"Habit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... accounts for his reasoning in a circle, and explains why there is neither beginning nor end to him, nor to anything he says. We really do not believe the vagabond can write a word that hasn't an O in it. Wonder if this O-ing is a habit of his? By-the-by, he came away from Down-East in a great hurry. Wonder if he O's as much there as he does here? "O! ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of his supposed faithful friend. Nevertheless the real man of honour, whom he suspects so unaccountably, goes on board the ship with him, and the mistress, on whom he would not bestow so much as one glance, disguises herself in the habit of a page, and is with him the whole voyage, without his once knowing that she is of a sex different from that she attempts to pass for, which, by the way, ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... which are usually considered the mere dross of the early German literature. These, for what reason I could not imagine, were her favourite and constant study—and that in process of time they became my own, should be attributed to the simple but effectual influence of habit and example. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... windows, which opened upon the terrace. I sprang up, and, for a moment, it seemed to me that I must be dreaming. It was Adele who stood there, all in white, with sunlight around her.... I gasped for a moment, and then recovered myself. It was Adele sure enough, in a white linen riding habit, and morning had come while I slept. But I knew then that one link at least remained with ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of his reflections was broken. He had moved a little towards the rails, and he was instantly aware of the girl cantering towards him,—a slight, frail figure, she seemed, upon a great bay horse. She wore a simple brown habit and bowler hat, and she sat her horse with that complete lack of self-consciousness which is the heritage of a born horsewoman. She was looking up at the sky as she cantered towards him, with no thought of the crowds passing along the promenade. Yet, as she drew nearer, she suddenly ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the lad beheld a very beautiful girl of about fourteen whose history was enveloped in a dark mystery; he also learned that the man he had rescued was known as the wizard tramp. The latter was a very strange and peculiar character, a victim of the rum habit, which had brought him away down until he became a tramp of the most pronounced type. This man, however, was really a very shrewd fellow, well educated, not only in book learning, but in the ways of ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)
... mentioned deficiency seems to have been {32} the main cause of Lamarck's views soon being lost sight of. They nowhere found a support in facts; the force of habit played in them an exaggerated and unnatural role; the different illustrations of them—such as the long neck of the giraffe explained by the permanent and inherited habit of browsing on the branches of high ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... attached to the Emperor—were easily distinguishable by their military deportment, their blue coats with gilt buttons, buttoned to the chin, their black silk stock, and an authoritative demeanor acquired from a habit of command in circumstances requiring despotic rapidity. There was nothing of the old man in the Baron, it must be admitted; his sight was still so good, that he could read without spectacles; his handsome oval face, framed ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... depressing story. It appeared that one lobbyist had offered large sums of money for votes against the tariff bill on account of the income tax provision. Henry O. Havermeyer, president of the American Sugar Refining Company, testified that the company was in the habit of contributing to the campaign funds of one political party or the other in the states, depending on which party was in the ascendancy; that these contributions were carried on the books as expense; and that they were given because the party in power "could ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... true that the two Houses have been in the habit of suspending this rule toward the close of the session in relation to particular bills, and it appears by the printed Journal that by concurrent votes of the two Houses passed on the last day of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... compassionate nursing. It was not in me to be unmoved by this. I declare that as I went painfully forward, with this strangely pathetic song of passion repeating itself in my ears, I got fairly away from the habit of mind in which my own love for Daisy existed, and felt myself only an agent in the working out of some ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... of the cave where we had beheld that awful dance was perfectly clear of spectators. Not a soul was to be seen, and consequently I do not believe that our departure was known to anybody, except perhaps the mutes who waited on She, and they were, of course, in the habit of keeping what ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... In which appear'd long pain, and short delight. A mighty General I then did see, Like one, who, for some glorious victory, Should to the Capitol in triumph go: I (who had not been used to such a show In this soft age, where we no valour have, But pride) admired his habit, strange and brave, And having raised mine eyes, which wearied were, To understand this sight was all my care. Four snowy steeds a fiery chariot drew; There sat the cruel boy; a threatening yew His right hand bore, his quiver arrows held, Against whose force ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... always pack a gun. Got the habit when I was a kid and never shucked it. For rattlesnakes," ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... rabbit what my showing is. She ain't a bit like these town-women; you can sorter get at them, for they are on the carpet, and they don't make no beans about it. But this un has a way of making you watch every step you take and every word you speak. I've been in the habit of having women folks listen to all I say, and laugh hearty now and then, but this un has her eyes on everything that is passing, and seems to me to laugh at the wrong time, when there ain't the slightest call for amusement. I reckon maybe I'd have made more progress ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... risen, and, without any particular design, has advanced toward her. Perhaps the force of habit compels him to do so; perhaps intense and not altogether welcome surprise. For the future to see her is but to add one more ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... name of a people of various tribes that occupied the steppes of SE. of Europe and W. of Asia adjoining eastward, were of nomadic habit; kept herds of cattle and horses, and were mostly in a semi-savage state beyond the pale of civilisation; the region they occupied is ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... mechanical part of our lives, and to bring, as far as we can, every action under the conscious dominion of principle. The less we live by impulse, and the more we live by intelligent reflection, the better it will be for us. The more we can get habit on the side of goodness, the better; but the more we break up our habits, and make each individual action the result of a special volition of the spirit guided by reason and conscience, the better for ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... affection. He is also a Cameron Highlander whose father commanded the Gordons. As a presence nothing could be better; as a man no one in the Army would be more welcome. But he would not, with his build and constitutional habit, last out here for one fortnight. Despite his soldier heart and his wise brain we can't risk it. We are unanimous on that point. Stopford remains. I have cabled expressing my deep disappointment that Mahon should be the factor which ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... without much doing. The same night of our marriage Galoshes called round, and made himself mighty civil, and got into a habit of dropping in about dark and smoking his pipe with the family. He could talk to Uma, of course, and started to teach me native and French at the same time. He was a kind old buffer, though the dirtiest you would wish to see, and he muddled me up with foreign languages ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... somewhat in wonder at his own conduct. He was not in the habit of interfering in other people's business, and never mixed with drunken affairs. But this surely was different. No man would have refused that appeal for help. Yes; he was sure she had pleaded with her eyes. Perhaps he ought ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... but their views were not concurred in by the committee as it was then composed. We were all entertained by the bright wit, the clever and, in my judgment, in many respects, the just sarcasm of our honorable friend from Missouri [Mr. Vest], but my habit is not to consider public measures in a jocular light; it is not to consider a question of this kind in a jocular light. Whatever may be the merits or demerits of this proposition, whatever may be the reasons ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... you becoming so very demonstrative?" she asked. "If you are not careful it will become a horrid habit with you." ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... Hooker may have believed that Jackson was retreating, he was bound to guard against the possibility of an attack, knowing as he did Jackson's whereabouts and habit of rapid mystery. Had he thrown the entire Eleventh Corps en potence to his main line, as above indicated, to arrest or retard an attack if made; had he drawn troops from Meade on the extreme left, where half an hour's reconnoitring would have shown that nothing was in his front, ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... sternest and bravest of them were not ashamed to acknowledge her authority. At first, she only fought in self-defence, or in revenge for what she considered aggressions and insults, and finally, for spoil and conquest, and for the habit and love of strife and adventure. She was a tall, handsome woman, with dark, flashing eyes, a clear, ringing voice, and a proud, soldier-like step. Her dress was a singular mingling of the masculine and feminine fashions of her half barbarous country; but it was picturesque and imposing; ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... said until the children had gone to bed, and then Mrs. Paine departed from her life-long habit of silence, and revealed to Pearl the ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... me to a nymph in the fable he was wrong; but he never addressed to me a word in French that was not in good taste. Before we condemn him, uncle, let us see for ourselves. It is a habit you have always recommended to me, ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... disappointed; and, perhaps are tempted too completely to despair for him. Is it not that we confounded together the beginning and the end; the being good, and the trying to become so: the resolution with the act; the act with the habit? Did we not forget that he is not at once out of danger who begins to mend: that the first softening of the dry burning skin, the first abating of the hard quick pulse, is far removed from the coolness, and steadiness, and even vigour of health ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... right for me to live in dependence upon you. The thought tortures me. I tell you this frankly, for the reason that frankness with you has become a habit. Cannot I see that daily, at earliest dawn, Thedora rises to do washing and scrubbing, and remains working at it until late at night, even though her poor old bones must be aching for want of rest? Cannot I also see that YOU are ruining yourself for me, and hoarding your last kopeck ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... runneth just without thy city walls, and I saw coming up out of the water, as if they had been fishes, seven familiar beasts, such as I have not seen since I came to Kem. Knowest thou here such large, useful animals, each having a long tail and four legs, and whose peaceful habit is to eat the grass of the fields, which, having digested, the female yieldeth back in a white fluid ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... impulsive a whole lot,' I argues onct when a profligate he's staked, an' who reports himse'f as jumpin' sideways for grub previous, goes careerin' over to the dance hall with them alms he's wrung, an' proceeds on a debauch. 'You oughter not allow them ornery folks to do you. If you'd cultivate the habit of lettin' every gent go a-foot till he can buy a hoss, you'd clean up for a heap more at the end of the week. Now this ingrate whose hand you stiffens ain't buyin' nothin' but ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... William Davis, the Golden Farmer, was a notorious highwayman, who obtained his sobriquet from a habit of always paying in gold. He was hanged in Fleet Street, December 20, 1689. His adventures are told at length in Smith's History of the Highwaymen, edited by me and published in the ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... now no path of any kind; which added to our courage all it lessened of our comfort, because it proved that the robbers were not in the habit of passing there. And we knew that we could not go astray, so long as we breasted the hill before us; inasmuch as it formed the rampart, or side-fence of Glen Doone. But in truth I used the right word there for the manner of our ascent, for the ground came forth so steep against ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Miss Luscombe was entirely alone she did not seem so. She had got into the habit of talking always as if she were surrounded by crowds, and said so much about the celebrities who ought to have turned up that one felt almost as depressed as if they had really been there. Sometimes they came, for there was no one ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... of moral judgments is one of the most important elements of civilisation; it is upon this that the possibility of moral progress on a large scale chiefly depends. Few things pervert men more than the habit of regarding as enviable persons or qualities injurious to Society. The most obvious example is the passionate admiration bestowed on a brilliant conqueror, which is often quite irrespective of the justice of his wars and of the motives that actuated him. This false ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... herself up into almost a certainty that so it would be, and Amabel was afraid she would not be fit to go down to dinner; but the sound of the bell, and the necessity of moving, seemed to restore the habit of external composure in a moment. She settled her countenance, and left ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stop and get some of the birds?" asked the Baron, who from habit was constantly thinking of the best way to supply his larder. "They would be a welcome addition to our sea-stock ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... was her voice only that rose to Heaven. Her heart was full of other things; her thoughts often wandered to the field or the dairy, even when the words of prayer or praise were on her lips. She lost the habit of the few minutes' quiet reading of her Bible in the early morning, and also before she went to bed; and her prayers were brief and hurried, and sometimes they were forgotten altogether. She and Hamish had always been fond of reading, and ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... much reflection, the learned Gautama, that foremost of persons engaged in the practice of Yoga, that highly blessed ascetic, departed for the woods. Having after a long while assented to it, saying, 'So be it,' Chirakarin, in consequence of his very nature, and owing to his habit of never accomplishing any act without long reflection, began to think for a long while (upon the propriety or otherwise of what he was commanded by his sire to do). 'How shall I obey the command of my sire and yet how avoid slaying my mother? How shall I avoid sinking, like a wicked person, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... His habit of painting his own portrait gave him an opportunity to study all sorts of costume effects. His patrons were plain, slow-going Dutchmen who did not want any "fancy" effects in their portraits. They wished first of all a faithful ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... the habit of painting his larger portraits on a peculiar green, and his miniatures on a blue background. He drew his portrait sketches with black and red chalk on a paper tinted flesh-colour. It is said, that with the exception, of Philip Wouwermann, no painter has been so unfortunate in having the works ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... my familiarities with her, so much so that I soon drifted into the habit of addressing ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... to Truxton King. "Isn't it possible that he is merely attracted by the beauty of our charming young friend here?" ventured Madame Drovnask, after many opinions had been advanced respecting his interest in the shop and its contents. "It is a habit with Americans, I ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... attention, while exchanging the customary compliments; both were very handsome, but of quite different styles of beauty. Milady, however, smiled in observing that she excelled the young woman by far in her high air and aristocratic bearing. It is true that the habit of a novice, which the young woman wore, was not very advantageous in ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... me to the encounter, and to disparage in my eyes the poor forces of the enemy, is the habit of mind which they continually display in their exposition of the Scriptures, full of deceit, void of wisdom. As philosophers, you would seize these points at once. Therefore I have desired to have you for my audience. Suppose, for example, we ask our adversaries on what ground they ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... which was very brief, was also a very sanguinary, and five of the slaver's people had been either mortally wounded or killed outright; but from the habit of constantly wearing their arms, even to pistols, when on the coast, they had been found in a very good situation at even the shortest notice for defending themselves. Captain Bramble now saw evident tokens of a purpose to unmoor the vessel, and ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... overhung with a seemingly hazardous spring outward. Towards the river, also, many were adorned with wooden balconies, sheltered by the far-advancing angles of the roofs; whilst beneath, upon the water, the piles of the bridge were encumbered by many water-mills, to the incessant noise of which, habit probably reconciled the inhabitants of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the weight of this chain riveted to a ring above the ankle is so great as to induce a limp, which the convict never loses. Being obliged to exert one leg much more than the other to drag this fetter (manicle is the slang name for such irons), the prisoner inevitably gets into the habit of making the effort. Afterwards, though he no longer wears the chain, it acts upon him still; as a man still feels an amputated leg, the convict is always conscious of the anklet, and can never get over that trick of walking. In ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... then that on the previous afternoon something had happened. It was something which I might have foreseen, which, in fact, with my habit of putting the telescope to my blind eye, I obstinately had refused to foresee. During our wanderings I had watched the flowering of her splendid beauty as she drank in health from the glow of her own Orient. I had noted the widening of ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... [Laughing.] Don't let those curves get to be a habit, or I'll sue the company for ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... herds! Poor Amos! And at twelve o'clock at night, hark to the wolf's bark, and the lion's roar, and the bear's growl, and the owl's te-whit-te-whos, and the serpent's hiss, as he unwittingly steps too near while moving through the thickets! So Amos, like other herdsmen, got the habit of studying the map of the heavens, because it was so much of the time spread out before him. He noticed some stars advancing and others receding. He associated their dawn and setting with certain seasons of the year. He had a poetic nature, and he read night by night, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... old friends be the best restorative?' suggested Miss Gwynne. 'Gladys and I could go to her, and as we are in the habit of visiting the sick in the parish, no suspicion could attach to our being with her; for it would never do, in poor Netta's state, to expose her to inquisitive people connected ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... off our letters could not have landed if the weather had not been fine. Poor fellow! after I left, he lost his boat in consequence of being on too familiar terms with the Bell Rock. He was in the habit of fishing near the rock, and occasionally ran in at low-water to smoke a pipe with the keepers. One morning he stayed too long. The large green billows which had been falling with solemn boom on the outlying rocks began to lip over into the pool where his boat lay—Port Stevenson. Embarking ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... waters, with rapids so numerous that one loses count of them, came doughty traders of the Company with the swiftest paddlers the West has ever known. The gentleman in cocked hat and silk-lined overcape, with knee-buckled breeches and ruffles at wrist and throat, had a habit of tucking his sleeves up and dipping his hand in the water over the gunnels. If the ripple did not rise from knuckles to elbows, he forced speed with a shout of 'Up-up, my men! Up-up!' and gave orders for the regale to ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... the blown spray Old Josselin pottered, bareheaded and barefoot. His eyesight had grown dimmer, but otherwise his bodily health had improved, for nowadays he ate food enough: and, as for purblindness, why there was no real need to keep watch on the sea. He did it from habit. ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... beauty. It is not possible to praise Charlotte's style without reservations; it is not always possible to give passages that illustrate her qualities without suppressing her defects. What was a pernicious habit with Charlotte, her use of words like "peruse", "indite", "retain", with Emily is a mere slip of the pen. There are only, I think, three of such slips in Wuthering Heights. Charlotte was capable of mixing her worst things with her best. She mixed them most in her dialogue, ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... takes up the measurements that were given, and calculates a velocity at the circumference of a wheel, of about 166 yards per second, apparently considering that especially incredible. He then says: "From the nom de plume he assumes, it might be inferred that your correspondent is in the habit of 'sailing close to the wind.'" He asks permission to suggest an explanation of his own. It is that before 11:30 P.M. there had been numerous accidents to the "main brace," and that it had required splicing so often ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... The habit of neglecting this necessary element in the precise expression of the laws of nature, has given birth to the popular prejudice that all general truths have exceptions; and much unmerited distrust has thence accrued to the conclusions of science, when they have ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... a good breakfast Requirements for a good breakfast Pernicious custom of using fried and indigestible foods for breakfast Use of salted foods an auxiliary to the drink habit The ideal breakfast Use of fruit for breakfast Grains for breakfast An appetizing dish Preparation of zwieback Preparation of toast Recipes: Apple toast Apricot toast Asparagus toast Banana toast Berry toast Berry toast No. 2 Celery toast Cream toast ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... up to each other on guard, and then against the light of the lanterns it could be seen how huge a man was Martin. Foy, although well-built and sturdy, and like all his race of a stout habit, looked but a child beside the bulk of this great fellow. As for their stick game, which was in fact sword exercise, it is unnecessary to follow its details, for the end of it was what might almost have been expected. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... he may have thrown himself into the bay and drowned himself. He had a habit of going down to the water and gazing out to sea by ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... against a bidder who has the habit of overbidding, full advantage should be taken of his weakness, and whenever possible he should be forced to a high contract he may ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... contended with her husband. In all expressed differences of opinion, it was his habit to bear her down with an imperious will. She was weak, and he was her strong tyrant. Not a word more did she speak but returned to the dining-room, and replaced the food she had prepared for Andrew by simple ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... to Clare's expressed wish, Johnstone made no mention that evening of the rather serious adventure on the Salerno road. They had fallen into the habit of shaking hands when they bade each other good-night. When it was time, and the two ladies rose to withdraw, Johnstone suddenly wished that Clare would make some little sign to him—the least thing to show that this particular evening was ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... having its results embody a conscious purpose; from the second, through having consciousness superintend the process in a negative and hindering, rather than in a positive and prompting way. It is the stage of habit. I call it second nature because it is worked, not by original instincts, but by a new kind of associative mechanism which ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... more danger from encumbering the National Government beyond its wisdom to comprehend, or its ability to administer, than from leaving the local communities to bear their own burdens and remedy their own evils. Our local habit and custom is so strong, our variety of race and creed is so great the Federal authority is so tenuous, that the area within which it can function successfully is very limited. The wiser policy is to leave the localities, so far ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... his vivacity, was invariably neat. Then, by some mysterious fatality, Joseph could not keep his clothes clean; dress him in new clothes, and he immediately made them look like old ones. The elder, on the other hand, took care of his things out of mere vanity. Unconsciously, the mother acquired a habit of scolding Joseph and holding up his brother as an example to him. Agathe did not treat the two children alike; when she went to fetch them from school, the thought in her mind as to Joseph always was, "What sort of state shall I find him in?" These trifles ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... reason of immense flights of harpy flies, who pursued and lighted upon their prey even in the very scales), which purchase I made, not only with an eye to the little ones at home, but also as a figurative reproof of that too-frequent habit of my mind, which, forgetting the due order of chronology, will often persuade me that the happy sceptre of Saturn is stretched over ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... impaling index finger was a gesture of habit—it was his way of "spearing" witnesses in court when they ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... I'm not in the habit of telling fibs, so don't preach. I am not going to have Teresa suffer any more criticism from the rest of you girls. I have met her a few times and we have talked. She seemed to think perhaps it was a mistake as long as our two camps were not friendly, so I am glad ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... difficulty made my chariot wheel-horses plough. Put the pole-end horses into the plough in the morning, and put in the postilion and hind horses in the afternoon; but the ground being well swarded over, and very heavy ploughing, I repented putting them in at all, for fear it should give them a habit of stopping ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... him in that letter, which is worthy of attention, "On the day before yesterday I found Cesare at home in Trastevere. He was on the point of setting out to go hunting, and entirely in secular habit; that is to say, dressed in silk and armed. Riding together, we talked a while. I am among his most intimate acquaintances. He is man of great talent and of an excellent nature; his manners are those of the son ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... he had just hit it. The Australian has a habit of pulling his mate's leg, and being on his guard against a leg-pull in return. He has sharpened his conversation against the conversation of his friends from the time he could speak—his uncles are generally to blame for it; they started him on the path of repartee by pulling his legs before those ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... marking habit," finished Jessica. "Come on, girls. Don't tease Anne. Let her put tags on herself if she wants to. Then a certain young man who is waiting outside for her will be sure to recognize her. Has anyone seen that Allison child? It's time she put in ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... the system is wrong; and it is only a matter of time, a question of delay, as to when they shall perform their whole duty, and bring it to an end.[I] One would believe that when they saw a thing to be wrong, they would at once do right; but prejudice, habit, interest, education, and a variety of influences check their aspirations to what is right; but let us keep on pressing it upon their consciences, and I believe their consciences will at length respond. Public sentiment is more ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... to. It's expected of them, and they can't escape, but you need to be soft-hearted and live in a poor neighbourhood to understand the horror of the bazaar habit. I'll tell you a story to the point." Pixie's eyes danced, she preened herself ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... rector was an earnest young man and a hard worker; but, evidently, those of Gammer Joy's generation preferred my father's aloofness in conjunction with his regular material dispensations, and his habit of leaving folk severely to themselves, so far as their ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... the place where Euripides is buried, two streams approach from the right and left of his tomb, and unite. By one of these, travellers are in the habit of lying down and taking luncheon, because its water is good; but nobody goes near the stream on the other side of the tomb, because its water is said to be death-dealing. In Arcadia there is a tract of land called Nonacris, which has extremely cold water trickling from ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... products of the domain consisted of lumber ready for sale. Claude de Buxieres had been in the habit of superintending, either personally or through his intermediate agents, one half of the annual amount of lumber felled for market, the sale of which was arranged with the neighboring forge owners by mutual agreement; ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... feeling a little disturbed by what Edgar had told him, but unable to analyze his sensations. Putting on his furs, he proceeded to look around the stable, as he had fallen into a habit of doing before he went to rest. There was a clear moon in the sky, and although the black shadow of the buildings stretched out across the snow, George on approaching one noticed a few footprints that led toward it. There were numerous other tracks about, ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... much good in Avonlea where everybody knows your age—or if they make a mistake it is never on the side of youth. But Nancy, who grew accustomed to celebrating my birthdays when I was a little girl, never gets over the habit, and I don't try to cure her, because, after all, it's nice to have some one make a fuss over you. She brought me up my breakfast before I got up out of bed—a concession to my laziness that Nancy would scorn to make on any other day of the year. She had cooked everything I like best, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... felt with pain that the life which made Miss Ainley happy could not make her happy. Pure and active as it was, in her heart she deemed it deeply dreary, because it was so loveless—to her ideas, so forlorn. Yet, doubtless, she reflected, it needed only habit to make it practicable and agreeable to any one. It was despicable, she felt, to pine sentimentally, to cherish secret griefs, vain memories, to be inert, to waste youth in aching languor, to grow ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the lullabye at rehearsal, Mrs. Frisky Frog forgot, and through force of habit sang the chorus she had made up for her own little polly-woggles. But, dear me! Mr. T. Toad Todson flew into a towering rage and croaked at her till he was fairly hoarse. "Non-sense! Non-sense! Non-sense!" he jerked out, and when finally he could control ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... attempt to maintain his authority. Abner Briggs, Junior, was a great, hulking fellow, who had been bred to butchering, but urged by his parents to attend school, in order to learn the elegant accomplishments of reading and writing, in which he was sadly deficient. He was in the habit of talking and laughing pretty loud in school-hours, of throwing wads of paper reduced to a pulp by a natural and easy process, of occasional insolence and general negligence. One of the soft, but unpleasant missiles just alluded to, flew by the master's head one morning, and flattened ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... standing high on the legs; is rather bare of hair, is a quick feeder, has an enormous capacity of stomach and belly, and an appetite to match its receiving capability. Its colour is white, or else black and white, and it has a restless habit and an unquiet disposition. The present valuable stock has sprung from a cross between the common native animal and either the White Chinese or Black ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... a trivial little peccadillo as the habit of manslaughter,' says I, 'what have you accomplished in the way of indirect brigandage or nonactionable thriftiness that you could point to, with or without pride, as an evidence of your qualifications for ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... the delight of the Christian philanthropist, of a person brought up in utter ignorance and barbarian rudeness, and so continuing till late in life; and then at last, after such a length of time and habit has completed its petrifying effect, suddenly seized upon by a mysterious power, and taken, with an alarming and irresistible force, out of the dark hold in which the spirit has lain imprisoned and torpid, into the ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... to announce it. Could it be that in the depths of her mind—unadmitted by her consciousness—she had never intended to marry him? Was that old revulsion paramount? . . . Sixteen years! . . . A long time, and nothing in life is more corroding than habit. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... many of us who live in apartments either have a little house or a big one in the country for the summer months, or we plan for one some day! So hard does habit die—we cannot entirely divorce our ideas of Home from gardens and trees and green grass. But I honestly think there is a reward for living in a slice of a house: women who have lived long in the country sometimes take the beauty of it for granted, ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... this creature was his wife! She comes not like a widow; she comes arm'd With scorn and impudence: is this a mourning-habit? ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... learned, however, that, believing the great column could only move forward in the daytime, the natives were in the habit of retiring from their rocky citadels at nightfall. Malchus returned with this news to Hannibal, who prepared to take advantage of it. The camp was at once pitched, and the men set to work to form ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... the summer months we went almost every Monday on an excursion to a seaside resort called Pablo Beach. These excursions were always crowded. There was a dancing pavilion, a great deal of drinking, and generally a fight or two to add to the excitement. I also contracted the cigar maker's habit of riding around in a hack on Sunday afternoons. I sometimes went with my cigar maker friends to public balls that were given at a large hall on one of the main streets. I learned to take a drink occasionally ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... a notorious habit of viewing pre-Christian times for the single biased purpose of only stating the aspects of that civilization which they deemed inferior to that exerted by Christianity. Researches have established fairly well the position of women in the Egyptian community of 4000 years ago. It is ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... with Alice Windham. He had fallen into a habit of coming to the ranch when wearied by affairs of state. He was a silent, brooding man, robbed somehow of his national heritage, a sense of humor, for he had Irish blood. He was a man of fire, implacable as an enemy, inalienable as a friend. And to Alice, as ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... Habit comes out of practice, and forms character by degrees, and eventually works out destiny. Therefore we must practically sow optimism, and habitually nourish it in order to reap the blissful fruit of Enlightenment. The sole means of securing mental ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... did not like roughing it, and he did not think it the least likely that his presence in the house would interfere with her work. On the contrary, her work was likely to interfere with his comfort. He was fond of his niece, but he disliked her habit of reading passages from her MSS. aloud in the evenings. She was very much absorbed in her novel-writing, and took her work with a seriousness which struck ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... made. Sally had taken off one or two little trinkets—presents from Amelius, which she was in the habit of wearing—and had left them, wrapped up in paper, on the dressing-table. No such thing as a farewell letter was found near them. The examination of the wardrobe came next—and here a startling circumstance revealed itself. Every one of the dresses which Amelius had presented to her was hanging ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... touch of the master, the Pearl opened the door, and told me that there was nobody within, as I very well knew, but it was her habit ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... consider the use of tobacco as a habit, which modern physicians are pleased to consider so pestiferous and baleful, let us attend for a few moments to what has been said concerning its culture and manufacture. Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes, says that its culture is productive of infinite wretchedness; that it is found easier ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... temperance, are,—1. That the temperate use of wine is innocent, and without sin. 2. That excess in it is a heinous sin. 3. That the voluntary assumption of a vow or pledge of total abstinence is an effort of exalted virtue, and highly acceptable in the sight of God. 4. That the habit of excess in the use of wine is an object of unqualified abhorrence and disgust. He concluded with a warning to his fellow-citizens to "stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... great pounding, and suspected that they were breaking into the Headquarters barn, which I always kept locked, just out of force of habit. In another minute I knew I was right, as I heard a loud squawking of the chickens. Up from the direction of the barn and high over the roofs of the town I suddenly saw a bird soar, which I took to be a prairie ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... clambered over the wall, and was just about to place the flowers on the marble table, when I heard the sound of a horse's hoofs at some distance. There was no time for escape; my Lady fair was riding slowly along the avenue in a green hunting-habit, apparently lost in thought. All that I had read in an old book of my father's about the beautiful Magelona came into my head—how she used to appear among the tall forest-trees, when horns were echoing and evening shadows were flitting through the glades. I could not ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... animals that live with men there are great numbers, and would be many more but for the accidents which befall the cats. For when the females have produced young they are no longer in the habit of going to the males, and these seeking to be united with them are not able. To this end then they contrive as follows,—they either take away by force or remove secretly the young from the females and kill them (but after ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... was sleepy, and seeing no hope of plunder in the little bark, according to the tradition of his corps and the habit of this post, he let it pass. The guard at Pasig ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... one of the people of this country, who, from a habit of living amongst us, might have been the means of preventing much of this hostile disposition in them towards us, was much to be lamented. If poor Ara-ba-noo had lived, he would have acquired enough of our ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... miss it so much! Do you have a thousand little private marks in your Bible that nobody else understands? I have a great habit of reading in that way. Well, I'll bring you one from the library that you may mark just ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... breaks into open, stony clearings and the surface of the earth cracks into deep canyons. The great pines stand at a considerable distance from each other. Each tree grows alone, murmurs alone, thinks alone. They do not intrude upon each other. The Navajos are not much in the habit of giving or of asking help. Their language is not a communicative one, and they never attempt an interchange of personality in speech. Over their forests there is the same inexorable reserve. Each tree has its exalted power ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... a mere intellectual exchange, but one very agreeable to Miss Rolleston; for a fine memory, and omnivorous reading from his very boyhood, with the habit of taking notes, and reviewing them, had made Mr. Hazel a walking dictionary, and a walking ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... Another evil habit of foxes is that of making public what they hear said in private, and taking it upon themselves to create undesirable scandal. For example, a fox attached to the family of Kobayashi-San hears his master complain about his neighbour Nakayama-San, whom he secretly ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... one ship controld, He toare his hayre, and loudlie cryd from farre, For honour Spanyards, and for shame be bold; Awaken Vertue, say her slumbers marre Iberias auncient valure, and infold Her wondred puissance, and her glorious deeds, In cowards habit, and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... had now grown from a habit into a passion. It was now his one ambition to arrange a new succession excluding the Vaufontaines, a detested branch of the Bercy family. There had been an ancient feud between his family and the Vaufontaines, whose rights to the succession, after his eldest son, were to this time paramount. For ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... different nations. Among the same class I have placed some of the scenes in which I have endeavoured to illustrate the operation of the higher and more violent passions; both because the lower orders are less restrained by the habit of suppressing their feelings, and because I agree, with my friend Wordsworth, that they seldom fail to express them in the strongest and most powerful language. This is, I think, peculiarly the case with the peasantry of my own country, a class ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... just the tusks will do—eighty-pound tusks, a hundred-pound if possible.' But sarcasm was quite thrown away on him. He listened to the natives. Once a man does that he is lost, for they lose all respect for him. They are just like children, these people; once let children get in the habit of making ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole |
