"Almost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Withipole's house Lady Elizabeth and her daughter lived in the strictest seclusion, and all precautions were taken to prevent the place of their retreat from becoming known. And great caution was necessary, for Lady Elizabeth and Frances were almost within a dozen miles of Stoke Pogis, their country home; so that they would have been in danger of being recognised, if they had appeared ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... of the discovery to Radisson and Groseilliers were condign punishment, disgrace, and almost utter ruin. When they came back to the St Lawrence in the summer of 1663 with several hundred Indians and a flotilla of canoes swarming over the surface of the river below the heights of Quebec, and conveying ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... rebuke, the squire did not manifest his constitutional tendencies to choler; but he replied almost meekly, "If it were to do again, faith, I would leave the parish to the enjoyment of the shabbiest pair of stocks that ever disgraced a village. Certainly I meant it for the best,—an ornament to the green; however, now the stocks is rebuilt, the stocks ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... received me for the asking. Yes, I was inclined to venture more than half In this base business—shame upon my thoughts!— All for my father's peace and poor Ravenna's. And this Paolo, with his cavalcade, His minstrels, music, and his pretty airs, His showy person, and his fulsome talk, Almost made me contented with my lot. O! what a fool—in faith, I merit it— Trapped by mere glitter! What an easy fool! Ha! ha! I'm glad it went no further, girl; [Laughing.] I'm glad I kept my heart safe, after all. There was my cunning. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... meschief fell upon the weie. As he rod with his compainie Nyh to the strondes of Lubie, 410 Ther myhte thei no drinke finde Of water nor of other kinde, So that himself and al his host Were of defalte of drinke almost Destruid, and thanne Bachus preide To Jupiter, and thus he seide: "O hihe fader, that sest al, To whom is reson that I schal Beseche and preie in every nede, Behold, mi fader, and tak hiede 420 This wofull ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... new friend; and next morning, meeting in the pump-room, the squire asked Clifford to dinner. The entree to the house thus gained, the rest was easy. Long before Mauleverer recovered his health, the mischief effected by his rival was almost beyond redress; and the heart of the pure, the simple, the affectionate Lucy Brandon was more than half lost to the lawless and vagrant cavalier who officiates as ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... means, but when the writing fit came on, she gave herself up to it with entire abandon, and led a blissful life, unconscious of want, care, or bad weather, while she sat safe and happy in an imaginary world, full of friends almost as real and dear to her as any in the flesh. Sleep forsook her eyes, meals stood untasted, day and night were all too short to enjoy the happiness which blessed her only at such times, and made these hours worth living, even if they bore ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... made his wish again, with a heart felt earnestness that was almost an ache. Oh, surely the day was not going to end in this cruel silence! Just then he heard the thud of a horse's hoofs on the wooden bridge, far down the road. Nearer and louder it came. Somebody was prancing by at last. He stood up, straining ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... concealed in the bushes till they went by, and then followed them up as before. At two or three points, some companies of minute-men attacked the enemy in the open field, and killed a considerable number of them. When they reached Lexington they were almost worn out, and could not have marched much farther. Just then, we saw a large reinforcement of the red-coats, under Lord Percy, coming along the Roxbury road, and we had to hold off awhile. You ought ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... men—experienced the most poignant pain in casting their eyes on Yudhishthira. And thinking that a short time only remained (of their exile), those bulls among men, influenced by rage and hope and by resorting to various exertions and endeavours, made their bodies assume almost different shapes. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... interpretation of the universe, and he will have acquired certain positive and practical habits of mind. If the methods of thought of any individual in this central body are not practical and positive, he will tend to drift out of it to some more congenial employment. He will almost necessarily have a strong imperative to duty quite apart from whatever theological opinions he may entertain, because if he has not such an inherent imperative, life will have very many more alluring ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... territorial indemnity for the war of 1815.[552] In truth, our Ministers were content with placing France and her ancient dynasty in an honourable position, in the hope that Europe would thus at last find peace; and the forty years of almost unbroken rest that ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... strength of a man in the body of a boy. But Siward, while attacking the enemy face to face, fell forward upon the ground wounded. When his men saw this, it made them look round most anxiously for means of flight; and this brought low not only Siward, but almost the whole army on the side of Ragnar. But Ragnar by his manly deeds and exhortations comforted their amazed and sunken spirits, and, just when they were ready to be conquered, spurred them ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... band of Lipans. Apparently we were in for it and seriously debated a retreat. Our position could not be worse. Tomas told us that the trail of the Lipans led straight up the valley, and for eight miles the canon was never more than three hundred yards wide, and often no more than fifty, with almost perpendicular walls rising on either side two hundred or more feet in height, so nearly perpendicular that we would for the entire distance be in range from the bordering cliff crests, while any enemy there ambushed would be so safely covered they could follow our route and pick us off at their ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... line of large significance. It meant that the air was filled with the whisper of hovering events and that he must mingle with the mystery of preparation. Christmas was an important season in the Clemens home. Almost the entire day before, Patrick was out with the sleigh, delivering food and other gifts in baskets to the poor, and the home preparations were no less busy. There was always a tree—a large one—and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... or reserve for the gallery of his house, and we must conclude that the few members of the nobility who had conducted the great campaigns were but slightly enriched by the offerings which helpless peoples had laid at their feet. It would be almost truer to say that the great influx of the precious metals had increased the difficulties of their position; for, if the gold or silver took the form of artistic work which remained in their possession, it but exaggerated the ideal to which their standard of ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... madness, which was, as I have said, the ostensible cause of his imprisonment, we are left in almost equal uncertainty. His morbid sensibility, irritated by the treatment which he received alike from his friends and foes, his repeated complaints and occasional violences and extravagances of conduct, may have seemed to a selfish prince to border closely upon mental derangement. But his ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... be blamed for it," said Petit Andre, "but what of that?—I could consent almost to give my life for such a jerry come tumble, such a smart, tight, firm lad, who proposes to come from aloft with a grace, as an ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... frequent journeys to the coast Bonaparte usually set off at night, and on the following morning arrived at the post office of Chantilly, where he breakfasted. Rapp, whom I often saw when he was in Paris, talked incessantly of these journeys, for he almost always accompanied the First Consul, and it would have been well had he always been surrounded by such men. In the evening the First Consul supped at Abbeville, and arrived early next day at the bridge of Brique. "It would require constitutions of iron to go through what we do," said ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... "It is almost ten o'clock. Aunt Harriet and Cousin Robert should be here. I think I'll walk down to the guests' entrance and see if I can find any trace of them. Bob would not be permitted to come to the dormitory. Perhaps, Aunt Harriet is waiting with him in the reception hall. Marshall ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... home, set the measure upon the heap of gold, filled it, and emptied it often upon the sofa, till she had done, when she was very well satisfied to find the number of measures amounted to so many as they did, and went to tell her husband, who had almost finished digging the hole. While Ali Baba was burying the gold, his wife, to show her exactness and diligence to her sister-in-law, carried the measure back again, but without taking notice that a piece of gold had stuck to the bottom. ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... works of J. F. Smith, the un-remembered prose laureate of the London Journal, who would have been reckoned a giant of invention if he had lived in these days, and a sentence from his latest chapter got into Paul's head and went round and round: 'There lay the fair, gifted, almost idolized girl.' In Mr. Smith's moving page the fair, gifted, almost idolized girl was dying, and Paul did not as yet know enough of the story-teller's craft of that day to be sure that she would recover in the next chapter. She mixed herself with the lady of the sandy ringlets who ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... through a beautiful valley, where a series of hills runs from east to west, presenting an unequal ridge; on this ridge, overlooking the river, the little village of Dullah was situated, in which Ram Singh had so cleverly fortified himself. In every direction from the village the rock dipped almost perpendicularly, beside being protected by the river, which wound partly around it. Access was by paths, partly lying in hollows formed by former streams, and partly cut through the rock. These paths were circuitous, and nearly covered with brushwood, admitting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... memory," he rejoined simply. "I am a good friend," she answered, then suddenly her face flushed up, her breast panted, her eyes shone with a brightness almost intolerable to him, and he said in a low, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... put on now a grave, decided look; a lofty pride lighted up her high brow, and with an almost joyful expression she looked at her husband, who had been induced to do something—at least, to take ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... backward and forward and studied the sleeping, innocent face. I had almost written "sweet" again; I can scarcely think of her face, as it was then, without writing sweet. It would be long, Miss Prudence mused, before lines and creases intruded here and there in that smooth forehead, and in the tinted cheeks ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... which, and their conditions and developments, there was nothing but blank ignorance. So that it seemed as though the marvellous fabric of Greek civilization as we know it were indeed something unexampled, rising almost at once out of nothing to its height of splendour, as the walls of Ilium were fabled to have risen beneath the hands of their divine builders. Indeed, a certain section of students seemed rather to glory in the fact of this seeming isolation of Greek culture, and to deem it ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... last evening. The performance could not, coming from troupes possessing talent varied and of the higher order, be otherwise than good. These bands, when they united, made a palpable hit. Their combined concerts are almost ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... decoration is the desideratum. He contrived a schematic painting that would harmonise with the flatness, with the texture and the architectural surroundings, and, as George Moore has happily said: "No other painter ever kept this end so strictly before his eyes. For this end Chavannes reduced his palette almost to a monochrome, for this end he models in two flat tints, for this end he draws in huge undisciplined masses.... Mural decoration, if it form part of the wall, should be a variant of the stonework." One might take exception to ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... ledge we found the water again deepening; but I took Halliday's hand, and together we waded on, followed by Boxall—who was ready to give either of us assistance, should we require it. The water was growing deeper and deeper, till it almost reached ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... its ending is all too horrible a consequence of the sin. Dramatically and psychically, however, the tragedy is much more inevitable than that of Romeo and Juliet, whose love one naturally thinks of in the same connection. The catastrophe in the Shakespeare play is almost mechanically pushed to its conclusion through mere external blundering, easily to have been prevented. Juliet saw clearly where Mildred does not, that loyalty to a deep and true love should triumph over all minor considerations, so ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... very quiet now as she spoke—her brilliant eyes were dark with thought, and her delicate face wore a serious, almost melancholy expression. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... with fine and clear but extremely cold weather; unfortunately we were still without a thermometer and could not ascertain the degrees of temperature. The coruscations of the Aurora Borealis were very brilliant almost every evening of the first week and were generally of the most variable kind. On the 3rd they were particularly changeable. The first appearance exhibited three illuminated beams issuing from the horizon in the north, east, and west points, and directed ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... of Pascal's writing is, his thought is deeply impregnated with the spirit of the Middle Ages. He belonged, almost equally, to the future and to the past. He was a distinguished man of science, a brilliant mathematician; yet he shrank from a consideration of the theory of Copernicus: it was more important, he declared, to think of the immortal ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... I simply denounced her in the presence of several who were at supper with her, a new admirer among them. Perhaps she hates me for that, but it seems queer that Pauline Potter, whom I knew in Chicago, should bob up in Malta. Almost like ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... realm! Moreover, it was a war not only on the men but on their gods. The Persians were zealous adorers of the sun and the fire, they abhorred the idol-worship of the Greeks, and defiled and plundered every temple that fell in their way. Death and desolation were almost the best that could be looked for at such hands—slavery and torture from cruelly barbarous masters would only too surely be the lot of numbers, should their land fall ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... one's personal property, such as hogs and carabaos, but almost never does an Igorot "lose his property," if it is real. Only a protracted family sickness or a series of deaths requiring the killing of great numbers of chickens, hogs, and carabaos, and the purchase of many things necessary for ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... the books that night the prayer, which was spoken in a tone of awful and almost inaudible solemnity, was for the most part an exaltation of the majesty and righteousness of the government of God, and a lamentation over the wickedness and rebellion of mankind. And Billy Jack ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... The outraged British hunter shot forward scattering hounds to right and left, flew a ditch and hedge and was close on the fox, who had stopped to make a last stand. Without drawing rein, the astonished onlookers saw the lean Indian suddenly disappear under the neck of his horse and almost instantly swing back into his seat waving a brown thing above his head. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... breath returned to my lungs. With a disappointment almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body, not easily accommodative to the Spirit. Like a prodigal child, I had run away from my macrocosmic home and imprisoned myself ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... design for the building from Satan himself, upon the usual condition of giving a promissory note for his soul. A certain Father Clement, however, a very knowing priest, of whom the arch-tempter stood in almost as great awe as he had ever done of St Dunstan of nose-pulling celebrity, came to the assistance of the builder, and put him up to a stratagem, by which he avoided signing away his spiritual part, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... ladder raisers were bunching again close under the cliff, to one side of the cliff house openings. One of them made signs to the outlying riflemen. The others began to work on the broken ladders. The firing had almost ceased. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... strange effect moonlight and water have upon us, Miss Custer! They seem almost to disembody us. I can hardly ever recall a single line of poetry in the daytime when the sun is shining. But moonlight brings out all the delicate images ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... had been almost entirely allayed. And her comparative peace of mind had come about ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... for him, and answered his ring herself, her hands grasping his almost fiercely and dragging him up the stairs to her own room, where, more like a maniac than Katy Cameron, she confronted him ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... venture to quote in this connection a letter from my father, which needs a word of preface. Among his experiments in journalism, Fitzjames had taken to writing for the 'Christian Observer,' an ancient, and, I imagine, at the time, an almost moribund representative of the evangelical party. Henry Venn had suggested, it seems, that Fitzjames might become editor. Fitzjames appears to have urged that his theology was not of the desired type. He consulted my father, however, who admitted ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... almost as if you would not be there to point them out on the spot," says Mrs. Steele, smiling as we pass the Trocadero and draw up at ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... my breath and waited for him to rise. It seemed he had gone to the bottom and stuck there; the water became actually smooth again, and almost still, where he had disappeared. I thought he would never come up. My heart jumped ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... by the United States to humane individuals, in order to induce them voluntarily to part with their property. The Committee have no 'data' by which they can measure what this might be. But any sum, however small, will make so great an augmentation of the amount, as almost to baffle calculation, and to exhibit this project at once, as one exceeding, very far, indeed, any revenue which the United States could ever draw from their citizens, even if the object was to increase and multiply, instead of reducing ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... frogs. Very carefully she put them back but with a shaking hand. All the rosy sparkle was swept out of her. Her eyes were averted. She looked suddenly harassed, stubborn, almost furtive. ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... hue in the East. He had proclaimed himself the friend of every Mohammedan under the sun, and had carefully refrained from wounding the feelings of the authors of the Armenian massacres. The defeat of his Turkish friends in the Balkan Wars had been almost as great a blow to him as to them, and he had seen in the subsequent discord of the victors a chance of crushing them all. Rumania, he thought, was tied to his chariot-wheels by its Hohenzollern king, and Greece by its Hohenzollern queen; and Bulgaria could be won through its hatred of ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... production of Tannhauser. I did not feel inclined to renew the old relations, for, to tell the truth, I wanted to spare myself the unpleasantness of witnessing the consequences of his change of views, of which we had seen the beginning in Dresden. I learned that he was in a state of almost helpless childishness, and that he was in the hands of a young and ambitious woman, who was trying to make a last attempt at conquering Paris for him. Among other puff paragraphs calculated to spread Marschner's glory, I read one which said that the Parisians ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... remained silent and almost motionless in his chair, his head reclined on his hand, and his elbow resting upon the table which stood beside him, without seeming to be conscious of the entrance or of the presence of his confidant. Varney waited for some minutes until he should speak, desirous to know what was the finally ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... fool to get in the way when he hadent told me what he was going to do. aint that jest like him. well he made me run all the way home and then took off my close and he rubed me with a ruf towel that neerly took my hide off. it was almost as tuf as when they rubed the black off of me with bristol brick and seesand when i thougt i was always going to ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... fast cooling. Never had there met two persons so exquisitely fitted to plague each other. Each of them had exactly the fault of which the other was most impatient; and they were, in different ways, the most impatient of mankind. Frederic was frugal, almost niggardly. When he had secured his plaything he began to think that he had bought it too dear. Voltaire, on the other hand, was greedy, even to the extent of imprudence and knavery; and conceived that the favourite ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... abruptly, and a sudden flush burned into his cheeks at the realization that he had almost betrayed himself. Fortunately Jessup did not ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... shape of the structure in which it was situated, and of which it formed a segment, the farther part of this chamber was almost lost to view, and a number of cross-beams and wooden pillars added to its sombre and mysterious appearance. The walls were of enormous thickness, and a narrow loophole, terminating a deep embrasure, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... this; he had not his wonted decision in utterance; he paused between sentences, his eyes wandering dreamily; one would have taken him for an older man than he was wont to appear, and of less energy. Thus might he have looked and spoken after some great effort, which left him wearied, almost languid, incapable ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... left a deep impression. I strongly suspect that something very much like love-making is going on at our table. A peep under the lid of the sugar-bowl has shown me that there is another poem ready for the company. That receptacle is looked upon with an almost tremulous excitement by more than one of The Teacups. The two Annexes turn towards the mystic urn as if the lots which were to determine their destiny were shut up in it. Number Five, quieter, and not betraying more curiosity ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... almost a relief for Mme. Fauvel. Anything was preferable to suspense. She was ready to ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... Old Mortality, four of the deaths, Bothwell's, Ensign Grahame's, Macbriar's, and Evandale's, are magnificently heroic; Burley's and Oliphant's long deserved, and swift; the troopers', met in the discharge of their military duty, and the old miser's, as gentle as the passing of a cloud, and almost beautiful in its ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... had been covered with a rough trap of old planks, as if to protect incautious wayfarers from falling in. Here a sudden and inexplicable fear overtook Johnny, and he ran away. When he reached the hotel, almost the first sight that met his astounded eyes was the spectacle of the paragon, apparently still in undisturbed possession of all his perfections—driving coolly off in a ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... from commercial slavery to freedom may thus be summarised. When the hope of realising a communal condition of life for all men arose, quite late in the nineteenth century, the power of the middle classes, the then tyrants of society, was so enormous and crushing, that to almost all men, even those who had, you may say despite themselves, despite their reason and judgment, conceived such hopes, it seemed a dream. So much was this the case that some of those more enlightened men who were then called Socialists, although they well knew, and even stated in public, ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... his crevice, and bathed his face in the cold water. Refreshed, he picked up the two splendid birds and gazed at them almost sadly, with no feeling of elation. He was full of admiration for the ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... There is not even a village there; it is only a great hacienda, belonging to the Company, with the huts of the workmen built near it. The Company, represented by Mr. Bell, received us with the greatest hospitality. Almost before the letter was opened our horses and mozo were off to the stables, our room was ready, and our dinner being prepared as fast as might be. What a pleasant evening we had, after our long day's work! We had a great wood-fire, and sat by it, talking and looking ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... out the window at the 'dozer and crew. Danny Stern was still waving his arms; the log was almost in place. "George and May Wright were killed last night. So was Farelli. If George and May had had a child, the monster would have trampled it too—it went right through their cabin like cardboard. It isn't fair to bring a ...
— Where There's Hope • Jerome Bixby
... only two cases within my experience. The effect of orosin upon the human brain is mysterious and lasting. It produces a state of the brain-cells with which we cannot cope. A larger dose produces strong homicidal tendencies and inevitable death, and a still larger dose almost instantaneous death." ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... She stood almost stiffly in his embrace, neither yielding nor attempting to avoid. But at the touch of his lips upon her neck she shivered. There was something sensual in that touch that revolted her—in ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... through lands of monsters and darkness, of magical fountains and unearthly oceans, became attached to his name in the popular literature of the Roman empire, and this mythical Alexander was reintroduced in the 7th century A.D. into the farther East, where the historical Alexander was almost forgotten. The romance of Alexander is found written in the languages of nearly all peoples from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, but all these versions are derived, mediately or immediately, from the Greek original which circulated under the false name ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... cotton, after paying to the government seventy-eight per cent.[84] of the product of his labour, found himself deprived of the power to trade directly with the man of the loom, and forced into "unlimited competition" with the better machinery and almost untaxed labour of our Southern States; and thereby subjected to "the mysterious variations of foreign markets" in which the fever of speculation was followed by the chill of revulsion with a rapidity and frequency that set at naught all calculation. If our crops were small, his English ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... empires rise and fall, and generations of men live and die, appeared for the moment to have lost its usual expression of speculative wisdom and intense disdain—its cold eyes seemed to droop, its stern mouth almost smiled. The air was calm and sultry; and not a human foot disturbed the silence. But towards midnight a Voice suddenly arose as it were like a wind in the desert, crying aloud: "Araxes! Araxes!" and wailing past, sank with a profound echo into the deep recesses of ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... think) that she had not them to thank for this little scare. For they always slept soundly in the first watch of the morning; and even supposing they had jumped up with nightmare, where was the jubilant crow of the cock? For the cock, being almost as invincible as they were, never could deny himself the glory of a crow when the bullet came into his neighborhood. He replied to every volley with an elevated comb, and a flapping of his wings, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... lips as Cumae's cavern close, The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin, The rigid front, almost morose, But for the patient hope within, Declare a life whose course hath been Unsullied still, though still severe; Which, through the wavering days of sin, Kept itself icy-chaste ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... many poems, {15} although it must be admitted that earlier generations admired them greatly. To have been praised ardently by Sir Walter Scott, by Byron, and by Tennyson should seem sufficient to demonstrate that he was a poet, were it not that, as I could prove if time allowed, poets are almost invariably bad critics of poetry. Sir Walter Scott read The Vanity of Human Wishes with "a choking sensation in the throat," and declared that he had more pleasure in reading that and Johnson's other long poem, ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... Working Men," "Sleep-Chasings," etc., are out-flamings, out- rushings, of the pent fires of the poet's soul. The first-named poem, which is the seething, dazzling sun of his subsequent poetic system, shoots in rapid succession waves of almost consuming energy. It is indeed a central orb of fiercest light and heat, swept by wild storms of emotion, but at the same time of sane and beneficent potentiality. Neither in it nor in either of the others is there the building-up of a fair verbal structure, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... abolished throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. All Christendom must follow if we lead worthily in this reform. Japan will quickly join us and is already doing so. Human nature itself, once it is enlightened as to the facts of commerce in girls, must almost necessarily abolish the ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... families to serve the public."* Lyttleton, meanwhile, by whom all the mischief was occasioned, was made Governor of Jamaica, and the charge of the colony devolved on William Bull, a native—"a man of great integrity and erudition." In the almost hopeless condition of the province, her sisters, North Carolina and Virginia, raised seven troops of rangers for the frontiers; and Colonel Montgomery, afterwards Earl of Eglintoun, was dispatched from Canada, with a battalion of Highlanders and four companies of Royal ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... Channel with what may then remain of the Suffolk Crag. Reasoning in the same way, he will at once decide the Suffolk Crag and the St. George's Channel beds to be contemporaneous; although we happen to know that a vast period (even in the geological sense) of time, and physical changes of almost ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... a boy, to whom both the parents were deeply attached. The elements of tragedy in the drama were accentuated by the power to love possessed by accuser and accused. As Dion listened to the discussion he realized what a driving terror, what a great black figure, almost monstrous, love can be—not only the sunshine, but the abysmal darkness ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... them like islands in lakes. Then there appeared to me sparks of fire out of this great mist: there appeared to me a variegation of every different colour in the world. I saw then lightning and din and thunder and a great wind that almost took my hair from my head, and threw me on my back; and yet the wind of the day was ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... fu to Ta-li by Ya-chau and Ning-yuan appears to be that by which the greater part of the goods for Bhamo and Ava used to travel before the recent Mahomedan rebellion; it is almost certainly the road by which Kublai, in 1253, during the reign of his brother Mangku Kaan, advanced to the conquest of Ta-li, then the head of an independent kingdom in Western Yun-nan. As far as Ts'ing-k'i hien, 3 marches beyond Ya-chau, this route coincides with the great ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... out his hands to her as he ended. His eyes shocked her inexpressibly. They held a glare that was inhuman, almost devilish. ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... what they are, and enable them to become what they can be. They may be stopped short at any point in their progress by defective adaptation of their government to that particular stage of advancement. And the one indispensable merit of a government, in favor of which it may be forgiven almost any amount of other demerit compatible with progress, is that its operation on the people is favorable, or not unfavorable, to the next step which it is necessary for them to take in order to raise ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... with an abundance of reedy grass higher than my hat on horseback along it, and, as it is only twelve inches broad and much overgrown, the horses were constantly pushing through leafage soaking from a night's rain, and I was soon wet up to my shoulders. The forest trees are almost solely the Ailanthus glandulosus and the Zelkowa keaki, often matted together with a white-flowered trailer of the Hydrangea genus. The undergrowth is simply hideous, consisting mainly of coarse reedy grass, monstrous docks, the large-leaved Polygonum cuspidatum, several umbelliferous ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... coast of Maine was overflowing with rich, fashionable and famous people. Congressmen and their families were there, millionaires from various parts of the country were there, titled persons from abroad were there. Frenchman's Bay was almost crowded with yachts, and excursions were pouring into the town by the railroad and by steamboats. There were drives by day, excursions to various points about the bay, and by night there were hops at the hotels, strolls in the moonlight, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... seen this toy, Called Love, a little boy, Almost naked, wanton, blind; Cruel now, and then as kind? If he be amongst ye, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... beat as high at the thought, of campaigns, battle-fields, laurels, and glory; while, with his arms folded on his breast and his head drooping, Uncle Roland gazed into the low clear embers. My father cast his eyes round the room, and after surveying his brother for some moments he said, almost in a whisper,— ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... delicate of form as it is possible to be without arousing any suspicion of debility or unhealthiness. The back of Mavis' stooping neck used to be exactly like this girl's—a smooth, round stem, without a crease or a speck on it, a solid, healthy neck, and yet so slender that his great hand would almost girdle it. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... English manufactures was at this time very low; and foreign wares of almost all kinds had the preference.[*] About the year 1590, there were in London four persons only rated in the subsidy books so high as four hundred pounds.[**] This computation is not indeed to be deemed an exact ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... trying volleys at first, but the Sappers were useless at that, never having had any training, so independent firing was ordered. During the halt Moberly had a narrow shave, a bullet passing between his left hand and thigh, as he was standing superintending the firing. His hand was almost touching his thigh, and the bullet raised the skin of the palm just below the ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... some extent in British, French, and German waters, with good results. The latest use to which it has been put in this country has been to place it off the shoals of Cape Hatteras, where a light ship was wanted but could not live, and where it does almost as well as a light ship would have done. It is well suited for such broken and turbulent waters, as the rougher the sea the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... the first thing required, move in a direct Line with your Pike upward, with your Left-hand near your Side, your Right-hand almost as high as you can reach, keeping your Left by a Depression, as low as you can, your Fingers being strait out; and so raise the Pike till the Butt-end come to your Hand, then place it between your Breast and Shoulder, keeping the ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... up a candle and followed her quickly. We found the children sobbing wildly. Jack's arms were almost strangling his mother, while he cried in great excitement, 'Oh, the old woman in the black bonnet! The old woman in the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... arrived, with seven or eight Frenchmen, from the Miami country. The reinforcement was so small that instead of proving a help it might have provoked a crisis. Vincennes brought no news of the Indian allies, who were now Dubuisson's only hope. "I did not know on what saint to call," he writes, almost in despair, when suddenly a Huron Indian came panting into the fort with the joyful news that both his people and the Ottawas were close at hand. Nor was this all. The Huron messenger announced that Makisabie, war-chief of the Pottawattamies, ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... that deserted Southern garden as I followed my own New England road. The flower-plots were in gay bloom all along the way; almost every house had some flowers before it, sometimes carefully fenced about by stakes and barrel staves from the miscreant hens and chickens which lurked everywhere, and liked a good scratch and fluffing in soft earth this year as well as any ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Shepherds are almost always clothed in sheepskins, and in winter they wear over this a white woollen cloak with a very pointed hood. These are the people who make their appearance on stilts, called Xicanques, and traverse the Landes with their flocks, crossing streams ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... The almost perpetual state of spiritual consciousness in which the young poet lived at this time is apparent in the ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... things whereof man is the efficient cause are necessarily good, no evil can befall man except through external causes; namely, by virtue of man being a part of universal nature, whose laws human nature is compelled to obey, and to conform to in almost infinite ways. ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... at invention. Chester looked at him in silence for a minute more, then he walked quietly out. Offended? Not he. He had not listened to invective from that Celtic tongue for eight years not to know that high tension over a coming critical operation almost invariably meant brilliant success. But even he had never seen Red Pepper keyed up quite so taut as this. It must be a tremendous risk he meant to take. Success to ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... manner. There nothing was violated, nor did they ever go out of the road; it was evident that this was done not from the moderation of the soldiery, or their general, but to conciliate the affections of the Tarentines. However, on advancing almost close to the walls without perceiving any movement, which he expected would occur on the sight of his vanguard, he pitched his camp about a mile off the city. Three days before the arrival of Hannibal, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... rather squarely built; her long jet black hair, without ornament or attempt at dressing, hung loosely down over her shoulders; she wore mocassins of soft yellow leather ornamented with beads; trousers of black cloth, with a border of the same kind of work, reached her ankles; a cloth skirt, almost without fulness, came a little below the knee, and was covered, to within three or four inches of its edge, by an equally scanty one of red and white cotton, with a kind of loose bodice and sleeves, attached to it; a blanket, fastened round her ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... But almost before Miss Limpenny had concluded these reflections, the strangers had determined on the direction. They turned neither towards the Town nor up the hill towards the Castle and the harbour's mouth; ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... him go doggedly off, and knowing the stout nature of the man and his devotion to his master, I had no fear that he would fail us; but there were others, almost as necessary to us, in whom I could not place the same confidence. And these had also taken the alarm. When I turned I found groups of pale-faced men, standing by twos and threes at my back; who, pointing and muttering and telling one another ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... while such change is apt to involve armed hostilities, these make no necessary part of the revolution. The revolution by which Dom Pedro was dethroned, and Brazil changed from an empire to a republic, was accomplished without a battle, and almost without a shot. Anarchy refers to the condition of a state when human government is superseded or destroyed by factions or other causes. Lawlessness is a temper of mind or condition of the community which may result in anarchy. Confusion, disorder, riot, and tumult are incidental ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... have practised for two or three hours a day since I was ten years old, and I think that almost every soldier in the regiment has been my instructor in turn, and the maitre-d'armes of the regiment himself gave me ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... ever she had been, and not more than half as disagreeable. Although the sky looked as if it might burst into tears at any moment, and although Orange has nothing but historic remains and historic records to show, she was ready to start, almost ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... way, by reading to him easy verses from the Testament, many of which he had learned by heart. Besides this, he had bought a little picture-reading-book, since I was with them last, and Josiah could master many easy words in it; for he had learned almost all the letters. But he knew this was a slow way of getting on, although he feared it was the best he could do for him. He knew not how he could manage to spare him for the winter. He had no other boy; there was a baby in the cradle only a fortnight old, ...
— Jemmy Stubbins, or The Nailer Boy - Illustrations Of The Law Of Kindness • Unknown Author
... destined to be resumed long before that hour, and in circumstances which gave me a shock hardly second to that caused by his spring to the door. I had stood for some minutes looking at the silent figure in the bed. His face was almost covered by the clothes and he appeared to be asleep. Then, unable to settle down to reading, I walked slowly round the room, examining the pictures of celebrated criminals with which every wall was adorned. Finally, in my aimless perambulation, I came to the mantelpiece. ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Hill of dreadful memory, and 175 to transportation to carry westward with them the bitter seeds that bore glorious fruit a century later, was in a house still standing nearly opposite the museum. This almost brings the list of historical buildings in Dorchester to a close. The County Hall, Town Hall and Corn Exchange, all unpretentious and quietly dignified, represent both shire and town. The few buildings left by the seventeenth-century fire seem to have included a highly picturesque ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... in the almost whining appeal of Perez' voice than the most violent threat could be, so intense was the repressed emotion it indicated. But as Edwards' forbidding and angry face plainly indicated that his words were having no effect, this accent ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... first person he met was the stranger who had schooled him in the gambling game the night before. He greeted Dave cordially; his voice had a soft, sedulous, almost feminine quality which Dave had not noticed in their whispered conversation in the pool room. There was something attractive about his personality; something which invited friendship and even confidence, and yet beneath these emotions Dave felt a sense of distrust, ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... in the sage, and which they are enabled to track through the snow, and are very skilful in killing. Their skins afford them a little scanty covering. Herding together among bushes, and crouching almost naked over a little sage fire, using their instinct only to procure food, these may be considered, among human beings, the nearest approach to the animal creation. We have reason to believe that these had never before seen the face of ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... etiquette and propriety, M. de Bacourt to the contrary notwithstanding, he had far more important duties to perform than those of playing host and receiving foreign ministers. Our relations with England when he entered the cabinet were such as to make war seem almost inevitable. The northeastern boundary, undetermined by the treaty of 1783, had been the subject of continual and fruitless negotiation ever since that time, and was still unsettled and more complicated than ever. It was agreed that there should ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... pursuing the Ravishers of Agnes, he was left almost alone with her; and tho' he had always resolv'd to shun being so, yet his Constancy was not proof against so fair an Occasion: 'Madam, said he to her, is it possible that Men born amongst those that obey us, should be capable of offending you? ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... became pope in 1198, well understood the meaning of the Moslem triumphs. The four crusades had already greatly extended the papal jurisdiction, and Innocent himself was the moving spirit of the Fifth, although an ignorant priest named Fulk also preached it with a success almost equal to that of Peter the Hermit in the first expedition. Vast numbers of warriors took the cross, though no king and only a few minor princes joined them. Most famous among the leaders were Boniface II, Marquis of Montferrat, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... Harvey, who had formed almost a maternal affection for Zillah, and had come to address her always in that way—"my dear child, you should not try to deepen your grief by staying here and brooding over it. Every thing here only makes it worse. You must really ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... braced himself for the shock; but when it came it was far greater than he had expected. There was a crash that was simply deafening. The huge ship plunged into the rocky shore with a force that almost doubled her up, and made her shake from stem to stern. And she stopped so abruptly that Clif was flung through the window ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... times in single combats. We often had fine sport with these fellows. A quick, sharp bark from a coyote, and in an instant every dog was at the height of his speed. A few minutes made up for an unfair start, and gave each dog his right place. Welly, at the head, seemed almost to skim over the bushes, and after him came Fanny, Feliciana, Childers, and the other fleet ones,— the spaniels and terriers; and then, behind, followed the heavy corps,— bull-dogs, &c., for we had every breed. Pursuit by us was in vain, and in about half an hour the dogs ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... they thought, because of the great valor and courage of those inside, through which all the pirates who had the daring to enter the fort paid for their boldness with their lives. Upon seeing this, the Chinese withdrew, after fighting almost all that day, and losing two hundred men (who were killed in the assault), besides many wounded. Of the Spaniards but two were killed, namely, the ensign Sancho Ortiz, and the alcalde of the same city, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... sped over the stern of the Sylph, but did no damage. Then, calmly, almost ignoring. the remaining ships of the allied fleet, the Emden put about, and made off. Her raid had been successful, and it was another victory ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... 6 inches. A broad step surrounds it, 8 inches wide and 3 feet from the floor. About 8 feet above the floor a cornice runs round the walls cut in a reticulated or diamond pattern two feet wide. Almost all the space between the step and this cornice is occupied with sculpture, crucifixes, saints, martyrs, and subjects not easy to explain. Vestiges of red, blue, and yellow are visible in various places, and the relief of the figures has been assisted by a dark pigment. In various parts of ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... and failures with the most extraordinary reasonableness. One of the defects upon which they dwell is the love of finding substitutes for positive action, of avoiding entering upon a course of action which might be irrevocable. One almost wonders whether their power of self-criticism is not itself another of these substitutes. At all events, they are frank to the point of loquacity. Between the opposite camps there are always communications flowing. Among official enemies there are "sworn friends." In a land of perpetual ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... dead oak in the woods and had the heart of him stored away for my winter fuel: a series of burnt-offerings to the worshipful spirit of my hearth-stone. There should have been several of these offerings already, for October is almost ended now, and it is the month during which the first cool nights come on in Kentucky and the ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... pain. Suddenly, the circle opened; the little ones retired on each side, and Guru—who was the woman Guru, whom Orm recognised immediately, though she had risen in stature and size so as to be almost as gigantic as the stone man—advanced towards it. She threw both her arms round the image, which immediately seemed to receive life and motion. Then the Dwarfs, with wonderful capers and grimaces, ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... claims of reportorial delicacy and proper self-respect. It had been his intention to absent himself from the services at the grave, out of consideration for the immediate family. It occurred to him now that it was almost his duty to show himself there, in order not to avoid a meeting. But the finer instinct prevailed. Why allow what was, after all, nothing save ignorant disapproval to alter his arrangements? He had just time to walk leisurely to the station without overheating himself, ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... himself, there was some peculiar reason for it, and exactly that reason would not be likely to exist another day. But then the difficulty with playing, or attempting to amuse one's self all the time, is, that it produces such a state of mind, that almost any thing becomes a source of uneasiness or dissatisfaction; and something or other is likely to occur, or there will be something or other wanting, which makes the time pass ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... plenty of deck room, now that so many men were ill either from seasickness or the epidemic, and sometimes he and Albert Usher had the stormy side of the boat almost to themselves. The Marine was the best sort of companion for these gloomy days; steady, quiet, self-reliant. And he, too, was always looking forward. As for Victor Morse, Claude was growing positively fond of him. Victor had tea ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... I had almost made up my mind to ask if she had a small pocket compass, for I had seen such things in little country shops—I am afraid only in France, though—when the door opened, and out came the little boy whom I had already ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... off with the red cow, and Mr. Vinegar tried to play the bagpipes. But, alas and alack! though he blew till he almost burst, not a sound could he make at first, and when he did at last, it was such a terrific squeal and screech that all the children ran away frightened, and the people ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... mercies of Miller, the coxswain, or had pulled behind the Captain; and it did not take long to convince him that it was a very different style of thing from anything he had as yet been accustomed to in the freshman's crew. The long steady sweep of the so-called paddle tried him almost as much as the breathless ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... who was seated beside the fireplace in the bar, blowing the fire to make the kettle boil for tea. She was not alone; for on the other side of the fireplace, sitting bolt upright in a high-backed chair, was a man in threadbare black clothes, with a back almost as long and stiff as that of the chair itself, who caught Sam's most particular and especial ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... the New College, Edinburgh, to which they have been presented by Dr. D. Douglas Bannerman of Perth; and the latter in the possession of Professor Cunningham of Queen's College, Belfast, except a small number which were sold in Edinburgh in 1878, and a section, consisting almost exclusively of Greek and Latin classics, which Professor Cunningham has presented to the library of the college of which he is a member. Among other relics of Smith that are still extant are four medallions by Tassie, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... to make a Separation of its more Fixt Elements; and therefore the Fire must be Increas'd which Carries over the Volatile Salt and the Spirit, they being, though Beleev'd to be Differing Principles, and though Really of Different Consistency, yet of an almost Equal Volatility. After them, as less Fugitive, comes over the Oyl, and leaves behinde the Earth and the Alcali, which being of an Equal Fixednesse, the Fire Severs them not, for all the Definition of the Schools. And if into a Red-hot Earthen or Iron Retort ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... was in the enemy's eyes, and the village of Frederickstadt almost immediately behind our camp, which may account in some measure for the indifference of their fire, as we must have offered a magnificent target to them. As it was, our only losses were four horses, not a man being hit. But ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring |
