"At best" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the least," he said, looking toward the sunset. "Fighting is riff-raff business, and I'm only a riff-raffer at best." ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... same Touth dancing in our Blood; Our Dress as gay—All underneath as good. Most Men have found us hitherto more true, And if we're not abus'd by some of you, We're full as fair—perhaps as wholesom too. But if at best our hopeful Sport and Trade is, And nothing now will serve you but great Ladies; May question'd Marriages your Fortune be, And Lawyers drain your Pockets more than we: May Judges puzzle a clear Case with Laws, And Musquetoon at last decide ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... distinguish this woman from them all; "And he looked round about" upon them all, "to see her that had done this thing" (Mark 5:25-32). He was not concerned with the thronging, or touchings of the rest; for theirs were but accidental, or at best, void of that which made her touch acceptable. Wherefore Christ must be judge who they be that in truth are coming to him; Every man's ways are right in his own eyes, "but the Lord weigheth the spirits" (Prov 16:2). It standeth ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... undertaken for the purpose of defending the cause of women. I knew that if, with the view of inculcating ideas favorable to their emancipation and to a broad and thorough system of education for them, I had gone to work in a blundering way, I should at best, have been regarded as nothing more than an author of a theory more or less plausible. I was therefore, obliged to clothe my ideas, to disguise them under a new shape, in biting, incisive words that should lay hold on the mind of my readers, awaken ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... all the change, past, present and contemplated, the school proper has but little time for the doing of its work. Fifty-two sessions a year, of an hour's or an hour and a half's duration at best, fifty-two or seventy-eight hours a year, only one-third of which is given to Bible study, furnish a meager opportunity to accomplish its aim. Compared with twelve hundred hours a year in the public school, or the twenty-eight hundred hours a year a boy may work, it seems ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... method of "running over into the back" which has now become a recognized principle in the make-up of magazines of larger size. At first, Bok's readers objected, but he explained why he did it; that they were the benefiters by the plan; and, so far as readers can be satisfied with what is, at best, an awkward method of presentation, they were content. To-day the practice is undoubtedly followed to excess, some magazines carrying as much as eighty and ninety columns over from the front to the back; from such abuse it will, of course, free itself either ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... in our feverish, artificial civilization, believing that the real, satisfying things are complex and difficult to obtain. Our lives become unnaturally stressed and tormented by the pitiless and incessant struggle for social conditions which are, at best, second-rate and ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... misunderstanding. Take the art of music. Bach writes a composition for the violin: that composition exists, in the abstract, the moment it is written down upon paper, but, even to those trained musicians who are able to read it at sight, it exists in a state at best but half alive; to all the rest of the world it is silent. Ysaye plays it on his violin, and the thing begins to breathe, has found a voice perhaps more exquisite than the sound which Bach heard in his brain when he wrote down the notes. Take the instrument out of ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... officers, Jacopo Empser, a German, and Zamudio, a Spaniard, advance before their battalions and encounter one another as if it were by challenge, in which combat the Spaniard went off conqueror by killing his adversary. The cavalry of the army of the League was not at best equal to that of the French, and having been shattered and torn by the artillery was become much inferior. Wherefore after they had sustained for some time, more by stoutness of heart than by strength of arms, the fury of the enemy, Yves d'Allegre with the rearguard and a thousand foot that ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... obtained Power praise. Had Good been manifest, Broke out in cloudless blaze, Unchequered as unrepressed, In all things Good at best— ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... of these things now, she recalls Fannie's praise of his "indomitable pluck," and feels a new, warm courage around her own heart. For as long as men can show valor, she gravely reflects, surely women can have fortitude. How small a right, at best—how little honest room—there is in this huge world of strifes and sorrows for a young girl's heart to go breaking itself with its own ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... must see it, the gradual change from childhood to boyhood, who that sees added knowledge often accompanied with added sin, can help wishing that the earlier ignorance of evil might still be continued; and fancying that knowledge is at best but a ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... doubt. That theory, indeed, appears to be founded upon false premises; for, unless in the case of an ancestral estate, I am not aware that the existence of children is much premeditated. On the contrary, their arrival is often looked upon, from pecuniary reasons, with much apprehension, or, at best, till they do arrive, they may be described, in common phrase, as 'neither born nor thought of.' I am a father myself, but I wish to be fair and to take a just view of matters. If a mother leaves ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... fact we have none, in these times. If there be a human talent, let it get into the tongue, and make melody with that organ. The talent that can say nothing for itself, what is it? Nothing; or a thing that can do mere drudgeries, and at best make money by railways. ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... change in the stranger's face that did not escape the landlord's notice. But whether it indicated pleasure or disappointment, he could not tell; for it was at best a ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... were in the hands of the enemy. Seventy per cent. of her steel production was in the hands of the enemy. She had mobilized an enormous army and therefore had withdrawn a very considerable proportion of her population from industry. She is not at best as great an industrial country as we are. She is much of an agricultural and pastoral country. It is true that we have certain disadvantages compared with France, and they are important. She has not the same gigantic Navy to draw upon the engineering establishments of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... by night-time. There followed days and days of misery; any one hour of which, as Rolfe told himself, outbalanced all the good and joy that can at best be hoped for in threescore years and ten. But Alma clung to life. Harvey had thought she would ask for her little son, and expend upon him the love called forth by her dead baby; she seemed, however, to care even less for Hughie than before. And, after all, the bitter ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... at the conglomeration of white walls and slate roofs, of docks and shipping, and barracks, on the edge of a world of blue water, "not nearly so odious as it looked when we landed. But it is a little disappointing at best, like all places that people praise ridiculously. I had pictured Jersey as a tropical island, with cactuses and Cape jasmine growing in the hedges, orchards of peaches and ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... person, not specially acquainted with the business, from an unknown firm,—we had better pull it down before it falls. If, from such records, we find an iron bridge built twenty-five years ago by an unknown company, with iron, at best, of a doubtful quality, and having a factor of three or four for the rolling-stock and speeds of twenty years ago, instead of a factor of six for the rolling-stock and speeds of to-day, we had better remove that ...
— Bridge Disasters in America - The Cause and the Remedy • George L. Vose
... inspection. When she got better acquainted with the men, and while there were good and bad among them, she liked them all, except Stone. His face did not seem kindly. At times agreeable enough, he was only tolerable at best and when even slightly in liquor he was irritable. His low forehead, over which he plastered his hair, and his straight yellow eyebrows and hard blue eyes were not confidence inspiring; even his big mustache ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... undaunted energy he had displayed in getting up his company and opening the mine, so that he was actually embarrassed by his own understatement; and under the grave, patient eyes of his companion, told his story at best lamely. Collinson's face betrayed neither profound interest nor the slightest resentment. When Key had ended his ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... At best they could only creep, feeling a way blindly from crag to crag, clinging desperately to every projection, never venturing even the slightest movement until either hand or loot found solid support. Moore led, his boyish recklessness ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... became steeper; ledges of rock, little at first, became larger and more frequent; he came to bluffs that barred his progress, slow and painful at best; he was forced to search to left or right for broken places where he could climb. Bits of rock, dislodged by his feet, fell clattering despite his utmost care; he heard the like from below, to the left, to the right. The short ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... covering his tracks better. This exposure doesn't help us any at best. If we still tried to carry Pelton, we should last about as long ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... the inward conflict of opposing loves, opposing duties, which meditation upon his letter so distractingly produced. Relatively all, outside that conflict and the dear cause of it, was of small moment—mere play stuff at best. But her brain and conscience were tired. She would be so glad, for a time, only to think about ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Ludington very powerfully. It impressed her as the judgment of an expert; it compelled her to recognize not only as possible, but even as probable, that, on the evening of the following day, she should behold the beautiful girl whom once, so many years before, she had called herself; for so at best would words ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... under a press of sail, struck upon one of these rocks, with so much violence as to threaten our immediate destruction. The idea of never more seeing my family upon earth, rushed upon my mind; but the pang of thought was alleviated by the recollection that life at best was short, and that they would soon meet me in 'brighter worlds,' whither I expected to be hurried, through the supposed hasty death of drowning. Providentially however we escaped being wrecked; and I could not but bless the God of my salvation, for the anchor of hope afforded ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... helplessly. Somehow the sight of the real Eleanor, smiling and lovely, made the deceit she had practiced seem so much more concrete and palpable, the penalty she must pay at best so much more real and dreadful. Betty had puzzled over the rights and wrongs of the matter until it had come to be almost an abstraction—a subject for formal, impersonal debate, like those they used to discuss ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... which surpasses all others, and spend their days in a palace which all the money of all the Rothschilds could not buy. They sleep, perhaps, in a garret, and dine in a cellar; but no grandee in Europe has such a drawing-room. Kings' houses have, at best, but damask hangings, and gilt cornices. What are these to a wall covered with canvas by Paul Veronese, or a hundred yards of Rubens? Artists from England, who have a national gallery that resembles a moderate-sized gin-shop, who may not copy pictures, except under particular restrictions, and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Senators were seated round the table in the debating-room, Wolf began to bring forward with great animation all the motives in favour of a repeal. The chairman, an ill-natured man at best, was in a particularly bad humour that day. His thoughts were concentrated on the words he had written down in his memoranda on the occasion when not he but Viglanoff was appointed to the important post he had long coveted. It was ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... physiography, in the history of its settlement, and in its economic and social life, a unity and interdependence which warrant a study of the area as an entity. Within the limits of this article, treatment of so vast a region, however, can at best afford no more than an outline sketch, in which old and well-known facts must, if possible, be so grouped as to explain the position of ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... crude oil was most uncertain. Our plans were constantly changed by changed conditions. We developed great facilities in an oil centre, erected storage tanks, and connected pipe-lines; then the oil failed and our work was thrown away. At best it was a speculative trade, and I wonder that we managed to pull through so often; but we were gradually learning how to conduct a ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... territorial rights or jurisdiction. The government that could so originate would be, if any thing, a barbaric, not a republican government. It has only the rights conferred on it, surrendered or delegated to it by individuals, and therefore, at best, only individual rights. Individuals can confer only such rights as they have in the supposed state of nature. In that state there is neither private nor public domain. The earth in that state is not property, and is open to the first occupant, and the occupant ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... the condition of affairs let it be remembered that we were a community of twenty-five thousand boys and young men—none too regardful of control at best—and now wholly destitute of government. The Rebels never made the slightest attempt to maintain order in the prison. Their whole energies were concentrated in preventing our escape. So long as we staid inside the Stockade, they cared ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... not on earth, 'twill pierce thee to the heart; A broken reed at best, but oft' a spear, On its sharp point Peace bleeds, ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... wisdom and genius of Burke live in the memory, and form a portion of the virtue and intelligence of the British nation and the British race. The reflection of this superior power and permanence of moral grandeur over that which, at best, is but a vulgar renown, justifies the most sanguine expectations ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... to her; for the only companion she desired was not there to give her his hand along the rugged paths, to support her amongst the glittering snows, and smooth her way through the pleasing difficulties of the abrupt ascents. Cold ceremony, and, at best, mere duty, attended her whose heart sighed for tenderness and affection which she was never destined to know. At that period, there was neither hotel nor street, and the rudest huts sheltered that simple court; but they might perhaps afford, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... their might and beat And dash and lunge, and hurry and plunge, And die at the grey rocks' feet. It wearies of life and it sickens of strife And yet it tires of rest. Oh! I know not why it should ache and cry— 'Tis a troublesome heart at best. ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... killed; that a two per cent tax on the property was levied on those immigrants compelled to stay through the winter; that justice was impossible to obtain in the Mormon courts; that immigrants' mail was opened and destroyed; and that all Mormons were at best treasonable in sentiment. Later the breach between the Mormons and the Americans became more marked, until it culminated in the atrocious Mountain Meadows massacre, which was probably only one of several similar but lesser occurrences. These things, however, are outside ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... girls to wear, and appeared herself in rich silks and plumes; that she gave to her attendant in that illness a wonderful box "all done off with,—well—this here plated stuff, you know"; and that when the end was drawing near, the faint, weak voice, with its broken English (at best so difficult to understand), tried to make "Char-loet-tah" comprehend where she must look for something hidden away which she wished her nurse to have in recognition of her services. But alas! the ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... the old-fashioned way about the absurdity of the Roman system. They could not understand how reasonable men could turn Roman Catholics. They accounted for it by supposing a silly hankering after the pomp or the frippery of Roman Catholic worship, and at best a craving after the romantic and sentimental. Their thoughts dwelt continually on image worship and the adoration of saints. But what really was astir was something much deeper—something much more akin to the new and strong forces which were beginning ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... father, "God is at best a shadowy being, to many of them a stranger, to some a terror. Barry," he said, "they need some one to tell them the truth about God. It's not fair to God, you know." Here again his father paused and then said very humbly: "I think I may say, Barry, I know God now, as I did not before. And you ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... shivers, while the other squats over a tantalizing fire of green wood, blistering his face and parboiling his limbs inside his sweaty clothing. Dishes must be passed, food divided, and it is poor food, poorly prepared at best. Sometimes men criticize and voice longings for better grub and better cooking. Remarks of this kind have been known to result in tragedies, bitter words and flaming curses—then, perhaps, wild actions, memories of which the later ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... you can't. Well, it was really at best only a joke. Well, I have a blanket with me for which, properly speaking, I have no longer any use, and it struck me that you might take it ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... in the least typically 'middle-class'; and I am sure the severest critic would have hesitated to say that hers were the manners, disposition, or outlook of any 'lower' class. Yet she had married an itinerant cobbler, or at best a 'pedestrialatory specialist,' and, I am sure, without the smallest sense of ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... visage haunts me both at noontide and night-time. Some other players of the past generation were present, but none that greatly interested me. It behooves actors, more than all other men of publicity, to vanish from the scene betimes. Being at best but painted shadows flickering on the wall and empty sounds that echo anther's thought, it is a sad disenchantment when the colors begin to fade and the voice to ...
— P.'s Correspondence (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a high-strung individual at best, reacted violently to the change in the creature. In an instinctive blaze of anger and frustration, Cantrell reached out and slapped ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... Jasper cleared his throat, and drawing up a large rocking chair, sat down. He said, as he looked at the flask, that he had not felt well of late, and that whisky would do him good. Sawyer would make no apology for drinking such liquor. Good whisky was to him its own apology. Life at best was short, with many a worry, and he did not see how a so-called moral code should censure a man for throwing off his troubles once in a while. The old man needed no persuasion to lead him on. And in ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... countries are not highly organized commercially, and the importers here are forced to assume the role of the Brazilian commisario and banker. The crop has to be financed from six to nine months before it is brought to the port; and the securities covering such advances are at best of questionable value, on account of political insecurity, and the ever-threatening earthquakes, and the uncertainty of the elements. Distribution of the coffee after it has been brought to San Francisco also involves many difficulties, notwithstanding that the demand ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... gloomed Drake. "There isn't a fiercer tackler than Axtell on the eleven, and Hodge is the heaviest man in the line. We haven't any too much beef at best, and man for man, the ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... off. True, this ineradicableness need have no terrors if we have formed good habits. Indeed, as will be pointed out in the next paragraph, habit may be a great asset. Nevertheless, it may work positive harm, or at best, may lead to stagnation. The fixedness of habit tends to make us move in ruts unless we exert continuous effort to learn new things. If we permit ourselves to move in old grooves we cease to progress and ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... to give it! You are a corpse; but suppose you come to life again? Then they, your wife and that gentleman, who are so happy—they would be bigamists, and at best would be sent to the less distant parts of Siberia. So why should you ...
— The Live Corpse • Leo Tolstoy
... bank, at the tail of the broken water. The two old canoes, although one of them was our biggest cargo-carrier, were water-logged and heavy, and one of them was leaking. In the night the river rose. The leaky canoe, which at best was too low in the water, must have gradually filled from the wash of the waves. It sank, dragging down the other; they began to roll, bursting their moorings; and in the morning they had disappeared. A canoe was launched to look for them; but, rolling over the ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... stir for some time after the operation, and can't read or sleep from the pain. Now, he is just 'healed,' and is allowed to travel for two months, after which he is to return and be burned again. Isn't it a true martyrdom? I ask. What is apprehended is paralysis, or at best nervous infirmity for life, from the effect of the blows (on the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... fiery women. For depend upon it this light-haired one has plenty of devil in her. I formed that opinion of her at Leubronn. It's a sort of Medea and Creuesa business. Fancy the two meeting! Grandcourt is a new kind of Jason: I wonder what sort of a part he'll make of it. It's a dog's part at best. I think I hear Ristori now, saying, 'Jasone! Jasone!' These fine women generally get hold of ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... settled down to realization of the subtle distinction between their status as soldiers of the Nation and citizens of a sovereign State. To private A of the far Westerners his company commander was still "Billy, old boy," or at best "Cap.," save when actually in ranks ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... any point needs clearing up," he said. "It's a blind trail at best. You've the right to see it as plain as I can make it—with Slade's help. Cut right in with your questions: There'll be plenty to answer and some ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... adventure came to nothing. For its significance, if any, hinged upon Robert Herrick's sanity, which was at best a disputable quantity. Grant him insane, and the whole business, as Sir Thomas was at large pains to point out, dwindles at once into the ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... get along well in your courtship you will invariably make a happy couple if you should unite your destinies in marriage. Learn not to give nor take offence. You must remember that all humanity is imperfect at best. We all have our faults, and must keep them in subordination. Those who truly love each other will have but few difficulties in their ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... scheme of dethroning the Emperor. It was under these circumstances, that one of his suite asked leave to offer him his advice. "Under the Emperor," said he, "your highness is certain of being a great and respected noble; with the enemy, you are at best but a precarious king. It is unwise to risk certainty for uncertainty. The enemy will avail themselves of your personal influence, while the opportunity lasts; but you will ever be regarded with suspicion, and they will always ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... phenomenon about your 'Only a Player-Girl.' What an un-godlike indifference to your creatures though—your worlds, breathed away from you like soap bubbles, and dropping and breaking into russet portfolios unobserved! Only a god for the Epicurean, at best, can you be? That Miss Cushman went to Three Mile Cross the other day, and visited Miss Mitford, and pleased her a good deal, I fancied from what she said, ... and with reason, from what you say. And 'Only a Fiddler,' as I forgot to tell you yesterday, is announced, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... ventured opinions as to what lay before us; but we could only theorize at best, for none of us knew. If the whole land was infested by these and similar horrid monsters, life would be impossible upon it, and we decided that we would only search long enough to find and take aboard fresh water and such meat and fruits as might be safely procurable and then ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was then, John; All nature seemed at rest; So is it now no longer, John, Or in our dreams at best! Think when the shepherd boy then sang Alone o'er all the plain, Aye, John, you know, that was a sound ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... as a mark, a last token that we are not forgot, lost in this turmoil, about to be crushed out, burned or stamped out at best with sudden death. ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle
... apart. (3) The pot-layering system, especially for a small number of plants, I consider the best. It will be seen that by the above systems the ground is occupied three years, to get two crops, and the strawberry season is a short one at best. By this third system the strawberry is made practically an annual, and the finest of berries are produced. The new plants are layered in pots, as described above. The layers are taken immediately after the fruit is gathered; or better still, because earlier, a few plants are picked ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... uncertain month at best. For several days a threatening haze shrouded the distant sea line. The kildees, fluttered and shrieked over ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... At best I'm but the missing link Upon his Berlin-Baghdad line; This is the senior partner's show, not mine; Will he consult my feelings? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... its failure to secure David's capture. The whole cast of the two incidents is so different that it is impossible to see how the one could have been evolved from the other, and either they are both true, or they are both unhistorical, or, at best, are both the product of fancy working on, and arbitrarily filling up, a very meagre skeleton of fact. Many of the advocates of the identity of the incident at the bottom of the two accounts would accept the latter explanation; we ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... NOW as veritably dialect as to that old time it was the chastest English; and even then his materials were essentially dialect when his song was at best pitch. Again, our present dialect, of most plebeian ancestry, may none the less prove worthy. Mark the recognition of its own personal merit in the great new dictionary, where what was, in our own remembrance, the most outlandish ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... Hindu occupied the position of honor in the social stage, Norris found it hard to keep his attention fixed on that bird of paradise, who, at best, was sure to be but a temporary interest in these western states of America, where facts, not theories, loom large. The new young man's eyes wandered to the audience, made up of people like himself. ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... richest example of the richest order which antiquity has left us, has been lavishly employed in its decoration; and yet," continues the critic, "is not the whole a failure?" He then describes the effect of it as "poor, or at best but pretty," and attributes the absence of grandeur to the "want of sufficient elevation."—"To the general elevation it may be objected, that it has no prominent centre; that, composed of two wings and an intermediate space receding, it has more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 342, November 22, 1828 • Various
... demonstrated as by these very facts. We know what is the traditional picture of the scholar,—pale, stooping, hectic, hurrying with unsteady feet to a predestined early grave; or else morbid, dyspeptic, cadaverous, putting into his works the dark tints of his own inward nature. At best, he is painted as a mere bookworm, bleached and almost mildewed in some learned retirement beneath the shadow of great folios, until he is out of joint with the world, and all fresh and hearty life has gone ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... inconsiderable; Essex still heavy and solemn, an excellent man, but a woful commander-in-chief; little Sir William Waller still the favourite and set up against Essex, but confidence in him somewhat shaken by his recent defeats; the Fairfaxes in the north, and others in other parts, doing at best but respectably; Cromwell, it is true, a marked man and always successful wherever he appeared, but appearing yet only as Colonel Cromwell! "For the present the Parliament side is running down the brae," wrote the sagacious Baillie, Sept. 22, 1643; and again, more pithily, Dec. 7, "They ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... of someone landing on his feet. Peering from the window she made out a faint, shadowy form stealing around the corner of the hotel. She put her hand to her heart and listened. Her understanding of the stranger's motives was vague at best, but she had caught his confession that her kiss had meant much to him, and even in her anxiety she felt an inclination to laugh. She had bestowed that caress as she would have kissed the cold end ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... temptation at all; and, which is the most likely to resist; she who has a choice of lovers, or she who if she let the occasion slip may never have it again? Which of the two is most likely to set a high value upon her reputation, she whom all beholders admire, or she who is admired, at best, by mere chance? And as to women in the married state, this argument assumes, that, when they fall, it is from their own vicious disposition; when the fact is, that, if you search the annals of conjugal infidelity, you will find, that, nine ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... still covering Markel with the weapon, stood up. The frightened faces of women protruded over the banisters above. The two men-servants, at best none too enthusiastically on the way down, stopped as though stunned as Jimmie Dale swung the revolver ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... maintain itself against the sceptical trend of its own epistemology. For precisely as in the case of phenomenalism its dialectical principle threatens to be self-destructive. Immediate presence is still the test of knowledge. But does not immediate presence connote relativity and inadequacy, at best; an initial phase of knowledge that must be supplemented and corrected before objective reality and valid truth are apprehended? Does not the individuality of the individual thinker connote the very maximum of error? Indeed, spiritualism would seem to have exceeded even Protagoreanism itself, ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... by the first of June. Then their places on the trail are taken by ox- and pony carts. Camels make the journey from Kalgan to Urga in from thirty to fifty days, but the carts require twice as long. They travel slowly, at best, and the animals must be given time to graze and rest. Of course, they cannot cross the desert when the grass is dry, so that transportation is divided by the season—camels in winter and carts in summer. Each camel carries from four hundred and fifty to five ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... advancement, and dress is the first decorative art in which they reach perfection. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the most beautiful articles of clothing, the most tasteful and comfortable costumes, have not been produced by people who are classed as barbarous, or, at best, as half-civilized. What fabrics surpass the shawls of India in tint or texture? What garment is more graceful or more serviceable than the Mexican poncho, or the Peruvian rebozo? What Frenchman is so comfortably or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Ethical Movement, so ably and often eloquently represented by leaders like Felix Adler, W. M. Salter, Washington Sullivan, Stanton Coit, and others; all these teachers with one accord deprecate and dismiss theological doctrines as at best not proven, at worst a hindrance, and commend instead morality as the all-embracing, all-sufficing and all-saving religion. To quote Mr. Salter, who certainly speaks with authority ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... very badly off by this time. It was impossible to avoid trampling on one another as the car was very dark at best and the one small window in the roof was closed as soon as we drew into a station. When taken out we were under heavy escort and were allowed no opportunity to clean up the accumulated filth of the car. ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... recourse to a power, of which it is utterly impossible we can, as long as we are men, form any distinct idea; of which, notwithstanding it may be a truth, we cannot, by any means we possess, demonstrate the existence. As, therefore, these must be at best but speculative points of belief, which each individual, by reason of its obscurity, may contemplate with different optics, under various aspects, they surely ought to be left free for each to judge ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... higher pitch of beauty than the printed book has ever attained. As Ruskin says, "A well-written book is as much pleasanter and more beautiful than a printed book as a picture is than an engraving." Calligraphy and illumination are to-day, if not lost arts, at best but faint echoes of their former greatness. They represent a field of artistic effort in which many persons of real ability might attain far greater distinction and emolument than in the overcrowded ordinary fields of art. Printing itself ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... finger points the dismal hour! Thus Wyndham, with hands clasped behind his back, Watching the languid and reluctant sun Fade from the metal disk beside the door. The hours hung heavy up there on the hill, Where life was little various at best And merriment had long since ta'en its flight. Sometimes he sat and conned the flying clouds Till on dusk's bosom nestled her one star, And spoke no word, nor seemed alive at all, But a mere shape and counterfeit of life; Or, urged by some swift hunger for green boughs, Would bid the ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... may be asked, should not the palm be given to Mr. Darwin if he wanted it, and was at so much pains to get it? Why, if science is a kingdom not of this world, make so much fuss about settling who is entitled to what? At best such questions are of a sorry personal nature, that can have little bearing upon facts, and it is these that alone should concern us. The answer is, that if the question is so merely personal and unimportant, Mr. Darwin may as well yield as Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck; Mr. Darwin's admirers ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... world-so make the acquaintanceship of God now," the great guru told his disciples. "Prepare yourself for the coming astral journey of death by daily riding in the balloon of God-perception. Through delusion you are perceiving yourself as a bundle of flesh and bones, which at best is a nest of troubles. {FN35-12} Meditate unceasingly, that you may quickly behold yourself as the Infinite Essence, free from every form of misery. Cease being a prisoner of the body; using the secret key of KRIYA, ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... adds, that in sickness, under alarms and pains, it is scarce to be hoped that a person will be able to dispose himself for so great a sacrament. Prudent men make their wills while in health, imagining that at best they will retain their senses but by halves at the approaches of death; and can we think dying men capable of duly making so solemn an engagement with God? He assures his flock that he is notable to express the consternation, grief, and agony, with which he is seized whenever ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the National Executive in any reasonable temporary State arrangement for the freed people is made with the view of possibly modifying the confusion and destitution which must at best attend all classes by a total revolution of labor throughout whole States. It is hoped that the already deeply afflicted people in those States may be somewhat more ready to give up the cause of their affliction if to this extent this ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... penalty, but this may be no moral benefit to the criminal; and at best, it only saves him from one form of punishment. The moral law, which has the right to acquit or condemn, always demands restitution, before mortals can "go up higher." Broken law brings penalty, in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... discharge gradually becomes more unhealthy until finally it is mixed with pus and blood and assumes a fetid odor. After two or three days the joint swells and becomes very painful and a high fever sets in. In unfavorable cases the animal dies from exhaustion very shortly, or at best recovers with a ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... an artist, then, is to make himself a reputation, and a reputation is not made by one or two successes. A first success, be it ever so great, and achieved under ever so favourable circumstances, is at best but the thin end of the wedge which has been got in, but which has to be driven home with much vigour and perseverance before the work is done. "Art is a fight, not a pleasure-trip," said the French ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... sweet and pure at a time when other voices were sounding the fascinations of impurity. That, like Christ, you taught humanity. Don't be afraid of being thought "fresh," fear to be thought "knowing." Life isn't much worth at best,—it is worth nothing at all unless some good be done in it—-the more, the better. Don't make it too serious either. Enjoy it as you go, but after a fashion that will bring no reproach to your manhood. Don't be afraid to ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... like a Venetian scaramouch. He had an excellent hand at chimera, and dealt very much in distortions and grimaces. He would sometimes affright himself with the phantoms that flowed from his pencil. In short, the most elaborate of his pieces was at best but a terrifying dream: and one could say nothing more of his finest figures than that they ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... and flattery, my dear Sir. It would be no use writing to these people to-day. You'd get ignored, or at best two lines type-written by a secretary. Now look at that long letter from LLOYD GEORGE about Welsh nationality and that other from HILAIRE BELLOC concerning the adulteration of modern beer. You couldn't get them now. My idea is to catch your celebrity young. When ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... however, did make him more friendly; and after he got used to Richard he seldom stiffened his jelly to remind him that their intercourse was by the sufferance of a humane spirit. Barbara's behaviour to him had done nothing to humble him; for humiliation is at best but a poisoned and ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... made good use of their immense opportunities, such as Nerva, of whom Tacitus says that he combined monarchy and liberty, things otherwise incompatible; or that the Empire was what its panegyrists declared it, the perfection of Democracy. In truth it was at best an ill-disguised and odious despotism. But Frederic the Great was a despot; yet he was a friend to toleration and free discussion. The Bonapartes were despotic; yet no liberal ruler was ever more acceptable to the masses of the people than ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... be questioned whether Sir Hudson Lowe was the proper person to be placed in the delicate situation of guard over the fallen Emperor, there is no doubt that quarrels and complaints began long before that officer reached the island; and the character of those complaints will show that at best the prisoners were persons very difficult to satisfy. Their detention at the Briars was one of the first causes of complaint. It was stated that the Emperor was very ill there, that he was confined "in a cage" with no attendance, that his suite was kept from him, and that he was deprived of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... villagers, who are moving off on the Tarow road." He pointed to a dark mass just vanishing into the wood. "It is very well that we have got rid of the rabble. They are afraid of the gray-jackets, and are off to plunder elsewhere. Every hour's delay is a gain, since we reckon that at best there is no help to be looked for till to-morrow. Now those gentlemen behind the wood are not interesting enough to wish for a visit of twenty-four hours from them. This is a grand spot, Baron Rothsattel," continued Fink. "Certainly there's not much to be seen—some fir woods, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... style, which only is fat more Than any English stage hath known before. But since our subtle gallants think it good To like of naught that may be understood, Lest they should be disproved, or have, at best, Stomachs so raw, that nothing can digest But what's obscene, or barks,—let us desire They may continue, simply to admire Fine clothes and strange words, and may live, in age To see themselves ill brought upon the stage, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of the case. His talk was so sincere, evincing such understanding of the puzzling mazes of the matter, that Alice could not fail to see her chances of success were at best very doubtful. In spite of Sir Donald's promise to devote time and money to vindicate her title, Alice felt despondent over the outlook. She appealed to Oswald for hopeful assurance, explaining fully what had been said ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... could think was that, if genuine, the offer came as a most unexpected piece of good luck, and that, if it was a trick, my acceptance of it could not much add to the danger which attended my purpose at best. In any case, this man already had me under scrutiny. So, after some little display of surprise and doubt, I took him at his word, inwardly reserving the right to draw back if I found myself entering a trap. The man's ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... in the long run as would its use for growing timber, especially when the investment of clearing is considered. The resulting expanse of charred stumps and logs, producing little but ferns, is a small farm asset at best. The timber it would grow may eventually be a large asset. And the labor of clearing applied to a smaller tract of good land is sure to bring greater returns. An illustration is furnished by two tracts near the ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... DE, illustrious French publicist, born in the Chateau La Brede, near Bordeaux; his greatest work, and an able, "Esprit des Lois," though rated in "Sartor" as at best the work of "a clever infant spelling letters from a hieroglyphic prophetic book, the lexicon of which lies in eternity, in heaven"; was author of an able work "On the Causes of the Grandeur of the Romans and their ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... death! How vain and void, how flat and fruitless, appear all those splendid accidents of existence for which men struggle, without this essential and pervading charm! What a world without a sun! Yes! without this transcendent sympathy, riches and rank, and even power and fame, seem to me at best but jewels set in ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... supposed that this process of welding together the chaotic materials of our dreams is ever carried out with anything like the clear rational purpose of which we are conscious when seeking, in waking life, to comprehend some bewildering spectacle. At best it is a vague longing, and this longing, it may be added, is soon satisfied. There is, indeed, something, almost pathetic in the facility with which the dreamer's mind can be pacified with the least appearance of a connection. Just as a ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... notice of the heavy duty on salt, used in curing the fish for sale, and the beef for provisions to the mariners; a circumstance of itself sufficient to discourage adventurers from embarking in a commerce which, at best, yields but very slender profits to the trade in particular, how important soever it might prove to the community in general. These objections were answered by the duke of Argyle and the earl of Granville, who seemed to think that this branch of trade could ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... literature for what it is and no more. It is, at best, only a description of an infinitesimal bit of reality. The more minutely accurate it is, the more limited it must be in its field. You must not expect to get a comprehensive view through a high-powered microscope. The author is severely limited, not only by his choice ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... the conquest of England were effected, that of the Netherlands would be finished with much facility and brevity; but that otherwise, on account of the situation, strength and obstinacy of those people, it would be a very long, perilous, and at best ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... conventionality has—until recently, at least—forbidden any open discussion of facts connected with childbirth. The inevitable result has been that, without experience of their own to guide them, prospective mothers have sought advice from older women, whose experience was at best very narrow, and whose views were often biased by tradition. Or, distrusting such sources of information, they have consulted technical medical works which they could not understand. Either of these methods is very likely to result in misinformation and ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... been done to Lamb by accusing him of excess in drinking. The truth is, that a small quantity of any strong liquid (wine, &c.) disturbed his speech, which at best was but an eloquent stammer. The distresses of his early life made him ready to resort to any remedy which brought forgetfulness; and he himself, frail in body and excitable, was very speedily affected. During all my intimacy with ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... officers, and with the iron despotism which they exercise among the soldiers and sailors,[B] the bare mention of this fact is sufficient to convince them of the unenviable situation of the apprentice. It is at best but a gloomy transfer from the mercies of a slave driver, to the justice ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... continuing the journey to which he could hardly hope for a cheerful end. He did not expect to find his mother living,—far less that his unowned wife could have survived the perils in which he had involved her; and he believed that his ancestral home would, if not a ruin, be held by his foes, or at best by the rival branch of the family, whose welcome of the outlawed heir would probably be to a dungeon, if not a halter. Yet the only magnet on earth for the lonely wanderer was his native mountain, where from some old peasant he might learn how his fair young ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... evolution out of ghosts of the eternal, creative moral god of the 'plain man,' the germ of such a god or being in the creeds of the lowest savages is by anthropologists denied, or left out of sight, or accounted for by theories contradicted by facts, or, at best, is explained away as a result of European or Islamite influences. Now, as the problem is to account for the evolution of the highest conception of God, as far as that conception exists among the most backward races, the problem can never be solved while that ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... sun was bathing everything in splendour, and turning away from the wonders about me, I set off at best pace along the well-trodden path which led without turning to the west coast village where ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... had gone in a final attempt to bolster up the tottering fortunes of the Cortez Home Railway. His disappointment was keen, yet O'Neil from the beginning had met his attacks with such uniform success that new failure did not really surprise him; it had been a forlorn hope at best. Strangely enough, he had begun to lose something of his assurance of late. Although he maintained his outward appearance of confidence with all his old skill, within himself he felt a growing uneasiness, a lurking doubt of his abilities. ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... recorded to have been erected to good dancers. Socrates is said to have admired dancing so much, as to have learnt it in his old age. Dancing, on the other hand, was but little regarded at Rome. It was not admitted even within the pale of accomplishments. It was considered at best as a sorry and trivial ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... taught to laugh and make sport; they saw that which the heading of every newspaper column, the lie of every cub reporter, the exaggeration of every press dispatch, and the distortion of every speech and book had taught them was a mass of despicable men, inhuman; at best, laughable; at worst, the meat ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... each piece breaking or filling up the interstice of the two beneath it, the whole forming a connic figure about 10 feet high with a small apperture in one side which answers as a door. leaves bark and straw are sometimes thrown over the work to make it more complete, but at best it affords a very imperfect shelter particularly without straw which is the state in which we ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... indeed, for the driver of that one-horse "truck-wagon" to try and reach the little narrow unrailed bridge first. It was an old, used-up sort of a bridge, at best. ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... know about tea-drinking in England. It is not a very picturesque or interesting occasion, at best. To the traditional Englishman's mind it means simply a quiet evening at home, attended by the papers, and serious conversations in which the head of the house deals out political and domestic wisdom until ten o'clock. During the day, ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... burial-ground of the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... shoes—a fair swap! And tug my forelock, like a lousy tinker; And whine God bless the master of this house, Likewise the mistress, too ... By gox, I've come To charity—Jim Barrasford's come to mooch For charity at Krindlesyke! Shanks's mare's A sorry nag at best; and lets you down, Sooner or later, for certain—the last straw, When a man can't trust his feet, and his own legs Give under him, in his need, and bring him down A devasher in the ditch as the ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... in a while of benches and chests, and the Bayeux tapestry and old seals show us that William the Conquerer and Richard Coeur de Lion sat on chairs, even if they were not very promising ones, but at best it is all very vague. It is natural to suppose that the early Saxons had furniture of some kind, for, as the remains of Saxon metalwork show great skill, it is probable they had skill ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... rallied, and in the spring of 1727 he returned to London. In August, however, there came alarming news, when Swift was himself suffering from giddiness and deafness. To Dr. Sheridan he wrote that the last act of life was always a tragedy at best: "it is a bitter aggravation to have one's best friend go before one." Life was indifferent to him; if he recovered from his disorder it would only be to feel the loss of "that person for whose sake only life was worth preserving. I brought ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... leisure, which he employed in reading and taking notes from the volumes borrowed by him every morning at a reading-room on the Rue Rorer-Collard; for he had already learned that one leaves college almost ignorant, having, at best, only learned how to study. He left the office at nightfall and reached his room through the Boulevard des Invalides, and Montparnasse, which at this time was still planted with venerable elms; sometimes the lamplighter would be ahead of him, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... mountains, while the main command camped at the foot of the divide on the night of the 7th, and at 5 o'clock the next morning, resumed the march. The road up the mountain, a steep and difficult one at best, was seriously obstructed at this time by large quantities of down timber that had to be cut out or passed around, so that the ascent was very slow and trying to men and beasts. The wagons were but lightly loaded, and by doubling teams and using all the men at drag ropes, the command ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... piece of emery cloth which he used for cleaning his plugs and platinum contact points, and bent it over the edge of the rim, binding it to the spokes with the length of insulated wire which he always carried. It was a crude and makeshift contrivance at best, but at last he succeeded, by dint of much bending and winding and tying of the pliable copper wire among the spokes of the wheel, in fastening the emery cloth over the fairly sharp rim so that it stayed in place when he started his power and in about ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the people all Led home the steed in triumph to his stall. The King heard and approved, and laughed in glee, And cried aloud: "Right well it pleaseth me! Church-bells at best but ring us to the door; But go not in to mass; my bell doth more: It cometh into court and pleads the cause Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws; And this shall make, in every Christian clime, The Bell of Atri famous for ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... answer, but did not. Both men were looking at her now. The snow was white on her hair. Her tears had so long been dry that the swollen look was passing from her face. It had been until now at best a heavy face, but feeling that is strong enough works like a master's swift chisel to make the features the vehicle of the soul. Both men were relieved when she suddenly took her eyes from them and her shadow from their work and ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the now much-disturbed squire had time to say another word in his defence the speaker had swept indignantly out of his presence and hastened to her own room, there to throw herself down upon the bed and burst into a passion of tears, for she was at best but a weak-nerved woman. ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... played over his melody for the arranger to take down in musical notes, you may sing, whistle or play your melody on the piano with one finger, for the arranger to take down your song. All you need give him is the bare outline of your melody. At best it will be but a forecasting shadow of what he will make out of it. From it he will make you a "lead-sheet," the first record of your melody. Then, if you desire, he will arrange your melody into a piano part, precisely identical in form with any copy of a song ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... dream, vanishing as quickly as the rainbow colours in a bubble, and leaving only the darkness of the dull winter twilight behind. Such privileges were for a happier man than I: I was at best only her "friend." Never could I hope, whether success or failure crowned the effort I was impatient to begin—for more ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... Wells has recently written a Utopian romance, "In the Days of the Comet," which, although it possesses in the fullest measure Mr. Wells' well known charm of style, is in substance at best a very feeble echo of "News from Nowhere." One of the modes of thought specially characteristic of eighteenth century French dolls is strongly to the fore in Mr. Wells' treatment of war. In the conversations "after the Change" between ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... burthen (in the form of Vedic lore).[1668] One should, with devoted attention, reflect on both Prakriti and Purusha, so that one may avoid repeated birth and death. Reflection upon the fact of one's repeated births and deaths and avoiding the religion of acts that is productive at best of destructible results, one should betake oneself to the indestructible religion of Yoga. O Kasyapa, if one reflects continuously on the nature of the Jiva-soul and its connection with the Supreme Soul, one then succeeds in divesting oneself ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... have bare life; at best for the bulk of men the Saurian lizard's broad back soaking and roasting in primeval slime; or say, in the so-called teachers of men, as much of life as pricks the frog in March to stir and yawn, and up on a flaccid leap that rolls him over some three inches nearer to the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... noblest and best powers of mind, heart and hand. The constant probability that our term of service would at best be brief, and the desire to accomplish the greatest possible results, have proved an incentive to incessant industry. When difficulties increased, they served as a signal ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... into combs and wattles, and also into the bills of some species of birds by subcutaneous injections of various dyes when the specimen was fresh, but as all taxidermists are not skilled anatomists, and have not too much time to spare in doing what is—at best—but an unsatisfactory and unpractical method, I may relieve their anxiety by saying at once that the difficulty attendant on shrinkage of the integument may be avoided by using wax, with which to thinly paint the large bills of some birds, and the legs ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... love within the breast Is here but fond desire at best: The faintest spark in heaven it knows With an immortal ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... war may at best be described as a chapter of inconsistencies. "Can it be lawful to handle the sword," asked Tertullian, "when the Lord Himself has declared that he who uses the sword shall perish by it?" By disarming Peter, he stated, the Lord "disarmed every soldier from that time forward." ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... back. Barker was bending over some of the post papers and reports at his desk, and wondering why on earth the colonel should be colloguing with Snaffle, Crane, Sergeant Fitzroy, and sending for Cassidy and Quinlan. That was a queer "outfit" of Snaffle's at best. It seemed odd that the most pronounced "Britisher" in barracks, outside of the band, should be a sergeant in the troop commanded by the nearest thing to an Irishman among the captains. True, Fitzroy as stable ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... "new" career with a novel whose central theme was a subject of distaste at best—more likely revulsion—to the vast majority of the reading public? Perhaps the nature of the novel itself led him to consider publishing it anonymously, although we know he was not averse to controversial subjects. In his first book, The Macdermots of Ballycloran, ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... felt as if his support had been uncalled upon, a frail reed at best. Lund had not needed him, would he need him, save as an aid, not altogether necessary, with Hansen ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... might indicate a very laudable power of concentration; but the process, instead of enlightening us concerning the point of the needle, would result in our passing into a hypnotic state. Voluntary attention to any one object can be sustained for but a brief time—a few seconds at best. It is essential that the object change, that we turn it over and over incessantly, and consider its various aspects and relations. Sustained voluntary attention is thus a repetition of successive efforts to bring back the object to the mind. Then the subject ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... they are neither better nor worse than you or I; they get over their professional horrors, and into their proper work; and in them pity—as an emotion, ending in itself or at best in tears and a long-drawn breath, lessens, while pity as a motive is quickened, and gains power and purpose. It is well for poor human nature that it ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... his consent to the marriage he admitted a certain amount of intimacy with his son-in-law, asking him to dinner, and discussing with him matters of general interest,—but never, in truth, opening his heart to him. Indeed, how can any man open his heart to one whom he dislikes? At best he can only pretend to open his heart, and even this Mr. Wharton would not do. And very soon after the engagement Lopez left London and went to the Duke's place in the country. His objects in doing this and ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... that of his family. Of the 80 cases, 53—or about two-thirds—may be said to enjoy good, and sometimes even very good, health, though occasionally there is some slight qualification to be made. In 22 cases the health is delicate, or at best only fair; in these cases there is sometimes a tendency to consumption, and often marked neurasthenia and a more or less unbalanced temperament. Four cases are morbid to a considerable degree; the remaining case has had insane ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... "It's vile stuff at best," he remarked to himself, making a wry face. "Fit only for medicine. Not much danger of my ever loving it again. I wish Anna was not so foolish. A flattering opinion she ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... could hear the sound of tree-fern fronds clashing in the wind. He heard the louder sounds made by Smithers, stirring ever so slightly in the Tube. And then he caught a vague, distant uproar. It would have been faint and confused at best but the Tube was partly blocked by Smithers' body, and there were the multiple bends further to complicate the echoes. It was no more than a formless tumult through which faint yells came occasionally. ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... corn field or two somewhar along," he replied, "but it's a lanky, slipshod kind of crop at best, for tobaccy's king down here, an' no mistake. We've a sayin' that the man that ain't partial to the weed can't sleep sound even in the churchyard, an' thar's some as 'ill swar to this day that Willie Moreen never rested in his grave because ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... Barbarossa, because the judgment of Ibrahim was in favor of its being carried out. This, to Roxalana, was gall and wormwood; well she knew that, as long as the Grand Vizier lived, her sovereignty was at best but a divided one. There was a point at which her blandishments stopped short; this was when she found that her opinion did not coincide with that of the minister. She was, as we have seen in the instance of her son, not a woman to stick at trifles, and ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... praise,—and demands for praise are, I think, disgraceful in every walk of life,—the practice would gradually fall into the hands only of the lowest, and that which is done only by the lowest soon becomes despicable even to them. The sin, when perpetuated with unflagging labour, brings with it at best very poor reward. That work of running after critics, editors, publishers, the keepers of circulating libraries, and their clerks, is very hard, and must be very disagreeable. He who does it must feel himself to be dishonoured,—or she. It may perhaps help ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... Renaissance was not a man; that renaissance was a term used to signify what was at best but an imperfect rejuvenation of art. The guide said that after Titian's time and the time of the other great names we had grown so familiar with, high art declined; then it partially rose again—an inferior ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Mosaic fence, as erected by dogmatic theologians and scholasticists, was but a flimsy structure at best, and one that was easily ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... and had to inquire my way; indeed, except in the principal thoroughfares, London is so miserably lighted that it is impossible to recognize one's whereabouts. On my arrival I found our parlor looking cheerful with a brisk fire; . . . . but the first day or two in new lodgings is at best an uncomfortable time. Fanny has just come in with more unhappy news about ———. Pray Heaven it may not be true! . . . . Troubles are a sociable brotherhood; they love to come hand in hand, or sometimes, even, to come side by side, with long looked-for and ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... retiring in the direction of the eastern strait, thus inveigling Rojdestvensky into a pursuit in that direction. The ships told off for this duty were to proceed to sea at once, as the Chin-yen—the slowest craft of the quartette—was only good for thirteen knots at best, and it was not desired that any ship should be pushed to the limit of her powers until the engagement should become general. The remainder of the protected cruiser division— fourteen in number—were ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... not like the persistent way in which he spoke of himself as a black sheep who, at best, could be whitened, and trained not to disgrace the fold; yet it piqued her interest. Books said that women had a weakness for men who were not good and she supposed that she was like the rest. He was so dear and chivalrous that certain defiant hints as to his ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... her from the heights of superiority to which he had ascended these last few days of importance, the practice of medicine was no woman's work at best; certainly not in a land like this, where a man's endurance, breadth or mind, and keener innate ability to cope with big situations were indicated. No work for a slip of a girl like Virginia Page. Of that Caleb Patten assured her unhesitatingly. But there ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... had made two or three attempts to redeem myself from a habit, which I knew was at best useless and foolish, if not prejudicial. But they were feeble and inefficient. Once, indeed, I thought I was sure that the giving up the use of tobacco injured my health, and I finally gave up all hopes of ever ridding myself ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey
... ask in order to reassure you that, sensitive and keen as you think your little inward monitor, it is at best but a poor weakling. Now, the conscience of Kitty and the conscience of Mary would have risen up in hot protest, and the temptation would not have been a temptation to them, but it was to you because ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... both young and old always remembered, that this life is at best but a state of probation, and that in all our actions we are but "on trial," watched over by the All-seeing God. And often, and often, indeed, when we least suspect it, our doings are marked by our fellow men, are weighed, even in an earthly balance, and so are ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... open range near home, the drifting cattle brought up against it during the blinding blizzards and huddled there, freezing in the open, or else plodded stolidly along beside it until some washout or coulee too deep for crossing barred their way, so that the huddling and freezing was at best merely postponed. Billy, being quite alive to the exigencies of the matter, rode and rode, and with him rode Dill and the other two men when they had the leisure—which was not often, since the storms made much "shoveling" ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... notches serves as the cutting edge. The leaf is held in one hand and the gauge and knife in the other, the edge of the leaf being drawn through the gauge. This is generally made out of the stiff part of the leaf, though, occasionally, of a piece of rattan, bamboo or leather. At best it serves for only a few hours of use, when it is thrown ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller
... of the currents. They knew they were embarking in a most intricate and difficult business and with so much at stake on behalf of the whole farming population of Western Canada it was necessary to place the helm in the hands of somebody who could pilot them through the shoals. At best it promised to ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... fields behind Holland House was fought a notable duel in 1804 between Lord Camelford, a notorious duellist, and Captain Best, R.N. Lord Camelford fired first, but missed his opponent. He afterwards fell at Best's shot, and was carried into Little Holland House, where he died in three days. The exact spot where the duel was fought is now enclosed in the grounds of Oak Lodge, and is ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... it is dark; and though I have lain, Awake, as I guess, an hour or twain, I have not once open'd the lids of my eyes, But I lie in the dark, as a blind man lies. O Rain! that I lie listening to, You're but a doleful sound at best: I owe you little thanks,'tis true, For breaking thus my needful rest! Yet if, as soon as it is light, O Rain! you will but take your flight, I'll neither rail, nor malice keep, Though sick and sore for want of sleep. But only now, for this one day, Do ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons |
