"Gratuitous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... receive him; then his disciples, James and John, suggested that they should "bid fire to come down from heaven and consume them." There was something admirable in the indignation of these disciples. The Samaritans were moved by a narrow and provincial prejudice and they were offering to Jesus a gratuitous insult. It sometimes seems that the genius for indignation has disappeared, and it is refreshing to see men who feel deeply any disrespect to Christ, any ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... Righteousness, that we might follow Holiness. Lastly, We call him King, because we hope for the Reward of a heavenly Kingdom, from him who sits at the Right-Hand of God the Father. And all this Felicity we owe to his gratuitous Bounty, that we have Jesus Christ for our Lord, rather than the Devil to be a Tyrant over us; that we have Innocence and Sanctity, instead of the Filth and Uncleanness of our Sins; and instead of the Torments of Hell, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... germ if no additions ever take place. It was so difficult to account, for example, for artistic appreciation on the part of man or for gifts of an artistic character that Huxley was fain to describe them as gratuitous; but on this showing all characters are gratuitous in the sense that they are not acquired. We may reasonably inquire not merely how all these characters and factors got themselves "arranged" or "packed," but where they came from, and ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... experience (namely, his mind), more developed, often to the conquest of the instincts themselves. Hence, with his usual candour, Dr. Abercrombie—in contending 'that everything mental ceases to exist after death, when we know that everything corporeal continues to exist, is a gratuitous assumption contrary to every rule of philosophical inquiry'—feels compelled, by his reasoning, to admit the probability of a future life even to the lower animals. His words are: 'To this anode of reasoning it has been objected that it would go to establish an immaterial principle ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that Colonel J— would altogether have escaped with impunity, after such a gratuitous insult to an English officer; but he retired into the country almost immediately after the incident at Tortoni's, ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... of high rank and reputation, and even more than one Prime Minister, had contributed in their time to its famous pages, but never without being paid. It was the organic law of this publication, that gratuitous contributions should never be admitted. And in this principle there was as much wisdom as pride. Celebrated statesmen would point with complacency to the snuff-box or the picture which had been purchased by their literary labour, and there was more than one bracelet ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... a lone, independent cruise through an almost unbroken wilderness and cruising along civilized routes, where the canoeist can interview farm houses and village groceries for supplies, getting gratuitous stonings from the small boy and much reviling from ye ancient mariner of the towpath—I say, the difference is just immense. Whence it comes that I always prefer a very light, open canoe; one that I can carry almost as easily as my hat, and yet that will float me easily, ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... not aware that he gave me three or four dozen of them for gratuitous distribution, as he calls it. Yes, it is called 'The Religious Attorney,' being a reconcilement between honesty and law, or a blessed union between light and darkness; by ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... and in London at the time of Henry the Eighth, it was not considered necessary to be off with the old love before being on with the new, but latterly the growth of monopolistic ideas tends towards the uniform rate of one at a time.' A purely gratuitous fling, that was, at one of my most eminent patrons, or rather two of them, for latterly both Solomon and Henry the Eighth have yielded to the tendency of the times and gone into business, which they have paid me well to advertise. Solomon has established an 'Information Bureau,' where advice ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... water. I am going for more water. It is wonderful how they keep us running night and day!" she said, hoping to draw off their attention with a gratuitous falsehood. ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... that we were on our way to Baddeck; that the whole purpose of the journey was to reach Baddeck; that St. John was only an incident in the trip; that any information about St. John, which is here thrown in or mercifully withheld, is entirely gratuitous, and is not taken into account in the price the reader pays for this volume. But if any one wants to know what sort of a place St. John is, we can tell him: it is the sort of a place that if you get into it after eight o'clock on Wednesday morning, you cannot get out ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... own particular bounds, and for their own particular exigencies. Also, of the sums paid in subscriptions for the support of newspapers, and for the printing (by auxiliaries,) of periodicals, pamphlets, and essays, either for sale at low prices, or for gratuitous distribution. The moneys contributed in these various modes would make an aggregate greater, perhaps, than is paid into the treasury of any one of the Benevolent societies of the country. Most of the wealthy contributors of former years suffered so severely in the money-pressure of this, that ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Other similar houses may be seen, but I have nowhere in the island found one so fine as this. At the farther edge of the plain, lying along under the hills, is a succession of white villages,—Zukalaria, Nerokouro (running water), Murnies, celebrated for its oranges and the brutal and gratuitous massacre by Mustapha Pacha (late Imperial Commissioner), in 1833, Boutzounaria (dripping water), first place of assembling of the Cretan malcontents in 1866, Perivolia, Galatas, Hagia Marina, and Platania, by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... looked after him and was kind to him; she gave him all the tenderness which nature had intended her to bestow on the new generation that was to spring from her. She mended his clothes and looked after him generally. He had lost his mother when he was a little boy and had never been accustomed to gratuitous kindness; therefore he was inclined to look upon her services as an interference with his liberty, but he accepted them nevertheless. But all the same the public house was his real home. There he paid for everything and ran up ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... contained a long, carefully prepared and powerful attack upon Mr. Justice Wilson. Beginning with a tribute to the Bench of Ontario, it declared that no fault was to be found with the judgment of the court, and that the offence lay in the gratuitous comments ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... little episode, I continued, to some few that remained balancing teaspoons on the edges of cups, twirling knives, or tilting upon the hind legs of their chairs until their heads reached the wall, where they left gratuitous ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... not what it should be, she takes an unwarrantable liberty. If traced back, the source of these remarks would be found in a large percentage of instances, in a disagreeable temper, captious humors, and a spirit that is anything but Christian. One may be entirely truthful without bestowing gratuitous advice ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... and then and receipts drawn up. Then, saying that Mick would come for the horse on the day following, and after offering a little gratuitous advice on seed-wheat and ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... predominant from Wyossett to Wonder Head, made up parties to visit Selwyn's cottage, which had become known as The Chrysalis; and Selwyn good-naturedly exploded a pinch or two of the stuff for their amusement, and never betrayed the slightest annoyance or boredom. In fact, he behaved so amiably during gratuitous interruptions that he won the hearts of the younger set, who presently came to the unanimous conclusion that there was Romance in the air. And they sniffed it with delicate noses uptilted and liked ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... letters on staring white muslin the shibboleth of the day, "1776—International Exhibition—1876." The enthusiasm of those very hard and unimpressible entities, the railroad companies, thus manifesting itself in low rates and gratuitous advertising, could not fail to be contagious. Nor was the service done by the interior lines wholly domestic. Several large foreign contributions from the Pacific traversed the continent. The houses and the handicraft of the Mongol climbed the Sierra Nevada on the magnificent highway his patient ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... asked De Marsay, with a laugh. "My dear fellow, discretion is the best form of calculation. Listen—however, no! I will not say a word. You never teach me anything; I am not disposed to make you a gratuitous present of the treasures of my policy. Life is a river which is of use for the promotion of commerce. In the name of all that is most sacred in life—of cigars! I am no professor of social economy for the instruction of fools. Let us breakfast! It costs less to give you a ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... significant of much; for nothing is evolved that was not first involved. But in the second place, Mr. Watson's assumption that the process which lifted man from the level of the {229} brute to one immeasurably higher was dictated by "hap and hazard" strikes us as wholly gratuitous. On the face of it, that process, in itself so little to be expected, bears the mark, not of chance but of its very contrary. That the cosmic drama should have followed this particular course; that from the cooling down of fiery nebulas there should have come forth the orderly system we ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... chimney-sweeping poet, but I can't think him a fool. He would never have married a woman who could cut off a man's head. Yet stay! It may be that she floored the Captain and that the other rounded off the job with that gratuitous touch. She—that other—was eating walnuts when the watch came, I gather. She could have cut a dead man's head off, never doubt it. Well, let us see, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... sacred white satin she had worn as a bride. So little was needed to make her happy—that was the pathos! She was satisfied with the crumbs of life, and yet they were denied her. Though she had been alone ever since Lucy's wedding, she accepted his belated visit as thankfully as if it were a gratuitous gift. "It is so good of you to come down, dear, when you are needed every minute in New York," she murmured, with a caressing touch on his arm, and, looking at her, he was reminded of Mrs. Pendleton's ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... sir...." when he is cut off short by Mrs. Riley, anxious to attest any pleasant thing, truly if possible; but if otherwise, anyhow!—"Kilt is it? No, shure thin! Insinsible." And then adds an absolutely gratuitous statement from sheer optimism:—"Shure, I hur-r-d thim say so mesilf, and I wouldn't mislade ye, me dyurr. Will I go and till his mother so for ye down the Court? To till her ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... "Although this gratuitous hypothesis may be difficult to uphold, I will endeavor to corroborate the preceding observations by a clearer method of investigation. This consists in showing that the beer never has any unpleasant taste in all cases when the alcoholic ferment ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... almost, to rely upon some adequate recognition of several years' gratuitous and arduous exertion on both sides of the Atlantic, I feel the sacrifice I propose to make. But a desire to avoid aggravating this unfortunate misunderstanding induces me to trouble ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... much as to say that the divine order will be everywhere re-established. Love will be more potent than hatred; God will save his glory, and his glory is in his goodness. But it is very true that all gratuitous wickedness troubles the soul, because it seems to make the great lines of the moral order tremble within us by the sudden withdrawal of the curtain which hides from us the action of those dark corrosive forces which have ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to this gratuitous conveyance, he put himself to the trouble of inspecting the chauffeur—a capable-looking mechanic togged out in a rich black livery which, though relieved by a vast amount of silk braiding, was like the car guiltless ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... certainly did not "drill well," for which his readers have reason to be thankful. Although Thoreau upholds the cross and the coarse man, one would really like to know with what grace he would have put up with gratuitous discourtesy or insult. I remember an entry in his Journal in which he tells of feeling a little cheapened when a neighbor asked him to take some handbills and leave them at a certain place as ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... schoolroom. At one corner there was a desk, at which stood a young man at work on a business-looking book. Before him were several children of various ages and sizes, but all having one characteristic in common—the aspect of extreme poverty. The young man was a gratuitous servant of the public, and the place was, for the hour at least, ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... mine,' cried Val, as his hand pulled her out, and the others extricated themselves, still laughing, go that they could hardly stand, and Fly declaring, 'Oh, daddy, daddy, it is such fun! I am so glad we came,' and taking a gratuitous leap into the air. ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Foolish as it might be, mere inspiration though it probably was, he could not get over his impression that Eldrick's clerk was not precisely trustworthy. And yet, he reflected, he himself could do nothing—it would be utter presumption on his part to offer any gratuitous advice to Nesta Mallathorpe in business matters. He was very certain of what he eventually meant to say to her about his own personal hopes, some time hence, when all the present trouble was over, ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... are the work of Aaron Hill, excepting only the anonymous letter which Richardson summarizes, beginning on page xxi[6] — sent to Richardson in care of Charles Rivington, co-publisher of Pamela, on November 15, 1740, the first gratuitous response to Richardson's book. To advertisements in The Daily Gazeteer (November 20) and The London Evening-Post (December ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... in the herd with black ears, but they were destroyed. So far from the character here given of the horns being confined to those white cattle, it is precisely the description of the horns of the Kyloe oxen, or black cattle. The investiture of some of the bulls with a mane is equally gratuitous; Cole, who was park-keeper for more than forty years, and of course had ample means of observation, distinctly informed me that they had no mane, but only some curly hair, about the neck, which is likewise an ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... their friend at court in such matters as concerned their common weal, and to lead their civil militia to fight, whether in general battle or in private feud, reinforcing them with his own feudal retainers. This protection was not always gratuitous. The provosts sometimes availed themselves of their situation to an unjustifiable degree, and obtained grants of lands and tenements belonging to the common good, or public property of the burgh, and thus made the citizens pay dear for the countenance which ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Aedui,[128] they in vain sought an excuse for fighting. For when the natives were ordered to contribute money and arms, they brought a gratuitous present of provisions as well. Lugdunum did gladly what the Aedui had done from fear. But the town was deprived of the Italian legion and Taurus' Horse.[129] Valens decided to leave the Eighteenth cohort[130] there in its old winter quarters as a garrison. Manlius Valens, who was ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... student constructed a melange of fact and fancy mainly based on a guess-work of imaginary astronomical reckonings. On the far east, Ptolemy joined China and Africa; and on this imaginary western coast, fronting Malacca and Further India, he placed various gratuitous towns and rivers. Coming to smaller matters, he cut away the whole of the Indian peninsula proper, though preserving the Further or "Golden" Chersonesus of the Malays, and he enlarged Taprobane, or Ceylon, to double the size ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... hold more antipathy than I, and such a knave,' he says to Cornwall, by way of explaining his apparently gratuitous ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... our foreign relations, certain official declarations in the early part of the war on the policy and purpose of Government in carrying it on, are to be regretted as gratuitous and unfortunate. It is to be regretted also that the capture of the Trent and the seizure of Mason and Slidell was not at once disavowed as being contrary to our doctrine on neutral rights, and the rebel emissaries surrendered without waiting for reclamation on the part of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... a profound silence, caused by the surprise of the company at this gratuitous destruction. The old man continued, with a melancholy smile, 'I will tell you, gentlemen, wherefore I broke the shell. Science, or rather its fanaticism, leads to strange weaknesses. If my folly can any where find indulgence, surely it will be among you, who are all, more or less, collectors. Perhaps, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... unmerited, selection gave displeasure to the artists in general. Nor were they pleased with the mode of admitting the spectators, for every member of the Society had the discretionary privilege of introducing as many persons as he chose, by means of gratuitous tickets; and consequently the company was far from being select, or suited to the wishes of the exhibition. These circumstances, together with the interference of the Society in the concern of the exhibition, determined the principal ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... hearty, cheer was quickly raised, which barely served to cover a chorus of hisses and groans uttered by a number of little fellows, who had been in the habit of receiving gratuitous kicks and cuffs from ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... but conscious. When it becomes so, a man soon tires. Thorpe resented the inequalities, the stones, the roots, the patches of soft ground which lay in his way. He felt dully that they were not fair. He could negotiate the distance; but anything else was a gratuitous insult. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... Count to be more dangerous as a friend than as an enemy; his cowardly dread of danger constantly impelling him, at the merest prospect of peril, to betray others in order to save himself; while his cunning, his gratuitous and unmanly cruelty, and the unblushing perfidy which recalled with only too much vividness the character of his father, Charles IX, rendered him at once unsafe and unpleasant as an associate. Despite all these drawbacks, Biron with his usual recklessness ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... your opinion about an article another is purchasing, unless asked to do so. To say to a customer about to make a purchase that the article can be bought cheaper at another store, is to offer a gratuitous insult to the ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... at such a reception, and Mr. Brown began to mutter something about "gratuitous insults," when Mr. Wright pointed to a remarkably large parrot that was roosting on the back of a chair, surveying us with quiet dignity, and evidently with considerable ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... approved it. But that tied my hands. If Lansing again brings up the Declaration of London—after four flat and reasonable rejections—I shall resign. I will not be the instrument of a perfectly gratuitous and ineffective insult to this patient and fair and friendly government and people who in my time have done us many kindnesses and never an injury but Carden[97], and who sincerely try now to meet our wishes. It would ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... half the march of intellect, but puffery? Why do little children learn their letters at school, but that they may come hereafter to read puffs at college? Why but for the propagation of puffs do honorary lecturers hold forth upon science, and gratuitous editors circulate literature? Are not gas-lights chiefly used for their illumination, and steamboats for their spread? And shall not history, which has given to one era the name of the age of gold, and has entitled another the age of silver, call this present nineteenth century ...
— Mr. Joseph Hanson, The Haberdasher • Mary Russell Mitford
... bringing the coffee on a rough tray, also a box of matches and Oscard's tobacco pouch. Noting this gratuitous attention to his comfort, he looked up ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... the Prince Consort has, with great judgment, of late encouraged the collection of chestnuts in Windsor Park, and by giving a small reward to old people and children for every bushel collected, has not only found an occupation for many of the unemployed poor, but, by providing a gratuitous food for their pig, encouraged a feeling of providence ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Galileo had thus cast ridicule upon his friend and patron is no doubt a gratuitous and insulting libel: there is no telling whether or not Urban believed it, but certainly his countenance changed to Galileo henceforward, and whether overruled by his Cardinals, or actuated by some other motive, his ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... more than begun Scott's publishers offered him a thousand pounds for the copyright, and as this soon became known it naturally gave rise to varied comment. Lord Byron thought it sufficient to warrant a gratuitous attack on the author in his 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.' This is a portion ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... return, by forbidding him to furnish her with his foreign address. His ready disposition, his fear that there might be other reasons behind, made him obey her only too literally. Thus, to her terror and dismay, she had placed a gratuitous difficulty in the way ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... sheets, and—without making myself in any way responsible for details—perceive that he has done the work well, and has presented a satisfactory outline of the testimony for whatever it may be worth. Concerning its value I will only say that to my mind there comes a stage at which belief in gratuitous invention and false statement becomes forced and irrational. With most of the evidence here adduced I have of course been familiar for years, in its original sources, and am well aware of the extreme difficulty or impossibility of understanding some of the alleged facts ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... to strengthen the new throne; and Gardiner, the Duke of Norfolk, and Lord Courtenay[12] were directed to prepare for death in three days.[13] But Northumberland would scarcely have risked an act of gratuitous tyranny. Norfolk, being under attainder, might have been put to death {p.007} without violation of the forms of law, by warrant from the crown; but, Gardiner was uncondemned, and Courtenay had never ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... makes a similar charge against Wilson's Note of the 18th December, owing to the threats that it contained. But this charge strikes me as being just as gratuitous as the first. The threats were uttered in London quite as plainly as they were in Berlin. The charge of partiality would have been justified only if the threats had been contained simply in the version of the Note ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... may as well remind you at the very outset of our connection, that "no man can serve two masters." Acquaintance with Lord Tynedale will be incompatible with assistance from me.' There was a kind of gratuitous menace in his eye as he looked at ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... wind blows, and the sleep is one to those who sleep, and the splendour of Stars and of the Moon is common. In which examples of equality he who as a possessor in the earth shares his returns and his fruits with the fraternity, while he is common and just in his gratuitous bounties, is an imitator of ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... received it meekly. What with the long-continued disappointment, the perpetual "aggrivations" of Peckaby, and the prospect of work before her, arising from the gratuitous pail of water, she was feeling ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... deal taken aback. He was not indeed unaccustomed to plain speaking, and to the receipt of gratuitous abuse; but his experience invariably was to associate both with more or less of a stern voice and a frowning brow. To receive both in a soft voice from a delicate meek-faced child, who at the same time professed ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... competing with Crockford's in gorgeous magnificence and display, at least surpassing it in renown, and known over a wider sphere? The metropolitan pump-room of Europe, conducted on the principle of gratuitous admittance to all bearing the semblance of gentility and conducting themselves with propriety, opens its Janus doors to all the world with the most laudable hospitality and with a perfect indifference to exclusiveness, requiring ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... gone astray during the Revolution and, subsequently, scared of the dominant party, accustomed unfortunately at that time to receiving pay for taking part in political strife, and now reduced to living on almost gratuitous distributions of food, to dealing in small wares, to the menial occupations which chance rarely presents—in short, to swindling. Such is what the observer finds in that portion of the population of Marseilles most in sight; eager to profit by whatever occurs, easily won over, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... studied, composed, and dignified style of the Aeneid gave neither opening nor apology. That this was a fault which Dryden, with all his taste, never was able to discard, might easily be proved from various passages in his translations, where the transgression is on his own part altogether gratuitous. Such ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... the badness of the roads seems to have been the defective state of the law. Every parish was bound to repair the highways which passed through it. The peasantry were forced to give their gratuitous labour six days in the year. If this was not sufficient, hired labour was employed, and the expense was met by a parochial rate. That a route connecting two great towns, which have a large and thriving trade with each other, should be maintained ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Now the new and gratuitous hypothesis in question does not appear, when examined, even to harmonize with the facts of the case. One mode of dealing with it is this:—Take a large view of the faith of Christians during the centuries before Constantine established their religion. Is there any family ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... anywise an evil and an encumbrance, is so only to the nation which is doomed to bear it on its shoulders; and an American, whose sole relation to it is to admire its picturesque effect upon society, ought to be the last man to quarrel with what affords him so much gratuitous enjoyment. Nevertheless, conservative as England is, and though I scarce ever found an Englishman who seemed really to desire change, there was continually a dull sound in my ears as if the old foundations of things were crumbling ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had happened to rouse Griggs into thinking about any individual human being as anything more than a bit of the world's furniture, to be worn out and thrown away in the course of time, out of sight. But something in the absolutely gratuitous nature of Stefanone's advice moved his suspicions. He saw, with his intimate knowledge of the Roman peasant's character, the whole process of the old wine-seller's mind, if only, in the first place, the fellow had the desire to harass Dalrymple. That being granted, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... opposition. Nearly every Northern State pronounced by a stupendous majority against him and against his cause. Nothing but a systematic disguise of the true questions at issue by his own party, and a gratuitous complication of the canvass by means of a foolish third party, saved his followers from the most complete and shameful rout that had been given for many years to any political array. Men of every class, of every shade of faith, joined in that hearty protest against the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... in this cause purely by ambition, and by finding that it is a capital subject to talk upon, and a cheap and easy species of benevolence; others have satisfied themselves that slavery is a mistaken system, that the cruelty of it is altogether gratuitous, and that free labour will answer the purpose as well or better, and get rid of the odium; and thousands more have mixed feelings and opinions, compounded of some or all of the above in various degrees and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... the woman's failing was a fact as obvious as that her desire was only to be friendly; brief reflection persuaded Sally that it was to her own interest neither to snub nor to neglect this gratuitous source of information. With some guilty conceit, befitting one indulging in all most Machiavellian subtlety, she let fall an extravagantly absent-minded "Yes?" and was rewarded, quite properly, with a garrulous history of her predecessor's ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... deeper self—a curve of the soul's condition, which varies from time to time. When the curve is downward in both the physical and the spiritual case, drugs are of no more value than stones. When the curve is upward in both cases, drugs may be totally gratuitous, and they may actually retard the combined movements. When the health-curve is downward, the psychic curve may follow suit, but it need not necessarily do so. When the psychic curve is downward, the health- curve tends in the same ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... scheme of a great college and magnificent chapel, with a revenue of 50,000 crowns for the maintenance (nourriture) of six hundred scholars, where the most famous doctors in Christendom should offer gratuitous teaching in all the sciences and learned languages, was never executed. Too much treasure had been wasted in Italy, and it was not till the reign of Louis XIII. that it was partially carried out. The ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... commenced the working season of a new year by assisting my old master to inclose with a stone wall a little bit of ground, which he had bought on speculation, but had failed in getting feued out for buildings. My services, however, were gratuitous—given merely to eke out the rather indifferent bargain that the old man had been able to drive in his own behalf for my labours as an apprentice; and when our job was finished, it became necessary that I should look out for employment of a more profitable character. There was not much ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... otherwise have come into life." But this whole plea is no more than that of negotium utile gestum to which any civilized nation is bound by humanity; it is a prudent expensive office, done for the service of others without a gratuitous intention; and this founds no other right, than that to full compensation of all charges and labour employed for the benefit ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... times in the week to the council chamber to be instructed by gratuitous teachers. On Sunday evening service is performed according to the Church of England by Mr. Fleming, and the children are said to be attentive and well-behaved. The Methodists of the New Connection have them also under spiritual instruction in the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... case. But while thus repudiating others, Thomas himself was in some danger of being repudiated; for so pained have some persons been by the necessity of recognizing Thomas Lincoln as the father of the President, that they have welcomed, as a happy escape from this so miserable paternity, a bit of gratuitous and unsupported gossip, published, though perhaps with more of malice than of faith, by Mr. Herndon, to the effect that Abraham Lincoln was the illegitimate son of some person unknown, presumably some tolerably well-to-do Kentuckian, who induced Thomas to ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... said Miss O'Brien sweetly, and using him as a dumb-bell, threw in a gratuitous gymnastic display for the edification ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... unconscious that there was any moral obliquity about such a publication. Being satisfied with this effort, I looked around for other worlds to conquer, and it struck me that it would make good, interesting matter to charge the editor of a neighboring country paper with a piece of gratuitous rascality and "see ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... dismiss the introductory part of his letter, merely observing that his "logical inference" is quite gratuitous and unwarranted. He says himself that its absurdity is obvious, in which I quite ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... together very well, I believe. The girl kept the name of Hasketh, and I do not suppose that many people knew her relation to Tedham. It appeared that our little romantic supposition of a love affair, which the reunion of father and child must shatter, was for the present quite gratuitous. But if it should ever come to that, my wife and I had made up our minds to let God manage. We said that we had already had one narrow escape in proposing to better the divine way of doing, and we should not interfere again. Still I cannot ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... upwards of eleven centuries. Anderson, in a note to the song, says: 'Yvetot, a district in the north of France, possesses a monarch of its own, a sort of burlesque personage, whose royal charger is a donkey; his guard, a dog; his crown, a night-cap; and his revenue, a gratuitous draught of wine at the ale houses of his liege subjects!' Young, another translator of Beranger, not any better informed, tells us that 'the Lords of Yvetot claimed and exercised, in the olden time, some such fantastical privileges ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... house-building insects, their faithful co-operation, their steady, exact adaptation of right means to a fixed purpose, and compare their activity with that of a troop of ball-playing boys. Does not the gratuitous ingenuity of the young bipeds indicate a far higher degree of intelligence? Does it argue against the quality of that intelligence that any novel phenomenon—a funnel-shaped cloud, the appearance of a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... be asked, perhaps, by what road has man been conducted to form to himself gratuitous ideas of another world. I reply, that it is a truth man has no idea of a future life; they are the ideas of the past and the present, that furnish his imagination with the materials of which he constructs ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... "Woodman, spare that Tree," will be also found in easy juxtaposition. The latter songs are usually brought into service at the instance of an uncle or bachelor brother, whose request is generally prefaced by a remark deprecatory of the opera, and the gratuitous observation that "we are retrograding, sir,—retrograding," and that "there is no music like the old songs." He sometimes condescends to accompany "Marie" in a tremulous barytone, and is particularly forcible in those passages where the word "repeat" is written, for reasons stated above. When ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... whose means prevent them from bearing unassisted the heavy burden of University expenses. After a short time many of these sizars become scholars, and eventually a large number of them win for themselves the honours of a fellowship. Why put on these young students a gratuitous indignity? Why subject them to the unpleasant remarks which some are quite coarse enough to make on the subject? The authorities of Saint Werner's are full of real courtesy and kindness, and that the arrangement is not ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... treated with great civility and politeness any person who has applied to him for medical attendance and treatment of diseases, and has in no case whatever demanded payment or anything from anybody. He has never hesitated to give gratuitous medical aid with medicines or personal attendance, and all the natives from the highest to the lowest are well satisfied and under great obligation to him. It is hoped that the trouble taken and the pecuniary loss suffered by him ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... complete when, a few days after, she received, addressed in Lord Fitzjocelyn's handwriting, an Illustrated News, with a whole page containing 'the reception of Mrs. Dynevor of Cheveleigh,' with grand portraits of all the flounces and veils, many gratuitous moustaches, something passing for Oliver standing up with a wine-glass in his hand, a puppy that would have perfectly justified Mr. Ponsonby's aversion representing Lord Fitzjocelyn, and no gaps at ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it easier to linger at his open window, wondering with a strange mixture of dread and desire whether Madame Clairin had repeated to her sister-in-law what she had said to him. His presence now might be simply a gratuitous annoyance, and yet his absence might seem to imply that it was in the power of circumstances to make them ashamed to meet each other's eyes. He sat a long time with his head in his hands, lost in a painful confusion of hopes and ambiguities. He felt at moments as if he could throttle ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... ordinarily understood, seem to have lost their authority, when weighed in the balance against the vote of the majority. Very recently the members of an honourable and useful profession represented to a minister that his extension of a scheme of more or less gratuitous relief to a class which hitherto had been able and willing to pay its way, was likely to deprive them of their livelihood. His reply, inter alia, contained the argument that the class in question was very numerous and had many votes, and that he doubted whether any one would venture to propose ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... Saturninus in 100 B.C., for political purposes. To prevent this Sulla abolished the Gracchan system in toto; but it was renewed in 73 B.C., and in 58 the demagogue P. Clodius made the distribution of corn gratuitous. In 46 Caesar found that no less than 320,000 persons were receiving corn from the State for nothing; by a bill, of which we still possess a part,[61] he reduced the number to 150,000, and by a rigid system of rules, of which we know something, contrived to ensure that it should be ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... amount she might be called upon to pay, she had her remedy, for the Peace Treaty especially provided that she might offer a "lump sum." The list of war-criminals was long, no doubt, but we had limited our own demands to those who were guilty of gratuitous brutality. As for the condition of Central Europe, that was not the fault of the Peace Treaty, it was the fault of the War, and this country had done all it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... newspapers came every day; a cafe was attached to it, where spirituous liquors were prohibited, to the wrath of the dry throats and raging thirsts of the captives; there was a garden behind it, and a billiard saloon, but these luxuries were not gratuitous; poor Freckle could not even pay his one sou per diem to cook his rations, so that the Prisoners' Relief Association had to make him a present of it. He spent his time between his bare, cheerless bedroom and the public hall. There were many Americans in the place; but none of them were friendly ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... trained horse which he had just taken from an insolvent circus. I mounted the noble animal to go to the Bois, but at the Place de la Concorde he began to waltz around it, and I was obliged to get rid of this dancing quadruped at a considerable loss. So your contribution to La Guepe would have to be gratuitous, like those of all the rest. You will give me the credit of having saluted you first of all, my dear Violette, by the rare and glorious title of true poet. You will let me reserve the pleasure of intoxicating you with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... not propose," said the bishop, with quite gratuitous suggestiveness, "to treat you as the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... gratuitous details of the scene that had taken place in his room that afternoon. Most of those present were in ecstasies at this divulging of his private life, which went forward to the accompaniment of snores from Ford, and the voice of ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Washington's Rules with the Hawkins version renders it doubtful whether the Virginia boy used the work of the London boy. The differences are more than the resemblances. If in some cases the faults of the Washington version appear gratuitous, the printed copy being before him, on the other hand it often suggests a closer approach to the French—of which language Washington is known to have been totally ignorant. As to the faults, where ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... Rome, where the Society has its principal university, it has been conferring degrees on its students without any opposition whatever, which would not be the case were the bulls in any way detective. But this [claim] is wholly gratuitous and censurable, as the said decrees of execution were issued by the audiencias and councils; nor should it be offered in opposition on the part of the college of Santo Tomas; nor should an attempt be made to reopen what has been resolved and decided legally with such full knowledge of the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... saddle, the spectacle of the round-up with its brutish multitudes and its graceful riders, the dust and monotony and excitement and glory of the Trail, and especially the hundreds of incidental and gratuitous adventures of bears and antelope, of thirst and heat, of the joy of taking care of one's self—all these would have filled our days with the glittering, changing ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... black broth, first by Sandys, then by Burton, again by Blount, and concurred in by James Howell (1595-1666), the first historiographer royal, gave rise to considerable controversy among Englishmen of letters in later years. It is, of course, a gratuitous speculation. The black broth of the Lacedaemonians was "pork, cooked in blood and seasoned ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... to disavow in a manner not to be misunderstood the unauthorized action of our late naval commander in those waters in saluting the revolted Brazilian admiral, being indisposed to countenance an act calculated to give gratuitous sanction to ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... whiteness of Arctic animals—was referred, at least in part, to the direct influence of external factors, but the facts can best be explained by referring them to the processes of selection, for then it is unnecessary to make the gratuitous assumption that many species are sensitive to the stimulus of cold and that others are not. The great majority of Arctic land-animals, mammals and birds, are white, and this proves that they were all able to present the variation which ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... currents. This was the former day-editor, who had been appointed by the proprietors to take Rossi's place, and was now walking about with a silk hat on his head, taking note of everything and exercising a premature and gratuitous supervision. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... the farrago of nonsense, which he characterised as "unmannerly, absurd, and illiterate that it must have been composed when the writer was intoxicated, mad, or under the influence of Lucifer," and he threatened that unless Huntington apologised for his gratuitous insults, he (Bramah) would assuredly expose him. The mechanician nevertheless proceeded gravely to explain and defend his "profession of faith," which was altogether unnecessary. On this Huntington returned to the charge, and directed ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... problem—to account for the origin and establishment Of Christianity in the world, with a denial at the same time of its miraculous pretensions—a problem, the fair solution of which is obviously incumbent on infidelity—has necessitated the most gratuitous and even contradictory hypotheses, and may safely be said still to present as hard a knot as ever. The favourite hypothesis, recently, has been that of Strauss—frequently re-modified and re-adjusted indeed by himself—that Christianity ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... not therefore object to these lessons; but while at Carpentras he was made much of and praised by the principal, was a general favourite, and had perfect liberty to follow his inspiration during his partly gratuitous classes, here the hours and the programme tied him down, which was precisely what ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... nothing more. I looked carefully to see if the vireo had a nest on that tree, so strange a thing it seemed for a bird to do. The tree was quite tall, with few branches, an oak grown in a close grove, and I am sure there was no vireo nest on it; so that it was an absolutely gratuitous insult. ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... destroyer of domestic peace, the insuperable obstacle to the mutual friendliness of neighborhoods. This "rejoicing in iniquity" is the besetting sin of idle people. The man or woman who delights in this gratuitous and uncalled-for criticism of neighbors thereby puts himself below the moral level of the ones whose faults he criticises. Martineau, in his scale of the springs of action, rightly ranks censoriousness, with vindictiveness and suspiciousness, at the very bottom of the list. Unless there is some ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... specially applied to a period when manners had been barely retrieved from pagan impurities. The doctors belonging to the party of Charles VII, the apologists of the Pucelle, find exceeding difficulty in justifying her on this head. One of them—thought to be Gerson—makes the gratuitous supposition that the moment she dismounted from her horse, she was in the habit of resuming woman's apparel; confessing that Esther and Judith had had recourse to more natural and feminine means for their triumphs over ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... 34) it is said: "It would be an irreparable error ... not to admit the gratuitous grant of part of the expropriated lands to poor and ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell |
