"Phrase" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... make far less demand than the actual conduct of great affairs on qualities which are not rare in detail, but are amazingly rare in combination,—on temper, foresight, solidity, daring,—on strength, in a word, strength of intelligence and strength of character. Gibbon rightly amended his phrase, when he described Boethius not as stooping, but rather as rising, from his life of placid meditation to an active share in the imperial business. That he held this sound opinion is quite as plausible an explanation of Voltaire's anxiety to know persons of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... terminating in volcanic peaks; but some are of opinion, judging from the arrangement of the lagoon, that they are of madreporic formation. They are tenanted by a race of diminutive, badly-shaped people, subject moreover to repulsive complaints. If ever the converse of the phrase mens sana in corpore sano can find a just application, it must be here, for these natives are low in the scale of intelligence, and inferior by many degrees to the people of Ualan. Even at that time foreign styles of dress appeared to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... objects of satire, during the time when they exist. In evidence of this, theatrical critics may observe how many dramatic jeux d'esprit are well received every season, because the satirist levels at some well-known or fashionable absurdity; or, in the dramatic phrase, "shoots folly as it flies." But when the peculiar kind of folly keeps the wing no longer, it is reckoned but waste of powder to pour a discharge of ridicule on what has ceased to exist; and the pieces in which such forgotten ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... told, that there are hackney-coach stands in Edinburgh; and not to go quite so far for a contradiction to our position, we may be reminded that Liverpool, Manchester, 'and other large towns' (as the Parliamentary phrase goes), have their hackney-coach stands. We readily concede to these places the possession of certain vehicles, which may look almost as dirty, and even go almost as slowly, as London hackney-coaches; but that ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not 'abolished.' It dies out. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase 'a free State,' both as to its justifiable use at times by agitators, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also of the demands of the so-called anarchists for the abolition of the State out ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden, the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always to slip from beneath her—which appears very strange to a landsman—and this is what is called riding, in sea phrase. Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; but presently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under the counter, and bore us with it as it rose—up—up—as if into the sky. I would not have believed that any wave could rise so high. And then down we came with ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the first part of the text, which consists of an exhortation to hope in the Lord. And have showed you, 1. The matter contained therein. 2. Something of the reason of the manner of the phrase. 3. And have drawn, as you see, some inferences ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... observe," wrote Nelson at the siege of Calvi, when the commanding general suggested that some vessels might batter the forts, "that the business of laying wood against walls was much altered of late." Precisely what was in his mind when he said "of late" does not appear, but the phrase itself shows that the conditions which induced any momentary equality between ships and forts when brought within range ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... adorn; but Nature now To his experienced eye a modest grace Presents, where ornament the second place Holds, to intrinsic worth and just design Subservient still. Simplicity apace Tempers his rage: he owns her charm divine, And clears the ambiguous phrase, and ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... heard him holding forth in a very distinct voice—purposely so, I thought—to the Bow Street officers in the bar, as to the loss that the town had sustained in their Rector, and as to the necessity of leaving no stone unturned (he was very great on this phrase) in order to come at the truth. I suspect him of being an orator of ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... at him to see the expression which backed that natural and happy phrase. Arthur Dillon ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... public and private—she has been able to rule off a sphere of human conduct in which her own authority is necessarily paramount. By supplying the faithful with rations of "theological information" (to quote the apt phrase of a pillar of orthodoxy), and requiring them to accept these on her authority as indisputably true, she has succeeded in imposing her yoke on thought as well as on conduct. By claiming to control the outflow of Divine grace, through the channels of ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... me was the death of my father! Before I was yet twenty-four years of age, with a mind unformed, and I may say, in the common acceptation of the phrase, very young of my age; here was I left in the uncontrolled possession of one of the largest farming concerns in the kingdom! I had a young wife, and a family of my own coming on; and had five sisters ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... had mentioned for his benefit Thompson, in his dimly realized need of some mental stimulus, could not think of a white man and a scholar being aught but a special blessing in that primeval solitude. Thompson had run across that phrase in books—primeval solitude. He was just beginning ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... although unable to reply effectively, demeaned himself with great dignity. His manners were placid and his reply was in measured terms. It was in striking contrast to what Mr. Blaine said. To use a phrase graphic if inelegant, he jumped on Conkling with both feet and literally tore him to pieces without any attempt at dignity. This controversy with Conkling probably caused the defeat of Mr. Blaine for the nomination—first, in conventions ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... "A poor phrase, my dear Hardman; but let it pass. Will you admit that there may be habits of thinking and feeling as well as habits of ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... pinched the tip of one pink ear fondly. "I suppose there is no use trying to make any of you serious at such a time," he said, with the resigned air of one giving up all hope; "but there is one little phrase that it will be well for you to remember, and that ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... force most potent in moulding him. The trouble came into her head when something from outside put it there; it never left his brain. And she had no adequate conception of what it was to him. Even his scheme of marrying Janie Iver and his vivid little phrase about living with the check by him failed to bring it home to her. This very evening, as soon as he was out of sight, both he and his great question were out of the mind of the woman who had brought both him and it into existence. There are people who carry the doctrine of ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... Per la 4a di questo. It is impossible to ascertain what this quotation refers to. Questo certainly does not mean the MS. in hand, nor any other now known to us. The same remark applies to the phrase in line 15: per la 2a di questo.] in the 4th of this which says: Among mountains seen from a great distance those will look of the bluest colour which are in themselves the darkest; hence, when the trees are stripped of their leaves, they will show a bluer tinge which will be in itself ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... his attention, she appeared, strangely enough, to have nothing to say to him. A curious apathy seemed to have taken possession of this resolute woman. Forced to speak first, the Doctor merely inquired, in the conventional phrase, what ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... back her hand). Notwithstanding, so much the more am I determined that that shall never be,—never!—Of what are you thinking, Major?—I thought your own distress was sufficient. You must remain here; you must obtain by obstinacy—no better phrase occurs to me at the moment—the most perfect satisfaction, obtain it by obstinacy.... And that even though the utmost distress should waste you away before the ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... be untrue to say that England is exhausted at heart; but her dependence upon the outside world is such as to give a certain suggestiveness to the phrase. ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... this was much better than plainness. There was no love lost between them. There was no great feeling of dissatisfaction. Her opinion on any subject was not startling. They did not talk enough together to come to the argument of any one point. In the accepted and popular phrase, she had her ideas and he had his. Once in a while he would meet a woman whose youth, sprightliness, and humour would make his wife seem rather deficient by contrast, but the temporary dissatisfaction ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... objective ground of species, yet we agree—and Mr. Darwin will agree fully with Mr. Agassiz—that species, and he will add varieties, "exist as categories of thought," that is, as cognizable distinctions—which is all that we can make of the phrase here, whatever it may mean in the Aristotelian metaphysics. Admitting that species are only categories of thought, and not facts or things, how does this prevent the individuals, which are material things, from having varied in the course of time, so as to exemplify the present almost innumerable ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... When it was almost as dark as the moonlight would let it be, I lighted the lamp, and went on with Tieck's tale, slowly and painfully, often wishing for help in my difficulties. At last I determined to learn a little about pronouns and verbs before proceeding further, and so took up the phrase-book, with which I was commendably busy, when, at about a quarter to nine, came a knock at my study door, and, behold, there was Molly with a letter! How she came by it I did not ask, being content to suppose it was brought by a heavenly messenger. I had not expected a letter; and what a comfort ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... confirmation of a written paper. Several charters still remain in which kings and persons of great eminence affix "signum crucis pro ignoratione literarum," the sign of the cross, because of their ignorance of letters. From this is derived the phrase of signing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various
... placed it would radiate on the eye with rays diverging to that degree as would produce the same confusion which is now produced by converging rays, i.e. would cover a portion of the retina equal to DC (VID. Fig. 3 supra). But then this must be understood (to use Dr. Barrow's phrase) SECLUSIS PRAENOTIONIBUS ET PRAEJUDICIIS, in case we abstract from all other circumstances of vision, such as the figure, size, faintness, etc. of the visible objects; all which do ordinarily concur to form our idea of distance, the mind ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... of the three foregoing aspects of articulation leads at once to the fourth; namely, the expressive value of words in direct relation to the interpretation itself. This is closely connected with phrasing, and the phrase, which is the larger "thought word," should be studied as the communicating link between the articulation of the part and interpretation as it relates to literature itself. In connection with this comes the consideration of slides and the finer modulations of tone-color, movement, and cadence. But ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... impression and becomes the basis of future recognition and reproduction of it, is not the number of beats in a unit or sequence, nor the absolute or relative intensity of the components of the group; it is the quality of the groups as individuals, and the form of the sequence as a whole. The phrase and verse are as vividly conceived as the unit group; the stanza or the passage is apprehended as immediately and simply as the bar or the measure. Of the number and relation of the individual beats constituting ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... what? Rescue them from what?" asked the Prince, in cold and measured phrase. "Why do you call my fatherland unhappy, and why do you say that the Brandenburgers are to be pitied? Is not my fatherland, for doubtless you do not mean Germany, but my special fatherland, in which I have been ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... he made use of the ultra-significant phrase. And then, in a few rapid sentences, he ran over the synopsis of that affair, beginning with some philosophy and other details that Watson could only half understand, making frequent allusions to the Jarados and other writers of ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... cathedrals of the Isle of France, we are at once in the midst of the best examples of French Gothic architecture, or of French Mediaeval architecture, if the phrase ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... peculiar character about the servants of old English families that reside principally in the country. They have a quiet, orderly, respectful mode of doing their duties. They are always neat in their persons, and appropriately, and if I may use the phrase, technically dressed; they move about the house without hurry or noise; there is nothing of the bustle of employment, or the voice of command; nothing of that obtrusive housewifery that amounts to a torment. You are not persecuted by the process of making ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... by lovely river (that is, we approached Stockholm by lovely river), with banks and hills covered with pine and birch trees, and studded with villas, where the Stockholm people live away from the town. "Studded" is a good word, but phrase sounds too much like "studied with SASS," as so many of our best artists did. Lovely for boating. Why don't the Swedes row? They don't. Lots of islands, and everybody as jolly as sand-boys, especially on Sanday. By the way, what's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... me," said Mr. Ellsworth, "is when he goes to the city and stands around listening to the orators and watches the young fellows surging into the recruiting places. That phrase, Your country needs you, is dinging ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... Norden was one from the south at 10.46 p.m. This looked promising. Emden, which I had inclined to on the spur of the moment, was out of court in comparison, for many reasons; not the least being that it was served by three trains between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., so that the phrase 'night train' would be ambiguous and ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... flights of thought so common in dreams I heard the hoarse falsetto of the bric-a-brac dealer, repeating like a monotonous refrain the phrase he had uttered in his shop with so ...
— The Mummy's Foot • Theophile Gautier
... his experience of sprightly and elegant life, inherits, with the beautiful family Domain, no inconsiderable share of that love of literature, which distinguished his venerable grandfather, the Bishop of Carlisle. He one day observed to me, of Dr. Johnson, in a felicity of phrase, 'There is a blunt dignity about ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... own account, all his life been a most fortunate individual. Wherever he went he has always, as the phrase has it, "fallen on his feet." On this expedition his luck did not desert him, and on the appearance of his fellow countryman which took place (to be exact in speaking of an event now historical) at 9 p.m., there commenced a new departure which forged a first ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... them ornamental; and "Non Angli sed Angeli" meant more nearly "Not slaves, but souls." It is to the point, in passing, to note that in the modern country most collectively Christian, Russia, the serfs were always referred to as "souls." The great Pope's phrase, hackneyed as it is, is perhaps the first glimpse of the golden halos in the best Christian Art. Thus the Church, with whatever other faults, worked of her own nature towards greater social equality; and it is a historical error to suppose that the Church ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... day 'tis Life's at last To front the face of Death. Then, casements closed, men say: "Lord Life is gone away; He went, we trust and pray, To God, who gave him breath." Beginning, End, He is: Are not these sons both His? Lo, these with Him are one! To phrase it so were best: God's self is that first Guest, The House of Life ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... stage of the conversation, was nothing less for Aramis and Fouquet than the full stop which completes a phrase. But, for Vanel, Aramis's presence in Fouquet's cabinet had quite another signification; and, therefore, at his first step into the room, he paused as he looked at the delicate yet firm features of the bishop of Vannes, and his look of astonishment soon became one of scrutinizing attention. As ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... warbling is like the sound of a beautiful mysterious instrument, while to others it seems like the singing of a blithe-hearted child with a highly melodious voice. I had often heard and listened with delight to the singing of the rialejo in the Guayana forests, but this song, or musical phrase, was utterly unlike it in character. It was pure, more expressive, softer—so low that at a distance of forty yards I could hardly have heard it. But its greatest charm was its resemblance to the human voice—a voice purified and ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... card, issued with the singular formula, "Mrs. Ferguson hopes to see Mrs. Rousby at the church," on the occasion of the wedding of a daughter, brought forth the rebuke, "Nothing is so deceitful as human hope," The phrase is an improper one. Mrs. Ferguson should have "requested ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... be said of him that his presence made death easy, that the touch of his hand steadied those who were about to die. Feverish, terrified, reluctant, they became suddenly calm, wistful, and passed quietly as one falls asleep. "Send for Pierre Pilleux" became a familiar phrase in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... must take my jack-knife and cut short this digression. Let no man say this or that occurrence "will make no difference fifty years hence,"—a common, but dangerous phrase. I am now a man of three-score years. I can point my finger here to my ships, there to my warehouse. My name is well known in two hemispheres. I have drank deeply of intellectual pleasures, have served my country in many important stations, have had my gains ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... favour of prerogative was at hand, when all the corporations which had incurred the royal displeasure were beginning to tremble for their franchises, a rapid and complete revolution took place at the India House. Child, who was then Governor, or, in the modern phrase, Chairman, separated himself from his old friends, excluded them from the direction, and negotiated a treaty of peace and of close alliance with the Court. [165] It is not improbable that the near connection into which he had just entered with the great Tory house of Beaufort may have ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Joseph Rodman Drake.—These manly lines have yielded another phrase to the world's memory. Hardly any quotation is more hackneyed than the last two verses of the first stanza. Drake was a young poet, the intimate friend and literary co-laborer of Halleck, who died September, 1820, in his ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... phrase of Midas, whenever he felt particularly fond of the child, to say that she was worth her weight in gold. And now the phrase had become literally true. And, now, at last, when it was too late, he felt how infinitely a warm and tender heart, that loved him, exceeded in value all the wealth ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... virgate of land, "ad que idem Johannes electus est per totum homagium."[61] In other entries cited by Page, the element of compulsion is unmistakable: the new holder of land is described as "electus per totum homagium ad hoc compulsus," a phrase which is frequently found also in the entries of fines paid on some of the Winchester ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... Others conceived that the phrase referred to ships, and that the oracle meant to direct them to meet their enemies with a fleet upon the sea. Salamis, which was also mentioned by the oracle, was an island not far from Athens, being west of the city, between it and the Isthmus of Corinth. Those ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... hour later he made his appearance at Hemerlingue's, making a despairing gesture in the banker's direction as he entered, and approached the baroness, stammering the ready-made phrase that he had heard repeated so often on the evening of his own ball: "His wife was very ill—in despair that she could not—" She did not give him time to finish, but rose slowly, like a long, slender snake in the crosswise folds of her clinging ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... It was the regulation phrase used by the rejected lover in the novel of the day. It had thrilled Deleah a hundred times as she had read it. There was nothing stilted or theatrical in the words as Charles Gibbon said them, but they brought home to her the unwelcome fact that he was in deadly earnest, that he loved ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... wouldna think well if thee wastna so contrairy." Lisbeth dared not venture beyond a vague phrase yet. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... grocer, or—tailor. The king of diamonds shows a revengeful, fiery, obstinate fellow of very fair complexion in your circle; the queen of diamonds is nothing but a gay coquette, of the same complexion as the king, and not 'over-virtuous'—a very odd phrase in use for the absence of virtue altogether; the knave of diamonds is a selfish, impracticable fellow; ten of diamonds is one of the few exceptions to the evil omens of this suit, it promises a country husband or a wife with great wealth and many children—the number of the latter ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... spake Here, from the shadows of impending death, Those words of solemn breath, What voice may fitly break The silence, doubly hallowed, left by him? We can but bow the head, with eyes grown dim, And as a Nation's litany, repeat The phrase his martyrdom hath made complete, Noble as then, but now more sadly sweet: "Let us, the Living, rather dedicate Ourselves to the unfinished work, which they Thus far advanced so nobly on its way, And saved the perilled State! Let us, upon this field where they, the brave, Their ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... public questions at home—alas! I can say nothing but echo what you and some other wise people tell me. One is far too much out of the whole thing. I do not fear the Radical, I greatly fear the Radical, or crotchet-monger.... Your phrase about the division on the Affirmation Bill [102] rises to the dignity of a mot, and will be treasured by me as such. "The triumph of all that is worst in the name of ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... sat down in print to anything less than a 'banquet', he was capable of invoking 'the iris pencil of Hope'; he could not think nor speak of the beauties of woman except as 'charms.' Which seems to show that to be 'born in a library,' and have Voltaire—that impeccable master of the phrase—for your chief of early heroes ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... "the day." It was a Prussian phrase. The revolution was Prussian. And like the Germans, they offered loot as a reward. They appealed to the ugliest passions in the world, to lust and greed ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... has the Kirk so established done for Scotland? Has it justified its own existence? Briefly, we might say, it has continued its first function as the guardian of Scottish freedom. But that is a vague phrase, and there are special accusations against the Kirk and its doctrines which imply that it has cared for other things than freedom. Narrow, fanatical, dictatorial, intrusive, superstitious, a spiritual despotism, the old priesthood ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... overstraining his health and strength. Notwithstanding his buoyancy and occasional high spirits all through his long years of work, James Gilmour had been subject to spells of severe depression. There are a very large number of brief entries in his diary to that effect. 'Felt blue to-day' is a frequent phrase, followed soon in the great majority of instances by words indicating a speedy recovery. Special events, that from time to time had a direct adverse influence upon his work, developed this state of mind rapidly and profoundly. The inevitable recall of Dr. Roberts, already ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... gal'ax y cher'u bim al'ka line mas'to don dem'o crat ap'o gee mack'er el den'i zen al'i quot mar'i ner den'si ty as'ter isk par'a graph ex'or cist az'i muth par'al lax ed'i fy bach'e lor par'a gon em'a nate cal'a bash par'a pet em'pha size cal'a mus par'a phrase ep'i cure ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... piece is called the N, because a character so named is an important part of the first line. So generally the pieces in the Shih receive their names from a character or phrase occurring in them. This point will ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... Methodist Chapel in "Tidser," as they called Tideswell, whither, whenever she could, she enticed David. David, too, in his way, was fond of the children, especially of the boy, who was called David after him. He was quite wrapped up in the lad, to use the phrase of the people in that part; in fact, he was foolishly and mischievously fond of him. He would give him beer to drink, "to make a true Briton on him," as he said, spite of Betty's earnest endeavor ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... this book betokens the personal attractiveness of its author and the dignity and importance of its theme. It was written by Luke, "the beloved physician," and it concerns the life and saving work of our Lord. The phrase which describes the writer as "the physician, the beloved one," is full of significance. It was penned by Paul, when a prisoner in Rome, to his friends in distant Colossae. It indicates that Luke was a man of culture and ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... once more began beating a kind of rhythm, as if he were marking a phrase in a symphony, upon the smooth ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... being a poor old bachelor was quite the pleasantest possible condition, yet he rolled out the phrase twice as if to touch Penelope's heart. Remembering the only other bachelor I had ever seen, I stared at him in wonder. This other was Philip Spangler, who sat all day in the store gazing vacantly at the stove. Once I asked Stacy Shunk why he stayed ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... continued to subsist, the shame subsisted also, so that the two jostled one another striving for the mastery. Damaris took her hands from her face, again clasped them about her drawn-up knees, and sat, looking straight in front of her with sombre, meditative eyes. To use a phrase of her childhood, she was busy with her "thinkings"; her will consciously hailing emotion to the judgment-seat of intelligence ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... to have all eternity to play with. Of course you're a ghastly little heathen, and I can see you wagging a mournful head over this already—but every time that I remember what a shocking sell the After Life (exquisite phrase!) is going to be for you, darling, I do a bit of head-wagging myself—and it's not precisely mournful! I can't wait to see your blank consternation—and you needn't expect any sympathy from me. My very first words will be, 'I told ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... could not be very lively, as the foreigners only understood a few Norwegian words and were often obliged to have recourse to a phrase-book, it was soon evident that they were both very agreeable men. Their principal occupation consisted in making and smoking cigarettes the whole day, and in superintending the work on ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... frightened nearly out of their wits,—and was kind enough to promise me that, if it would be agreeable to me, the whole of his people should assist my prize crew to work the ship. This suggestion, however, did not happen to be agreeable to me, so I was compelled to explain, as politely as I could phrase it, that my duty compelled me not only to decline his magnanimous offer, but to secure the whole of his crew, officers and men, below, and also to remove all arms of every description from the ship; after which, if he would give me his parole, it would afford me ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... little phrase was too much for Charley. Suddenly she ran over to one of the cots and dropping there burst into tears. Then Roger, wiping the sweat from his face, left her while he went out to boil the tea kettle. When he returned in about half ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... is there a feeling that the pupil in school can be brought into closer touch with the life of the community, but that the school as an institution can be made more useful to the community as a whole. This double thought has been expressed in the phrase, "Make the school a social center," and practically it is being slowly worked out in numerous city schools. How far can this idea be ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... fulfilled in Jesus, could make them every where inculcate and appeal to the fulfilling of prophecy. In order to support their hypothesis, Christians have been forced to seek evidence to prove, that the phrase—"this was done that it might be fulfilled," so frequent in the New Testament, meant no such thing, but was only a habit the Jews had got of introducing by such phrases a handsome quotation, or ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... no longer than to make me know that I wanted more time to value it, and to enjoy it rightly; and, in truth, if I could then have imagined your farther stay in these parts, which I understood afterwards by Mr. H., I would have been bold, in our vulgar phrase, to mend my draught (for you left me with an extreme thirst), and to have begged your conversation again, jointly with your said learned friend, at a poor meal or two, that we might have banded together some good authors of the antient time; among which I observed you to ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... one of two inferences to Lady Lundie's mind. Either Mrs. Glenarm had heard a report of the unexpected return of the married couple to England—or she was in the far more interesting and important position of possessing a clew to the secret of what was going on under the surface at Ham Farm. The phrase used in the note, "I have a serious reason for asking this," appeared to favor the latter of the two interpretations. Impossible as it seemed to be that Mrs. Glenarm could know something about Arnold of which Lady Lundie was in absolute ignorance, her ladyship's ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... phrase do zanu ho baithna denotes a mode of sitting peculiar, more especially, to the Persians. It consists in kneeling down and sitting back on one's heels, a posture the very reverse of easy, at least, so ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... present mood, Emily took the opportunity (in the popular phrase) of snubbing Francine. "You have guessed wrong; I do regret," she answered. "I have found in Cecilia my dearest friend at school. And school brought with it the change in my life which has helped me to bear the loss of my father. If you must know what I was thinking of just now, ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... thrilled me to the core To read the phrase, "Electric bore," And think of happy days ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... in critic phrase The analogue of Homer in these days, Enjoys his ease, nor cares how he redeems The gorgeous promise of his peacock dreams. Who reads not Naevius? still he lives enshrined A household god in every Roman mind. So as we reckon o'er the heroic band We call Pacuvius learned, Accius grand; Afranius wears ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... woman," he gallantly replied, "if by the phrase you mean being in the right place at the right time. So you are already acquainted ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... rumbling, distant sound to the west. His first thought was that the power dam had been opened and was discharging its waters, but as his senses came to him, he realized that this could not be so. He stretched himself idly. A mocking bird uttered a phrase outside. No dregs of drowsiness remained in him, so he dressed and walked out into the freshness of the new morning. Here the rumbling sound, which he had concluded had been an effect of his half-conscious imagination, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... and the other repeated the simple American phrase of greeting. Responding in kind, I was bade to seat myself on a fallen log, which I did. For some moments they appeared to ignore me, excitedly discussing an adventure of the night before, and addressing each other as Dead Shot and ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... reputation. Tyson thought nothing of going up to town for the week-end and leaving Louis to entertain his wife in his absence. To do him justice, this neglect was at first merely a device by which he heightened the luxury of possession. In his own choice phrase, he "liked to give a mare a loose rein when he knew her paces." It was all right. He knew Molly, and if he did not, Stanistreet knew him. But these things were subtleties which Drayton Parva did not understand, ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... flatterer of the beloved one, and calls the snub nose graceful, and the aquiline nose royal, and swarthy people manly, and fair people the children of the gods, and the olive complexion is merely the lover's phrase to gloss over and palliate excessive pallor. And yet the ugly man persuaded he is handsome, or the short man persuaded he is tall, cannot long remain in the error, and receives only slight injury from it, and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Bohemians saluted him as "my pretty gentleman," or the knock-'em-downs and weighing-machines, or the bucolic babble of the ring, but away across the grassy slope, turning his back upon the racecourse. He wanted to think it out again, in his own phrase, just as he had thought it out the day before in the library ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... almost with a womanly tenderness, not without its influence upon the company. Some phrase spoken of Frivolity's mouth had touched this group of outcasts and spoken straight to their hearts. They bandied, pleasantries no more, but lighting the cigars—the Lady Sarah boldly charging a small clay pipe—they fell to an expressive ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... hundred pounds, you know. But then there's three hundred for interest that has to be paid also. It's an awful lot of money, isn't it?' The last phrase was added on ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... above all that we have read, heard, or seen of Him, either in the bible, in heaven, or earth, the sea, or what else is to be understood. But now, That a poor mortal, a lump of sinful flesh, or, as the scripture-phrase is, poor dust and ashes, should be in the favour, in the heart, and wrapped up in the compassions of SUCH a God! O amazing! O astonishing consideration! And yet "This God is our God for ever and ever; and He will be our guide even ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... certain prophecies, and it embittered her to learn that so far none of these prophecies had come true. She could wait. Something was destined to happen, sooner or later. She knew human nature too well not to be expectant. To Mrs. Haldene the most gratifying phrase in the language was: "I told you so!" Warrington had disappointed her, too. He behaved himself. He did not run after young Mrs. Bennington; he never called there alone; he was seen more frequently at the old Bennington place. The truth is, Patty was busy reforming the wayward dramatist, ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... gentleman drink here. I pray you go in, sir, an't please you. [EXEUNT.] Now (without doubt) this letter's to my son. Well, all is one: I'll be so bold as read it, Be it but for the style's sake, and the phrase; Both which (I do presume) are excellent, And greatly varied from the vulgar form, If Prospero's invention gave them life. How now! what stuff is here? "Sir Lorenzo, I muse we cannot see thee at Florence: 'Sblood, I doubt, Apollo hath got thee to be his Ingle, that thou comest not ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion. Then, again, there was the love of truth—a wide phrase, but meaning in this relation, a lively objection to seeing a wife look happier than her husband's character warranted, or manifest too much satisfaction in her lot—the poor thing should have some hint given her that if she knew the truth she would have less complacency ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... spirit, but appreciating it as a setting for the ideal society dreamed of but not realised in his own day. Add to this literary perspicacity, a good foundation in classic fable, a modicum of ecclesiastical doctrine, a remarkable facility in phrase, figure, and rhyme and we have the foundations for Chretien's art as we shall find it upon ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... port wine at 11 was the inevitable prescription, and a tea-spoonful of bark was often added to this generous tonic. In all forms of languor and debility and enfeebled circulation, brandy-and-water was "exhibited," as the phrase went; and, if the dose was not immediately successful, the brandy was increased. I myself, when a sickly boy of twelve, was ordered by a well-known practitioner, called F. C. Skey, to drink mulled claret at bedtime; and my ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... dropping on the seat not from fatigue but from desperation, completed the picture his imagination had already painted of some world-worn, knocked-about creature who had come to the point at which, in his own phrase, she was ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... were uttered, but to her hurt pride and sore, shamed woman-instinct, they were a promise, simply because there was a choking sound in Justin's voice and tears in Justin's eyes. "You 'll see me back when my luck turns, Nancy"; this was the phrase upon which she had lived for more than ten years. Nancy had once heard the old parson say, ages ago, that the whole purpose of life was the growth of the soul; that we eat, sleep, clothe ourselves, work, love, all to ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the maiden's father who spoke. In simple phrase he asked forgiveness of the Faculty, for having dared to send them a daughter, in place of a son. But it had been his cherished wish to prove that only the arrogance and prejudice of men had banished women from the universities. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt." This reasoning carries with it great weight. It roused the resentment of Mr. Macpherson. He sent a threatening letter to the author; and Johnson answered him in the rough phrase of stern defiance. The two heroes frowned at a distance, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... to Eaton sent, To learn straightways the Latine phrase, Where fifty three stripes given to me, At once I had, For fault but small, or none at all, It came to pass thus beat I was, See Udal, see, the mercy of thee To me ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... loosened into loud and cheerful loquacity. Professor Marshall, sitting at the head of the table, talked faster and louder than any one else, throwing the ball to his especial favorite, brilliant young Professor Saunders, who tossed it back with a sureness and felicity of phrase which he had learned nowhere but in this give-and-take. Mrs. Marshall poured the coffee, saw that every one was served with sandwiches, and occasionally when the talk, running over every known topic, grew too noisy, or the discussion too hot, cast in one of the pregnant and occasionally caustic ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... come to market prices for the farmer's produce that we get, I suspect, at the root and origin of the smooth-sounding phrase of the "Good old times when George the III. was King." Of the enormous influence of peace or war upon prices then, and the excitement which news of the one or the other stirred in the breasts of farmers and landlords as they gathered in groups in the yards of the Hull, or the Red Lion, on Royston ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... The phrase had been ominous; he could not recollect Miltoun's ever having told him anything. For though a really kind and indulgent father, he had—like so many men occupied with public and other lives—a little acquired towards his offspring the look and manner: Is this ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Old French adjective meant 'valiant.' At the present time the word is only used in the phrase preux chevalier. Preux as a noun is rare, but de Vigny has ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... wandered about without discovering anything that bore the smallest resemblance to a wolf, for upwards of an hour; Fort Garry had fallen astern (to use a nautical phrase) until it had become a mere speck on the horizon, and vanished altogether; Peter Mactavish had twice given a false alarm, in the eagerness of his spirit, and had three times plunged his horse up to the girths in a snow-drift; the senior clerk was waxing impatient, and the horses restive, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... he was out in the streets he did not post his letter at once; but thought of it throughout the whole day, trying to prove the weight of every phrase that he had used. Once or twice his heart almost relented. Once he had the letter in his hand, that he might tear it. But he did not tear it. He put it back into his pocket, and thought again of his grievance. Surely it was his first duty in such ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... this potentiality is, between the ages of four and sixteen, not always, perhaps not often, evident. The boy—in Bagehot's phrase 'the small apple-eating urchin whom we know'— has this in common with the fruit for which he congenitally sins, that his very virtues in immaturity are apt, setting the teeth on edge, to be mistaken for vices. A writer, to whom I shall ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... to be varieties of the wild brassica oleracea? Yet from that they have been derived by cultivation. They have, however, a tendency like animals to revert to the original type, or, in the gardener's phrase, to degenerate, which it requires the utmost care on his part to counteract. When left to a state of nature, they speedily lose their acquired forms, properties and character, and regain ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... horizontal bands of red (top), white, and black with three green five-pointed stars in a horizontal line centered in the white band; the phrase ALLAHU AKBAR (God is Great) in green Arabic script—Allahu to the right of the middle star and Akbar to the left of the middle star—was added in January 1991 during the Persian Gulf crisis; similar ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... still out painting the town—Malone considered the word red and dropped the whole phrase with a sigh. At any rate, his partner was nowhere ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett |
