"Humble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with it as he pleased. He surrendered it to the Elector as a favor, not as a debt; and that, too, as a Swedish fief, fettered by conditions which diminished half its value, and degraded this unfortunate prince into a humble vassal of Sweden. One of these conditions obliged the Elector, after the conclusion of the war, to furnish, along with the other princes, his contribution toward the maintenance of the Swedish army, a condition which plainly indicates the fate which, in the event ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... nakedness of the land. I am sensitive about my honest poverty. So, darling Nutty, my precious Nutty, you poor boneheaded muddler, will you kindly think up at your earliest convenience some plan for politely ejecting this Mr Chalmers of yours from our humble home?—because if you don't, I'm going to have ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... whom we see every day bringing in their fruit and vegetables to market, are, generally speaking, very plain, with an humble, mild expression of countenance, very gentle, and wonderfully polite in their manners to each other; but occasionally, in the lower classes, one sees a face and form so beautiful, that we might suppose such another was the Indian who enchanted Cortes; with eyes and hair of extraordinary ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... favourite of poets and princes—one whose splendid talents and characteristics were reproduced in her son." There are also, we know full well, unnumbered hosts of others, whose kindly light has been shed in many an humble or secluded home, whose beloved names have been called blessed by thousands though unrecorded in historic page—who have lived and loved and passed on to higher realms—to the world, to eulogy and to ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... of this answer went straight to Don Ippolito's heart. He instantly acquiesced in its justice, and went directly to confession. With earnest benevolence he betook himself to the duties of his at once humble and exalted office, edified all his brethren by his unfeigned humility, and became in time the model of his order. He was afterwards successively named sub-prior, and then prior of the monastery of Santa Maria Nuova; and was later the associate and support ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... of the German were villages with houses wrecked, the humble shops sacked, garden walls levelled, fields of beets and turnips uprooted by his shells, or where he had snatched sleep in the trampled mud, strewn with demolished haystacks, vast trees split clean in half as though ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... sweeter in the still than on the stalke? But thou, Euphues, dost rather resemble the Swallow, which in the summer creepeth under the eues of euery house, and in the winter leaveth nothing but durt behinde hir; or the humble Bee, which hauing sucked hunny out of the fayre flower, doth leaue it and loath it; or the Spider which in the finest web ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... can scarcely pronounce the admission that Grammar and parsing we freely neglect, Scarcely can dare to make humble petition that Someone or other will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... joyously away. The men's garments she would modestly sell to a second-hand shop, but the women's she cleaned and turned and transmogrified and sold in Petticoat Lane of a Sunday morning; scavenger, earth-worm, and alchemist, she was a humble agent in the great economic process by which cast-off clothes renew their youth and freshness, and having set in their original sphere rise ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... conditions it is so easy to carry a point with a little bounce; self-assertion is a mask which covers many a weakness.... [Page 283] Here the outward show is nothing, it is the inward purpose that counts. So the "gods" dwindle and the humble ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... redemption. From him all the world hopes for forgiveness of sins, the Logos, the high priest, and intercessor, and the patriarchs pray for it; he grants it, not for the world's sake, but of his own gracious nature, to those who can truly believe. He loves the humble, and saves those whom he knows to be worthy of healing. His grace elects the pious before they are born, giving them victory over sensuality, and steadfastness in virtue. He reveals himself to holy souls by his Spirit, and by his divine light leads those who are too weak by nature even to understand ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... gloved hands. There is nothing very imposing in the first stirring of a great city's activities; it is a slow reluctant process, like the waking of a heavy sleeper; but to Woburn's mood the sight of that obscure renewal of humble duties was more moving than the spectacle ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... and the other four died," and he made a graceful spring, boring a hole in the water, which seethed around him, arising a moment later throwing water like a porpoise, as though he wouldn't exchange his position in life, humble as it was, with any one of a ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... more humble and meek than was Anty herself, in the midst of her happiness. She had no idea of taking on herself the airs of a fine lady, or the importance of an heiress; she had no wish to be thought a lady; ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... efforts of the dressmaker's art, but very considerable means on the part of the woman wearing such a gown. This was a discovery which altered the complexion of my thoughts for a moment; for I had presupposed her a girl of humble means, willing to sacrifice certain scruples to obtain a little extra money. This imposing figure might be that of a millionaire's daughter; how then could I associate her, even in my own mind, with theft? I decided that I must see her face before ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... a long time thought to have been the one to introduce the numerals into Italy,[432] a brief sketch of this unique character is proper. Born of humble parents,[433] this remarkable man became the counselor and companion of kings, and finally wore the papal tiara as Sylvester II, from 999 until his death in 1003.[434] He was early brought under the influence of the monks at Aurillac, ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... deserted home oppressed me, as though I had wronged it; the sad little house seemed to be watching me out of its humble windows, like a patient dog awaiting another blow. Beacraft's worn coat and threadbare vest, limp and musty as the garments of a dead man, hung on a peg behind the door. I searched the pockets with repugnance and found a few papers, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... There is a Commission of learned men sitting to consider the subject of saving life at sea. They are discussing bulkheads, boats, davits, manning, navigation, but I am willing to bet that not one of them has thought of the humble "pudding." They can make what rules they like. We shall see if, with that disaster calling aloud to them, they will make the rule that every steamship should carry a permanent fender across her stern, from two to four feet in diameter in its thickest part in proportion to ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... natural sense, who had seen nearly the whole terraqueous globe, and could reason of civilized and savage, of Gentile and Jew, of Christian and Moslem. The long night-watches of the sailor are eminently adapted to draw out the reflective faculties of any serious-minded man, however humble or uneducated. Judge, then, what half a century of battling out watches on the ocean must have done for this fine old tar. He was a sort of a sea-Socrates, in his old age "pouring out his last philosophy and life," as sweet Spenser has it; and I never could look at him, and survey his right ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... stems are well-nigh as green as everything else in that wilderness of lovely forms. It is a very inanimate paradise, however. I rarely see any birds or butterflies, only a few lizards and an occasional dragon-fly; and the voice of singing-birds, such as gladden our hearts in humble English woods, is here mute; so we have at least this compensation for the lack of all the wild luxuriance ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... was one continued insult from the troops that were hurrying to the front; one man being determined to kill Capt. Weiss, whom he thought was not humble enough. The female portion of the ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... suffragists for direction, and as long as headquarters were kept open there were frequent calls for advice and instruction. Foreign women came to ask concerning the measures which would make them naturalized citizens; there were inquiries about registration, and the question often came from those in humble life: "Now that I have received this new right, what books shall I get to teach me how to exercise it?" Surely such an awakening of conscience ought to have a purifying effect! One firm in Denver stated that they sold more books on political economy in the first ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... him: "No man and no party has acquired a triumph, except the party friendly to the Union." But the younger man did covet honor, and he could not refrain from reminding the Senate that he had played "an humble part in the enactment of all these great measures."[366] Oddly enough, Jefferson Davis condescended to tickle the vanity of Douglas by testifying, "If any man has a right to be proud of the success of these measures, it is ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... two years later when Kit was a young man eighteen years old a man who chanced to pass his father's humble home related his adventures. He told how much was to be earned by selling buffalo robes, buckskins, etc., at Santa Fe, New Mexico. He drew beautiful word pictures of wealth that could be attained in ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... and now he was engaged in saving at least one soul. No doubt his devotion to the Father's will sustained him, even in the darkest hour. When the will of God consigned him to the hatred of men, to the rejection of the people, to the bitter sorrow of the cross, he could bow his head in humble compliance and say, "Thy will, not mine, be done." But he knew well that the Father willed his sorrows in order to the world's salvation, and that the object dearest to the Father's heart was the recovery of lost souls. He himself has told us of the ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves
... Speug's position on that seat of unique dignity was more than human, and none of us would have dared to recognise him, but it is only just to add that Peter was quite unspoiled by his privileges, and would wink to his humble friends upon the street after his most roguish fashion and with a skill which proved him his father's son. Social pride and the love of exclusive society were not failings either of Mr. McGuffie senior or of his hopeful son. Both were willing to fight any person ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... life with a respectable appearance is sufficient for one starting out, and that a few years hence when he has established for himself a lucrative business with a reputation for honesty and business integrity, there will be no likelihood of any one ever reminding him of his former humble circumstances. ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... owe you a kiss for that,' said the girl, blushing hot with very joy. 'But you are a flatterer, dear aunt, and just now I am very humble in spirit. I think great happiness should make us humble, don't you? I find it hard to make out my ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... without the faculty, the soul without the body, great thoughts without the power to embody them in intelligible forms. He, and he alone, is a great painter, and an heir of time, who combines both. He must have observation,—humble, loving, unerring, unwearied; this is the material out of which a painter, like a poet, feeds his genius, and "makes grow his wings." There must be perception and conception, both vigorous, quick and true; you must have these two primary qualities, the one ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... and the Bath footmen invited Sam Weller to their "swarry," consisting of a boiled leg of mutton, each guest had some expression of contempt and wrath for the humble little green-grocer who served them,—"in the true spirit," Dickens says, "of the very smallest tyranny." The very fact that they were subject to being ordered about in their own persons gave them a peculiar delight in issuing tyrannical orders to others: just ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... was an enormous humble-bee, so huge that when it stayed to suck a cowslip, the cowslip was bent down with its weight. Bevis walked after the giant humble-bee, and watched it take the honey from several cowslips; then he saw a stone standing ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... from the Giver of all good gifts, no person had been dispossessed of anything he previously owned, and the wealth of humanity might be indefinitely increased by means of it. Not many mighty, not many noble, received this gift, but it was the inexhaustible heritage of the humble, it was the rich reward of the intelligent of all races that peopled the earth. To whomsoever given, this gift was intended to contribute to the health and the wealth of the human race, for the bringing into existence new products, for their utilization ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... our way up here. But let us understand each other. I cannot make head or tail of these far-fetched new-fangle notions you, somehow or other, have fallen in love with—your James Fox, your Wilberforce, your Adam Smith, they may be very fine fellows, but to my humble thinking they're but a pack of traitors to king and country, when all is said and done. All this does not suit an English gentleman. You think differently; or perhaps you do not care whether it does or not. I admit I ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... fire had died out of his heart with the uttering of his confession, for he knew, even before he began, how hopeless it all was. How could such an one as Apolinaria, engrossed and absorbed in her work, but raised far, above this life and its passions, think of so poor and humble a being? He had been overpowered with the intensity of his emotion, and, his resolution broken, he had hurried on, knowing, poor fool that he was, the hopelessness and folly of it. Like a sudden, severe storm, coming after a day of intense, sultry heat, leaving the air refreshed, and ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... heed of the splendid but wayward youth—and knew not now whither his fancies had carried him, were it even to some savage land. Thus the Fold became to him the one dearest roof under the roof of heaven. All the simple ongoings of that humble home, love and imagination beautified into poetry; and all the rough or coarser edges of lowly life were softened away in the light of genius that transmuted everything on which it fell; while all the silent intimations which nature gave there of her ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... H.M.S. "Virago" had been repaired on that very beach. What a change had been effected during those passing years! Of the crew before me nine of the sixteen were, to my knowledge, formerly medicine men, or cannibals. In humble faith, we could only exclaim, "What hath God wrought!" It is all His doing, and it ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... read it to us. This is a real human interest story. 'Let me bow my head in shame and humble my spirit in the dust'—wasn't ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... end, begin by arguing about all manner of fancied consequences. For his knowledge of the history of human thinking assures him that such methods have through all past time proved barren of aught save strife, while his own bold yet humble method is the only one through which truth has ever been elicited. To pursue unflinchingly the methods of science requires dauntless courage and a faith that nothing can shake. Such courage and such loyalty to nature brings its own reward. For when once the formidable theory is really understood, ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... in his tone chilled the girl's heart. But she did not protest. In these days, in spite of occasional outspokenness she was still a humble little girl worshipping her brilliant companion ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... for I do not conceive that any thing analogous will be found in other species of animals. The experiments now suggested would necessarily begin with insects the most analogous to bees; as wasps, humble bees, mason bees, all species of flies, and the like. Some experiments might also be made on butterflies; and, perhaps, an animal might be found whose retarded fecundation would be attended with the same effects as that of queen ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... have, I fear, been too long accustomed to interpret Britain in terms of these two ministers and of what they represented to us of the rule of a George the Third or of an inimical aristocracy. Three out of the five men who form the war cabinet of an empire are of what would once have been termed an "humble origin." One was, if I am not mistaken, born in Nova Scotia. General Smuts, unofficially associated with this council, not many years ago was in arms against Britain in South Africa, and the prime minister himself is the son of a Welsh tailor. A situation that should mollify ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that the young painter felt as if a tornado had passed through his humble dwelling; but as peace and calm returned, he began to see that Providence had directly interposed in his favor, and had sent Rose and Gaston to his place to furnish him with fresh and important ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... population, beginning once more to raise their heads, thought this a suitable occasion to present a humble and loyal address of congratulation to the Lords Justices, in the absence of the Viceroy. Lord Delvin and several of their number accordingly appeared at the Castle, and delivered their address, which they begged might be forwarded to the foot ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... wealth and his munificent benefactions soon spread over all the country, and he was visited, among others, by the celebrated doctors of that day, Jean Gerson, Jean de Courtecuisse, and Pierre d'Ailli. They found him in his humble apartment, meanly clad, and eating porridge out of an earthen vessel; and with regard to his secret, as impenetrable as all his predecessors in alchymy. His fame reached the ears of the king, Charles VI., who sent M. de Cramoisi, the Master of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... were, among them, like a real diamond among coloured glass. Oh, if I could tell you all! But you are proud and disdainful, I see. Perhaps you want to wait until Countess Diodora Vernoeczy makes you a humble offer of her hand, and then maybe you would be ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... nostrils. But notwithstanding, some inner voice had whispered constantly that his love could not be altogether in vain; it seemed strong enough to travel the infinite distance to her heart and awaken at least a kindly feeling. He was humble, and wanted very little. Sometimes he had even felt sure that he was loved. The truth rent his heart, and filled it with bitterness; the woman who was his whole being had forgotten him, and the woman who loved him he hated.... He tried to read, striving to ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... advantageous wife for you, my dear. Society does not know her, and she does not know society. Your career would be a much more humble one with her by your side. And money you want, too. You need it, to get on properly; as I wish to see you get on, and as you wish it your self. My dear boy, do ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... three years of the affairs of the province, and give in it an account of his own faults, and if he omits any, and they are discovered in other ways, he is punished by degradation, bambooing, or death. It is the right of any subject, however humble, to complain to the emperor himself against any officer, however high; and for this purpose a large drum is placed at one of the palace gates. Whoever strikes it has his case examined under the emperor's eye, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... botanist led to more or less intimate relations with Buffon. But it appears that the good-will of this great naturalist and courtier for the rising botanist was not wholly disinterested. Lamarck owed the humble and poorly paid position of keeper of the herbarium to Buffon. ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... no! Suke would have died any day to save a neighbor from misery;" and the woodman's eyes filled with tears at the remembrance of his humble companion's virtues. ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... was directed, but when he arrived at the nurse's house, disguised as a peddler, he was surprised to find as much grief under that humble roof as there was at his master's house. He knocked at the door and inquired the cause of the trouble, hoping to discover that the display of grief was a mere sham. But he soon saw it was genuine. Both the woman and her handsome ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... evening, just after sunset, Jurgen returned to the Hamadryad: he walked now with the aid of the ashen staff which Thersites had given Jurgen, and Jurgen was mirthless and rather humble. ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... rapid transitions by which the attention and imagination are arrested and excited; always amusing, always instructive, never tedious, elevated to the height of the greatest intellect, and familiar with the most abstruse subjects, and at the same moment conciliating the humble pretensions of inferior minds by dropping into the midst of their pursuits and objects with a fervour and intensity of interest which surprises and delights his associates, and, above all, which puts them ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... our book; yet coming as it does, after our work was mostly in type, we confess to some feeling of satisfaction, at the substantial coincidence of views entertained at the Albert Model Farm, with our own humble teachings. With many thanks to Mr. Boyle for his valuable letter, which we commend to our readers as a reliable exposition of the most approved principles of land-draining for Ireland, we give ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... that age, ornamented their lower tier with double laces of silk, tagged with silver, and the extremities beautified with a small fringe of the same metal. The inferior class, wore laces of plain silk, linen, or even a thong of leather; which last is yet to be met with in the humble plains of rural life. But I am inclined to think, the artists of Birmingham had no great hand in fitting out the beau ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... have a bodily odour of their own which is sui generis in that it is supposed to be different from that of other human races. Some early travellers have compared it with the smell of the female crocodile, and many people believe it to be a racial characteristic denoting a comparatively humble origin and intended by nature as a signal or warning for the rest of human kind against close physical contact with the African race. A recent student of the Negro question in America gives it as his opinion that this odour is "something which the Negroes will have difficulty in living down."[4] ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... cathedral every afternoon, and this was Brian reciting prayers which were doubtless not less acceptable than those of other people. The cathedral officials had the good sense not to interfere with him, and not to draw frivolous distinctions between the simple and the humble who came to ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... young, I dare not plead even the humble pretensions of my little volume in deprecation of the criticism which ought to be the lot of every work professing to instruct others. In choosing the arena of a boy's school for the scene of my hero's actions, I have necessarily been compelled ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... to catch a glimpse in Jean Valjean of some indescribably lofty and melancholy figure. An unheard-of virtue, supreme and sweet, humble in its immensity, appeared to him. The convict was transfigured ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... man of California forgot his antipathy to the Asiatic race, and maintained friendly relations with his new Chinese and Japanese neighbors. The society belle who Tuesday night was a butterfly of fashion at the grand opera performance now assisted some factory girl in the preparation of humble daily meals. Money had little value. The family that had had foresight to lay in the largest stock of foodstuffs on the first day of disaster was rated highest in the scale ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... Madam!" he replied in mincing accents. "Your humble servant has no wish to disturb your ladyship's elegant repose. He offers a thousand apologies for his unceremonious entrance into your august presence, and implores you to condescend——Ow! Stop it, ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... dark cotton handkerchief, from which she began to untie the imprisoned note. Madame Delphine had an uncommonly sweet voice, and it seemed so to strike Monsieur Vignevielle. He spoke to her once or twice more, as he waited on her, each time in English, as though he enjoyed the humble melody of its tone, and presently, as she turned ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... It was a very humble little mud-hut indeed, but it was clean and white as a sea-shell, and stood in a small plot of garden-ground that yielded beans and herbs and pumpkins. They were very poor, terribly poor—many a day they had nothing ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)
... For even as he stood there all nature seemed to invade his humble cabin with its free and fragrant breath, and invest him with its great companionship. He felt again, in that breath, that strange sense of freedom, that mystic touch of partnership with the birds and beasts, the shrubs and trees, in this ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... humble and submissive; admitted that their lives were forfeited, and if we said they were to die, they were prepared; although, they explained, they were equally willing to live. They promised to refrain forever from piracy, and offered ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... Panathenaea, Bias, servant of Democrates, had supped with Phormio,—for in democratic Athens a humble citizen would not disdain to entertain even a slave. The Thracian had a merry wit and a story-teller's gift that more than paid for the supper of barley-porridge and salt mackerel, and after the viands had disappeared was ready even to ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... fly has married the humble bee. Says the fly, says he, "Will you marry me, And live with me, Sweet ...
— The Baby's Bouquet - A Fresh Bunch of Rhymes and Tunes • Walter Crane
... at court, with whom we have already become acquainted, was Hemming Gad. Although of humble birth, this man had received a careful education, and during twenty years of his early life had held the post of Swedish ambassador at the court of Rome. On his return to Sweden he had been elected bishop ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... to dread shrewdly their meeting within five minutes at the breakfast-table; to dread eating under his eyes, with doubts of the character of her acts generally. She was, indeed, his humble scholar, though she seemed so full of weariness and revolt. He, however, when alone, looked fixedly at the door through which she had passed, and said, "She loves that man still. Similar ages, similar tastes, I suppose! She is dressed to be ready for him. She can't learn: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... secondary wives or concubines. The legitimate wife of the prince was commonly a native, and in most cases was selected from the royal race of the Arsacidae but sometimes she was the daughter of a dependent monarch, and she might even be a slave raised by royal favor from that humble position. The concubines were frequently Greeks. Both wives and concubines remained ordinarily in close seclusion, and we have little mention of them, in the Parthian annals. But in one instance, at any rate, a queen, brought up in the notions of the West, succeeded in setting Oriental etiquette ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... pleasure from this frame of mind itself? Such a man has no wish to become bankrupt, but only to make the fullest and most copious return for benefits, and that not only to parents and friends, but also to more humble persons; for even if he receives a benefit from his own slave, he does not consider from whom he receives it, ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... sympathy, but stood still in his long check apron, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbow, and the minister was obliged to humble himself still further to ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... not know what to tell them. She could not say he was a man who sat with his back to a pine-tree, reading from a book of verse, or halting to devour her with humble, entreating eyes. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... The stars of the night Than the eyes of the radiant girl! And never a flake That the vapour can make With the moon-tints of purple and pearl, Can vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded curl— Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie's most humble and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... were taught listening-post duty. And so on through all available breeds,—including the stolidly wise Old English sheepdogs who were to prove invaluable in finding and succoring and reporting the wounded,—down to the humble terriers and mongrels who were taught to ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... father's . . . and these last ten months which he seems to have spent in reviving the old grandeur of his ancestral home, I spent, remember, with the dear little Sisters of Mercy at Boulogne, praying amidst very humble surroundings that the future may not become more unendurable than ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... diadem on the head of his son Eucherius, could not have been conducted without preparations or accomplices; and the ambitious father would not surely have left the future emperor, till the twentieth year of his age, in the humble station of tribune of the notaries. Even the religion of Stilicho was arraigned by the malice of his rival. The seasonable, and almost miraculous, deliverance was devoutly celebrated by the applause of the clergy; who asserted, that the restoration of idols, and the persecution ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... afternoon, when the east wind blew keenly down the street, drying up the very snow itself. There was no temptation to come abroad, for those who were not absolutely obliged to leave their warm rooms; indeed, the dusk hour showed that it was the usual tea-time for the humble inhabitants of that part of the town through which Ruth had to pass on her shopping expedition. As she came to the high ground just above the river, where the street sloped rapidly down to the bridge, she saw the flat country beyond all covered with snow, making the ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... proud elevation on which it had been placed by the talents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer dreaded by her enemies, her servants were fast losing the confidence of self-respect. In this mortifying abasement, the colonists, though innocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the agents of her blunders, were but the natural participators. They had recently seen a chosen army from that country, which, reverencing as a mother, they had blindly believed invincible—an army led by a chief who had been selected from a crowd of trained warriors, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... marvelled at it myself. The Foreign Minister alone I could have withstood, but when the Premier also deigned to visit my humble roof—! The fact is, Watson, that this gentleman upon the sofa was a bit too good for our people. He was in a class by himself. Things were going wrong, and no one could understand why they were going wrong. Agents were suspected or even caught, but there was evidence of some strong ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... moment of my life," said Little Dudleigh, with greater animation than usual, "since I have heard you say that. But don't speak of gratitude. Say, at the most, friendship. If you will only accept my humble services, they are all yours, and my ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... the editors of this series is a very definite one. They desire above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between East and West, the old world of Thought, and the new of Action. In this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the highest example in the land. They ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... important way of spending her time. Of Emily Gibbs she could easily dispose, since already she was giving her orders with a quiet firmness there was no gainsaying. Indeed, Emily Gibbs had been far too well brought up not to receive orders from what she called "A Lady of Title," with humble gratitude, and execute them with vigour and despatch; and already she was hard at work making linen overalls for the Lump. But at half-past three, just as Miss Belthorp had left them to write letters and they had started ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... My father, disgusted with the matrimonial traps that were set for the post-captain, and baronet of ten thousand a year, resolved, as he imagined wisely, to marry a woman in inferior life; who, having no pretensions of her own, would be humble and domestic. He chose one of his tenant's daughters, who was demure to an excess. The soft paw of the cat conceals her talons. My mother turned out the very antipodes ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... high," suggested Desmond O'Connor, "than to be content with second-rate melodrama. We have a capable instructor, and we are very humble, I assure you. Our attitude is one of deprecation; be ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... impossibility of defending them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and prone to denunciation. In Boston, however, and its neighborhood, Unitarianism has advanced to so great strength, as now to humble this haughtiest of all religious sects; insomuch, that they condescend to interchange with them and the other sects, the civilities of preaching freely and frequently in each other's meeting-houses. In Rhode Island, on the other hand, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... looked on, and did not interrupt—looked on, awed and wondering—unaware of how it was, but watching, as if it were a miracle wrought before their eyes. Perhaps all the years of his life had not taught the Rector so much as did that half-hour in an unknown poor bed-chamber, where, honest and humble, he stood aside, and, kneeling down, responded to his young brother's prayer. His young brother—young enough to have been his son—not half nor a quarter part so learned as he; but a world further on in that profession which they shared—the art of ...
— The Rector • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... the centennial year of Franz Schubert, the great composer, who was born in Vienna on the 31st of January, 1797. He was of humble lineage. His father, who also bore the name of Franz, was the son of a peasant, who studied in Vienna, and became assistant to his brother, a schoolmaster. He married Elizabeth Vitz, who had been in service as a cook in Vienna. Franz Peter Schubert was the thirteenth of a family of fourteen children, ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 17, March 4, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... this, and Mrs Inglis added, "And being consecrated to God's service, we do His work well, when we do well the duty he has appointed us, however humble it may be." ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... listening to the low continuous hum of the bees, he concluded that it was that low, soft, humming sound that made him sleepy. He began to look at the bees, and saw that they were unlike other wild bees he knew, that they were like humble-bees in shape but much smaller, and were all of a golden brown colour: they were in scores and hundreds coming and going, and had their home or nest in the rock a few feet above his head. He got up, and climbing from his mother's knee to her shoulder, and standing on it, he looked into the crevice ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... boys knelt at the foot of the tree, while the old sailor in simple, uncouth speech, offered up a little prayer of humble thanks for the deliverance of the two lads ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... understanding, will, I feel assured, do not a little to show how it comes about that Anarchism is as truly endemic in Western Civilisations as cholera is in India. Isabel Meredith, whom I had the pleasure of knowing when she was a more humble member of the staff of the Tocsin than the editor, occupies, to my knowledge, a very curious and unique position in the history of English Anarchism. There is nothing whatever in "A Girl among the Anarchists" which is invented, the whole thing ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... We're a couple of pots, and both of you are kettles, all black. Now, listen! I'm Bill." He stuck his finger against his breast and then tagged with it his pal at his side. "He's Tom. Bill and Tom have been humble and hard-working yeggmen, never tackling anything bigger than country stores and farmers' flivvers. Once on a time they were in a barn, tucked away waiting for night, and they heard a man running a double shift of talk—beating ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... Their manner was so humble and adoring that he felt sorry for them. They had begged his pardon in the same words that he had intended to beg God's. And then he was just—the only just creature that God had created. In his heart he knew that he had merited their revenge—there was ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... I came; she thought I was he of whom she had dreamed. Our age and my love did the rest. But when at court, she, the companion of the Queen, has learned to contemplate from an exalted position the greatness to which I aspire, and which I as yet see only from a very humble distance; when she shall suddenly find herself in actual possession of the future she aims at, and measures with a more correct eye the long road I have to travel; when she shall hear around her vows like mine, ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... actually IS somebody when he's at home, not a make-believe, like that Toronto man. And I'm glad for our waiter's sake that he's gone somewhere else. The poor thing bowed so low when he came in and was so terribly humble every time Mr. Heathcroft spoke to him. I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you' when I was told that the food was 'rotten bad.' I never thought 'rotten' was a nice word, but all these English folks say it. I heard that pretty English girl over there tell her father that it was a 'jolly ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... it costs the humble to listen to the words of the great! Go your way; and if you have any wickedness in your ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... to you, if you will pardon the liberty, that you refrain. The Government, of which I am but a humble official, is sensitive, and it is, too, a critical time. Just now the Government needs all the support and confidence that it can possibly get. If you impair the public faith in us how can we ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... over the United States, from nearly every civilized country on the globe, from homes of the humble and of the wealthy, from the scholar in his study, from the clergyman, the lawyer, the physician, the business man, the farmer, the raftsman, the sportsman, from the invalid shut in from the great outdoors (but, thanks to our friend, not shut out from outdoor blessings), have ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... bring us some blessing,' and so it has happened. The people in the whole country around became more industrious than they had been in the time of their prosperity. Many who had been haughty and extravagant became humble, thrifty and moderate. God awoke many people to the performance of good deeds. Many a family quarrel was terminated; all the people became peace loving; each helped the other in the ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... York became pastor of the Presbyterian church at Neshaminy, in Pennsylvania, twenty miles north of Philadelphia. Here his zeal for Christian education moved him to begin a school, which, called from the humble building in which it was held, became famous in American Presbyterian history as the Log College. Here were educated many men who became eminent in the ministry of the gospel, and among them the four boys who had come with their father from ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... frontier, or more ready to obey the call of their country and to defend her rights and her honor whenever and by whatever enemy assailed. They should be protected from the grasping speculator and secured, at the minimum price of the public lands, in the humble homes which they have improved by their labor. With this end in view, all vexatious or unnecessary restrictions imposed upon them by the existing preemption laws should be repealed or modified. It is the true policy of the Government to afford facilities to its citizens ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Captivity, as you often bestow on me those Kisses and Caresses which I would have given the World for, when I was a Man. I hope this Discovery of my Person will not tend to my Disadvantage, but that you will still continue your accustomed Favours to Your most Devoted Humble Servant, Pugg. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... before a ship's company, but if you did, no one would suspect that you knew any better. Have you forgiven me, yet? Well, I didn't use you very well, Clementina, and I never pretended I did. I've eaten a lot of humble pie for that, my dear. Did Miss Milray tell you that I wrote to her about it? Of course you won't say how she told you; but she ought to have done me the justice to say that I tried to be a friend at court with her for you. If she didn't, she ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... numerous members, they have been designated as Henry I. and Henry II.,—as Robert I., the II., and the III.[A] Our country may exult in having possessed many literary families—the WARTONS, the father and two sons: the BURNEYS, more in number; and the nephews of Milton, whose humble torch at least was lighted at the altar ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... position amongst the financial magnates of the moment. All appeals on behalf of charity he steadily ignored. He gave nothing away. His name never figured amongst the hospital lists; suffering and disaster, which drew their humble contributions from the struggling poor and middle classes, left him unmoved and his check book unopened. In an age when huge gifts on behalf of charity was the fashionable road to the peerage, his attitude was all the more noticeable. He would ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... know better than that! He would know too, if she was not belonging to Lachlan, her father's daughter would not let her chief humble himself." ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... we not stay there for the night? Lady Helena and Miss Grant would not grudge two miles more to find a hotel even of a humble character." ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... named are Mr. and Mrs. Vivian, and Mr. Waterton. From the latter, Mr. Hope had 'an interesting account of Tickell's reception into the Church of Rome at Bruges. He was himself present, and very much struck by T.'s devout and humble behaviour.' ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... his race would never carry him beyond the end of the course; he would always fulfil the law, but he would never give more than the exact measure; he would always fight for the risen Christ, but he would never have followed the humble bearer of the Cross. His strength and weakness were the kind which had profoundly influenced her life. He represented in her world the conservative principle, the accepted standard, the acknowledged authority, custom, stability, reason, ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... out on your own, but it's too damned hard. That's my opinion, if you ask me. There's nothing a girl can do that isn't sweated to the bone. You square the G.V., and go home before you have to. That's my advice. If you don't eat humble-pie now you may live to fare worse later. I can't help you a cent. Life's hard enough nowadays for an unprotected male. Let alone a girl. You got to take the world as it is, and the only possible trade for a girl that isn't sweated is to get hold of a man and make him do it for ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... the most part a bore, and, unless rich, it was well that they were disregarded. But the war has altered all that. The war has brought relations, no matter how humble, into fashion. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... of the chief characteristics of Christ's spirit and method. He loved little children, and taught his disciples, when he had set a little child in the midst of them, "Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Every one of the principles above stated is essential to the teacher, and these principles contain the sum and substance of all true pedagogy. Well has Karl Schmidt expressed the truth, when he says, ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... in harmony. The author believes, with Bacon, that "the foundation of all religion is right reason." The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the confession of despair. Sustained by these convictions, he submits this humble contribution to theological science to the thoughtful consideration of all lovers of Truth, and of Christ, the fountain of Truth. He can sincerely ask upon it the blessing of Him in whose fear it has been ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... maintained, that a general diffusion of knowledge among a people was a disadvantage; for it made the vulgar rise above their humble sphere. JOHNSON. 'Sir, while knowledge is a distinction, those who are possessed of it will naturally rise above those who are not. Merely to read and write was a distinction at first; but we see when reading and writing have become ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... pinched my sides, for fear I should slip through his fingers. All I ventured was to raise mine eyes towards the sun, and place my hands together in a supplicating posture, and to speak some words in a humble melancholy tone, suitable to the condition I then was in: for I apprehended every moment that he would dash me against the ground, as we usually do any little hateful animal, which we have a mind to destroy. But my good star would have it, that he appeared pleased ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... hand and taste of Dennis Fleet gradually, and almost imperceptibly at first, gave a new aspect and created a new atmosphere in the "Art Building." But at first he was kept busy enough at his humble routine duties. Every one felt and expressed a little surprise at his getting into harness so quickly, but Mr. Schwartz's influence was not conducive to conversation or emotions, however faint. All went forward quietly and orderly, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... fetters and thereafter cut away the irksome cords that bound me. Whiles this was a-doing, she (quick to mark their condition) lashed them with her tongue, giving them "loathly sots," "drunken swine," "scum o' the world" and the like epithets, all of the which they took in mighty humble fashion, knuckling their foreheads, ducking their heads with never a word and mighty glad to stumble away and be gone at flick of her ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... relief to Helen; and while we know not what emotions it may cause to the reader, it is perhaps well to say that he may likewise pay his last respects to the worthy matron, who will not take part in the humble events of which the rest of our story ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... earlier and the later anti-slavery movements. Eleven years of his early life belong to the century of the Revolution. Garrison recorded his indebtedness to Lundy in the words: "If I have in any way, however humble, done anything towards calling attention to slavery, or bringing out the glorious prospect of a complete jubilee in our country at no distant day, I feel that I owe everything in this matter, instrumentally ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... came down upon me almost unawares. Being on foot, I could not hope to gain the village toward which my steps were directed until a late hour; and I therefore preferred seeking shelter and a night's lodging at the first humble dwelling ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... the bundles of rods carried by the lictors, and when he entered the assembly of the people he ordered his fasces to be bowed and lowered before them, to show respect to the majesty of the people. This custom the consuls observe to this day. By these acts he did not really humble himself as he appeared to the Romans to be doing, but he so completely destroyed any illwill which had been felt against him that by giving up the semblance of power he really gained the reality, as the people were eager to serve him and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... bother the Old Man any if I sat out the duration in a C O camp, but it'd hurt his job like hell and the poor old boy is straining his guts to get into the trenches and twirl a theoretical saber. So I guess I'm slated to be your humble and obedient, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... thought it vanquished! They were divinely recompensed when they saw the cold sweats disappear, the moaning lips become stilled, the deathlike faces recover animation. It was assuredly the love which they brought to this humble, suffering ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... themselves constantly on the mind as the great features of the place. Here, on the summit, where the stillness was absolute, unbroken by any sound, and solitude complete, we thought ourselves beyond the region of animated life; but while we were sitting on the rock, a solitary bee (bromus, the humble-bee) came winging his flight from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... delegates to congress; and the thirty-one others sit for the new western states. If these thirty-one individuals had remained in Connecticut, it is probable that instead of becoming rich landowners they would have remained humble laborers, that they would have lived in obscurity without being able to rise into public life, and that, far from becoming useful members of the legislature, they might ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... truth assenting faith relies. Thus manifest of right, I build my claim Sure-founded on a fair maternal fame, Ulysses' son: but happier he, whom fate Hath placed beneath the storms which toss the great! Happier the son, whose hoary sire is bless'd With humble affluence, and domestic rest! Happier than I, to future empire born, But doom'd a father's wretch'd fate ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... odious to David Grieve. Moreover, Daddy, by a happy instinct, had at once made common cause with Purcell's downtrodden sister, going on even, as his passionate sense of opposition developed, to make love to the poor humble thing mainly for the sake of annoying the brother. The crisis came; the irritated tyrant brought down a heavy hand, and Daddy and Isabella disappeared together from the establishment ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... presented me with that portion of the public subscription, which the Committee of the Subscribers had awarded. In laying these documents before the Public, I will leave it to be supposed how vain would be any attempt of mine to express my gratitude to that generous people to whom I have inscribed this humble narrative. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... great diversity of food, from the humble oak bark bread of the Norwegian peasant, or the Brahmin, whose appetite is satisfied with vegetables, to the luxurious diet of a ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... realist, as if he were primarily an observer, a transcriber of life, requires to be modified where the dramas are concerned. Pure realism is present in his dramatic work, but it does not occupy anything like the predominant place which some suppose. A "keen, minute, subtle study of the manners of humble folk" (Azorn) formed, indeed, the backbone of certain novels, but in the later period, to which the plays belong, it was already overshadowed by other interests. In the dramas, realism is usually abandoned to the secondary characters and the minor scenes. For ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... surely; the fishing industry languished; the population decreased year by year; and it has not shared to any appreciable extent in the prosperity which has enriched other parts of Flanders since the Revolution of 1830. It is now a quiet, sleepy spot, with humble streets, which remind one of some fishing village on the east coast of Scotland. Men and women sit at the doors mending nets or preparing bait. The boats, with their black hulls and dark brown sails, move lazily up to the landing-stages, where a few ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... truths of election—those truths that we simply choose to have true—are something much less august than that Truth of Evidence which sometimes seems little to fall in with our desires, and in the face of which we are humble listeners, not dictators. Before the latter we are modest; we obey, lest we be confounded. And if, in the philosophic realm, we believe that we may order Truth about, and make her our slave, is it not because we have a secret consciousness that we are not dealing with ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... important a position. Though he was Archdeacon of Surrey at the time of his appointment, he was not a priest, and he was quite a young man. He was a vigorous supporter of learning throughout the diocese, probably because of his anxiety to give other men of humble origin a fair chance of making their way in the world. He restored the College of Crediton, and built one at Glaseney. Bronscombe may be credited with giving the first impetus to the reconstruction of the cathedral by his work in the Lady Chapel and the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... that it is a "condition and not a theory" with which he is dealing; that he earl point the world to new truths whose recognition and adoption will make better the condition of his species; then, if he be a true man, he will speak, not in humble whispers, lest he offend potentates and powers; not ambiguously, that he may escape "the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely," but in clarion tones, like another Peter-the- Hermit, who, bearing all, swerving neither to the right nor to the left, preached the crusade of the Holy ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... and left their trace, Of graver care and deeper thought; And unto me the calm, cold face Of manhood, and to thee the grace Of woman's pensive beauty brought. More wide, perchance, for blame than praise, The school-boy's humble name has flown; Thine, in the green and quiet ways ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a precedent. He was to prove to the world that a rolling stone is capable at times of gathering as much moss as a stationary one, and how it is possible for the rock with St. Vitus dance to become more coated than the one that is confined to perpetual isolation. Like most iconoclasts he was of humble birth, and had no foundation upon which to rest the cornerstone of his castle, which was becoming too heavy for his ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... generous, warm-hearted mistress; a gentlewoman by descent and by feeling; a true friend, a sincere Christian. And let me think, too, of you, Sandy, an honest, faithful, and attached member of the family. For you were in that house rather as a humble friend than a servant. But out of this fifty years of attached service there sprang a sort of domestic relation and freedom of intercourse which would surprise people in these days. And yet Sandy knew his place. ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... have done their duty. When they do wrong, they feel, not contrition, of which God is the object, but remorse, and a sense of degradation. They call themselves fools, not sinners; they are angry and impatient, not humble. They shut themselves up in themselves; it is misery to them to think or to speak of their own feelings; it is misery to suppose that others see them, and their shyness and sensitiveness often become morbid. As to confession, which is so natural to the Catholic, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... and the housekeeper said, 'The Chateau of Meiningen;' put there, I suppose, to enhance by comparison the pleasure of all the grandeur which surrounds the Queen, for it would hardly have been exhibited as a philosophical or moral memento of her humble origin and the low fortune from which she ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... Saint-Germain to the last in the rue Saint-Lazare, between the heights of the Luxembourg and the heights of Montmartre, all that clothes itself and gabbles, clothes itself to go out and goes out to gabble. All that world of great and small pretensions, that world of insolence and humble desires, of envy and cringing, all that is gilded or tarnished, young or old, noble of yesterday or noble from the fourth century, all that sneers at a parvenu, all that fears to commit itself, all that wants to demolish power and worships power if it resists,—all ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... moment Marcello met Aurora's eyes. Regina felt his arm drop by his side, as if he were disowning her in the presence of these two smart women who were friends of his. She forgave him, for she was strangely humble in some ways, but she ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... that he was still bearing the burden of a soiled and blighted life. In any case, her own future was plain and clear. It was simply a prolongation of the present,—an alternation of seed-time and harvest, filled with humble duties and cares, until the Master should bid her lay down her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... expressive were they. Douglas thought he could read in those clear depths an unattainable longing, mingled with an appealing pathos. When he smiled, his whole face was lighted with a remarkable glory, and he appeared no longer a humble shoe-maker, but an uncrowned king. His rude bench was his throne, and the humble shop his royal palace. So it appeared to Douglas, and he wondered if others were affected in the ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... captain of one of his oyster-boats, until recently. And but for his attempt some months back to make his escape, he might have been this day in the care of his kind-hearted master. But, because of this wayward step on the part of John, his master felt called upon to humble him. Accordingly, the captaincy was taken from him, and he was compelled to struggle on in a less honorable position. Occasionally John's mind would be refreshed by his master relating the hard ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... turned to receive the music she was making, and she faintly remembered that once she had held in her hands that wonderful hat with its copper buckle in the band, and stiff, wide brim, flowing in a wave. More than that she knew nothing, except that the wearer was an humble-born, grasping creature—a forester without social propensities, or, indeed, any human attachments. The negro who abode under his roof was beloved, compared to the sordid master, and all testimony concurred that Meshach Milburn deserved ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... in my humble opinion, is an absolutely perfect book of reference, of concentrated information on populations, their origin and characteristics; geology, meterology, distribution plants with excellent maps printed by Bartholomew; ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... did not lose his temper; he was of too humble a frame of mind to do that, but he got into a hopeless quagmire of mixed recollections, and he too left the witness-box quite unprepared to swear as to the day of the interview with the lady with the ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... lovers of natural and lovely things! Nor for these do I desire a seat at Florian's marble tables, or a perch in Quadri's window, though the former supply dainty food, and the latter command a bird's-eye view of the Piazza. Rather would I lead them to a certain humble tavern on the Zattere. It is a quaint, low-built, unpretending little place, near a bridge, with a garden hard by which sends a cataract of honeysuckles sunward over a too-jealous wall. In front lies a Mediterranean ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... to depend on that of the installation of a successor to her late companion. Such a successor, I gathered from Mrs. Munden, widowed childless and lonely, as well as inapt for the minor offices, she had absolutely to have; a more or less humble alter ago to deal with the servants, keep the accounts, make the tea and watch the window-blinds. Nothing seemed more natural than that she should marry again, and obviously that might come; yet the predecessors of Miss ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James
... describe, explain. I walked out, and explored the immediately adjacent country, entertaining myself as best I could. At about two o'clock in the afternoon we started for town, leaving Peters much better than when two days before we had first, together, entered his humble home. We promised to see him the next day; and, in fact, one or both of us returned each day for many succeeding days. That evening Doctor Bainbridge came to my rooms, and began the recitation of Dirk Peters' story; and that, too, was ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... this humble familiarity on my part had continued, the more effort it would require to suppress it; and Mr. Falkland was neither willing to mortify me by a severe prohibition of speech, nor even perhaps to make me of so much consequence, as that prohibition might seem to imply. ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin |
