, bent upon its end), as would enable the question to be tried before an Ecclesiastical Court, with the Bishop of Exeter presiding. The Attorney-General for Ireland, ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... words, laid hands on no man. We were, therefore, expecting no man-handling, and it came as a fearful shock. It is my impression that man-handling began in about four days' time, but it may be that some smaller incident, such as being thumped in the back by the guard, had passed unnoticed as being mere playfulness ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward
... 1991, Macedonia was the least developed of the Yugoslav republics, producing a mere 5% of the total federal output of goods and services. The collapse of Yugoslavia ended transfer payments from the central government and eliminated advantages from inclusion in a de facto free trade area. An absence of infrastructure, UN sanctions on the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... applied to a character which at some time in the evolutionary history of the species possessed importance, or functioned fully, but which has now lost its importance or its original use, so that it remains a mere souvenir of the past, in a degenerated condition. Example, the muscles ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... in Hampshire. It would therefore sometimes happen that he was driven to ask his brother for money. The hundred pounds which had been borrowed from Mr. Neefit had been sent down to Peele Newton with a mere deduction of L25 for current expenses. Twenty-five pounds do not go far in current expenses in London with a man who is given to be expensive, and Ralph Newton was again in want ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... judiciary. All sorts of novel questions were arising at that time, cases which had no precedents, which the English law-books did not reach, and where the man of native powers, pushing out like Columbus on the unknown, soon developed a sturdy strength and self-reliance the mere popinjay and student of the law could never get. Among the cases he argued was the British debt case, tried in 1793. The United States now had its Circuit Court, and Chief-justice Jay presided at Richmond. The treaty of ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... bad omen. Well, she stayed with my mother while we went abroad, and on our return went with us to be introduced at Knight Sutton. Everybody was charmed, Mrs. Langford and Aunt Roger had expected a fine lady or a blue one, but they soon learnt to believe all her gaiety and all her cleverness a mere calumny, and grandpapa was delighted with her the first moment. How well I remember Geoffrey's coming home and thanking us for having managed so well as to make her like one of the family, while the truth was that she had fitted herself in, and ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Miss Strong happened to be lecturing on "The Age of Elizabeth," a subject so congenial to her that she was generally most interesting. But to-day she had reached a rather dry and arid portion of that famous reign, and even her powers of description failed for once and the lesson became a mere catalogue of events and dates. Ingred, bored stiff with listening, secretly opened her desk, and, taking a selection of treasures from it, began to fondle them surreptitiously upon her lap. It was, of course, a quite illegal thing to do. ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... weather was very mild, and he knew the sheet of ice and snow that had covered the ground on his previous visit would not now exist to baffle him. But he did not want to enter the alley until darkness had fallen to offer him concealment, so abated his usual brisk pace to a mere saunter, and took careful note of the attitude of the people he passed. The streets were quiet enough, but the faces of the inhabitants were sullen and hostile, and Frank could read enmity in the glances cast ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... all very well to lay plans, but another matter to carry them out. Miss Gibbs usually locked the wire door behind her, only leaving it open when she went upstairs to fetch something and meant to return almost immediately. The mere fact of its difficulty increased Raymonde's zest for the adventure. Her wild, harum-scarum spirits welcomed the element of possible danger, and the imminence of discovery added an extra spice. For days she haunted the vicinity of the winding staircase, hiding ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... should there be the least failure in that, the whole is profaned and desecrated, and must be covered with a mourning-veil. Take my words to heart, signor; let us have a table covered with food the mere odor of which shall set our first gourmets in ecstatic astonishment, while its judicious arrangement will give pleasure to the poetic mind! This is what I expect of you, and if you succeed in satisfying my requirements, I am ready to ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... where desperate law breakers would choose as a hiding-place, after they had committed some crime, and expected a warm pursuit. Ordinary methods would never find them, save through a mere chance; but when one can copy the eagle, and mount to dizzy heights, with a pair of powerful glasses he can see almost everything that is going on for miles and miles around, provided he has a skilled companion along to manage the aeroplane ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... from their very weight. The vessels of observation, and even the lighter kind of barks, which went out through the spaces left under the flooring, which formed a communication between the ships, were at first run down by the mere momentum and bulk of the ships of war; and afterwards they proved a hindrance to the troops appointed to keep the enemy off; for as they mixed with the ships of the enemy, they were frequently under the necessity of withholding their weapons for fear, by a misdirected effort, they ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... substratum or support of those ideas we know." Yet he inclines on the whole toward materialism. "We have," he says, "the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks, or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether omnipotency has not given to some system of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter so disposed a thinking ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... a course of morals together. Yes, sir, MORALS! But do not be alarmed at the mere word, for there will be between us only the question of gallantry to discuss, and that, you know, sways morals to so high a degree that it deserves to be the subject of a special study. The very idea of such a ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... she would never be angry with you for a mere song! Your connections are so good, and Grandmamma thinks so ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... us notice some of the ways in which this is true. (1) The mere fact that population is dense increases the possibility that a citizen may interfere with the rights of his neighbors even in the conduct of ordinary business. (2) There is greater liability that public health and safety may be endangered, both in the homes and in the shops and factories of ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... ashamed of, in looking back; I remembered Preston's virulence, and his sudden flush when somebody had repeated the word "coward," which he had applied to Thorold. I felt certain that more had been between them than mere words, and that Preston found the recollection not flattering, whatever it was; and having come to this settlement of the matter, I looked ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... and again he tried to pray; but the habits of a whole life are not to be thrown off at will; and he who endeavors to regain, in his extremity, the moments that have been lost, will find, in bitter reality, that he has been heaping mountains on his own soul, by the mere practice of sin, which were never laid there by the original fall of his race. Jack, however, had disburthened her spirit of a load that had long oppressed it, and, burying her face in the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... character the public school has come to be a most important factor. To it has been assigned a task equal to any other agency that deals with human nature. But in multitudes of cases it has become a mere mill for grinding out graduates. The "system" has largely lost sight of the grandest thing in all the world—the individual soul. It addresses itself to child-humanity collectively, as if characters were manufactured, like pins, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... a double character. It is not a mere novel; for it contains, in addition to its story, a sketch of the course of public affairs in Rome during the three memorable years from the accession of Pius IX. to the fall of the Republic and the entry of the French troops into the city, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... the sultan kept his promise by returning, but the animals he brought were weak and useless, and I could plainly see I was being trifled with, and detained here for the mere purpose of being robbed in an indirect manner, so that no accusation could be laid against any one. Nothing, I may say, in all my experiences, vexes the mind so much as feeling one's self injured in a way that cannot be prevented or avenged. Some might take such matters quietly, but ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... money to establish Monty in the homes of his ancestors at Montdidier Towers and Kirkudbrightshire Castle; for that would have been an unbelievable amount; it takes more than mere affluence to keep up an earldom in the proper style. But ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... what I could hear, but just at the point of greatest interest, half of the time, I lost your cadence," is more than any man can bear for a long time, and so he resorts to loud tones and monotonous cadences, and he is obliged to think, much of the time, more of the mere dry fact of being heard, than of the themes that should pour themselves out in full unfolding ease and freedom. I have fought through my whole professional life against this criticism, striving to keep some freedom and nature in my speech, though I have made ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... circumstances were not yet favourable for refusing a share in the Constitution to this third portion of power, destined apparently to advocate the interests of the people before the legislative body. But in yielding to necessity, the mere idea of the Tribunate filled him with the utmost uneasiness; and, in a word, Bonaparte could not endure the public ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... in nearly all French fiction. The mark of the beast is set on not a little of the work done by the strongest men in France. M. Meilhac is too clean and too clever ever to delve in indecency from mere wantonness: he has no liking for vice, but his virtue sits easily on him, and though he is sound on the main question, he looks upon the vagaries of others with a gentle eye. M. Halevy, it seems to me, is made of somewhat sterner stuff. He raises a warning voice now and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... gratefully of Anne. But here he was again at war with her, and the curious part of it seemed to be that he couldn't undertake the warfare with the old, steady, hopeless persistence he had got used to in their past; the mere thought of it had roused him to a ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... assumption that the word as used above refers more to the EXPRESSION, of, rather than to a meaning in a deeper sense—which may be a feeling influenced by some experience perhaps of a spiritual nature in the expression of which the intellect has some part. "The nearer we get to the mere expression of emotion," says Professor Sturt in his "Philosophy of Art and Personality," "as in the antics of boys who have been promised a holiday, the further we get away ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... concerning the Second Person of the Trinity were disputes regarding His nature and the relation in which He stands to the Father. Certain heretics affirmed that Jesus was a mere man, selected by God and specially endowed with the gift of His Spirit. Others maintained that Christ was not God, but a created spirit, nearest to the Father in dignity, who took upon Him human nature, and, having finished the ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... rank—the most noteworthy among his feminine correspondents being Lady Louisa Stuart (sister of the Marquis of Bute and grand-daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) and Lady Abercorn. With the former the correspondence is always on the footing of mere though close friendship, literary and other; in part at least of that with Lady Abercorn, I cannot help suspecting the presence, especially on the ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... himself even when thrown off his balance. And to become the slave of a treasure with full self-knowledge is an occurrence rare and mentally disturbing. But it was also in a great part because of the difficulty of converting it into a form in which it could become available. The mere act of getting it away from the island piecemeal, little by little, was surrounded by difficulties, by the dangers of imminent detection. He had to visit the Great Isabel in secret, between his voyages along the coast, which were the ostensible ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... times, whose name is already inscribed on the tablets of immortality, and whose fame already extends over the earth, although as yet only in its infancy. Scarcely have two decades passed away since he ceased to dwell among men, yet he now stands before us, not as a mere individual, like those whom the world is wont to call great, but as a type, as an emblem—the recognised emblem and representative of the human mind in its present ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... justice, court, and coin. Coin is money. So that you, excepting in this last, are as much a king in your lordship as he is in his kingdom. You have the right, as a baron, to a gibbet with four pillars in England; and, as a marquis, to a scaffold with seven posts in Sicily: that of the mere lord having two pillars; that of a lord of the manor, three; and that of a duke, eight. You are styled prince in the ancient charters of Northumberland. You are related to the Viscounts Valentia ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... long, silent minute. Such minutes are really longer than other minutes, if you measure them by heartbeats, and how else are you to measure them? Strange, breathless minutes, that settle grave questions irrevocably by the mere fact of their passing, whether you watch them pass with open eyes or are helpless and young and vaguely afraid before them; helpless, but full of the untaught strength of youth, which works miracles without knowing ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... when he told us so softly and plaintively that, if we pleased, spring had come? Indeed, there is nothing in the return of the birds more curious and suggestive than in the first appearance, or rumors of the appearance, of this little blue-coat. The bird at first seems a mere wandering voice in the air: one hears its call or carol on some bright March morning, but is uncertain of its source or direction; it falls like a drop of rain when no cloud is visible; one looks and listens, but to no purpose. The weather changes, perhaps a cold snap with snow comes ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... though it seems incredible! You are under the impression that the drug this jade stole was the remedium of Ibn Jasher, the one incomparable and sovereign result of long years of study and research? You believe that I kept this in a mere locked box, the key accessible by all who knew my habits, and the treasure at the mercy of the first thief! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! If I said it a thousand times I could not express my astonishment. I might be the vine ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... colour, too, before seven years are over—and that is more than I can do, or any one else. No; I yield to the new dynasty. The artist's occupation is gone henceforth, and the painter's studio, like 'all charms, must fly, at the mere touch of cold philosophy.' So Major Campbell prepares the charming little cockyoly birds, and I call in ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... take it and read it through in a leisurely manner, pausing merely to enjoy its beauty, to smile at its playfulness and to feel our hearts expand under the benign influence of the grand old man Prospero. Now Miranda, Ferdinand and Ariel have passed the line of mere acquaintances, and have become to us fast friends, who, though they may be forever silent, have yet given us a fragment of their lives to cheer us on ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... notwithstanding the variety of climate and soil in the northern State;, every State and territory in the Union produces some tobacco. In many of the States its cultivation is, of course, a secondary object, and perhaps in several it is attended to as a mere matter of curiosity; but in most of the States, probably a sufficient quantity has been grown, to show that with attention to this object, it might, in case of necessity, be resorted to as a profitable crop. The States in which the great bulk of the crop is grown ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... mere animal indulgence?—Well might cherubim shrink from assuming responsibilities thus momentous! Yet, how many parents tread this holy ground completely unprepared, and almost as thoughtlessly and ignorantly ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... concluding stanza is worthy of so fine an ode. The beginning was awakening and striking; the ending is soothing and solemn—Are you serious when you ask whether you shall admit this ode? it would be strange infatuation to leave out your Chatterton; mere insanity to reject this. Unless you are fearful that the splendid thing may be a means of "eclipsing many a softer satellite" that twinkles thro' the volume. Neither omit the annex'd little poem. For my part, detesting alliterations, I ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... bit of street with heavy stone houses opening upon a stretch of the city wall, with a Lombardy poplar rising slim against it,—you say, to your satisfied soul, "Yes, it is the real thing!" and then all at once a sense of that Northern sky strikes in upon you, and makes the reality a mere picture. The sky is blue, the sun is often fiercely hot; you could not perhaps prove that the pathetic radiance is not an efflux of your own consciousness that summer is but hanging over the land, briefly poising on wings which ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... for their delectation and amusement. No band of enthusiastic pilgrims ever started in such high feather to see a dramatic and terpsichorean feast as did we. There was an expression of mystery and expectancy on every face. Mary Garden and all she does would be a mere flea bite to what we should see of pure and simple naughtiness. But alack and alas for our blasted hopes and the human weakness that had been worked on by the adroit press agent! The show was a "fake:" ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... the village, retreat being obviously far too dangerous, and the only likely safe course being to follow up the chance success. Sleep another night in the open among the mosquitoes and wild beasts, besides making us wretched at the mere suggestion, was likely to bring us all down with fever. We preferred the thought of fever to the loneliness; for man is unlike all other nomads, and that is why the dog takes kindly to him; he must have a home of his own—a ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... his son Joseph to the Lords of Verona, which has been so convincingly disproved by several writers. The world has been for some time pretty well satisfied that these two illustrious scholars were mere impostors in the claim they made, that Joseph Scaliger's letter to Janus Dousa was a very impudent affair. If your correspondent has met with any new evidence in support of their claim, it would gratify me much if he would make it known. Who would not derive pleasure ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... Hills, May Hill and the Malvern Hills. In lithological character it varies greatly; in one place it is a dark grey, somewhat crystalline limestone, elsewhere it passes into a flaggy, earthy or shaly condition, or even into a mere layer of nodules. When well developed it may reach 50 ft. in thickness in beds of from 1 to 5 ft.; in this condition it naturally forms a conspicuous feature in the landscape because it stands out by its superior hardness from the soft shales above ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... estuarine conditions, and, out of the Oxfordshire district, in Sussex, in fluviatile accumulations. Was it fitted to live exclusively in water? Such an idea was at one time entertained, in consequence of the biconcave character of the caudal vertebrae, and it is often suggested by the mere magnitude of the creature, which would seem to have an easier life while floating in water, than when painfully lifting its huge bulk, and moving with slow steps along the ground. But neither of these arguments is valid. The ancient earth was trodden ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... and unexpected attacks made at Trenton and Princeton, had a much more extensive influence than would be supposed from a mere estimate of the killed and taken. They saved Philadelphia for the winter; recovered the state of Jersey; and, which was of still more importance, revived the drooping spirits of the people, and gave a perceptible ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Delft plaques to be hung on the wall in place of pictures, and of Delft tiles, many of the common people for the first time awakened to the discovery that the interiors of their houses might be made attractive, and something more than mere shelters from cold and storm. They began buying vases and crude pottery ornaments, images of flower-girls, fishermen, and of the saints. In Holland people even hung Delft plaques on the walls of their stables. It was a new thought ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... consciousness; Madame de Svign, the epistolary queen, had for her central motive of all speculation and gossip the love of her daughter; Madame Guyon eliminated her tenets from the ecstasy of self-love; Rochefoucauld derived a set of philosophical maxims from the lessons of mere worldly disappointment; Calvin sought to reform society through the stern bigotry of a private creed; La Bruyre elaborated generic characters from the acute, but narrow observation of artificial society; Boileau ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... seat, and walked several times across the room: at length, attaining more composure, he cried—"What a mere infant I am! Why, Sir, I never felt thus in the day of battle." "No," said Temple; "but the truly brave soul is tremblingly alive to the ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... himself, reposing on his waistcoat. And being thus appealed to, he looked up and rubbed his eyes as if he had been dozing, though he never had been more wide awake, as I, who knew his attitudes, could tell. And my eyes filled with tears of love and shame, for I knew by the mere turn of his chin that he ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... in possession of a large room with a green marble floor and carved marble wainscoting, which was so stately in its appearance that it would have awed anyone else. Jim accepted it as a mere detail, and at his command the attendants gave his coat a good rubbing, combed his mane and tail, and washed his hoofs and fetlocks. Then they told him dinner would be served directly and he replied that they could not serve it too quickly to suit his convenience. ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... other changes. The smile which had won many a woman was replaced by a self-conscious smirk; the debonair manner which had charmed all who met him was now a mere bravado. His dress, too, showed the strain. While his collar and neckwear were properly looked after, and his face was clean-shaven, other parts of his make-up, especially his shoes and hat, were ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... us for much that follows; but Mr. Crawley leaves the point itself untouched, except by implication, until he is in the middle of his book, and then we have his dictum that "it may be finally asserted that nothing which has to do with human needs ever survives as a mere survival."[215] It will at once be seen that we have here a new estimate of the force which survivals play in the evidence of human progress. They prove the continuity of modern and primitive culture. They are part and parcel ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... Was it a mere passing resemblance, or a fancied one, or was the face I saw for just an instant at one of those upper windows the face of the little brunette adventuress who had laid claim to Miss Jenrys' bag? If so, she had been scanning the increasing crowd ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... has great attractions, and her parents see much company," said Mrs. Bulstrode "Gentlemen pay her attention, and engross her all to themselves, for the mere pleasure of the moment, and that drives off others. I think it is a heavy responsibility, Mr. Lydgate, to interfere with the prospects of any girl." Here Mrs. Bulstrode fixed her eyes on him, with an unmistakable purpose of ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... to play. By this plan I discovered at our first interview that she was the daughter of one Numerian, that she was on the point of completing her fourteenth year, and that she was called Antonina. I had only succeeded in gaining this mere outline of her story, when, as if struck by some sudden apprehension, she tore herself from me with a look of the utmost terror, and entreating me not to follow her if I ever desired to see her again, she ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... of that morning—she had spelled it out for herself at breakfast—had spoken of a defeat of the insurrectionary forces, and of their withdrawal into the highlands of Bosnia. There would be a lull in the fighting. Would he come home? And all this time had he been the mere spectator and reporter, or fighting, himself? Her pulses leaped as she thought of him leading ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... He must have driven us nearly to Harlem Mere. It is the Mere! See the cafe lights yonder. It all looks ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... before Thomas was fully ready to meet Hood. For to make his demonstration early enough and as convincing as possible to the people of the South and all the world, it was important to move at once, and to show that his march was not a mere rapid raid, but a deliberate march of a formidable army capable of crushing anything that might get in its way, and that without waiting for anything that might occur in its rear. Such a march of such an army might well have been sufficient to convince everybody that the United ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... this to me—that he has nobody else to stand up for him," stuttered Roland, so excited as to impede his utterance. "We were both in the same office, and the shameful charge might have been cast upon me, as it was cast upon him. It was mere chance. Channing is as innocent of it as you, mother; he is as innocent as that precious dean, who has been wondering whether he shall dismiss him from the Cathedral. A ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... have contributed, that the master should be protected when, in all probability, he never intended to produce so fatal a result? But the phrase "he is his money" has been adduced to show that Hebrew servants were regarded as mere things, "chattels personal;" if so, why were so many laws made to secure their rights as men, and to ensure their rising into equality and freedom? If they were mere things, why were they regarded as responsible beings, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... in pain, and perhaps he bore it ill; he feared that the nurses thought so too—that Corydon called too often for something, or cried out too much in mere aimless misery. ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... social body is no more liable to arbitrary changes than the individual body.—A full perception of the truth that society is not a mere aggregate, but an organic growth, that it forms a whole, the laws of whose growth can be studied apart from those of the individual atom, supplies the most characteristic postulate of modern speculation.—L. STEPHEN, Science of Ethics, 31. Wie in dem Leben der einzelnen ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... you see that dishonesty belongs exclusively to no age or nation. It has existed in the past, and will continue to exist, until men, becoming more and more highly educated, will be moved by nobler ambition than the mere spirit of gain. I believe there is such a ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... remembrance. Then, too, they were always getting lost, for Myra Nell had a way of scattering other things than her affections. She had often likened her dresses to an army of Central American troops, for mere ragged abundance in which there lay no real fighting strength. Having been molded to fit the existing fashions in ladies' clothes, and bred to a careless extravagance, poverty brought the girl many complexities ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... to reason. Lipsius, Cent. 1, Epist. 50, in his observations, taken from others, writes more concerning them than I can confirm, or than any can credit, as I conceive; yet I can vouch for many things which seem to be acts of reason rather than of mere brute sense, which we call instinct. For instance, an elephant will do almost any thing which his keeper commands. If he would have him terrify a man, he will make towards him as if he meant to tread him in pieces, yet does him no hurt. If he would have him to abuse a man, he will take up dirt, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... very violent and imperious in her temper, and had long been accustomed to rule those around her with a very high hand; and now, without properly considering that Nero had passed beyond the age in which he could be treated as a mere boy, she attacked him at once with the bitterest reproaches and invectives, and insisted that his connection with Acte should be immediately abandoned. Nero resisted her, and stoutly refused to comply with her demands. ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... her own insignificance went through Dinah. She could not remember that he had ever regarded her thus before. A faint, faint throb of resentment also pulsed through her. His attitude was so suggestive of the mere casual acquaintance. Surely—surely ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... forfeit L500, with full costs of suit, one moiety to the crown, and the other to the informer. Prize, according to jurists, is altogether a creature of the crown; and no man can have any interest but what he takes as the mere gift of the crown. Partial interest has been granted away at different times, but the statute of Queen Anne (A.D. 1708) is the first which gave to the captors the whole ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... to all scruples, was on a level with every situation, and at the height of all parties. The Girondists, new to state affairs, required men well conversant in the details of war and finance departments, and who yet were the mere tools of their government: Claviere was one of these. In the war office they had De Grave, by whom the king had replaced Narbonne. De Grave, who from the subaltern ranks of the army had been raised to the post of minister of war, had declared relations ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... stooping shoulders. But the expression on the face was even stranger than the sudden apparition. It was an expression of keen and poignant disappointment—as of a man whom fate has baulked of some well-planned end, his due by right, which mere chance ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... left and upper right parts of the letter, so that the space enclosed by the two arcs resembles an ellipse leaning to the left at an angle of about 45 deg., thus {O}. What is true of the {O} is true of other curved strokes. The strokes are often very short, mere touches of pen to parchment, like brush work. Often they are unconnected, thus giving a mere suggestion of the form. The attack or fore-stroke as well as the finishing stroke is a ...
— A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger • Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand
... thought he had loved, until he cared for her, but in the light of the new passion he sees clearly that the others were mere, idle flirtations. To her surprise, she also discovers that he has loved her a long time but has never dared to speak of it before, and that this feeling, compared with the others, is as wine unto water. In her presence he is uplifted, exalted, and often ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... Indians, and reduce his magnificent cities to small Indian villages. In order to make the island of Mexico at all inhabitable, we have had to reduce his lakes from navigable basins of twelve feet or more in depth to mere evaporating ponds. His floating islands have been transformed into garden-beds built upon the mud; and his canals have sunk to mere ditches. Now I propose to be liberal to the old Conquistador in the matter of his famous causeways, and will therefore ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... eyes. But on that occasion she verily directed some one to give me several hundreds of cash. 'I was to be pitied,' she observed, 'for being born with a weak physique!' This was, indeed, an unforeseen piece of good luck! The several hundreds of cash are a mere trifle; but what's not easy to get is this sort of honour! After that, we went over into Madame Wang's. Madame Wang was, at the time, with our lady Secunda, Mrs. Chao, and a whole lot of people; turning the boxes topsy-turvey, trying ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the little Belgravians to come; and if these are the necessaries of life (and they are with many honest people), to talk of any other arrangement is an absurdity: of love in lodgings—a babyish folly of affection: that can't pay coach-hire or afford a decent milliner—as mere wicked balderdash and childish romance. If on the other hand your opinion is that people, not with an assured subsistence, but with a fair chance to obtain it, and with the stimulus of hope, health, and strong affection, may take the chance of Fortune for better or worse, and share its ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... beaming with eternal youth, with extraordinary intelligence and penetration. And then there was a resolute bracing of his entire person, a consciousness of the eternity which he represented, a regal nobility, born of the very circumstance that he was now but a mere breath, a soul set in so pellucid a body of ivory that it became visible as though it were already freed from the bonds of earth. And Pierre realised what such a man—the Sovereign Pontiff, the king obeyed by two hundred and fifty millions of subjects—must be for the devout and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Chin Chi, who looked a very different person when dressed in bright-coloured robes and a gay cap. He had got a similar dress for Jerry and me. He told Captain Frankland that he could not venture to invite him on shore, but that, as we were mere boys, he might take ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... adjective after he and his wealth have disappeared from the public view. It is different with the reputation of an equally great financier who has used his ability for the service of his country. There is no Valhalla for the mere accumulators of money. They are fortunate if their names are forgotten, and not remembered as illustrations ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... is not so. I used no name. My books have still been taught To spare the persons, and to speak the vices. These are mere slanders, and enforced by such As have no safer ways to men's disgraces. But their own lies and loss of honesty: Fellows of practised and most laxative tongues, Whose empty and eager bellies, in the year, Compel their ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... striking than to find this here. We are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature, a family failing, a matter of temperament, not a thing to take into very serious account in estimating a man's character. And yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love, it finds a place; and the ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... as far as Priscilla could see, blessed were they who were not called upon to assist in the scheme. To her eyes all days seemed to be days of wrath, and all times, times of tribulation. And it was all mere vanity and vexation of spirit. To go on and bear it till one was dead,—helping others to bear it, if such help might be of avail,—that was her theory of life. To make it pleasant by eating, and drinking, and dancing, or even by falling in love, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope |
