"Merit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and that so very full, that one drop more would have made it spill over. Then he made the sign that they might introduce the candidate. He appeared with that modest and simple air which always accompanies true merit. The president rose, and without saying a word, he pointed out to him with an afflicted air, the emblematic cup, the cup so exactly full. The doctor apprehended the meaning that there was no room for him in the academy; but taking courage, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various
... unattainable. It is to console some of these dissatisfied beings that we are narrating our dear Becky's struggles, and triumphs, and disappointments, of all of which, indeed, as is the case with all persons of merit, she ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and had his foot slipped, he must have been dashed to pieces: the place was crowded with persons who were in raptures; yet had the man been dancing on level ground, he would have danced far better; and the merit of the dancer seemed to consist in his giving the audience a chance of seeing him break his neck or dash his brains out! If a foreigner were to announce that he would dance on a pack-thread, he would ruin the ropedancer; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... institutions of this description, may perhaps give this hospital an advantage over one situated in the centre of a large city like London; though the semi-insular position of Boston must render space there comparatively valuable; but even this cannot take away from the merit of the people in showing such attention to the comforts of the needy sick. But what papa was most pleased with, was the provision made, on the plan which has been often tried in London, but never with ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... sawdust? Not the talking-over stranger. Yet the house is as free to him as if it was his, and he has his room, and is put upon a footing, and draws about a thousand a year. I am banished to the Bower, to be found in it like a piece of furniture whenever wanted. Merit, therefore, don't win. That's the way it works. I observe it, because I can't help observing it, being accustomed to take a powerful sight of notice; but I don't object. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... myself, having no one else to whom I can murmur it confidentially,—for DAUBINET, having a knowledge of the house, has disappeared down some mysterious passage in order to examine and choose our rooms,—"there is, indeed, some merit in being jolly." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... seen the state of the mothers, wives, and children of the men who were going and should have heard the sobs. It seems as though mankind has forgotten the laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of injuries—and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... played by each person drawing, say, twenty letters haphazard, and trying to form them into a phrase or sentence, the palm of merit being awarded to the player who, at the same time, produces the most coherent phrase, and also succeeds in using the greatest proportion of ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... occupy the whole of the second floor are extensive, well-lighted, and with a more careful and systematic arrangement of the pictures would be of considerable value to students of art. Valenciennes certainly had painters of merit before the sixteenth century. One of these, celebrated by Froissart, Maitre Andre, was both a sculptor and a painter. In 1364 he became 'imagier' of Charles V. of France. The statues of that king, of Jeanne de Bourbon his ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... indicated to the initiated that the boys had won distinction and were entitled to the honors in Seamanship, Life Saving, Stalking and Signaling. On the jacket of the one addressed as "Jack" were insignia that betokened his rank as Scout Master and also as Star Scout. These had been won by sheer merit. ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... this monument, there is another of some interest and artistic merit. It is to the memory of Percival Smalpace and Agnes his wife, whose boldly sculptured heads are projecting from separate panels above the tablet containing the inscription. This is chiefly in Latin, and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell in order to equal the ox. After all, this pride of appearance can not promote health, nor ease pain; it makes no increase of merit in the person; it creates ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... nothing to obtain exact information, and transmit it to their journal in the shortest possible time. The newspapers of the Union, such as the New York Herald, are genuine powers, and their reporters are men to be reckoned with. Gideon Spilett ranked among the first of those reporters: a man of great merit, energetic, prompt and ready for anything, full of ideas, having traveled over the whole world, soldier and artist, enthusiastic in council, resolute in action, caring neither for trouble, fatigue, nor danger, when in pursuit of information, for himself ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... shilling, but by a piece of pantomime she showed that she wanted me to lift my hat to her. So I lifted it, and when I looked behind she had her head in the air and her neighbour was gazing at her awestruck. These little creatures are really not without merit. ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... the God of the evolutionary process is as much a myth as is the god of special creation. He has all the blemishes of the other one—one step removed. The Paleyan God had at least the merit of coming to close grips with his work. The evolutionary one shields himself behind the fact that the work is done by his agents, and then it is found that he created the agents for this special work and all that they do is the product of the qualities with which ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... the works of their less gifted contemporaries, as they are in themselves. Apart from their historical significance, however, all these poems have intrinsic interest, and several, including Dom Diego, Mirrha and Hiren as well as Philos and Licia, have a considerable degree of literary merit as well. Whoever the author of Philos and Licia may have been, he was one who had thoroughly assimilated the conventions of the minor epic, especially those employed in Hero and Leander.[50] Unlike Page, whose imitation of Marlowe is ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... more terrible than the sense of superiority to others. It arises, not from merit or the consciousness of merit, but from sheer tin-like flimsiness of character. It arises from limited sympathies. The really great man, and the really sagacious man, is one to whom nothing is contemptible. To him, even the follies of his fellow-passengers ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... modern drama itself, will be comprehended by only a small number of persons; and it is a pity to tell the tale to a public which cannot enter into its local merit. But who can flatter himself that he will ever be understood? We all die unknown—'tis the saying of ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... families, and the senate out of the kosmoi. And the same observations which may be made on the senate at Lacedaemon may be applied to these; for their being under no control, and their continuing for life, is an honour greater than they merit; and to have their proceedings not regulated by a written law, but left to their own discretion, is dangerous. (As to there being no insurrections, although the people share not in the management of public affairs, this is ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... this single detail, are of much interest to euhemerists pure and simple. The late Sir Daniel Wilson's "Caliban"[11] teems with the realistic doctrine, and so also does a work of (in my opinion) less equal merit, "The Pedigree of the Devil,"[12] by Mr. Frederic T. Hall. In Mr. R.G. Haliburton's "Dwarfs of Mount Atlas: with notes as to Dwarfs and Dwarf Worship,"[13] and also in his "Further Notes"[14] on that subject, the same idea is prominent. All of these writers, with ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... and other crimes! But that arn't for the like o' me to speak of now. I'm a dying man, and trust soon to be in a better world. Ef I ever did you wrong, Simon Girty, I don't remember it now; and I'm very sartin I never did nothing to merit this. You came to my house, and war treated to the best I had, and here am I in return for't. Howsomever, the reckoning's got to come yit atween you and your God; and ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... in His justice removed in this striking way his only witness, as a punishment for his sins and his mad indulgence in acts so little short of crime as to partake of its guilt and merit its obloquy? ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... a work was published in London with the following title: "The Question of Witchcraft Debated; or, a Discourse against their Opinions that affirm Witches." It is a work of great merit, and would do honor to a scholar and logician of the present day. The author was John Wagstaffe, of Oxford University: he is described as a crooked, shrivelled, little man, of a most despicable appearance. This circumstance, together with his writings ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... necessarily include me as a principal object in the measures censured, of the falsehood of which I have the most unqualified consciousness.... I acknowledge that I cannot be entirely patient under charges which impeach the integrity of my public motives or conduct. I feel that I merit them in no degree, and expressions of indignation sometimes escape me in spite of every effort to suppress them." There were only two men in the country whom he could have had in mind when he wrote such words as these. In all Washington's career ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... Ulf's story," the armourer said when they reached the shadow of the cathedral. "It is to him that the matter was committed, and though he was forced to take me into his confidence, the merit of following up the matter, if merit there ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... always been accustomed to "go her household ways" in her own country. She did not choose to adopt English fashions because she was obliged to live in England; she adhered to her old Belgian modes, quite satisfied that there was a merit ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... teachers continually boasting of their spirit of toleration. That those persons should tolerate all opinions, who think none to be of estimation, is a matter of small merit. Equal neglect is not impartial kindness. The species of benevolence which arises from contempt is no true charity. There are in England abundance of men who tolerate in the true spirit of toleration. They think the dogmas of religion, though in different degrees, are ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the best proofs of feminine ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... That this committee present their cordial thanks to the said young ladies for so spirited a performance; look upon these resolutions to be sensible and polite; that they merit the honor, and are worthy the imitation of every young lady ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... is not only one of the most picturesque and striking instances of stage effect to be found in the ancient or modern drama, but by the skilful manner in which it is prepared, it has, wonderful as it appears, all the merit of consistency and truth. The grief, the love, the remorse and impatience of Leontes, are finely contrasted with the astonishment and admiration of Perdita, who, gazing on the figure of her mother like one entranced, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... husbands, and from their rich and varied experience did excellent execution. In order to secure opposition, I used to let the negative open and close, other wise the debate was sure to be tame or no debate at all. In all my experience it was the same; the "affirmative" had the merit and the argument. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... they never suggest that the lowest of them is not perfectly suited to the highest position! Those occupying any station above the lowest have got there merely by superior luck and favoritism, not merit—that is what they preach." ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... By hands that used their country's ark to bear? This hateful truckling to misguided power, Combined in palace, temple, hall, and bower, To crush an outcast Queen, with evidence By facts refuted, ridiculed by sense?— Tales that would merit but an equal fate, Told of the veriest wench in Billingsgate! FATHERS! and BRITONS! whence this alien band Of miscreant lechers bribed from sea and land?— By England spurn'd, yet plied with England's gold, Till every scoundrel's stock of oaths ...
— The Ghost of Chatham; A Vision - Dedicated to the House of Peers • Anonymous
... approach this epoch without doing homage to Henry Adams, whose "History of the United States," 9 vols. (1889-1891), is at once a literary performance of extraordinary merit and a treasure-house of information. Skillfully woven into the text is documentary material from foreign archives which Adams, at great expense, had transcribed and translated. Intimate accounts of Washington and its society may ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... may be clouded by adversity, but cannot be wholly concealed; for true merit shines by a light of its own, and, glimmering through the rents and crannies of indigence, is perceived, respected, and honored by ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... family distresses. The least of these considerations always inclined Butler to measures of conciliation, in so far as he could accede to them without compromising principle; and thus our simple and unpretending heroine had the merit of those peacemakers, to whom it is pronounced as a benediction, that they ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... merit in the Texan's suggestion. Drew, from past experience, knew that. His only hesitation was Boyd. The youngster was right. Short of subduing him physically and taking him back tied to his saddle through the spreading Union web, Drew had ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... endeared to my memory as having shown me the earliest of George Stephenson's great works—the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. This magazine has now passed away, but it has been amply replaced by others of equal merit, carrying out its principles of giving a sound and cheap literature to the people; it was a boon to all who cared for instruction, and at the same time had to take care of a penny. Now we have our daily papers at a penny, ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... pleas'd, and words as light as air, Which scarce could claim regard from FOLLY'S ear; O'er-weening arts, which, tho' in smiles array'd, By base-born fears have ever been betray'd; A few fair deeds, whose merit has been lost In selfish ends, or Pharisaic boast; Soft, gentle Phrases, and meek, smiling Lies, Which could not veil his bare hypocrisies; Dull hours of Courtship with the unwilling Fair, Who wonder'd rosy Love was never there; Curses pour'd forth upon the nuptial hour, Which sadly ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... from Cairo, advise him to go, at a venture, on the said voyage with him; and I believe they were acquainted at Cairo where he has been several years; and not only in Egypt and Syria, but almost through all the known world, and thence by reason of his merit is esteemed another Amerigo Vespucci, another Fernando Magellan and even more; and we hope that being provided with other good ships and vessels, well built and properly victualed, he may discover some profitable ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... its skirts, and, of course, we could only look at it. Its cathedral church loomed up; and we longed to see its interior, where Vandyke's greatest picture—the Crucifixion—is found in the altar. The tower shows well at a distance. The other churches have some pictures of great merit, by Rubens. After passing Mechlin, we saw at our right a large town, lying, perhaps, two miles off, and then a still smaller one to the left, and a fine old castle, which looked in good preservation. The road led us through ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... in prison, but the Protector had given orders, that they should be provided with handsome apartments, and every comfort compatible with confinement at the public expence. But though Monthault took on himself the merit of this lenient treatment, the prejudices of the whole family against him formed an insuperable bar to his designs. His change of conduct was too pointedly obtrusive; his piety and penance too ostentatious to pass on a man who was thoroughly conversant with the marks of genuine ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... would be an impropriety to mention in general orders a service such as you have rendered. To do so might subject you to greater peril, or to ill treatment were you to fall into the hands of the enemy. I needed no fresh proof of your merit to bear it in remembrance. No one can feel more sensibly the value of your gallant conduct, or ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... Lord St. Vincent, dated the 19th of April, Admiral Nelson says, speaking of Captain Le Gros.—"If his account be correct (he was then upon his trial), he had great merit for the order in which the ship was kept. The fire must have originated from medicine chests breaking, or from wet getting down, which caused the things to heat. The preservation of the crew ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... but also from the evidence it affords of the care and unremitting labor evinced by modern astronomers in the investigation and comparison of the older calculations, and the ingenious application of the results thus obtained to the observation of new facts. The merit of having paved the way for the discovery of the planet Neptune is due to M. Bouvard, who, in his persevering and assiduous efforts to deduce the entire orbit of Uranus from observations made during the forty years that succeeded the discovery of that planet in 1781, found the results yielded ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... officers nearing certain camp-fires felt caucuses dissolving at their approach into an innocence of debating societies engaged with Fabius Maximus or Scipio Africanus. Certain sergeants and corporals dreamed bars instead of chevrons, and certain high privates, conscious of merit, saw worsted chevrons, silk chevrons, and gold bars all in one ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... merely guides to the reader in long bibliographies and bibliographies containing works of very unequal merit. ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... me not, oh, mighty Spirit! Thou canst make the blind to see; Witnesser of Jesus' merit, Speak the word of power ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... proprietress by this sudden invasion of Gillray's favourite subjects. But Burke reassured her with a smile: "Were I to prosecute you it would be the making of your fortune; and that favour, excuse me, Mrs. Humphrey, you do not entirely merit at my hands." ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... substance of our existence here," add they, with tremendous emphasis, as if they had no hand in producing the sad catalogue. The trouble is, we set too high a value on our own merits; we imagine ourselves deserving of great favours and privileges, while we are doing nothing to merit them. In this respect, we are not altogether unlike the young man in the parable, who, by-the-by, was also a professor—he professed very loudly of having done all those good things "from his youth up." But when the command came, "go sell all thou hast, and give to the poor," &c., it soon took ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... him a walking, breathing, incarnate proof of the efficacy of prayer. I was a little fascinated by it—and then, could I have argued with him? You don't argue against such evidence, and besides it would have looked as if I had wanted to claim all the merit. Already his gratitude was simply frightful. Funny position, wasn't it? The boredom came later, when we lived together on board his ship. I had, in a moment of inadvertence, created for myself a tie. How to define it precisely I don't know. One gets ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... and VI. and was killed at the battle of Verneuil. Joseph Hume died when David was an infant, leaving himself and two elder children, a brother and a sister, to the care of their mother, who is described by David Hume in My Own Life as "a woman of singular merit, who though young and handsome devoted herself entirely to the rearing and education of her children." Mr. Burton says: "Her portrait, which I have seen, represents a thin but pleasing countenance, expressive of great intellectual acuteness;" and as Hume told Dr. Black that she had "precisely ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... range, the pecan is found growing farther north along the Mississippi River, in Iowa and Illinois, than anywhere else in the country, and naturally we turned to these pecan forests hoping to find a variety bearing nuts of a size and quality to merit propagation and dissemination north of the belt where it is safe to recommend the planting of the Indiana varieties. As a result of correspondence with an Iowa nurseryman in the fall of 1914, I engaged the services of a competent man ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... waited but too long. I burn to see the sultan, and am tempted to offer him my service, as a young stranger: no doubt but he will accept of it, and I will not discover myself, till I have performed some glorious actions: I desire to merit his esteem before he knows who I am." Pirouze approved of his generous resolutions, and Codadad departed from Samaria, as if he had been going to the chase, without acquainting prince Samer, lest he should thwart ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... great merit in loving such a perfect queen," said the little king. "I don't know what prevented me from kissing you before the whole court when you danced the branle with the torches last night! I saw plainly that all the other women ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... terminerent en lui disant, "Ah, Monsieur Galland, si vous ne dormez pas, faites-nous un de ces beaux contes que vous savez si bien." Galland profita de la lecon, et supprima dans les volumes suivants le preambule qui lui avait attire la plaisanterie. This legend has the merit of explaining why the Professor so soon gave up the Arab framework which he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... of Desdemona, confident of merit and conscious of innocence, her artless perseverance in her suit, and her slowness to suspect that she can be suspected, are proofs of Shakespeare's skill ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... 'tis she! Confusion seize your charitable blindnesse! Are you a prison visiter for this, To cherish my dishonour for your merit? ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... and outs, the fine points, the ethics of it all were not quite clear to Jim; but the derision in Bob's laugh was unmistakable; and on that derision and on that laugh hung his unfaltering confidence that dad would not, could not, do anything to merit either. ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... subject to possible revision; but we need not, on that account, deny that philosophy is, what it has in the past been believed to be, an earnest search for truth. A philosophy that did not even profess to be this would not be listened to at all. It would be regarded as too trivial to merit serious attention. If we take the word "science" in the broad sense to indicate a knowledge of the truth more exact and satisfactory than that which obtains in common life, we may say that every philosophy worthy of the name is, at least, an attempt at scientific knowledge. Of course, ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... joined by the militia of Pennsylvania and Kentucky, amounted to 1,453 men. About the middle of October Colonel Harden, who commanded the Kentucky militia, and who had been also a continental officer of considerable merit, was detached at the head of 600 men, chiefly militia, to reconnoiter the ground and to ascertain the intentions of the enemy. On his approach the Indians set fire to their principal village and fled with precipitation to the wood. As the ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... has overtaken me, and not by caprice. There has been no actual contact of my person with thy seed, O illustrious deity of blazing flames! Our union, having for its cause the distress that has overtaken the deities, has been suitable and not of the flesh, O thou of great splendour. Whatever merit or otherwise there may be in this act (intended to be done by me), O eater of sacrificial libations, must belong to thee. Verily, I think, the righteousness or unrighteousness of this deed must be thine.' Unto her the deity of fire said, 'Do thou bear the seed. Do, indeed, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... unspoken messages directed heavenward. The kindly eyes of the old Beloit station have looked out upon many a scene of enthusiastic greeting and hearty well-wishing, but rarely has it seen these good offices extended to one of more apparent merit than handsome Warren E. Waring. One of the National Temperance societies had been utilizing the promising declamatory powers of the high school students of the country, through a series of county, district and state competitions, to influence ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... from the hall at night—then they are only the more pathetic. For the small pictures of pulpy babies photographed as cupids, the tin souvenirs and the pseudo-Turkish scarves draped over trunks rob the rooms of the simplicity which is their only merit. ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... on the reef. The former read the morning service, from beginning to end, while the latter sat by, an attentive listener. The only proof given of any difference in religious faith between our mariners, was of so singular a nature as to merit notice. Notwithstanding Bob's early familiarity with Mark, his greater age, and the sort of community of feeling and interest created by their common misfortune, the former had not ceased to treat the last with the respect due to his office. ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... the higher talents that mark great men, but he possessed the two essential qualities of the head of a state - firmness and judgment. He showed this by the way in which he chose and supported those who built up his greatness, and this merit is rarer than is generally supposed. A soldier above all, he saw that Prussia's ambitions could be realized only with a ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... reform the civil service. Congress had made a timid experiment in civil service reform early in the seventies, but had soon wearied of it. Schurz announced that his subordinates would be chosen on merit, and acted ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... on fire. She neither screamed nor ran, but quietly permitted Charles K. Sharpe to extinguish the fire, which he did with great coolness and dexterity. All who saw her, especially the friendly Celts, gave her merit for her steadiness, and said she came of good blood. I was very glad and proud of her presence of mind. My own courage was not put to the test, for being at some distance, escorting the beautiful and lively Countess of Hopetoun, I did not hear of the accident till it ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... preparing yourself for the church, but I do hope that your final determination will not until then be taken, and that whatever events may occur in the interval, you will give them such weight and consideration as they may appear to merit.... Your mother is much as usual.—With our united and affectionate love, I ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Vallorbes clapped her hands softly and laughed. And her laughter, having the merit of being perfectly genuine—for the young man very really pleased her fancy—was likewise very infectious. Richard found himself laughing too, he knew not why, save that he was ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... of Pearl, where the Queen was seated on her throne dispensing the graceful wreaths, which, woven by her own hand, were the choicest rewards bestowed in Fairy-land. It was easy to adjudge the crowns of merit among the fairies, for their beauty increased, or waned, according as they had ...
— How the Fairy Violet Lost and Won Her Wings • Marianne L. B. Ker
... for a fixed result, for a certain number of volumes, is realized. But in what is this manifested? In the cheap price of books. For the good of whom? For the good of the consumer—of society—of humanity. Printers, having no longer any peculiar merit, receive no longer a peculiar remuneration. As men—as consumers—they no doubt participate in the advantages which the invention confers upon the community; but that is all. As printers, as producers, they are ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... people in the United States busy with their own affairs who look on the Canadians as living up north somewhere toward the Arctic Circle and not very numerous, that old criterion of worth which discovers in the glare of battle's publicity merit which already existed has given to the name Canadian a glory which can be appreciated only with the perspective of time. The Civil War left us a martial tradition; they have won theirs. Some day a few of their neutral neighbours ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... he was glad, on the contrary, to bequeath his hypotheses to the younger generation. Every twenty years theories changed; established truths only, on which science continued to build, remained unshaken. Even if he had only the merit of giving to science a momentary hypothesis, his work would not be lost, for progress consisted assuredly in the effort, in the onward march ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... order of merit to George Cruikshank, amongst his own contemporaries, if we except only Theodore Lane, comes Robert Seymour. With a style and manner peculiar to himself, and a power of invention and realization which amounted almost to genius, Seymour was superior in every ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... warbled feebly on the flute, and was adored as a curate, not only for his tootle-tooings, but for his diligent presence at mothers' meetings, and conscientious labours among the poor. A preacher Kidds never pretended to be; but he had the singular merit of brevity, and crowded more harmless heresies into ten minutes' pulpit oratory than Colenso or Voysey could have done in double the time. The young ladies made a dead set at him, of course, for Kidds was in every respect eligible; ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... these conventions a number of times and there have been those who claimed that the larger pieces were all ground up anyway and that the varieties from which you can recover large pieces were of no particular merit commercially. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... to the removal of the pulpit. "You ought not to touch it, Mr. Dean," he said with great emphasis one morning, when the two were standing before it: "you don't know what mischief you may do." "Mischief? it's not a work of any particular merit, Canon." "Don't call me Canon," said the old man with great asperity, "that is, for thirty years I've been known as Dr. Ayloff, and I shall be obliged, Mr. Dean, if you would kindly humour me in that matter. And as to the pulpit ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... until she is able to be removed in my carriage. But tell me, sister, among all these unhappy sick, do you not know some who particularly merit my interest and pity, and to whom I can be useful before ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... make not the slightest claim,—I run the risk of passing for a hare-brained fellow, in case I prove to be mistaken: he plays a bold game who risks his good sense upon his cards, in return for the very trifling and insignificant merit of having divined a ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... be worth if he could not disguise himself! A great merit, forsooth! And I tell you, I hate it! But I could not think of coming to Sauveterre in my own person, a detective. Ugh! Everybody would have run away; and what a pack of lies they would have told me! So I had to assume that hideous masquerade. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... culture had brought to so high a polish. The experience of the eye was doubtless not everything, but it was so much gained, so much saved, in a world in which other treasures were apt to slip through one's fingers; and above all it had the merit that so many things gave it and that nothing could take it away. He had noted in a moment how straight Francie Dosson gave it; and now, seeing her a second time, he felt her promote it in a degree which made acquaintance with her one of those ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... a writer; and opinions vary as to his merit. Some say he has talent; others say it is all eccentricity and affectation. One thing is certain—his books bring about the changes he demands. And then he is in earnest; he has taken a good many alleged ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... time I wrote literary screeds for the Golden Era. C. H. Webb had established a very excellent literary weekly called the Californian, but high merit was no guaranty of success; it languished, and he sold out to three printers, and Bret Harte became editor at $20 a week, and I was employed to contribute an article a week at $12. But the journal still languished, and the printers sold out to Captain Ogden, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Power, I am forspent, if merit there can be In self accusing, in this darkest hour O hear me, and I pray thee pity me, For I have sinned, O fool, unwise and blind! And I am Atma; whom thou hadst designed For life of sanctity and holy quest. Lord, I am Atma, and I have ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... PARC] prov. This phrase has two possible interpretations: (1) "While your suggestion may have some merit, I will behave as though I hadn't heard it." (2) "While your suggestion has obvious merit, equally obvious circumstances prevent it from being seriously considered." The charm of the phrase lies precisely in this subtle ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... to do in the future it is hard to say, and if I return again to my first love, base-ball, it will not be as a player, but wherever I may be or whatever I may do I shall still strive to merit the approval and good will of my ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... by emigrants, by "furriners," that all these things were done. What, therefore, can be more ungrateful, if not more unjust, in the "nativists," than to attempt to rob the poor emigrant of the rewards of his labor and merit, in order that they may enjoy all the fruit of the latter's toil? This is the height of ingratitude and injustice; a far more glaring instance of both than that of the reputed forefathers of these "nativists" ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... wonder he "did not like reviewing at all," especially as he "never could understand why reviews were instituted; works of merit do not require to be reviewed, they can speak for themselves, and require no praising; works of no merit at all will die of themselves, they require no killing." He forgot "The Dairyman's Daughter," and he could not foresee the early ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... that particular cause was lost. These are not days in which it is exactly obvious that an agricultural society was more dangerous than an industrial one. And even Southern slavery had this one moral merit, that it was decadent; it has this one historic advantage, that it is dead. The Northern slavery, industrial slavery, or what is called wage slavery, is not decaying but increasing; and the end of ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... more they cost, the worse they are. It does not follow, because newspapers say, "magnificent bridge," "two million feet of timber," "eighty or one hundred tons of iron," "cost half a million," that there is any merit about either the bridge or its builder; as one span is, so is the whole; and a bridge fifty feet long, and costing only a few hundreds, may show more engineering skill than the largest and most costly viaducts in America. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... great municipality as Mayor, a glance at his life shows that he has won his way to that position by the exhibition of qualities, such as all self-educated men possess. His private and public life fully illustrate that true merit is sooner ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... was upon the spot, in close conversation with her, and scarcely five minutes after the oath had been sworn that bound her to me for life! Less wonder I was jealous. That the feeling lasted only for an instant might be some palliation, but it was no merit of mine that brought it so quickly to a termination. I cannot screen my conduct behind an act of volition; for although the poisoned sting rankled but for a few seconds of time, during that short period I yielded obedience ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... afterwards distinguished himself in Admiral Keppel's memorable action of the 27th of July 1778; as well as in that of Admiral Greaves, off the Chesapeak, the 5th of September 1781, where he lost a leg; was then under sailing orders for Gibraltar, with a convoy. He had too much merit of his own, not soon to discover it in another; and was so well satisfied with his young officer, as to place the utmost confidence in his ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... the circumstance that Brahman is connected with the hearts of all living beings it does not follow that it is, like the embodied Self, subject to fruition. For, between the embodied Self and the highest Self, there is the difference that the former acts and enjoys, acquires merit and demerit, and is affected by pleasure, pain, and so on; while the latter is of the opposite nature, i.e. characterised by being free from all evil and the like. On account of this difference of the two, the fruition of the one ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... The earliest Assyriologists, H. Rawlinson, Oppert, considered the local kings as having been, for the most part, kings of all Chaldaea, and placed them in succession one after the other in the framework of the most ancient dynasties of Berossus. The merit of having established the existence of series of local dynasties, and of having given to Chaldaean history its modern form, belongs to G. Smith. Smith's idea was adopted by Menant, by Delitzsch-Murdter, by Tiele, by Winckler, and by all Assyriologists, with modifications suggested by ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... deny that under such a system the man with the glib tongue and the persuasive manner, the babbling talker and the scheming organizer, would secure all the places of power and profit, while patient merit went to ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... the ordinary way. The man loves only the race in his wife, the woman in her husband only the degree of his ability and social position, and both love in their children only their creation and their property. Under those circumstances fidelity comes to be a merit, a virtue, and jealousy is in order. For they are quite right in tacitly believing that there are many like themselves, and that one man is about as good as the next, and none of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... partners in domestic economy. Alice had experienced the troubles of poverty, and had never met with excellence in men except in poems, which she had long ago been taught to separate from the possibilities of actual life. She had, therefore, no conception of any degree of merit in a husband being sufficient to compensate for slender means of subsistence. She was not base-minded; nothing could have induced her to marry a man, however rich, whom she thought wicked. She wanted money; but she wanted ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... and wrote with the skill of an expert. Vocal and instrumental pieces of his own composition, preserved among the manuscripts at the British Museum,[57] rank among the best productions of the time; and one of his anthems, "O Lorde, the Maker of all thyng," is of the highest order of merit, and still remains a favourite in ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... bestowed upon me the title of 'incomparable observer,' the epithet has often come back to me, from this side and from that, without my yet understanding what particular merit I have shown. It seems to me so natural, so much within everybody's scope, so absorbing to interest one's self in everything that swarms around us! However, let us pass on and admit that the compliment is ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... this book of "Wanderings" with a hesitating hand. It has little merit, and must make its way through the world as well as it can. It will receive many a jostle as it goes along, and perhaps is destined to add one more to the number of slain in the field of modern criticism. But if ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... will have the merit of introducing some of the principal actors in this drama, and of exhibiting their individual interests; we shall thus be enabled to show the dangers which surrounded the General comte de Montcornet at the moment when this ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... cured more than any school of cures, and has sustained all its diplomates financially and otherwise. I write this article on blood for the student of Osteopathy. I want him to put nature to a test of its merit, and know if it is a law equal to all demands. If not, he is very much and seriously limited when he goes into war with diseases. What is to be ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still |
