"Fitter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been found to do it), it seemed to Mr. Esmond that they would have had the right-divine just as much as any Plantagenet, or Tudor, or Stuart. But the desire of the country being unquestionably for an hereditary monarchy, Esmond thought an English king out of St. Germains was better and fitter than a German prince from Herrenhausen, and that if he failed to satisfy the nation, some other Englishman might be found to take his place; and so, though with no frantic enthusiasm, or worship of that monstrous pedigree which the Tories ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "We worked the mine for the boys, so that money will just do for their preparation for the army, for they're fitter for soldiers than miners ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... alcalde, stepped up to him, saying "Look at the dirty gipsy thief! I will lay a wager he will give himself airs as if he were an honest man, and deny the robbery, though the goods have been found in his hands. Good luck to whoever sends the whole pack of you to the galleys. A fitter place it will be for this scoundrel, where he may serve his Majesty, instead of going about dancing from place to place, and thieving from venta to mountain. On the faith of a soldier, I have a mind to lay him at my feet with ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... nor your nature neither, though they are things fitter I must confess for any thing, than my remembrance, or any honest mans: what shall these Billets do; be ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... chosen a fitter costume to visit us in," said Merton at length. "I can hardly believe that you come to us from some other part of this same foul, hot, dusty London. To my fever-parched fancy you seem rather to have come from some distant unpolluted place, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... command of the English army in Catalonia, was a man of respectable abilities, both in military and civil affairs, but fitter, we conceive, for a second than for a first place. Lord Mahon, with his usual candour, tells us, what we believe was not known before, that his ancestor's most distinguished exploit, the conquest of Minorca, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... strongly opposed, especially by the landowners. Numerous pamphlets were published, calling on the public to "beware of the bubbles," and holding up the promoters of railways to ridicule. They were compared to St. John Long and similar quacks, and pronounced fitter for Bedlam than to be left at large. The canal proprietors, landowners, and road trustees, made common cause against them. The failure of railways was confidently predicted—indeed, it was elaborately ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... appear strange to us, as he was as noted for an unworthy cunning as for his dexterity. Generous emulation and magnanimity were regarded as the noblest qualities called forth in gymnastic exercises; and Mercury seems a fitter tutelar divinity of the wary boxer and of the race-course than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... "Fit! Never fitter, not even in the old days when I used to pass the pigskin to you out of the scrimmage. But you? You're hardly up to the mark." The keen gray eyes searched Cameron's face. "What's ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... less an object of wonder or terror since it was worked by steam? How sublime was the stoppage of a mail as the index of rebellion. Luther's Bible was printed by a machine. The organ is a machine—and not the roar of a lion in a midnight forest is more sublime, or a fitter reply from earth to the thunder. The railway carriages of this mechanical age are the conductors of the fire of intellect and passion—and its steamboats may be loaded with thunderbolts, as well as with bullocks or yarn. The great American ship is but a machine; and yet how poetical ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... said Miss Gushing, in an enthusiastic tone of depreciation. "How insensate they must be! To me it gives a new charm to life. It quiets one for the day; makes one so much fitter for one's daily trials and daily troubles. Does it ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... utterly unworthy of his intercourse—'to think that a fellow in a tattered cloak should talk of conveying the Great Carbuncle to a garret in Grub Street! Have not I resolved within myself that the whole earth contains no fitter ornament for the great hall of my ancestral castle? There shall it flame for ages, making a noonday of midnight, glittering on the suits of armor, the banners, and escutcheons, that hang around the wall, and keeping bright the memory of heroes. Wherefore ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... vanished. Already I had made the agreeable discovery that I could get along and be reasonably happy on from 35 to 50 per cent of what until then I had deludedly thought was required to nourish me. Before the week ended I felt fitter and sprier in every way than I had for years past; more alive, more interested in things, quicker on my feet and brisker in my mental processes than in a long time. The chronic logy, foggy feeling in my head disappeared and failed to return. I may add that to date it still ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... the Roman Empire, when church and state were scarcely yet dual, and when Christianity was coextensive with one united empire. At Constance all the ideas, religious and political, of the Middle Ages seem to be put upon their trial. If that trial had ended in condemnation, there could be no fitter point to mark the division between mediaeval and modern history. But the verdict was acquittal, or at least a partial aquittal; and the old system was allowed, under modified conditions, a lease of life ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... kind and another compelled me to go to Christiania, leaving the Fram in charge of Lieutenant Nilsen. They had their hands more than full on board. Diesel's firm in Stockholm sent their experienced fitter, Aspelund, who at once set to work to overhaul the motor thoroughly. The work that had to be done was executed gratis by the Laxevaag engineering works. After going into the matter thoroughly, it was decided to change the solar oil we had on board for refined petroleum. Through ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... the later times. This increase in brain capacity has doubtless been attended by a decided gain in the measure of intelligence, a gain which has doubtless served to make the modern representatives of the series fitter for man's use than their ancestors were. For, while the number of our very useful domesticated forms may seem at first sight to be dull of wit, none of them are really low in the intellectual scale as we apply it to the brute; in fact, a considerable measure of intelligence ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... Indians to their town, evidently the town which we sought. And indeed it was larger, fitter, a more ordered community than any we had met this side Ocean-Sea, though far, far from travelers' tales of Orient cities! It was set under trees, palm trees and others, by the side of a clear river. The huts were larger than those by the sea, and set not ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... out before day, though in fact we were all much fitter to remain from the excessive pain which we suffered in our joints, and proceeded till one P.M. without halting, when Belanger who was before stopped and cried out "Footsteps of Indians." It is needless to mention the joy that brightened the countenances ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... too, in her turn, as the better born? and that she wanted but the power, to shew the like unrelenting temper, by which she had so grievously suffered? And might not this have given him room to think me (and to have resumed and prosecuted his purposes accordingly) fitter for an arrogant kept mistress, than an humble and ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... ruin, if left unassisted by Sir Miles's testamentary dispositions—were arguments in his favour. And, after all, though Lucretia was a nearer relation, Vernon was in truth the direct male heir, and according to the usual prejudices of family, therefore, the fitter representative of the ancient line. With these feelings and views, he had invited Vernon to his house, and we have seen already that his favourable impressions had been confirmed ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they have blasphemed? Those things are impossible. If we are to have a treaty with this new order of thinking and action, it must be a compact of crime, a solemn agreement of treachery, a formal bond of plunder; it must be a treaty fitter for the cavern of conspiracy than for the chamber of council; its pledge must be like that of Catiline, the cup of human blood! No; the most powerful reprobation which ever shot from the indignant lip of the moralist, would not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... is in one's power," urged Richard; "your daughter's heart is not yours to give. In backing this man's suit you have already redeemed your word to him. If he has failed to win her affections—and I think he has—let me try my chance. I am a fitter match for her in years; I am a gentleman, and therefore fitter for her, for she is a true lady. I love her a thousand times as much as he. As for Wheal Danes, I would give you twenty such, if I had them, for the leave I ask for, and ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... beauties of a less prominent description, that they harmonize into one general picture, and please rather by unison than by concord. I believe I have written unintelligibly upon this subject, but it is fitter for the pencil than the pen. The romantic feelings which I have described as predominating in my mind, naturally rested upon and associated themselves with these grand features of the landscape around me; and the historical incidents, or traditional legends connected ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Well, he may bide. Sir, I will speak with you Anon upon this work. I judged in haste. Yea, it hath merit. I am weary now; To-morrow I shall be in fitter mood To give you certain hints. [LORENZO bows his thanks and advances to address MARIA. RIBERA silences and dismisses him with a wave of the ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... crowds on me for utterance, but there will be those among you that will be able to give a fuller and fitter expression to the thoughts that cluster around this all-important question, the "Rights and Duties of Women"—her rights equal to those of men—she alone the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and better! he is carried off too, the Saxon fool, to serve the Norman lord. Fools are we all indeed that serve them, and fitter subjects for their scorn and laughter, than if we were born with but half our wits. But I will be avenged," he added, starting from his chair in impatience at the supposed injury, and catching hold of his boar-spear; "I will go with my complaint to the great council; I have friends, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... consider! Phaedria, you live at a high rate with her, Revel, and feast, and stick at no expense. Yet what you give's but little, and you know 'Tis needful Thais should receive much more Now to supply your love without your cost, A fitter person, one more form'd, can't be Than Thraso is: first, he has wherewithal To give, and gives most largely: a fool too, A dolt, a block, that snores out night and day; Nor can you fear she'll e'er grow fond of him; And you may drive him ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... to the garden, without receiving any mixture from it. In all the impurities it meets withal, it remains unmixed and untainted, and preserves its own nature entire. Now you may perceive, that there is nothing visible that is fitter to resemble the invisible God, than this glorious, beautiful, pure, and ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... thought further into material forms.[53-*] And while it may be (and in the course of universal evolution rightly so) necessary for our thought to descend into the bondage of matter and form, for its knowledge and experience, and for the development of matter and form into fitter vehicles of thought, nevertheless the process is a binding and for a time an enchaining one, and the thought is, for a time at least, likely to be lost in the confusion ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... he said in a hoarse voice, "Jim, but for you I should have had crimps in that jackal philanthropist's soul by now and in the souls of his kind. But never mind. He will keep; he will surely keep until I get to him. Every day he lives he will be fitter for the crimping. Within the short two years since he finished grilling Judge Sands's soul, he has put himself in better form to appreciate his reward. I see by the press that at last his aristocratic wife has gold-cured Newport of its habit of dating back the name Reinhart ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... the effect is incongruous to the timid alone. Proprieties of place, and especially of time, are the bugbears which terrify mankind from the contemplation of the magnificent. Once I was myself a decorist; but that sublimation of folly has palled upon my soul. All this is now the fitter for my purpose. Like these arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in fire, and the delirium of this scene is fashioning me for the wilder visions of that land of real dreams whither I am now rapidly departing." He here paused abruptly, bent his head to his bosom, and seemed to listen to a sound ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to live; 260 Of artists who, with noblest view, Disinterested plans pursue, For trembling worth the ladder raise, And mark out the ascent to praise; Of arts and sciences, where meet, Sublime, profound, and all complete, A set[223] (whom at some fitter time The Muse shall consecrate in rhyme) Who, humble artists to out-do, A far more liberal plan pursue, 270 And let their well-judged premiums fall On those who have no worth at all; Of sign-post exhibitions, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... the Province. In some parts a number of families are settled together as farmers; but they do not make good settlers, being of a volatile disposition, much addicted to dissipation; they are impatient of labour, and in general fitter for performing menial offices about houses as domestics, than the more important, but laborious duties of farmers.—In their persons, the inhabitants of New-Brunswick are well made, tall and athletic. There are but few of those born in the country, but what ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... history is full of such events. The Irish Scots, in the course of two or three centuries, might find time and opportunities sufficient to settle in North Britain, though we can neither assign the period nor causes of that revolution. Their barbarous manner of life rendered them much fitter than the Romans for subduing these mountaineers. And, in a word, it is clear from the language of the two countries, that the Highlanders and the Irish are the same people, and that the one are a colony from the other. We have positive evidence which, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Medenham's eye, a very cold eye at that instant. "No, sir. He's just a fitter from ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... com'st. The busy wind all night Blew through thy lodging, where thy own warm wing Thy pillow was. Many a sullen storm, For which coarse man seems much the fitter born, Rain'd on thy bed And harmless head; And now, as fresh and cheerful as the light, Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing Unto that Providence, whose unseen arm Curb'd them, and ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... foot soldiers of the Thracians, the Paeonians, the Macedonians, and others. And the sum of the whole was two million six hundred and forty-one thousand six hundred and ten. And of all this great host there was none fitter to be the ruler for beauty and great stature than King Xerxes himself. Of those that followed the camp, and of the crews of the provision ships and other vessels of transport, the number was more rather than less than the number of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... together on the deck, For a charnel-dungeon fitter: 435 All fixed on me their stony eyes, That in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to say in the same breath that they can't come and see to your bells, and they don't want to marry your daughter. Who asked them?—you ain't come down so low in the world to go and offer Trixie to a gas-fitter, I should 'ope, Matthew!—and yet what else does it mean—tell me that, and I'll ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... of the other's wrongs. Cupid did cry lamenting of the harm; Jove's messenger, thou wrong'st me too too far; Use thou thy rod, rely upon the charm; Think not by speech my force thou canst debar. A rod, Sir boy, were fitter for a child, My weapons oft and tongue and mind you took; And in my wrong at my distress thou smiled, And scorned to grace me with a loving look. Speak you, sweet love, for you did all the wrong That broke his arrows, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... be preferred before any other; because men are presumed to be more enclined by nature, to advance their own children, than the children of other men; and of their own, rather a Male than a Female; because men, are naturally fitter than women, for actions of labour and danger. Thirdly, where his own Issue faileth, rather a Brother than a stranger; and so still the neerer in bloud, rather than the more remote, because it is alwayes presumed that the neerer of kin, is the neerer in affection; and 'tis evident ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... by more gradual evolution. The annual rate of growth, in height, weight and strength, increases to a marked extent and may even be doubled. The development in the man takes place in the direction of a greater strength, in the woman towards a fitter form for maternity. The sex sense develops, the love of nature and religion, and an overmastering curiosity both individual and general. This period of life, so fraught with its power for good and ill, is accordingly the most important and by far the most difficult for parents ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... beloved; these are not scenes and words for such as thee. Rest here with Christine and good Sir Christopher; to tend and cheer a wounded knight is a fitter task for thee, sweet one, than thus to ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... ill-favoured Knight deal in gallantries?" said Du Guesclin, turning. "Here is one far fitter for ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reject her at once. You will have no difficulty in ascertaining this point; for this class of persons have an idea that their milk is renewed, as they term it, by this circumstance, monthly; and, therefore, that it is a recommendation, rendering their milk fitter for younger children than it would otherwise have been. It produces, however, quite a contrary effect; it much impairs the milk, which will be found to disagree with the child, rendering it at first fretful,—after a time being vomited up, and productive ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... exclaimed, briskly, stepping to a high, carved wardrobe beside her bed, "this merry-making habit wearies me. Let us don a fitter attire. Come—lend a ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... or less subject, and from which hardly any individual can entirely free himself. 'There is', he says, 'scarce a man so free from it, but that if he should always, on all occasions, argue or do as in some cases he constantly does, would not be thought fitter for Bedlam than civil conversation. I do not here mean when he is under the power of an unruly passion, but in the steady, calm course of his life. That which thus captivates their reason, and leads men of sincerity blindfold from common sense will, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... opinion that it would be expedient that your Majesty should send an Ambassador Extraordinary to compliment the young Sultan[54] on his accession. The circumstances connected with his accession are indeed fitter matter for condolence than for congratulation, and he would probably be better pleased by the restoration of his fleet than by the arrival of Ambassadors Extraordinary. Moreover, it has not been customary for the Sovereign of England to send ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... glittering with the stars of a whole constellation of knighthood, yet who sat with the cross-belts and cartouche-box of the rank and file upon him, agreeing with all the premises, stoutly denied the conclusions. "He is a coxcomb," said the old Marquis. "Well, he is only the fitter to command an army of upstarts. He has seen nothing but Corsican service; well, he is the fitter to command an army of banditti. And he has been an espion of the Government in Portugal; what better training could he have for heading ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... "if a short walk in the night air won't make you fitter for sleep than you look now. It is mild and ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... church and the village lies the curragh land, full of wild flowers and musical with the notes of every bird that uplifts its voice to heaven. Far off can be descried, across the sea, the Mull of Galloway. It is in its rare beauty a spot than which, for a poet's childhood, no fitter could be found. ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... found fitter place For courtly wit and modish grace, Than by the Indus. There right well His facile talent served his Chief; And England hears with genuine ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... the child would turn out ill?" said Godfrey, in his remonstrances. "She has thriven as well as child can do with the weaver; and he adopted her. There isn't such a pretty little girl anywhere else in the parish, or one fitter for the station we could give her. Where can be the likelihood of her being a ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... of Moa are a people with whom any Europeans, settled in their neighbourhood, might without any difficulty settle a commerce, and receive considerable assistance from them in making discoveries. But perhaps some nations are fitter for these kind of expeditions than others, as being less apt to make use of their artillery and small arms upon every little dispute; for as the inhabitants of Moa are well enough acquainted with the superiority which the Europeans have over them, it cannot be supposed ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... for that puts his face into a most shrunken and wooden posture, as needs it must—for in bashfulness the spirits do a little go and come—but with bold men, upon like occasion, they stand at a stay; like a stale at chess, where it is no mate, but yet the game cannot stir: but this last were fitter for a satire than for a serious observation. This is well to be weighed, that boldness is ever blind, for it seeth not dangers and inconveniences: therefore it is ill in counsel, good in execution; so ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... yours. If you will devote one half the energy and care to this work that you devoted to that other,—will earnestly endeavor to cherish all that is womanly and noble in yourself, and through desire for another's respect earn your own,—I, too, will try to make myself a fitter mate for any woman, and keep our troth unbroken for a ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... on the deck, For a charnel-dungeon fitter: All fix'd on me their stony eyes That in ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... his bed and making his ablutions, prayed the obligatory prayers which he had omitted for the past day and night[FN194]; after which he sat down and began to solace himself by talking with his friend. When Abu al-Hasan saw this, he turned to him and said, "O my lord, it were fitter for thy case that thou abide with me this night, so thy breast may be broadened and the distress of love-longing that is upon thee be dispelled and thou make merry with us, so haply the fire of thy heart may thus be quenched." Ali replied, "O my brother, do what seemeth good ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... out no unreasonable or distant prospect of such an arrangement. And I can with perfect sincerity say to you—to whom I think aloud—that I am by no means desirous that the interval should be so much shortened, as to make the appointment immediate. I am in the train of making myself fitter for it: in the enjoyment of as much confidence as that office ever could give me, and with the consciousness of being admitted to many opportunities of doing real service to the Government that I act with. My present income is sufficient—such an appointment would not in reality increase ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... repentance, we receive the real reconciliation in his blood in the sacrament. But the most proper and most literal sense of these words, is, that all things in heaven and earth be reconciled to God (that is, to his glory, to a fitter disposition to glorify him) by being reconciled to another in Christ; that in him, as head of the church, they in heaven, and we upon earth, be united together as one body in the ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... was a pleasanter one than usual, the halts being better arranged, with the result that the troops and transport got into camp quite as early as they would have done under the ordinary circumstances, but very much fresher and fitter. The fact is, staff officers do not understand marching. They go tittuping gaily past long straggling columns, passing the time of day cheerily to friends, and momentarily halting to deliver some ironical ...
— 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
... complexion, masses of white hair, and a keen thoughtful face. He died at Bath, October 10, 1832. He was buried at Stoke Newington by the side of his mother. There Wilberforce had promised to be buried by his friend; but for him Westminster Abbey was a fitter resting-place.[17] ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... close of the First French Revolution, Joseph Leopold Sigisbert Hugo, son of a joiner at Nancy, and an officer risen from the ranks in the Republican army, married Sophie Trebuchet, daughter of a Nantes fitter-out of privateers, a ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... who have any natural mental activity to find resources of interest outside. The pleasure derived from literature and science should be open to all. No one who knows working people can deny that the demand for it exists. A fitter on weekly wages used to show in a poor cottage one of the best collections of British butterflies and moths, made entirely by himself. Many of them had been captured late at night on Chat Moss. A ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... mature consideration. For some short time after graduation he taught a private school in Virginia; but, probably finding, subsequently, that his tastes, quite as much as his talents, might have fuller and fitter scope for their gratification and development in legal than in academical pursuits, he ultimately decided to enter upon a course of legal studies with a view to preparing himself for the discharge of forensic and judicial duties. His first practical ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... was drenched to the skin in a moment; dazzled and giddy from the flashes; stunned by the everlasting roar, peal over-rushing peal, echo out-shooting echo, till rocks and air quivered alike beneath the continuous battle-cannonade.—"What matter? What fitter guide for such a path as mine than the blue ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... short-sighted, we cannot know what is proper for us. Having done for the best, when we are disappointed, we ought to rest satisfied that either what we wish is not for our good, or it will in some future dispensation of Providence be brought about another way and in a fitter time. Indeed, my dear mamma, in some things he is a better Christian than I am. May God make him so ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... Another year has almost stolen away. Where am I? What am I? Thus much of time is gone; how much fitter am I for heaven? I pause,—am alone,—but 'Thou God seest me.' On my knees, I ask Thy mercy, and implore Thee to be mine for ever. Precious Jesus! I feel Thee willing to save me, and a sweet confidence Thou wilt save me. O! the sweetness ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... and ambition, I was allowed, by him whom I already reverenced as a master, to write the name of Walter Pater on the flyleaf of a book which embodied my beliefs and hopes as a writer. And now, seeing books from the point of view of the reader, I can find no fitter ending to this present volume than to express what all we readers have gained, and lost, alas! in this ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... taken out of himself now. His voice was slightly tremulous, but he spoke with less difficulty than before. "You are fitter than you know. You've developed as I never thought any man could in so short a time. I've been watching you and I've seen it. There was always more in you than people gave you credit for—it was your inheritance from a father and grandfather who have meant a great deal in their world. You've found ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... aghast. 'If you do require any such service, though I should not have thought it, there are many nearer your own rank, officers and gentlemen fitter for an affair of the kind. I never knew anything about fire-arms, since ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wus Gran'pa Finch, Who's bed-rid up to Spense's attic: The other Aunt Mehitabel, Whose jints and temper is rheumatic. She said she "guessed that Deacon Fry Would some day see he'd done more fitter To send his dollars savin' souls Than waste 'em ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... took place lately in a field near Paisley, between the two great Chartist champions—Feargus O'Connor and the Rev. Mr. Brewster. The subject debated was, Whether is moral or physical force the fitter instrument for obtaining the Charter? The Doctor espoused the moral hocussing system, and Feargus took up the bludgeon for physical force. After a pretty considerable deal of fireworks had been let off on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... withered grass to keep my footing. The ponies, patient little brutes, with one hundred and fifty pounds strapped to their backs, came near to giving up the ghost, being swayed hopelessly to and fro in the fury. For hours we thus toiled up pathways seemingly fitter for goats than men, where leafless trees were bending destitute of life and helpless towards the valley, as the keen wind went sighing, moaning, wailing through their bare boughs and ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... to adopt the division, the order, and the terms, "of the common grammarians, without inquiring whether a fitter distribution might not be found."—Gram. before 4to Dict., p. 1. But, in the Etymology of his Grammar, he makes no enumeration of the parts of speech, and treats only of articles, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs; to which if we add the others, according to the common ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... monastic city of Leinster. He stood, therefore, to the besieged, being their chief pastor, in the relation of a father; to Dermid, and strangely enough to Strongbow also, as brother-in-law and uncle by marriage. A fitter ambassador could not ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... to Ghost Lake with their wounded and dead, where there was fitter shelter for both. All had gone on; nobody remained to await Clinch's home-coming ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... [The Physician] is held by the Soldan, and with fruits and refreshments for the King's private chamber, and such message as may pass betwixt honourable enemies, praying him to be recovered of his fever, that he may be the fitter to receive a visit from the Soldan, with his naked scimitar in his hand, and a hundred thousand cavaliers at his back. Will it please you, who are of the King's secret council, to cause these camels to be discharged of their burdens, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... left to starve by herself, the crature, now they've gone and put her two sons into gaol. I wonder what the counthry 'll be the better for all them boys being crammed into gaol. I wish they'd kept that Ussher down in the north when he was there; he's fitter for that place than County ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... no lengths in lewdness she would not advise me to go, in compliance with her customers; no schemes, or pleasure, or even unbounded debauchery, she did not take even a delight in promoting: into a better, because nobody having had more experience of the wicked part of the town than she had, was fitter to advise and guard one against the worst dangers of our profession; and what was rare to be met with in those of her's, she contented herself with a moderate living profit upon her industry and good offices, and had nothing of their greedy rapacious turn. She was really too a gentlewoman born and ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... try it on. In a few minutes Pauline had discovered that the fitter was supporting her deceased sister's husband and six children, the eldest of whom wasn't quite right and the youngest had rickets. She was so distressed that she didn't want the back of her coat altered, the woman already had so much to bear. But I prevailed upon her ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... answered,—when the dawn of the first Christmas holiday lighted his pale, moveless features, and the large heart throbbed no more forever in its grand scorn and still grander tenderness,—his released spirit could have chosen no fitter words of farewell than the gentle benediction his own ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... before me. The sounds of 'Vive Marat!' told me his name. I afterwards heard that he lived on the profits of a low journal, in a cellar, with a gang of wretches constantly drunk, and thus was only the fitter for the rabble. He told them that there was a conspiracy on foot to massacre the patriots of Paris; that the troops from the provinces were coming, by order of the king, to put man, woman, and child to the sword; that the fete at Marseilles ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... land and sea Pitt always took the best, no matter who or what their friends or parties were; and no commander left Pitt's inspiring presence without feeling the fitter for the work in hand. In planning the conquest of Canada, Pitt and Ligonier agreed that Amherst and Wolfe were the men for the army, while Pitt and Anson agreed that Saunders and Holmes were the men for the fleet. This was all settled at ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... books, pictures, and gems have disappeared, modern ideas of comfort have suggested the insertion of electric lights and telephones. To regret the treasures of the past is a commonplace; it would seem fitter to make the best of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... heart can be set at rest. It needs a revelation, a vision; a something for the higher nature that breeds and infolds the intellect, to recognize as of its own, and lay hold of by faithful hope. And what fitter messenger of such hope than the harmonious presence of a woman, whose form itself tells of highest law, and concord, and uplifting obedience; such a one whose beauty walks the upper air of noble loveliness; whose ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... 'evening meal' has become conspicuous by its absence," but in spite of having carried a 1lb. tin of compressed beef and a few biscuits about with them for several days they are all "most beastly fit on it." "No one seems any the worse, and I feel all the fitter," writes an officer of a Highland Regiment, "after long marches in the rain going to bed as ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... to retort these charges upon the other professions. We prefer to leave them unanswered. If demagogues on the "stump," or in the legislative halls, or in their Fourth of-July addresses, can find no fitter subjects "to point a moral or adorn a tale," we must be content to bear their ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... on the heir-apparent and his advisers. It ended, however, in the prince joining his regiment at Brighton, in opposition to the expressed wish of Addington; he being bound to do so, he remarked, "by the king's precise order, and by that honest zeal which was not allowed any fitter sphere ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... brother, We treat these little ones too much like flowers, Training them, in blind selfishness, to deck Sticks of our poor setting, when they might, If left to clamber where themselves incline, Find nobler props to cling to, fitter place, And sweeter air to bloom in. It is wrong— Thou striv'st to sow with feelings all thine own, With thoughts and hopes, anxieties and aims, Born of thine own peculiar self, and fed Upon a certain round of circumstance, A soul as different and distinct from thine As love of goodness ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... attached to the Base Hospitals, who had rejoined on the outbreak of the war, and myself were the centre of a group of convalescents. They wore the regulation uniform of loose sky-blue flannels, resembling a fitter's overalls in everything except the extreme brilliance of the dye, with red ties tied in a sailor's knot. The badges on their caps alone betrayed their regiments. There were "details" from almost every regiment in the British Army, and one could hear every dialect from ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... should be ready to ride Post to Brest, whether he and his Recruits were order'd to take Shipping. But that he might not Alarm his Lodgings, he spent the remainder of the Night in the Tavern with his Friends, a fitter Preparation than praying for the Work he was about. About Five in the Morning he set out towards the Place of Battle, half a dozen of his Acquaintance following him at a convenient distance, to wait for the Issue, and to see Justice done in case he ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is a fitter color than white for a man—a denizen of the woods. "The pale white man!" I do not wonder that the African pitied him. Darwin the naturalist says, "A white man bathing by the side of a Tahitian was like a plant bleached by the gardener's ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau
... impossible in London. Yet here Wren produced a cathedral worthy of comparison with the proudest of the late Italian edifices. Moreover, the principles of taste that governed Europe in the seventeenth century were such as found fitter architectural expression in this style than in the more genial and capricious manner of ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... or para, celebrated by the same ancient author, is generally understood to be the onager, an animal, which is to this day highly prized in Persia and the deserts of Tartary, as being fitter for the saddle than the finest breed of horses. It has nothing of the dulness or stupidity of the common ass; is extremely beautiful; and, when properly trained, is docile and tractable in no common degree. It was this ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... with gore; and the blood of the murdered man had run down, drop by drop, into the hollow which gives the place its name. 'The Devil's Bowl,' thought Nicholas, as he looked into the void, 'never held fitter liquor than that!' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... my misery in the sight of my heart; there arose a mighty storm, bringing a mighty shower of tears. Which that I might pour forth wholly, in its natural expressions, I rose from Alypius: solitude was suggested to me as fitter for the business of weeping; so I retired so far that even his presence could not be a burden to me. Thus was it then with me, and he perceived something of it; for something I suppose I had spoken, wherein the tones of my voice ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... inefficient. To repress efficiently we have to stifle a conscience accusing us of old injustice, and forget that we are sworn to freedom. The cries that we have been hearing for Cromwell or for Bismarck prove the existence of an impatient faction in our midst fitter to wear the collars of those masters whom they invoke than to drop a vote into the ballot-box. As for the prominent politicians who have displaced their rivals partly on the strength of an implied approbation of those cries, we shall see how they illumine the councils of a governing people. They ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... The Judge observing that the case under discussion involved a question of ecclesiastical law,—"Then," said Curran, "I can refer your Lordship to a high authority behind me, who was intended for the church, though in my opinion he was fitter for the steeple." ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... said Mrs. Vint, quietly; "and as how you took the pail from her, willy nilly, and carried it home. Mercy was vexed about it. She told me you panted at the door, and she was a deal fitter to carry the pail than you, that is just off a sick-bed, like. But lawk, sir, ye can't go by the likes of that. The bachelors here they'd see their sweethearts carry the roof into next parish on their backs, like a snail, and never put out a hand; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... in Highland robes, O John, But ropes of straw would become ye better; You've silver buckles your shoes upon But leather thongs for them were fitter.' ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... new star three Eastern sages see; (For why should only earth a gainer be?) They saw this Phosphor's infant light, and knew It bravely ushered in a sun as new; They hasted all this rising sun t' adore; With them rich myrrh, and early spices, bore. Wise men! no fitter gift your zeal could bring; You'll in a noisome stable find your king. Anon a thousand devils run roaring in; Some with a dreadful smile deform'dly grin; Some stamp their cloven paws, some frown, and tear The gaping snakes from their black-knotted hair; As if all grief, and all the ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... stir up the pride of Cyrus," he wrote the next May, "that he may be the fitter for my purposes against I come home; sometime before which (that is as soon as I shall be able to fix on time) I will direct him to be taken into the house, and clothes to be made for him.—In the meanwhile, get ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... of twelve handfuls, and ambles of a jog-trot. I would he had a bit more stir in him. Not that he lacks knightly courage—never a whit; carry him into battle, and he shall quit him like a man; but when all is said, he is fitter for the cloister, for he loveth better to sit at home with Joan of his knee, and a great clerkly book afore him wherein he will read by the hour, which is full well for a priest, but not for a noble ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... I think a fitter match Could scarcely gang thegither Than the King of France's auld dochter And the Queen of ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... turns out to be a fitter companion for men than the old, no man will complain of ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... important match is to be always in "training"; not to have to alter your habits before a match is the secret. To change your diet and mode of living suddenly, as some players do, is more calculated to upset you than to make you fitter for the ordeal. Common sense must of course be used. For instance, you should not eat a heavy meal just before playing. I generally prefer bread-and-cheese, a milk pudding of some sort, and perhaps a little fruit for lunch if I have a match, ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... little danger, Yonder dull-eyed craven seems Fitter far for stall and manger Than for scarf and blade that gleams; Shorter, and of frame less massive, Than his comrade lying low, Tame, and cowardly, and passive,— He will prove a feebler foe. I have done with doubt and anguish, Fears like dews in sunshine languish, Courage, husband, we ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... part of this new company consisted of unruly sparks, packed off by their friends to escape worse destinies at home. And the rest were chiefly made up of poor gentlemen, broken tradesmen, rakes, and libertines, footmen, and such others as were much fitter to spoil or ruin a commonwealth, than to help to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hammer; on the gloom Set 'twixt cradle and the tomb, Showers of fiery sparkles flinging; Keep the mighty furnace glowing; Keep the red ore hissing, flowing Swift within the ready mold; See that each one than the old Still be fitter, still be fairer For the servant's use, and rarer For the Master to ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... said he must, and civilly stopped the remonstrance. Then she declared, with a forced quietness, "If you will go, I must go with you. Do not say a word against it. I have your promise, and I will hold you to it. Oh, yes, I am fit to go—fitter than to stay. If I stay, I shall die this night. If I go, I shall live to keep a certain promise of mine—to go and see my Lord Lovat's head fall. I will not detain you; we have five minutes of your ten yet I will be across the threshold before ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... that the battle-lot hath slain? I would fain grant it even to the living. Neither have I come but because destiny had given me this place to dwell in; nor wage I war with your people; your king it is who hath broken our covenant and preferred to trust himself to Turnus' arms. Fitter it were Turnus had faced death to-day. If he will fight out the war and expel the Teucrians, it had been well to meet me here in arms; so had he lived to whom life were granted of heaven or his own right hand. Now go, and kindle the fire beneath your hapless countrymen.' Aeneas ended: they ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... where Faeries sing He hath entered; and been told By Voices how Men liv'd of old. Among the Heavens his eye can see Face of thing that is to be; And, if Men report him right, 140 He can whisper words of might. —Now another day is come, Fitter hope, and nobler doom: He hath thrown aside his Crook, And hath buried deep his Book; Armour rusting in his Halls On the ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... young Heine, how different then from the dreadful wreck he became! hearing that fresh rose-leaves, applied to her inflamed eyes, were grateful, sent her his first hook of poems, enveloped in a basket of roses. With what fitter words can we take leave of Rahel and her friends than these of her own: "I have thought an epitaph. It is this, Good men, when any thing good happens to mankind, then think affectionately in your peace also ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... the use of speech? Silence were fitter: Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid. Though all the words we ever spake were bitter, Shall I ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... our story," he said, "and the mission to which we are sworn. What sort of knights do you think us, then, that you offer us counsel which is fitter for those spies from whom you learn your tidings? You talk of our lives. Well, we hold our lives in trust, and when they are asked of us we will yield them up, having done all ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... regarded it with hostility, undesignedly assisted in its creation; Les Fils Ingrats, named afterwards L'Ecole des Peres, given in 1728, the story of a too generous father of ungrateful children, a play designed for mirth, was in fact fitter to draw tears than to excite laughter. Piron's special gift, however, was for satire. In La Metromanie he smiles at the folly of the aspirant poet with all his cherished illusions; yet young Damis with his folly, the innocent error of a generous ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... awfu'—awfu'! And to think as Ben 'ud niver see the face o' his God was mair fearfu' still. But as time gees on and on—I can see his grave fra' here, tha cross we cut is tha glimmer o' white on that stem ayont,—it dew seem as 'tis fitter like fer him to lie i' tha fresh free woods, wi' tha birds a' chirmin' abuve him, an' a' tha forest things as he minded a flyin', an' nestin', an' runnin', an' rejoicin' arount him. 'Tis allus so still there, an' peacefu'. 'Tis blue and ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... his Moorish disguise he had looked upon her perfections, had felt in danger of becoming really the slave he personated—"her beauty is more divine than human," he had cried, "but fitter to destroy men's souls than to bless them;" and now the enchantress was on her way to his dominions. Her road led through Namur to Liege, and gallantry required that he should meet her as she passed. Attended by a select band of gentlemen and a few horsemen of his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Jane S. Some fitter time must tell thee The tale of my hard hap. Upon the present Hang all my poor, my last remaining, hopes. Within this paper is my suit contain'd; Here, as the princely Gloster passes forth, I wait to give it on my humble knees, And ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... Mr. Mohun, 'she has great disadvantages; I am quite sure our present system is not fit for her. Things shall be placed on a different footing, and in another year or two I hope she may be fitter for confirmation. However, before you finally decide, I should wish to have some conversation with her, and ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reach us from our brave troops in the field that they "never felt fitter," are "in the best of spirits," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... such a moment little Mary were by, he had a curious way of catching her up and presenting her to the giver. Whether this was a shape his thanks took, whether Mary was to him an incorporate gratitude, or whether he meant to imply that she was the fitter on whom to shower favour, it were hard to say. His mother observed, and in her mind put the two things together, that he did not seem to prize much any mere possession. He looked pleased with a new suit of clothes, but if any one remarked on his care of them, he would answer, "I mustn't spoil what's ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... of Francis, who went before them, upon his hands and feet, up one cliff, down another, and round another, where there was scarce room to support themselves. All the while, these thirty men were obliged to follow in a line, one after the other, by a path that was fitter for a cat than a man. The noise of a stone falling, or a word spoken from one to another, would have alarmed the watchmen. They were obliged, therefore, to move with the greatest precaution. When they were far up the crag, and near the foundation of the wall, they heard the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... artifice. Even when broken and disabled from overuse they have a kind of respectability which must commend itself to the observer, and which partakes of the pensive grace of ruin. An old table with one leg gone, and slowly lapsing to decay in the woodshed, is the emblem of a fitter order than the same table, with all its legs intact, stored with the rest of the furniture from a broken home. Spinning-wheels gathering dust in the garret of a house that is itself falling to pieces have a dignity that deserts them when they are ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... up the Nile and took a turn at the excavations of the mound of Nimroud. Then I became a working engineer on the new desert line between Alexandria and Suez; and by-and-by I worked my passage out to Bombay, and took service as an engine fitter on one of the great Indian railways. I stayed a long time in India; that is to say, I stayed nearly two years, which was a long time for me; and I might not even have left so soon, but for the war that was declared just then with Russia. That tempted me. For I loved danger and hardship ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... mistress. I knew not my cousin had fallen into the custom of this town. Well, I must take a fitter opportunity;" and she rose ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade |
