"Riddance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unlucky man fell he was also able to "get his work in," and both fell dead at the same instant. This was no duel. The first to fire had the advantage, but the "dead" man was too quick for him, and he did not escape. If I remember right, a good riddance. ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... going on. "I must say I didn't like their looks, and particularly old Blackbeard. He had an iron jaw and a scowl that would send a cold chill to your heart. Oh! if they've gone away, let's laugh in our sleeves. I'd call it a good riddance of very ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... not even turn his head when a barge swept past them, and a richly dressed man leaned from the stem and shouted something mockingly. The other monk looked nervously and deprecatingly up, for he heard the taunting threat across the water that the Carthusians were a good riddance, and that there would be more ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... he left the cabin, adding, under my breath, "Good riddance, too. You won't find quite so much when you come to examine this bag by daylight." After he had gone—but not at once, as I wished not to make him suspicious,—I locked my cabin-door. Then I hung my tarred sea-coat ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... "Good riddance to bad rubbish!" declared Bob, after they had gone on half a mile, and on looking back saw John Henry still standing there as if hardly knowing whether to be sorry, or glad over having received full pay for a week after only ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... and to explain to you anything that you may desire to know about your new condition. You are now free from the incumbrance of your body. You have already had some experience of the additional powers which that riddance has given you. You have also, I am afraid, had an inkling of the fact that the spiritual condition has its limitations. If you desire to communicate with those whom you have left, I would strongly advise you to postpone the attempt, and to leave this place, where you will experience only pain ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... the registers the other day, the one signed by the parson and old Sir James de la Molle. The boy who has just come up with the letters tells me he hears that poor old Mrs. Massey's summer-house on the top of Dead Man's Mount has been blown away, which is a good riddance for Colonel Quaritch. Why, what's the matter with you, dear? ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... a dame at Court, And go in cloth-of-gold. I'll get a suit Of Genoa velvet, and so take her eye. Has she a heart? The ladies of Whitehall Are not so skittish, else does Darrell lie Most villainously. Often hath he said The art of blushing 's a lost art at Court. If so, good riddance! This one here lets love Play beggar to her prudery, and starve, Feeding him ever on looks turned aside. To be so young, so fair, and wise withal! Lets love starve? Nay, I think starves merely me. For when was ever woman logical Both day and night-time? Not since Adam fell! I doubt a lover somewhere. ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... look at his silent daughter, "though a trouncin' would 'a' done her a sight o' good; but I was only tryin' to frighten her a little mite an' pay her up for bringin' disgrace on us the way she's done, makin' us the talk o' the town. Well, she's gone, an' good riddance to bad rubbish, say I! One less mouth to feed, an' one less body to clothe. You'll miss her jest at first, on account o' there bein' no other women-folks on the hill, but 't won't last long. I'll have Bill Morrill do some o' your ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... is rather dreadful to think how one person can spoil the world! If only you could have seen the Yellow House after Cousin Ana went! If only you could have heard the hotel landlady exclaim as she drove past: "Well! Good riddance to bad rubbish!" The weather grew warmer outside almost at once, and Bill Harmon's son planted the garden. The fireplaces ceased to smoke and the kitchen stove drew. Colonel Wheeler suggested a new chain pump instead of the old wooden one, after which the water took a turn for the better, and ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Budge!" laughed Jim. "That's just a parting salute. Besides, they've got two guns to our one. Let 'em go! And good riddance to bad rubbish! See! They're on their ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... kind of virtuous resignation and resolution, infinitely assuring to her brother. But he was getting tired of the discussion, and desirous to end it. Anxious as he was to be rid of his sister, and to effect the riddance on the best possible terms, he did not mean to be bored by her just then. So he spoke to the ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... matter of this kind, it does but corroborate these instinctive feelings. A convert is undeniably in favor with no party; he is looked at with distrust, contempt, and aversion by all. His former friends think him a good riddance, and his new friends are cold and strange; and as to the impartial public, their very first impulse is to impute the change to some eccentricity of character, or fickleness of mind, or tender attachment, or private interest. Their utmost praise is the reluctant confession that "doubtless ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... easy as a good riddance for both sides. Him and me was soon busy, and first he swore me (being ever artful) on my own book,—this here little black book, dear boy, what I ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Savoy came to New France fresh from the Turkish wars, and the sight of their plumed helmets and leathern bandoleers, as they marched through the narrow streets, promised the colonists a speedy riddance of their enemies. The health of Louis XIV. was nowhere in his broad dominions drunk ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... won't have any more of this. I'll bust you higher than a kite. I don't care if you've had fifty years of service. If you are mooning about that worthless boy of yours, you had better get over it. It's a damn good riddance, and you know it as well as I do. You'll have to take a brace or something ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... figured," replied Joe. "First off. I didn't think so.... So Shadd went over the cliff. That's good riddance. It beats me, though. Never knew that Piute's like with a horse. And he had some grand horses in his ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... anger died. "Good riddance," he breathed. "How long will he last, alone? Without a space-fitness card, the poor idiot probably imagines himself a ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... Good riddance, after all! Sina Tona was fond of her boy, but he wouldn't be getting into trouble again for a while! What a pity, though, for that poor girl Rosario, so modest and unassuming and never saying a word, who took her sewing ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... there should certainly be enemies of the people, a woman of the name of Delarue, for instance, the widow of a poisoner: "She must be furious at being in prison, if she could she would set fire to Paris: she must have said so, she has said so. Another good riddance." The demonstration appears convincing, and the prisoners are massacred without exception, included in the number being some fifty children of from twelve to seventeen years of age, who, of course, might themselves have become enemies of the nation, and of whom in consequence it was ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... bailie," said he, "and I am greatly obligated to your buff-coat, and to the time you took to put it on. If the secular arm had arrived some quarter of an hour sooner, I had been out of the reach of spiritual grace; but as it is, I wish you good even, and a safe riddance out of your garment of durance, in which you have much the air of a hog ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... also be reduced by lessening the term of first enlistments, thus allowing a discontented recruit to contemplate a nearer discharge and the Army a profitable riddance. After one term of service a reenlistment would be quite apt to secure a contented ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... this day than the last, Left some hands free to clear a piece of ground; And these, with brush-hooks, o'er two acres passed, Making good riddance of what brush they found. They then cut down some poles and fenced it round. The family, too, were busy all this while, For they were moved with gratitude profound To show their thankfulness in many a smile. Their happy faces do ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... achievement Silvia corralled her round-up and unloaded the four eldest upon the public school and then proceeded to install the protesting Diogenes in a nursery kindergarten. Huldah stood in the doorway as they marched off and sped the parting guests with a muttered "Good riddance to bad rubbish." ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... seize ere he again consign To me his friend, as I to Hades mine! Pity the wretch, his faults howe'er you see, Whom A accredits to his victim, B. Like shuttlecock which battledores attack (One speeds it forward, one would drive it back) The trustful simpleton is twice unblest— A rare good riddance, an unwelcome guest. The glad consignor rubs his hands to think How duty is commuted into ink; The consignee (his hands he cannot rub— He has the man upon them) mutters: "Cub!" And straightway plans to lose him at the Club. You know, good Killer, ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... "A good riddance," cried the admiral. "I'd rather sail round the world with a shipload of vampyres than with such a humbugging son of a gun as you are. D——e, you're ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... civilest man in the company is commonly the dullest, so these authors, while they are afraid to make you laugh or cry, out of pure good manners make you sleep. They are so careful not to exasperate a critic, that they never leave him any work; so busy with the broom, and make so clean a riddance that there is little left either for censure or for praise: For no part of a poem is worth our discommending, where the whole is insipid; as when we have once tasted of palled wine, we stay not to examine it glass by glass. ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... him that I burned the prints up," Sam went on. "And he said, 'good riddance to bad rubbish.' That was just like grandfather! Of course he did say that I was a d—I mean, a fool, to buy them in the first place; and I knew I was. But having bought them, the only thing to do was to burn ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... "Good riddance," said the Rue Saint Jacques. But Montcorbier was summoned to answer before the court of the Chatelet for the death of Philippe Sermaise, and in default of his appearance, was subsequently condemned to ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... a scheme was formed for the permanent riddance of New England from war-parties by the conquest of Canada.[122] The prime mover in it was Samuel Vetch, whom we have seen as an emissary to Quebec for the exchange of prisoners, and also as one of the notables fined for illicit trade with the French. He came of a respectable Scotch family. ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... have her father back that she might help him as she had never known how to do; and then came the thought, so quietly but persistently instilled by Thinkright, that the beam in her own eye need be her only care, for by the riddance of all wrong consciousness in herself good would radiate to her environment, and that her father was being ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... minutes Tom came in—"Here's a good riddance. The poisoner has fabricated his pilgrim's staff, to speak scientifically, and perambulated ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... cynical gray eyes, and thin face tinged rather sallow and Oriental, bespoke a reckless good humor. "Life sentence, eh? Then your name's—what is it again?—Hackh, isn't it? Heywood's mine. So you take Zimmerman's place. He's off already, and good riddance. He was a bounder!—Charming spot you've come to! I daresay if your Fliegelmans opened a hong in hell, you might possibly get a ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... about that strange night, she meant to tell some falsehood, and keep the recollection of her adventure entirely to herself. He made a furious gesture, which was tantamount to sending her to the devil. Good riddance; it suited him better not to have to go down. But, all the same, he felt hurt at heart, and ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... sou," (fancy the stump of a clay pipe speaking French!) "is gone for good, and good riddance, do yer? You ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... will not do," cried Middle, readily, "I will trust no man with my warrant; and if you will not help me, gossip, why, pass on and good riddance to you." ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... bad business altogether, except that it will rid him of this young rascal. If I were in his place I should be ready to suffer a good deal to obtain such a riddance." ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... wild animals and fowls, and they may sell it to a stranger. And they are allowed to enjoy it in every way. When that season has passed over its enjoyment is disallowed, and they must not heat with it an oven or a stove. Rabbi Judah said, "there is no riddance of leaven but by burning." But the Sages say, "also by powdering and scattering it to the wind, or casting it into ...
— Hebrew Literature
... the bottom of the skirts. They looked the most frantic things you can imagine, and the mere sight of them made my poor feet ache in the beautiful sandals I am wearing now; when once you have put on sandals you say good-bye and good-riddance to shoes. In a single month my feet have grown almost a tenth as large again as they were, and my friends here encourage me to believe that they will yet measure nearly the classic size, though, as you know, I am not in my first youth and can't ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... then have made fools of me and my dear daughter; and the darling little cherub in the churchyard would have been the real heir. There'd have been a good riddance of you." ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the crucifixion, yes, and good riddance to it; but the death of the old order and the growth of spirituality comes to a sort ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... as an orphan put on the train at "St. Jo" by some relative of his stepmother, to be delivered to another relative at Sacramento. As his stepmother had not even taken leave of him, but had entrusted his departure to the relative with whom he had been lately living, it was considered as an act of "riddance," and accepted as such by her party, and even vaguely acquiesced in by the boy himself. What consideration had been offered for his passage he did not know; he only remembered that he had been told ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... saying, Away with such fantastical fools from the town! A good riddance, for my part, I say, of her. Should she stay where she dwells, and retain this her mind, who could live quietly by her? for she will either be dumpish or unneighbourly, or talk of such matters as no wise body can abide; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hesitated, and Mother Bonneton put in harshly: "I'll tell you, she's fretting about that American who was sent to prison—a good riddance it was." ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... the first to speak. "So you thought I was dead and out of the way," he said, with a sneer; "that nothing would happen to disturb the fortunate possessor of my father's money. I was dead and done for, and a good riddance." ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... he announced coolly, "and I think it high time I took a share in the conversation. You seem to have run up against a snag, Mr. Douglas. You say Frank Harmon is dead. That's good riddance if it's true. Is ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Captain Leeds—well then, Leonard dearie, you bad boy," wailed the old woman reproachfully. "Mr. Jakes has gone to the war, as has likewise all the men in the house, and a good riddance it is, too. There was a time when you weren't too grand to let your poor old Nannie wait on you. Why, Miss Marjorie, I remember ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... anything to the flock of Christ, that I cared heartily in my own soul for that thing. Without this consciousness I was dumb. And I do think, highly as I value prophecy, that a clergyman ought to be at liberty upon occasion to say, "My friends, I cannot preach to-day." What a riddance it would be for the Church, I do not say if every priest were to speak sense, but only if every priest were to abstain from speaking of that in which, at the moment, he ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... of bed, put his hand to his head. The cursed fellow! Cursed be every one of them—the father and the girl, Rosek and all the other sharks! He went out on to the landing. The house was quite still below. Rosek had gone—good riddance! He called, "Gyp!" No answer. He went into her room. Its superlative daintiness struck his fancy. A scent of cyclamen! He looked out into the garden. There was the baby at the end, and that fat woman. No Gyp! Never in when she was wanted. Wagge! He shivered; and, going ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... at finding his son, and losing the wicked Medea. And, indeed, if you had seen how hateful was her last look, as the flaming chariot flew upward, you would not have wondered that both king and people should think her departure a good riddance. ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... an effort to speak with his customary easy self-possession, and Mr. Hornblower's answer was to slam the door upon him. "Good riddance to damned bad rubbish," ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... undeniable witnesses that convicted the crocodile of wilful murder. A necklace and two armlets, such as are worn by the negro girls, were taken from the stomach! The girl had been digested. This was an old malefactor that was a good riddance. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... on small things can be carried to greater. If steadily persisted in, a good fifty per cent of wasted nervous force can be saved for better things; and this saving of nervous force is the least gain which comes from a thorough riddance of every form ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... never in earnest in your speeches; That you decoy the Swedes—to make fools of them; Will league yourself with Saxony against them, And at last make yourself a riddance of them With a ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... was so kind, and had tried to think what his daughter thought, he found himself in a most ungenial mood for sweet condolement. Any but the best of fathers would have been delighted with the proof of all his prophecies and the riddance of a rogue. So that even he, though dwelling in his child's heart as his own, read this letter (when the first emotions had exploded) with a real hope that things, in the long ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... in the row about Jarman's guy? Old Sarah. Who played the fool with that barge and got us all licked? Cad Sarah. Who started the shindy last night that's fetched us all in here? Lout Sarah. Who's going to be expelled? Howling Sarah. And who'll be a jolly good riddance of bad rubbish? Chimpanzee Sarah. There you are. Make what you like of it, and ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... Selby," said the King; "lose not sight of him till the ship sail; if he dare return to Britain, it shall be at his peril. Would to God we had as good riddance of others as dangerous! And I would also," he added, after a moment's pause, "that all our political intrigues and feverish alarms could terminate as harmlessly as now. Here is a plot without a drop ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... a slap, which upset her equilibrium. So with hurried step, she betook herself away. Lady Feng then drew near the window. Lending an ear to what was going on inside, she heard some one in the room laughingly observe: "When that queen-of-hell sort of wife of yours dies, it will be a good riddance!" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... children, and track them home, and find out all about them from the neighbors, and then feed them and find them work. As nobody ever saw him give anything to anybody, he had the reputation of being mean; he died with it, too, and everybody said it was a good riddance; but the minute he landed here, they made him a baronet, and the very first words Dick the sausage-maker of Hoboken heard when he stepped upon the heavenly shore were, 'Welcome, Sir Richard Duffer!' It surprised him some, because he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... would bust up sooner or later, and I am heartily glad of it. Now they've got to go into the army, and if I get the second lieutenant's commission I am working for, perhaps I shall be placed over some of the fellows who voted against me. So Gray is going to Missouri, is he? Good riddance. He'll have to go in as private, and that will bring him ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... Pipchin; she still calls Miss Tox Lucretia, on account of having made her first experiments in the child-quelling line of business on that lady, when an unfortunate and weazen little girl of tender years; 'to tell you my mind, Lucretia, I think it's a good riddance. I don't want any of your brazen faces ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Poppa had a turble quar'l. I couldn't hear what started it, but finely it woke me up and I listened, and Momma was cryin' and Poppa was swearin'. And at last Momma said: 'Oh, I might as well go and throw myself in the river,' and Poppa said: 'Good riddance of bad rubbish!' and Momma stopped cryin' and she says: 'All right!' in an awful kind of a voice, and I heard the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Pean on the shoulder and shook him by the hand. "You are more clever than I believed you to be, De Pean. You have hit on a mode of riddance which will entitle you to the best reward in the power of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... its avowed national adoption in our land, were its provisions for acting on the community, and how slow and partial must have been their efficacy, for either the dissipation of ignorance in general, or the riddance of that worst part of it which had thickened round the Romish delusion, as malignant a pestilence as ever walked in darkness. There was an alteration of formularies, a curtailment of rites, a declaration of renouncing, in the name of the church and state, the most palpable of the absurdities; ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... that shall keep her, I will give two Bushel of Beans. I forewarn all Persons in Town or Country from trusting said Trial of Vengeance. I have hove all the old Shoes I can find for Joy; and all my Neighbours rejoice with me. A good Riddance of bad Ware. Amen. ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... lounge than it cost us reassured us in our position. Most of our old traps we huddled together one day, and disposed of them to a second-hand man for almost enough to pay for one decent piece—a chiffonier this time—and voted a good riddance to bad rubbish. ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the house!" and Sally herself came to the kitchen door. She burst into her large laugh. "Well, I declare to goodness, if it ain't Abel and the Squire! Well, if this ain't the best joke on me! Did you see Dylks off, Squire Braile? And a good riddance ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... before the frown of a saintly father, and therefore no fit companion for a jolly fellow like himself. 'Have you followed Herbert's example, and are you, too, a godly-minded parson? then, good day, and good riddance to you, my lad,' was the conclusion of his boisterous speech, and setting spurs to his horse, he would have galloped off, when I detained him, to ask why he had not informed his family of his present place of abode and ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... "A good riddance," said Oates. "The fool had seen too much and would have proved but a saarry witness. Now by the mairciful dispensation of Goad he has ceased to trouble us. Ye ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... of course threw up their jobs, then and there. Dinky-Dunk paid them off, on the spot, and they started off across the open prairie, without even waiting for their meal. Dinky-Dunk, as we sat down on the dry grass and ate together, said it was a good riddance, and he was just saying I could only have the left-hand side of his mouth to kiss for the next week when he suddenly dropped his piece of custard-pie, stood up and stared toward the east. I did the same, wondering ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... "And a good riddance!" muttered the showman rising. "This will be a good time for me to look over the books and find out what shape the ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the street could be seen the room in which the walls were covered with leather, ragged and torn, and the green in the balcony hung straggling over the beams; they pulled it down quickly, for it looked ready to fall, and at last it was cleared away altogether. "What a good riddance," said the neighbors' houses. Very shortly, a fine new house was built farther back from the road; it had lofty windows and smooth walls, but in front, on the spot where the old house really stood, a little garden was planted, and wild vines grew up over the neighboring walls; in front of the garden ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Howe," said Mr. Haveby. "Bunster is there, and we'll let them settle it between them. It will be a case, I imagine, of Mauki getting Bunster, or Bunster getting Mauki, and good riddance ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... Buffum, "that folks made a great fuss about his gettin' away from here and never bein' found. I thought 'twas a good riddance myself, but people seem to think that these crazy critturs are just as much consequence as any body, when they don't know a thing. He was always arter our dinner horn, and blowin', and thinkin' he was the Angel Gabriel. Well, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... "A good riddance, ma'am," said Mr Clam. "Them young chaps think to have it all their own way. I wish I had seen a policeman or a serjeant of soldiers; I would have charged him, as sure ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Conover. She put away her pipe and took an unblushing swig from a black bottle she produced from a shelf near her. "It's my opinion the kid won't live long. It's sickly. Min never had no gimp and I guess it hain't either. Likely it won't trouble any one long and good riddance, sez I." ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... going into yonder place of call, I should say they are welcome to what they get; for if that's the kind of rubbish they steal out of the Church of England, or any other church, who in his senses but would say a good riddance, and many thanks for your trouble: at any rate that is my ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... most illegally, sir," replied the old man indignantly; "and, in my opinion, I say that, in consequence of his conduct, the country had a good riddance of him. I only wish I could send you after him; perhaps I shall do so yet. I believe in Providence, sirra, and that God can protect me from your ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... nought but a dreary isolation of feeling; revenge alone reigned in his heart uncontrolled, and undisputed. The two inferior personages were likewise indulging in reflections consonant to their nature and habits. A vacant joy, a happy riddance from a state of fear and thraldom, predominated in the heart of Roque, whilst a curious amalgamation of gratified spite and returning superstition claimed that of Marien Rufa. But, however different the sentiments by which they were actuated, the travellers ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... the union of those two objects, the admission of fresh air and the riddance of the vitiated air, skilfully and economically effected, which forms the circle ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various
... another quintal of fish could be stowed away. It was fairly time to think of a deck-load. There was still something in the cabin: something to be disposed of—something to turn into fish. And it was Archie who proposed the scheme of riddance. ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... marry this woman. Their heart-strings must have been wrung by some final parting; and now that she had been proved untrue, was it not most unmanly that he should permit her to stand even in the threshold of his mind? It was a good riddance, he said, pacing the floor in the firelight; but just then he glanced into the great mirror, and stood fixed to mark the pallor of his face. Say what he might, laugh as he did, with a hollow sound, that ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... on your carpet, Miss Susan; no more coverlets rolled into balls. A good riddance. Miss Phoebe, a ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... went on, musing aloud. "The guillotine will do your business in due course if I hand you over to the law. That will be best, safest; the most complete riddance, perhaps." ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... joined him, and their sympathy and cooperation soon secured his object. "He kept a list of them," said Horry, "which he called his Black List. This mode answered so well that many resigned their commissions, and the brigade was thus fortunately rid of such worthless fellows." The values of such a riddance is well shown by another sentence from the MS. of our veteran. "I found the men seldom defective, were it not for the bad example set them ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... and who gave little indication of a life of honor or usefulness, would be turned into the public inclosure at West Point to square his morals and his toes at the same time at public expense, and the act rejoiced at as a good family riddance. Thus in the Loyal States, the profession of arms had fallen greatly into disrepute previously to the outbreak of the Rebellion, and instead of being known as a respectable vocation, was considered as none at all. Had military training ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... N. deliverance, extrication, rescue; reprieve, reprieval[obs3]; respite; liberation &c. 750; emancipation; redemption, salvation; riddance; gaol delivery; redeemableness[obs3]. V. deliver, extricate, rescue, save, emancipate, redeem, ransom; bring off,bring through; tirer d'affaire[Fr], get the wheel out of the rut, snatch from the jaws of death, come to the rescue; rid; retrieve &c. (restore) 660; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... both have been killed," remarked Monsieur Mouilleron; "it would have been a good riddance for the Government." ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... for a man to boast that he is lord of himself, and that having no ties he may do as he pleases with that possession. But it is a possession of which, unfortunately, he cannot rid himself when he finds that there is nothing advantageous to be done with it. Doubtless there is a way of riddance. There is the bare bodkin. Or a man may fall overboard between Holyhead and Kingston in the dark, and may do it in such a cunning fashion that his friends shall think that it was an accident. But against these modes of riddance there is a canon set, which some men ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... away with herself—a thing so uncommon amongst Romanies; whereupon one squinted with his eyes, a second spirted saliver into the air, and a third said that he neither knew nor cared; she was a good riddance, having more than once been nearly the ruin of them all, from the quantity of brimstone she carried about her. One, however, I suppose rather ashamed of the way in which they had treated me, said at last that if I wanted to know ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Anythin' agin ye? Wal, Capm, then all I've got to say is, you come off easy. That feller 'd cut a sleepin' man's throat. I sh'd say thank God for the riddance. Tell ye I've watched that cuss. Been blastedly afeard 'f him. Hev so, by George! The further I git from him the safer ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... so. A good riddance. I wonder if he was hunting for Susan and the boy when he met with that accident. He was 'warm' as the children say, close up against Waterfall Cottage. You are to make Stella forget that dream of hers of being pursued by some terrible ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... neutral, and of "aggregation," when the subject is introduced to a new state or condition of existence. If I understand him rightly, he looks on this as the proper and primitive explanation of all such rites, and denies that they need to be accounted for animistically, i.e. by assuming that riddance of evil spirits, or purification of any kind, is the leading idea in them. They are, in fact, quasi-dramatic celebrations of a process of going over from one status to another, and may be found in connection with ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... too shockin' for human ears. If Mr Rogers cares to take the bird for five shillin', he's welcome, and good riddance. Only he won't never find out what's wrong ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... about the chaise as Moore entered it; but for them he had no farewell. To Mr. Yorke he only said, "You have a good riddance of me. That was an unlucky shot for you, Yorke; it turned Briarmains into an hospital. Come and see me at the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... to talk to me," she answered, with anger. "He deserves to die. And it will be a good riddance for you, and for the world. He was stirring the passions of mobs that will yet ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... said Corson's hearty voice. "I was wondering about ye. Well, there has been a bit of a row here, and there's a power of broken heads to be mended. There's wan man cut to pieces, and good riddance, for it's Black Dick. I'm thinking it's the morgue they'll be taking him to, though it was for the receiving hospital they started with him. It was a dandy row, and it was siventeen arrists ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... should I know?' said Mrs. Shepherd crossly. 'I'm not to be looking after thieves and vagabonds. He's a come-by-chance, and he's a go-by-chance, and a good riddance too!' ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of subordinate importance. The present interest of chief moment is a riddance of the hoary fallacy that vitiates the current idea of a supernatural Revelation by looking for its specific characteristics to the physical world. By this deplorable fallacy Christian theology has blinded the minds of many scientific men to the essential ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... persons may well be gladdened by the approach of death. It is the best thing they can do—to depart from world which they call a dark hole, a world which was obviously not made for them, seeing that they are always feeling uncomfortable about one thing or another. Good riddance to them and ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... of adventures and emotions which leave me sick and weary, and yet unable to sleep, though I have lain down on the sofa of my room for more than an hour in the attempt. I therefore make up my diary to date in a hurried fashion, for the sake of the riddance it affords to ideas which otherwise remain suspended ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... shouted to his wife. "It will be a good riddance. We shall, perhaps, be happier when she ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... bed on account of this. She need not worry; she need not weep scalding tears on his account. So she had jilted him; she returned his ring. What of it? But why had she dragged the ring all the way up to Torahus? Why hadn't she simply left it on his desk and saved the postage? Good-bye; good riddance! Go to the devil with your silk-lined deceiver, and never let me ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... noised about the street. Wellington swapped his fish for supper and a bed at a neighbor's, and during the evening learned from several sources that the strange white man had been at his house the afternoon of the day before. His neighbors intimated that they thought Mrs. Braboy's departure a good riddance of bad rubbish, and Wellington ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... is no great loss without some small gain," said one man. "We are quit of Big Pete, that's certain, and it is a good riddance of bad rubbish. He was the worst man in this bailiwick, and I am thinking that more than one job of pilfering might safely be ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... nodded again. "I see," he said simply. "You shot him. Not a bad riddance. How did you come to rob the ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... people are very nice, really, most of them—will tell you that they have missed you. You will reply that you did not miss yourself. And you will go the more strenuously to your work and pleasure, so as to have the sooner an excuse for a good riddance. ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... view, perhaps from the same reason as its predecessors. South African mines may produce gold and diamonds (licit and illicit!) but their yield in souls is probably the poorest to the square mile anywhere on earth. Schelmerdine never had one in his gross carcass. So there was an end of him, and a good riddance to rotten clay. I have not thought of him again all night. I have thought of nothing but this perhaps passionately dispassionate statement that I have made up my mind to leave behind me. It has given me strange ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... the exciting events had wearied her. She rested while Florence and the two men got supper. During the meal Stillwell expressed satisfaction over the good riddance of the vaqueros, and with his usual optimism trusted he had seen the last of them. Alfred, too, took a decidedly favorable view of the day's proceedings. However, it was not lost upon Madeline that Florence appeared unusually quiet and thoughtful. Madeline wondered a little ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... overboard and landed here. And here I found the solution. I'm dead. If the governor gets soft-hearted and gets private detectives on my trail, they'll find I disappeared from that steamer, that's all. Drowned, of course. SHE'LL think so, too. 'Good riddance to bad rubbish' is the general verdict. I can stay here a year or so, and then, being dead and forgotten, can go back to civilization and hustle for myself. BUT a woman is at the bottom of my trouble, and I never want to see another. So, if my staying here depends upon my seeing them, I guess, as ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... him, her lip drooping a little in a half-contemptuous smile—"they've heard again from that Sister Lydia who ran away! You know who I mean?—Brother Nathan is always talking about her. They think she'll come back. I should say good riddance! Though of course if it's genuine repentance I'll be glad. Only I don't ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... fate had thwarted him. Was it so fantastically improbable, so hopeless a solace that he had planned, that he should have thought his wife might take comfort for the death of their own child in making for its sake a home for another, orphaned, forlorn, a burden, and a glad riddance to those into whose grudging charge it had been thrown? This bounty of hope and affection and comfort had seemed to him a free gift from the dead baby's hands, who had no need of it since coming into its infinite heritage of immortality, to the living waif, ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... familiar faces, "murderers they already are, doubtless, in intent. I should have been sent hence long ago, but for the hope of reaching my counsels through Mars Plaisir. From the eyes of the world I have already disappeared; and nothing hinders the riddance of me now. Feeble as I am, the waiting for death may yet be tedious. If tedious for him who has this day done with me, how tedious for me, who have done with him and with all the world!—done with them, except as to the affections with which one may look back ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... thae high-born kinna folk. It's that interestin' to watch them. Ye niver ken whit they'll dae next, or whit they'll say—they're that audacious. We wud mak' an awfu' dull warld o' it if we pit them a' awa to Ameriky or somewhere. I often tell't Andra that, but he said it wud be a guid riddance ... I'm wonderin' what Bella Bathgate thinks o' him. It'll be great to hear her breath on't. She's quite comin' roond to Miss Reston. She was tellin' me she disna think there's onything veecious about her, and she's gettin' quite used to ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... decanted: an' Hancock and Truslove, nothin' doubtful, begun to lap it up like so much milk—the Vicar helpin', and the Missus rather encouragin' than not, to the extent o' the first decanter; thinkin' that 'twas good riddance to the stuff and that if the Bishop turned up, he wouldn't look, as a holy man, for more than ha'f a bottle. I'm tellin' it you as Sally told it to me. She says that everything went on as easy as eggs ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... needle in a bloomin' haystack," he said to himself. "I might as well go back to Clankwood. 'E's a good riddance, ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... since it has for its object the prospect of doing justice and achieving independence. J.B. dined with me, poor fellow, and talked of his views as hopeful and prosperous. God send honest industry a fair riddance. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... never had woman a more dirty and detestable husband. Help me to pick him up, else the wagons will run over him as they run over broken bottles, and I shall be a widow, and that will end by killing me with grief, though all the world says it would be an excellent riddance for me." Such is the part of the gardener's wife, and her continued lamentations last during the entire play. For it is a genuine spontaneous comedy acted on the spur of the moment in the open air, along the roads and across the fields, aided by every chance occurrence that ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... as good fun,' he said quickly. To tell the truth he had a very soft corner in his heart for the poor little bunnies, with their turned-up, tufty white tails, scampering about in their innocent happiness. 'Rats is best, and a good riddance.' ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... shut av the Army, he sings the Divil's Mass for a good riddance; an' that manes swearin' at ivrything from the Commandher-in-Chief down to the Room-Corp'ril, such as you niver in your days heard. Some men can swear so as to make green turf crack! Have you iver heard the Curse in an Orange Lodge? ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... not out by protesting. Behold, how, from every window, it vomits: mere torrents of furniture, of bellowing and hurlyburly;—the cellars also leaking wine. Till, as was natural, smoke rose,—kindled, some say, by the desperate Saint-Lazaristes themselves, desperate of other riddance; and the Establishment vanished from this world in flame. Remark nevertheless that 'a thief' (set on or not by Aristocrats), being detected ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... fate operating in his favor, he should have faced odds of two deadly antagonists instead of facing one. What else then than his prompt and honorable discharge? And to top all, the popular verdict was that the killing off of Jess Tatum was so much good riddance of so much sorry rubbish; a pity, though, Harve had ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... savagery of the hawk, any small bird but the little king would have been well content with his riddance. Not so the king-birds. With shrill chirpings they sped to the rescue. Their wings cuffed the marauder's head in a fashion that confused him. Their wedge-like beaks menaced his eyes and brought blood through the short feathers on the top of his head. He could ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... that's not London. I am the eldest of the family, and I got very tired of living all in a pie, and so I've come home to England to better myself.—A year ago I was engaged to be married, but the young man behaved badly. A good riddance, all my friends told me—but it wasn't a pleasant experience. Anyway now I want to earn some money, and see the world a little. I have got rather a good voice, and I am considered handsome—at least smart-looking. If you are not too grand to invite me to your place, I should ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mr. Guppy. "He wouldn't keep out of Jarndyce, and I suppose he's over head and ears in debt. I never knew much of him. He was as high as the monument when he was on trial at our place. A good riddance to me, whether as clerk or client! Well, Tony, that as I was mentioning is ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Master Luke walking in to us safe and sound last night, but Garret Dawson's been found dead in his study. They didn't dare disturb him when he was busy. At last when Mrs. Dawson herself sent he was dead. A good riddance to bad ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... down. I've got you, and my strength to work for you, and that little ranch in Sonoma. That's all I want, and that's all I'm going to save out, along with Bob and Wolf, a suit case and a hundred and forty hair bridles. All the rest goes, and good riddance. It's that ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London |
